The Entrepreneur
Here’s a brief timeline – and I mean brief. In 2008, I was a typical university student. Now – 3 years later, I’m a graduate with a new-found passionate for blogging, marketing & running my own websites.
The Beginning
University Dorm Room
Here is where is all started. Almost a cliche now isn’t it? The small beginnings of my website network began in a small dorm room at Lancaster University in 2008. In fact, it all started on a rather shady note. A rich flatmate of mine wished to purchase some rather useful web hosting for a website he wanted to build, but didn’t want his parents to see it come through his bank statement! I therefore kindly agreed to make payments on his behalf, and in return he allowed me to setup a domain name and blog on his account.
That first blog I created was more of a learning experiment than a business venture. I didn’t know a thing about html, domain names and web hosting, and so I had an awful lot to pick up. Fortunately, my tech-savvy friend set me up, and from that point on, the incredibly user-friendly WordPress blogging software gave me a manageable learning curve going forward.
My First Blog
So, my first blog was called Succeed At Life, and sat on the domain name www.succeedatlife.co.uk. Catchy huh? Well, it was the best I could do at the time! I started writing about personal development, a subject I was fascinated in at the time. After reading fantastic personal development books such as ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’
Succeed at Life was a what you could call a small success. It received about 30 visitors per day, which was at least better than 50% of bloggers out there. However, looking back, this blog wasn’t really focused enough on a particular target user. In other words, I had learnt the code and the writing side of a blog – but really hadn’t thought the marketing through at all. I guess I was naive to think that ‘if you make it, they will come’. That famous phrase certainly does not apply to websites.
Leadership Expert
The Middle
It was the next step that really saw my online ventures takeoff. After having thoroughly researched Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), (the fine art of optimising your website to encourage higher rankings in Google), I decided to start afresh with a new, finely tuned and focused website. The I new website I created was Leadership Expert. This blog was going to focus on one word, and one word only – Leadership. Leadership was a topic I was incredibly interested in, and I looked forward to learning and sharing information on this ever-changing topic.
Traffic By Month
To start, I used articles with permission from article directories. I then began seeking post from reputable authors and other bloggers. Finally after a year or so of immersing myself in leadership topics, I began writing my own articles, and sharing my own opinion on the topic.
Through use of the SEO techniques discussed above, Leadership Expert began featuring in the top 5 searches on Google for phrases such as ‘Leadership Styles’, ‘Leadership Skills’ and even ‘Leadership’. This brought substantial traffic through to the website, and with it… revenue! Since this point, I have simply worked harder and continued with the same strategy that I applied to Leadership Expert, and have started other sites within a similar genre. My aim is to create one of the largest independent private blog networks in the UK.
The End?
As you can tell, this story is far from over. Hopefully it’ll be a case of ‘onwards and upwards’, but I’m sure I’ll inevitably encounter some new pitfalls or set-backs along the way!