it took her five years before she started making money? I’m wanting my project to be as successful as Make Sense of Cents - which made $1,500,000 the last two years in a row after 6 years of 100 hour weeks. What about About dot com? How did they get started? Do you think they probably started with one subject at a time, launching a full new subject together?

that pretty destroys my entire idea, but thank you for the feedback. I picked "pennies" as my niche in that I would play off of the saying, "See a penny, pick it up, all day long, you'll have good luck", and I say, "what do you think it means? it means that if you pay attention to small details no one else notices, you will have more success". Then each blog is a different subject, but I have spent the last several years developing a skill set where I am very good at picking out the best stuff. So, I do have a skill set I want to use. I am good at sifting through a lot of information and pull out what's worth reading about.

When a blog is over one subject, then there's a lot of fluff. This happens on pretty much every blog. Or take, for example, if my niche was baby clothing, well then there's a lot of baby clothing that isn't cute. You have to look through stacks of baby clothing to find the stuff that's cute, and some people find cute clothing quicker than others based off of if they think all of it is cute or not, but I am picky. I pick out good stuff. If my niche was earrings, I have already seen the websites selling nothing but earrings - and a lot of it is fluff. I went through a phase where I picked out nothing but earrings, and my earrings were very rare and unique, and when people saw my stuff, they said, "where are you finding this stuff?".

There's a physical store called "Brown Bag" where she picks out a little bit of everything and she does a very good job doing it. But what you're telling me, basically, is that if I do this, then I'm never going to get ranked well on Google, nor am I going to keep the little bit of traffic that I get. This is very frustrating to hear because what I am hearing is that Google is a machine that thinks a certain way, and because of the way it indexes, you can't have a unique website that picks out the best of everything, as well as my skill set can do so, because Google will count that as not having an authority in anything?

Hi - I just took a look at your profile and you are certainly very ambitious, and there is no doubting your work ethic. However, your goal of $30,000 in the first year may not be achievable, although I do hope you are successful, as you have a great attitude.

However, here are the hard facts. Most people do not make any income whatsoever for the first 6 months. This is not for lack of trying necessarily, but simply because Google views all new sites with suspicion for this period of time and is reluctant to place any of their posts high in its rankings.

It is not until you have passed that 6-month mark and have around 50 posts, that you will see your traffic starting to rise.

How do you plan to monetize your site? As you know, affiliate marketing is when you recommend a product and earn a commission when somebody buys it. However, take, for example, Amazon, the most trusted site in the world, and the one which most people start with. Its commission can be as low as 1%. I recently sold a mobile phone through one of my affiliate links for £217 and my commission was £1.87. That means I would need to sell 6 phones just to make £10.

I see you are a fan of Making Sense of Cents. Michelle began her blog in 2011 when the online world was very different. There was less competition and you could get to page 1 of Google with only a 300-word post. Today, the average length of a post on page 1 is 1890 words.

My suggestion would be to start with a specific niche, and once you have gained authority and Google's trust, then branch out into other areas. Of course, all this is only my opinion and you are free to take advice from other experienced members here.

Thanks for your feedback! You are really upsetting me, as my specific niche is an idea that I apply towards all subjects, and I will teach that on my posts, but my blog, which it robust, would look more like About.com’s - it is very much a lifestyle blog. I like how blunt you are. I have learned something huge, today, thanks to you, and that is that I need to either get rid of this idea altogether and do something different or study the heck out of SEO techniques.

I plan to monetize my site by recommending everyday products. I am not going to get into any kind of speciality. My speciality on project I recommend is “everyday” - stuff everybody has. but it’s my particular style of products I pick out - I am very, very picky, and have a very unique, electic style. The idea behind it is for my visitors to think, “Where on earth does she find this stuff?”. The entire premise behind my project is that my website is supposed to be a one stop shop for people who don’t like sifting through the fluff on the internet. I will sift through the stuff on the internet and pull out the best stuff and organize it into one platform. Of course, everybody has different tastes and interests, but I feel frustrated right now, as if my ability to write in a very creative way - as if I’m being told my idea is not going to work because I’m not going to make it into the front page of google on any of my pages. What if my pages cover subjects in more comprehensive ways?

Thanks for your thoughts

Hi - I am sorry if I am upsetting you, that wasn't my intention. Perhaps you could have a chat with Catherine who has left you a comment. She is very experienced, having been here over 14 years and having over 50 websites. She is suggesting that what you propose is possible.

I do have a couple more thoughts to consider. If you are just selecting individual, unique objects, you will have to find the affiliate program that promotes that particular item. You may well end up joining a vast amount of programs, yet only promoting one product from each. Most of them have a minimum payout threshold, perhaps $100. So, you would have to sell a lot of that one item to be able to receive payment.

