Thread: A little but of a testimonial...and a thank you

I wanted to take a moment and thank Lisa for the incredible work she has done in giving to all of us...and then talk about what I have done with the knowledge. This isn't going to be some wishy-washy story, but a clear attempt to show my ups and downs, highs and lows in building an online business (a process that is still continuing...slowly but surely) and how all of us can benefit from building a business, even if we only make a few hundred dollars a month.

Personally, I have been attempting to learn how to build websites off-and-on for about 5 years now. My first attempt was literally from scratch just using "Joomla for Dummies" as a guide (I had not heard of WordPress at the time) and just started writing content. I did no keyword research, no planning and hadn't heard of the Google Adwords Keyword Tool...just started writing and creating content.

Along the way I heard about this "link building stuff" and took circa 2008 advice on how to build links. I subscribed to a service that advertised they would build links for me for free.

And that scary part was that it worked...for about a year. And I actually got up to around $1,000 a month in income...all from AdSense...before Google changed their algorithm and penalized me in a major way. That first site never recovered and in my frustration and depression I left it to languish.

My next attempt to build a website was through SBI. Now I know there are plenty of you out there with opinions on SBI..and I am not going to attempt to change your minds either way...but there is one thing that even the detractors of SBI have to admit.

It is by far the best education you will ever get on an online education. The 10-day Action Guide is a college course in and of itself, and once you are done you truly have all of the information you need to build your online business.

So I began my second site...and it did well for the first year. But right around the time I was ready to monetize I got hit by Panda...my big problem was duplicate internal content. I kept repeating myself on my web pages over and over. The information was good...but just said too often.

It was around the time for my SBI renewal and I had already been thinking about making the switch to WordPress (I had been in the forums and saw more and more people using WP). So what I did was bought Lisa's WP tutorial book and started a dummy site at WordPress.com to see if I could work the back end.

Let me just say this...WordPress rocks. The functionality was everything I wished I had with SBI so I purchased a hosting plan through Lisa's websitepalace.com and started watching her videos.

But being that I was 0-for-2 in the website building business, I wanted to find something that I knew a lot about, had experience in and was definitely needed in our society long term.

And when I found it...that would be my third attempt at building an online business.

Thus far I have been building the site for just about a year now...and make about $300 a month from AdSense (my next stage of the learning process is for me to learn more about affiliate programs and how to 'soft sell' the affiliate process).

Now, to many people, that would sound like a failure's story...5 years of ups-and downs and all you are doing is making $300 a month (I am sure many of those struggling right now have heard this from family and friends)? But appearances are deceiving and I want to show you just what that $300 can do, because for me it is all saved in my Roth IRA.

Now, as a 42-year old looking to retire at 65, adding $300 a month to an investment account at a decent return yields around $300,000! And let me tell you, every extra $300,000 you can come across at retirement is going to help!!!!

And I have no plans for this site to stay at $300 a month. I am building this correctly, building good quality links from authority figures in my niche and writing only stellar content. I would now rather write fewer articles of better quality than be concerned with just churning out content.

Why do I explain this in this way? It's simple. So many of us, myself included, can get frustrated by seeing the success of others on the internet that we begin to compare ourselves to the FaceBook, Groupon, Interest...even Lisa's 2createawebsite.com. And while we should compete, we should never compare ourselves to those who had to foresight to start far earlier than we did (in Lisa's case) or with those who have major backing from venture capital (ie: FaceBook, Twitter, etc...)

The point is, regardless of where you are now, you have the ability to change your life for the better, so just keep charging forward and keep your goals close by you. You are closer to achieving them than you think.

And Lisa...as well as the other moderators of this forum...thank you for your help and assistance.'