Notionet

Going into overdrive was not always one of my things but that semester (the last one in college) came crashing in on me. I was sitting for my last exams, a broke student who was about to face the outside world. This does not happen to everyone but in my country, the education system is quite tough (among the top 100 in the world ) plus looking for a job, is another nightmare.

My calculations were not adding up. These thoughts kept crossing my mind. I need some cash, but i don’t have a job, I will look for a job but am just about to do my final exam! Then I would pause a bit. Why not wait until this storm is over then start thinking of settling down the following year? It was a good idea but the thought of going back to my old life? No. I could not stand even a week of it.

WordPress is really something. It’s a free and open source software but has helped some build six figure businesses.

It is then I recalled of something like internet jobs. I had never put much thought into making money online. Some fraudsters had conned people close to me through such jobs. I did not like the idea but its the only choice i had.

Super excited I went straight to the library and grabbed a computer, Google searched for real ways to make money online and the most relevant results I got were from Lifehack.org I still remember the title of that article vividly “24 easy ways to make money on the internet”

The part that interested me most was that of Google Adsense. I can make cash by just displaying ads? That’s awesome. The article stated something like “all you need is a website and its free to create one with WordPress. Again, a free website?! Things were just getting more interesting. And that’s all Lifehack told me. We are talking of 4 years ago. They could have already updated the article by now.

The story does not end there. I came across wordpress looking for ways to make money online. Remember? Am still broke but now that i can create a website for free with wordpress whats next?

Journeying with wordpress

Do you know the feeling? Putting all your trust on something hoping that some how it can transform your life, that is what I had done with wordpress. I knew little about blogging and the whole idea of making money seemed clear to me though I knew nothing about it. All because I had read somewhere that I could create a free website with  WP, run   Adsense ads on it and I would be making money in no time.

And that’s what I did. I went straight to wp and created a site with a free domain name, mardeas.wordpress.com  (site does not exist any more) don’t go looking for it.

It took me several months to get used to the interface. I was a total noob. After creating three posts I went ahead to apply with adsense. It was a confident move but a blind one too. When I recall it, I cant help but laugh at myself. I had almost zero views, no followers and to make the matters worse a free sub domain. What do you think happened, of course, google turned down my application!

By now, my hopes were already moving from 100 to 0%. If am not wrong, they were already at 30%. I was getting closer to giving up my “Make money online” dream. But just before that, I decided to enroll for an affiliate program. It was a certain online store in my country. To my surprise, they accepted my poor site.

And do you know what I did? I filled all the sidebars in my site with banners and ads and without doing any research i went straight to google adwords (Today’s google ads) and created a campaign to advertise my site. This was my calculated move; bring viewers to my site, the viewers will click the banners, they will be taken to the store, shop and I will earn my commission. But I had not done my research, not considering things like most of my viewers then were from the US and i was promoting a store operating in AU.

Once again I had done yet another mistake, the kind of mistake that most beginners make. So what happened? Google cancelled my ads account because I was running too many ads in my site plus the content in my blog did not meet their standards.

I was in a bad position, I could not run ads in my site, so no cash. I could not advertise my site. so no traffic. No traffic no cash, no cash no traffic. You get the point?

Moving from noob to pro

It then i started focussing on creating good content. It was tiring. I was missing classes, skipping meals, I almost missed some papers just to create content. Its not what i expected. I had to make a good blogger if not a good writer out of a student.

So I cleaned up my site, minimised the ads and started creating neat articles with much of original content. My blog began gathering some following, likes and a few comments.

Unfortunately, this did not last long. The semester came to an end. I had to bade farewell to my college life and blogging too. I could not wait until my site gathered enough traffic to pay my bills.

To be continued…..

How did you discover wordpress? You can leave it down in the comments. I would really like to know.