And as regards affiliate programs, they do inspect your website when you apply to join before they approve you. Many of them expect to see lots of relevant content. For example, if you wanted to promote a specific jewellery item, that program may expect to see a jewellery website.

I know I have given you lots of things to think about, and I don't usually go this in-depth with new members, but your profile is well-thought-out and I simply wanted to help. I do hope you are successful, and that in a year's time you get back to me and say I told you so!

I can understand what Diane is trying to explain. When I mentioned below that my goal is along the same lines, it is geared mostly towards encouraging people to live a healthy lifestyle, in all aspects, and my primary focus for the site right now is to build up my health and nutrition category, before moving into the other categories I would like to include as well on my website.

Companies like about.com and Brown Bag, I'm sure were considered very unique when they got started, and had little to no competition.

We are not saying that your idea is bad in any way, just trying to bring to light, that if you want to become recognized and valued in your expertise, then you have to consistently build trust from the people and Google, that you know what you are talking about in every particular topic, and this is not achieved through one post, and will take a good bit of time, versus a much more narrowed niche.

For example, a person will highly regard a man (or woman) who gives health advise, if the title "Dr" is attached to their name. But they did not just get that title overnight, and had to work extremely hard, in order to earn it.

I like the idea of someone picking out the best items, saving me time searching, but what is considered "best" varies with each person, because we all have different tastes, interests, and needs. What may appeal greatly to you in style, may not be my cup of tea. So in this case, you want to figure out who your tribe (the group/type of people, that may be interested in the same things you are, and are recommending) is, so that you can market to them, build trust and a relationship, and with that trust, will eventually lead to sales traffic.

For starting off, may I suggest that instead of writing random posts about what interests you, try picking just one category you are wanting to incorporate, and are able to write a good bit of material on. Build that category up to gain trust and recognition, then start incorporating other things. Once people begin to trust your opinion, then they will be excited to see more material you share. Building trust takes time, tactics, and a plan, and never happens overnight.

Much success to you Selou, in all that you do!

~Brandy

You didn’t actually upset me! No worries! I didn’t mean it like that! I appreciate the honesty, bluntness and help. If everybody just told me whatever I want to hear, I could end up making some big mistakes. I want to hear that I can do exactly the project I want to do and I can build it to make a million dollars in 4 years, but I also need reality comments so that I am making the best decisions possible.

Thank you for telling me about Catherine’s comment. I hadn’t see it yet. It looks like several people have applied. I will likely operate this way, that if I haven’t replied, I haven’t seen your comment. that way those I talk to on a regular basis can notice that if I don’t reply to one of the comments they want to make sure I read.

The minimum payout won’t be a problem. I plan to find companies w lots of products to choose from, like Amazon, and you can find all kinds of good stuff on Amazon because they are so big. Although I’m not happy to know that you don’t really make money using the Amazon affiliate program, but that’s not surprising. it does suck, though, to find out from you that they do inspect the websites upon applying. I want to put very cool everyday items in with blogs that aren’t talking about those products. when you read an article, online, you often have ads on the article that have nothing to do with the article itself. I might be reading about politics and get an add that I can lower my car insurance. How come they can put non-related ads but we can’t do our own non-related advertising? I was thinking I could flower my blogs with really cool house decor items as I talk about interesting stuff. In any case, I am learning from you and am appreciating your feedback. thank you! I might start with three separate websites. If you say that someone has over 50, then maybe that’s what I should do. In that case, I’d be starting with the URLs socialwork.trackteetrackts.com, computerscience.trackteetrackts.com, and maybe finance.trackteetrackts.com. what do you think of about separating them using subdomains instead of completely different URLs and business names? I would want to do that so that I can build the tracktee trackt brand

Hi - subdomains are a good idea in some respects. You can build up your brand and keep the different elements separate.

However, in effect, you will have 3 different websites to maintain. Each one will require content adding to it on a regular basis. Plus, some affiliate programs will not approve subdomains.

Although Catherine has over 50 blogs, she has been doing this for as long as you can imagine, and is a professional writer, capable of 4000 words per hour! Therefore, she can easily keep up with all her sites. (I am a writer too, but can't compare, as my rate is 1200 words per hour).

As regards irrelevant ads, these are typically served on a site by the likes of Google AdSense. They are not based on the content, but what each particular visitor has recently searched for according to their browsing history. So, if you see an ad for car insurance, then you may have been looking for that recently. If I was to visit the same site, I would see different ads.

hey hi Bree & welcome to Wealthy Affiliate Premium!

Good question and all questions are good ones here!

When a search engine such as google indexes your website, it simply means that your site is recognized as existing on the internet....the world wide web.....

All the best to you for every success, cheerio ... :)

thanks!

I’m getting told that lifestyle blogs don’t make it anymore, that you won’t get on the front page of Google, and thus won’t make the kind of money I am trying to make. When you say your website just got indexed, are you on the front page under a particular search? what is your website?