Week 1 - The Learning Curve and the Battle for Quality Advice

Hello r/JustStart, I want to start off by saying what a great resource this subreddit is, you all clearly have vision, determination and drive, and you've inspired me!

 

Bear with me, I know this is a terrible primer, but before you read this, ask yourself what you'd do if you had $5000 to burn and 2 months of 16 hour days worth of time to do it in?

 

WARNING: Long post, skip to the end for a TLDR!

 

Sifting Through the Bullshit

A week ago today I seen an ad on YouTube that I couldn't skip, about Affiliate Marketing. Holy crap batman, what a massive amount of hoops to jump through just to find some quality information about just exactly what the hell it is!

 

I had to ask myself just exactly what I was doing. I was wading through the endless sea of marketing overkill that separates complete newbie and introductory student.

 

Finally, by the grace of God it seems, I came accross this subreddit. Being a lurker my whole life, besides the odd comment and Ark Server adverts... it was difficult to break out of the proverbial shell and come up with this post. So please, bear with me here.

 

Dat Eureka Moment

I had been designing websites as a hobbie for the past year. Specializing in WordPress mainly, so I guess I had an edge, but didn't know I could make money from it. Like this, that is. I always thought "once I turnover the website, that's when I get paid, that's all I have to do".

 

Never did think that I could keep making money after I sell the product! Usually I include a year of warranty and support for free, or ending once the customer is satisfied 100% with the product.

 

"Alright, what about that Eureka Moment you mentioned like, 30 seconds ago, right?"

 

Here it is - every site I make/made, can keep making me money after I'm done the project.

 

I know I know, you're thinking "No shit sherlock!" BUT - Wow, just wow. Even just linking a "Designed by Amdo" was enough to be some extra free advertising that I didn't really take advantage of.

 

The Meat and Potatoes

My wife is off on medical leave for her migraines that birth control has plagued her with. I'm off on medical leave for severe depression, anxiety, panic attacks and ADHD. We're both on different levels of messed up, man. We can't go to work. But we have some disposable income.

 

Here comes that $5000 I asked you how you'd spend at the beginning. Hopefully since you've made it this far, you kind of know the direction I'm trying to take.

 

We want to diversify our income

Guys, I need to sell my wife on this. Is what it boils down to.

 

After a week of pure research spending 18-20 hours at the computer each day - I have a business plan, a strategy.

1. A Motherblog, where the wife and I can merge our interests, and come across as "those friendly newlyweds". Basically 5 Niche Blogs on one Brand Domain that represents us as a couple.

2. The subblogs, or kidblogs, all having fairly different and specific niches that are low in competition and high in potential. I used the WordTracker.com site, Google Trends, etc to figure out prime keywords. One even has to do with my freakin dog, man! I was stunned in it's low presence on the internet considering most people view their pets as family members.

3. Reconnecting with old clients. I have to admit, I feel stupid for not clueing into the marketing potential of this. However I was working full time, and really had no time to grow my brand. Getting back in touch with them and letting them know I had a great business proposal for them... Well my first couple attempts ended up much like this. Awkward and fake.

4. Producing stock blogs, or websites with already established traffic that I plan to sell in the future. Call it "Custom Websites with Established Authority" I guess? My idea is to have these websites already being linked into my Motherblog Network. Furthermore providing websites to my customers that have already gone through the SEO process and are ranking decently.

5. Focus - QUALITY Content, and minimal ads. SEO optimized to the tits. Lightning fast hosting. Genesis Framework, with a premium Child Theme. Scoring well on GTMetrix, Pingdom, Google Insights, etc. I found an amazing host personally, freakin love them. Ask and you shall know.

 

Where I'm at right now

Right now, I have a decent stockpile of cash, $5000 CDN that is, not USD, oh great - now you all know I'm a damn Canadian! Well, you made it this far, might as well keep going. Anyways, I also have the next 2 months off work, and nothing but time to burn.

 

I feel like I've gone far enough, have my niches figured out, domains and hosting all purchased and ready to go. I know with my character and personality that I'll be obsessed to make this work no matter the cost or time investment. So I got that. What I don't got is a clue on what to do next when it comes to generating pure organic traffic with my time and my money.

 

They want it all, man!

Every advertiser I've talked to, Taboola, AdSense, Facebook, etc. Wants way too much for what I feel I'd be getting. If I had 50,000 and not 5,000 I'd definitely hire them out, but I'm looking at a balance between Social Media Shares, Linking Up with other Blogs in my Niche(s), using Affiliate Marketing, and other obvious methods.

 

The thing I'm not sold on, is how to spend my cash. I can blog for 2 months straight and generate half a million words in quality blogs, but then what? There's gotta be a way to boost organic traffic fast, and I mean ASAP.

 

The Hail Mary

I want to spend some cash, maybe even some I don't have. All in order to make it so I don't have to go back to my old job once the dust settles. I have 2 months. So here's my plan;

1. Invest heavily in blog writers. Primarily through places like UpWork. I have all the time in the world, but hell, I need lots of quality content. I can't do it all by myself.

2. Invest in some form of Advertising. I'm thinking Facebook, Google AdSense, and possibly Taboola to "jumpstart" my blogs traffic.

3. Say screw it all and pay someone to teach me all the specifics about producing organic traffic, and helping me get it done.

 

This was longer than I expected

I apologize for the length guys, kind of went off on a ton of tangents!

 

TLDR:

I'm an experienced web developer, but just never did have the time to invest in learning everything about it until recently. I'm off work and want to switch careers before I have to go back. I have a lot of great ideas I've gotten from this sub, and from a ton of research lately. I'm at the point where I'm ready to invest some serious time and money, and have some ideas listed above. Looking for some feedback, maybe some testimonials on services I could use to boost organic traffic, etc. Maybe even a "yeah you're going in the right direction, guy!" :-)

I'm one week into research and a couple days into development. My blogs will go live with niche specific, high quality content in the next few days. As I said I have lots of time, and a bit of cash to throw around. How would you guys spend your time and money if you were in my shoes to guarantee a decent amount of success in the next 2-3 months?

EDIT:

Not looking for a spoon feed, rather just a nudge in the right direction if I'm already going somewhat close to it.

Thanks for your time guys, really appreciate it!