I admit that I got lucky when I created my first successful website (read: my only successful website).

The reason that I “got lucky” was because:

* My topic had a product/service associated with it that costs thousands – tens of thousands of dollars.
* I was lucky enough to start when it was not overly competitive.
* I was determined and resilient enough to work like a mad dog at it. I was fiercely dedicated.

The truth is that I wanted to quit my day job so badly that I could not help but poor all of my energy into Internet marketing. I knew it COULD work, so I simply dedicated myself to working on at it until it worked for ME.

I really believe that timing was a factor. Does this mean that all ships have sailed and the IM game is over now for the new entrant? I doubt it. But it is definitely tougher than it was 5 years ago.

Most markets are saturated and there are established players in every field that has decent profit potential. If there is lots of profit potential then the competition is even tougher and you can just forget about it.

Does this mean that all hope is lost?

Certainly not!

I would argue that there are at least a few ways for people to carve some success out of the web. For example, there is still ample opportunity in:

* Going niche. Getting more specific than the big competition. (You can still build out a large authority site this way too).
* Personal branding. See examples such as James Altucher. Sell yourself. Build a business out of inspiring others, consulting, etc.
* Anticipate trends. For example, do you think Bitcoin is going to go mainstream? If so then you can build a number of different ideas or services around that. If you can anticipate the future a bit then you can capitalize on the trends before the big players can establish their sites.
* Leveraging success. If you claim success in a certain field then this lends instant credibility to your message and your teaching (this site is an example of that).

Topic selection is always going to be a topic of controversy in this space. People tell you to “write what you are passionate about” or to “write about what you know.” Or they tell you to find topics that have good income potential and then write about that and try to build up your own knowledge as you go along. And so on.

I know one guy who started about 4 or 5 sites all at once in different topics. He invested maybe ten thousand into the sites and got them all up and running. He outsourced nearly all of it except that the ideas for each site where his.

One of the sites was a hit and it went on to produce a huge amount of income and also a very large exit. But he did well to plant those 5 seeds and not be discouraged when four of them died with no profit at all.

I never had the guts or the attention span or the investor savvy to do that myself. I started one site and then I just plugged away at it for several years until it finally gained traction. My fear is that this method might be dead in the water because the search engines are so darn picky these days. On the other hand if you are smart about it you can build a brand without relying on search, but that is a mountain that I have yet to climb. Perhaps I will. Jury is still out….. I do know this much:

If you have a day job now and you are making money then you will probably need to work HARDER at the online stuff than you do at your job. The payoff is that once you hit on a successful path then it can grow from there and eventually become “easy money” in the long run. But the start up process is long and difficult. This is why going into business is not for everyone. Most people are better equipped to show up and punch a time clock. The alternative is to work like a dog for a year without getting paid before the money starts to really trickle in.

Perhaps I am rambling but I am going to keep doing it until I “find my voice.” Once I find my voice then I will have a brand as well. That brand will be based on freedom. Not just financial freedom but personal freedom as well. This is why I also talk about “abundance and gratitude” on this site. Because perception is at least half the battle, maybe as much as 90 percent.

I admit that when I first started out I did not have a clue as to what I was really doing.

I searched the Internet for advice on how long my blog post should be. So for a long time I made sure they were all very close to 400 words long.

I scoured the Internet for SEO tips. I figured out how to rank content by pointing links at it. I wrote more articles. Researched keywords using Google’s free tool. And so on.

Ultimately I think the game has changed quite a bit since those days. I am no longer an expert at ranking new websites. Google keeps moving the target and I suppose that I am sick of trying to keep up with it all. It only takes one major algorithm update to crush your soul forever.

But that doesn’t mean it is game over. You can still build a blog.

But now more than ever before you have to be in it for the right reasons. For the long haul. To build a personal brand. To “choose yourself,” as James Altucher would recommend.

There are so many variables with blogging that it can become overwhelming. You have to do keyword research. You have to have a profitable topic. You need some links but not too many, or too quickly. You need links from quality sites. Oh and they have to be related sites. But make sure they use a variety of anchor text when they link to you too. And so on. It is all a bit tiresome.

The alternative is to create a blog without targeting Google traffic at all. Just ignore the idea of search engines. Play a different game entirely.

Set up a website and start blogging. If you like you can make your blog your brand, your business. Or you can use it to support a real world business if that is your thing. But don’t expect to get free search engine traffic forever just because you know how to pick keywords and build links. It is a much tougher environment these days when it comes to that, and you don’t want to stake your life’s income on gaming the search engines.

My belief is that if you want to play this game at all, you should probably start with the one of the extreme ends in mind. Either go extremely “white hat” or just go spam the crap out of everyone. But don’t try to surf in the middle somewhere like most of us Internet marketers have tried to do for so long. You’ll just get crushed in the end. What you thought was “safe grey-hat SEO” will slide into “black hat territory” some day. It’s not worth it. And then everything that you built will come crumbling down.

