January 3rd, 2011 by admin

Thirty nine year old male, currently employed eighteen years at a multi national company making an above average income working in a factory……..soon to be unemployed.  I see the writing on the wall as steps are being taken to slowly wind our facility down.  I decided to take a proactive approach, instead of waiting for my employer to tell me “Thanks for your 20 years of service…here is your little parting gift” and find my self fighting for a new job competing against the thousands of unemployed workers in this slow economy, I have begun my own path to success.  That brings us to this blog…..a chronological list of my failures and successes of how I will find financial freedom and self employment.

My dream is one of generating an income online….making money while I sleep.  I will need a website(s), a marketing plan, and some knowledge of operating a website. 

A little history about me.  I attended university for one year.  Not great marks….but ok…70% average.  My best course was business.  After first year I was offered the job I currently have.  It was tough to turn down at the time, with average grades and a slim shot at making grad school I had the chance to earn an income close to what I wanted to major in anyways…..teaching.  After working in the factory for almost 8 years I found myself bored and decided to open my own business.  After 5 years of operation I grew the seasonal business that was mainly operated on weekends to a $500,000/ year business all while still working full time at my current job.   I had become a workaholic.  My family suffered as I was always working and soon found myself in the middle of a costly divorce.  I sold the business to spend more time with my son who is now eight years old and was recently diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome.  I also met the woman of my dreams.

June, 2010

I am sitting on the couch with my girlfriend who is showing me some pictures in an email of a bathroom that needs redecorated.  The pictures are from a friend of hers that lives over 500 miles away.  My girlfried has this gift of making a room look amazing and all of her friends turn to her for advice.  This was my “million dollar idea”.  WAIT a second……you could do this as a business.  You could have people send you photos of thier fugly rooms and they will pay you a fee for your expert decorating advice.  I had a little experience in the past with a website as my business needed one.

April 24th, 2011 by admin

I guess you are all waiting to hear how I made it big……How I am earning money now hand over fist.  Nope…..harsh reality is the site did not take off yet.  A few sales for a few hundred dollars is all I have to show so far.  What I can be proud of is all that I learned in the past few months. 

I learned to use the great web design tool known as WordPress.  I managed to get through eleven books on social media marketing, WordPress design, SEO (search engine optimization……getting your site to the top of Google search) , Understanding Twitter, and some HTML and CSS coding basics. 

I have created ten websites now including a couple for family members.  I set up the domains and hosting as well.  All part of the learning curve.

List of what I can do now (All self taught):

• Register domains
• Set up hosting
• Set up RSS feeds
• Set up Twitter and Facebook links
• Add video with text to sites
• Make polls
• Add scrolling sliders
• Add contact forms
• Add message boards
• set up google analytics
• upload files to server using FTP
• validate with google webmaster tools, Bing webmaster tools, Yahoo site explorer
• Add xml and html sitemaps
• Add robot txt
• Managed to get some of my sites to the first page on google searches for related terms
• Publish press releases
• Create and optimize images
• Learn some tricks on Facebook for gaining followers

I realize for most that some of  the technical terms listed above will not make sense to you but if you wish to be successful online you need to learn all of these in order to understand the playing field.  I am proud of my first few months accomplishments.  Between my sites I get a few hundred visitors a day.  Nothing to brag about yet…..but it is a start.  I have also recently registered a domain to start building websites.  I am holding off on the construction of that site as I hone by web developing and seo skills with my existing sites.  I can rest much easier now knowing I have developed a new skill set and should I lose my job, I will have something to fall back on.  I will soon explore the feasibility of web design but like I stated when I first set out, I am searching for that million dollar idea that will generate money online while I sleep.  I am currently playing with a dating type site Would You Do Me  but I am finding the market very competitive and tough to break into.  My goal is to generate traffic and generate revenue through ads.  I will post back soon and keep you updated on my progress.  In the mean time…thanks to my girlfriend and son for their understanding as I spent many nights studying and practicing my new online skills.  Things continue to look bleaker at work as North American manufacturing loses ground to outsourcing over seas and to local mom and pop shops that pay their workers peanuts.