Good advice? Following your own advice!

bytaradm

411 followers

12 years ago

Well WA it's time to say goodbye. :( I've enjoyed my time here, and I've learned a lot, but I've never been able to get out of the red, and simply can't afford it anymore. It's a completely inopportune time too with Christmas coming up!

I only have a week or two left, but I hope to be back after a few months when it's more financially tenable. And even though I won't have 10 sites anymore, I'll continue to blog and IM on my own (hello Blogger, haven't seen you in a while, lol!) Even if IM doesn't make me a lot of money, it's something I enjoy and will continue to do because it keeps me, me!

Before I started here, I'd kind of forgotten myself. I was wrapped up in the 9-5 job and being a mom that I didn't even know what was going on in the world anymore. Then when I lost my job and couldn't find another one quickly, I didn't know what to do with myself! But now (in addition to my continuing job search) I read all the time, I research all the time, and I keep up to date on environmental and political issues that I care deeply about. I just can't do it here anymore, lol!

In reflecting on my time here, I wanted to note some mistakes and mis-steps I've made so hopefully others will avoid them. So here we go. My own advice ... that I didn't follow.

1) Don't do "work at home!" I focused on "work at home" for FAR too long, because I couldn't figure out what niche I wanted to go into, and didn't fully understand what I was doing yet. I've found a couple niches that I really do enjoy now, and it's very easy staying up to date and finding new content, because they are things I enjoy researching anyway. But alas, I found my footing too late in the game.

So to newbies - don't try to do the "work at home" niche. It's too competitive, and there are too many d-bags out there hyping it up beyond all reasonable expectation. Maybe I'm just not a good sales person, but telling people the truth in this niche seems like it's actually quite the letdown from their marketing-induced dream state of wealth and tropical vacations. Conflicting information is generally not welcomed or heeded, and it's certainly not sellable in my experience.

2) Write articles! I've been too self-conscious about my knowledge and abilities to actually publish much of anything, and when I do publish something, I usually end up taking it down a few days later (this post will probably be gone by Tuesday, lol!!!)

Write articles, publish them, LEAVE them, and do it often. I'm convinced that not writing more articles was the nail in my IM coffin, so to speak ... which is weird, because I actually like writing. Just not publicly apparently!

3) Involve friends and family. I got into WA partly because I didn't want to be pushing the "work at home" thing down their throats, but if you're working in a niche you actually enjoy and care about then you don't have to "sell" anything. You're giving them something. ;)

Just tell friends and family about your site, what info you cover, send your links, post them on facebook, and try to get the word out. I've tried to start from scratch with new social media accounts, so I wasn't bugging people I knew. But I've come to find that the people you know are a lot more likely to take an interest in helping you, or sharing your posts, than people you don't know.

4) Look to the WA community for encouragement. It's easy to get down when you're working very hard on something that just isn't working for you. I tend to become somewhat isolated, but you should try to avoid that. It'll put you in a funk, and you become very unproductive, which helps no one - least of all you. So remember that you can always look to the good people here at WA to give you a helping hand.

For me it's back to the grind so I can meet my financial needs, and back to free methods of IM so I can continue to meet my intellectual needs. I'll be back when I can, but until then, good luck to you all, and remember that IM shouldn't be tedious, it should be a passion. Thank you WA for reigniting mine! :)

PS ... what's that plugin to backup and move your site?