So the holy grail of Internet marketing in this day and age is to become profitable without search engine traffic. If you can build a brand or a business that can thrive without the free search engine traffic then you have it made. The ironic twist at that point is you will likely have created just the right sort of site that Google will like to send traffic to. But if you try to game the system then it is a losing proposition.

Ultimately you have to love to write. Why else would you blog? Wake up every morning and then pour your heart out onto the keyboard. Tell the world about your pain, and your triumph.

I have tried to do this on TFB. I hated my day job and I found a way to escape it. That is my pain and my triumph. My story.

Blogging is dead, long live blogging. You can still play the game but I suggest you lengthen your timeline. Write from the heart, expose your fears to the world, and try to use that experience to help someone. Write for years and years.

I guess we will see if it works. Gotta be better than walking a tightrope.

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.” – Dr. Seuss

Sometimes the solution is simple.

And sometimes it is complicated.

For example, if you have a million dollars does this automatically make you happy?

No it does not. Do a survey of millionaires and you will find that not all of them are bursting with happiness and joy. What is the problem with these people? Don’t they know that having millions of dollars should make anyone ecstatic?

It doesn’t work that way. Simply having more money is not the answer. Sure, it solves your basic money problems at the level of “I can’t pay the rent this month.”

But we tend to focus on the idea that if we just had more money then all of our problems would magically melt away.

We suffer from the delusion that having more money would give us total personal freedom.

In fact, real freedom and happiness is a holistic thing. It has to do with your “whole life,” not just the financial part of it.

For example, how many wealthy individuals are actually miserable because they are health-poor or suffer from mental illness, addiction, or emotional disorders?

Answer:

A whole bunch of them.

Just because you have money does not make you ecstatically happy.

And yet this is the delusion that we tend to operate our lives under. “If I only had a bit more money, a slightly higher income, then I would finally be happy…..”

The question, in this case, is simple. How can I be happy?

The answer is elusive. It is complex.

Oh sure, people want you to believe that the solution is simple. And when they arrive at happiness or contentment they may even believe for themselves that the path was simple.

But it’s not.

The path is complex. The solution is holistic. If you are flush with cash but your health is poor then will you be happy? No.

If you have great relationships in your life but your secret addiction is holding you back, will you be happy? No.

The question is simple but the answer is complicated. Contentment requires hard work. You would think that if you just kick your feet up and relax then everything would work out. This is part of the secret. The other part is that you must work hard to eliminate the negative garbage from your life so that you can build a foundation of contentment.

I have met a whole lot of people who want to own a blog and create “multiple streams of income,” yet they don’t like to write.

They hate sitting at the keyboard and creating something.

They don’t like putting effort into creating new content.

They hate writing.

So when they come to me and ask if they could possibly do what I do, and make money with this stuff, I have learned to throw the question back at them in a way that produces clarity:

DO YOU LOVE TO WRITE?

Because if you don’t love it then you might be seeking the wrong solution. You may be barking up the wrong tree.

Writing is process. It is a daily ritual. It is a daily practice.

You are either doing it or you or not.

If you talk to a high school student you can be that this person is not doing the “daily practice” of writing.

They may be assigned to write a term paper. They groan at the thought of it. They procrastinate. They don’t want to do it. They hate the process. None of it is comfortable.

I know what is feels like to be stuck in that mindset, where writing is just more work. It is a chore.

But somewhere over the last 3 million words I have published that all changed.

I learned to love the process.

I learned to embrace the process.

I actually muscled through a whole lot of writing before I really had any success with it.

This is an important point. I was still basically hating writing when I became successful at it.

Who would have thought that was possible?

To me it was still a chore. And yet I was making good money at it.

And I even hit a home run at one point. Not a grand slam per se, but at least an in-the-park homer.

But even then I was not in love with the process. I still had not really embraced writing the way I have now.

Later on I took a job. Instead of being an entrepreneur I was working freelance. Now I was paid to write every single day. Paid by the word, no less. Crank it out if you want to pay the bills.

This changed everything for me.

It took a while. Maybe it took a year or more. But eventually I realized that it does not have to be a chore. That it can be more of an exploration.

And so I became free. I was free in the process now. It was no longer a chore to sit down and crank out a 3,000 word article.

I estimate my total journey of the last 6 years or so to total about 3 million words. But now I am writing well over 1 million words per year. This is measured by putting out at least 3,000 words per day.

And I am finding my groove. More than that, I am finding my voice. This is something I used to worry about when I first started writing. “What is my writing voice?” Have I found it yet? Do I need to develop a style?

Don’t bother with such questions. Just start writing. 3 million words later you will find peace with such questions.

I certainly have.

Can you become a blogger? I don’t know.

For me, writing was a chore for most all of my life.

Today I embrace the process. I can now reach that state of “flow” where I forget about time, and it is no longer a drag to sit here and pound the keys for an hour.

Ask yourself: “Am I willing to embrace the process of writing? Am I willing to stick with it until it becomes easy and natural?”

And maybe even more important:

“Am I willing to share myself with the world? To become vulnerable in front of others?”