202 Posts Later

• Chris Guthrie
• My Sites, Personal
• June 28, 2009
• 2 comments!

I was cleaning out some old post drafts on my blog when I noticed that I have written over 200 posts and I wanted to take some time to reflect on the milestone and show some hilarious noob mistakes and how far I've come. For the readers that have been with me a long time, I'm happy to see you're still here more than 200 posts and 2 years later:

Noob Times

I was a pretty big noob and thought I could make a blog that was worth reading simply by writing continuous posts about how well vBSEO was doing on my forums. i.e. Case Study: vBSEO on GamingVidz.com Week 7 lol, I think the best part is that I was using the site:gamingvidz.com search method via Google which isn't even accurate. Then I showed even more of my internet marketing prowess by talking about my first affiliate sale from vBSEO. (real professional right?)

I started to show a little more gusto when I wouldn't take no for an answer when Text Link Ads first denied my application and a few months before that I got more serious about my business when I filed for an LLC. thg web media LLC is still kicking today but in 2007 and 2008 barely broke even (more on the 2009 performance in a later post).

2 years ago to the date I did the make money online review post for JohnChow's blog way back before Google started bitch slapping bloggers and websites for tactics John employed to move his blog up in the SERPS.

A few weeks later I realized that my continuous vBSEO case study updates were a little too frequent so I decided to change the format of the reports (finally a step in the right direction). Later I decided share hosting was not enough so I documented my process through picking a dedicated host in one, two, three parts and in the middle of the process I finally upgraded to a new computer leaving behind my 6 year old Dell.

Getting Better

After this period I believe my posts started to be more useful and original. I also spent more time focusing on forum management which I have not posted about in recent months (my forum efforts have died off somewhat). Soon after this time period I went through a JohnChow phase where I discovered just how pointless it was to be a top commenter on his blog. A month later I had the chance to meet him and talk for an hour which was a lot of fun and after he mentioned me on the blog I received more sustained traffic.

Yippee I posted my goals for 2008 which I for the most part failed (read further on in the post to see how this inspired me). Soon after I started doing quick blogging tips which I eventually stopped doing. I think it was a decent concept but again who really cares what I have to say about blogging when I'm not a major authority on the subject? On that note, this was around the time way too many make money online blogs sprung up and I decided something had to be said, so I wrote a list of 21 ways to avoid saying MMO.

Hurray Money

I decided that in order to be taken more serious I should get a custom wordpress design - so I did in March 2008. Turns out that worked well because in April 2008 I did my first sponsored post. It came from my blog designer, but hey I had another sponsored post to do for TNX a few days later so I was well on my way to fame and riches right? So I started doing blog income reports (here was the first in April 2008)

Because I was such a big baller I had to buy a second monitor right? Only bad asses rock two monitors and because I made $123.17 that month I was a certified bad ass and deserved a second monitor. Too bad this bad ass later paid $167.63 for a $50 SEO Book subscription. During my periods of big balling I also found a way to work way too much.

A few months later I decided that because my theme designer had been getting so many requests for themes similar to mine that I should try and sell a few different color variations of my own theme. (It's still for sale now too)

Better Posts and a little more personal

I finally got my first incredibly successful post when I wrote about the GoDaddy Free Private Registration Loophole. Several bloggers linked to it after I emailed them and it still ranks number one for several related terms. A few weeks later in September 2008 I decided to share how I almost lost it all when a jerk tried to steal my domains and then offered some tips on how to protect yourself. I also wrote about how much money is an RSS subscriber worth that got most of the larger bloggers to respond to.

2009 comes around, WTF did I do in 2008?

This is the section of the post where I realized WTF did I do in 2008? Did I seriously just write posts on my blog and think that would be the best and only way to earn money online? Apparently I did do that and that's when I decided I had to take steps to achieve my most ambitious goal yet which meant less posts here. I reaffirmed my decision to post only when I had something very useful to say when I wrote that you should forget blogging about making money online. Realistically, unless you're already making a bunch of money online from other ventures it's pretty pointless to believe you can earn enough money online simply by blogging about making online because let's face it - no one cares to read posts from someone that isn't an expert in the field.

Conclusion:

Shortly after I looked back at my goals from 2008 I realized that there would be no way for me to get out of my day job unless I found a way to earn money from other online sources. Fortunately, I've realized the error of my ways and have been running numerous other websites during the first half of 2009 with fantastic results. I will share my first progress report in the coming days that outlines how my income levels are doing based on my goal of self employment by 2011 and I encourage you to subscribe to my RSS feed so that you don't miss out on what I'd like to share.

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