5 Simple Mistakes that Cost Me over $1000

One of the most ironic things about internet marketing is that you can see all your mistakes coming from a mile away, yet you still make them.  At least that’s the way it was for me.

There’s so much to learn early on that mistakes are inevitable.  Some mistakes come from always trying the next best SEO tool or eBook, while others are just a by product of not having a clue about building a site and promoting it.  I can’t outline every single mistake you might make, but hopefully reading through some of my more costly ones will help you out.

Mistake #1: Purchasing domains through my hosting company

Forget the fact that it’s just not a great idea to have your domain registration and hosting through the same company.  While I love Blue Host (aff link), they charge $19.95 for most domains with privacy.  After purchasing around 5 domains I found out you can get the same domain at InternetBS for $6.95 to $8.95 with FREE privacy.

Cost of Mistake: $50

Mistake #2: Shiny SEO object syndrome

It’s embarrassing to admit how much money I spent on worthless SEO tools and information.  When you’re first starting out the last thing you need is 10 different eBooks all stating something different or 5 different SEO tools (i.e. Sliq Submitter, SENukeX, etc.) that you don’t even understand how to use.  I’m still not quite sure why there is so much allure in make money online products.  I guess it’s that feeling of, “If I just had this one product then I could get over the hump and really make some money.”  Unfortunately 99% of the time that one product isn’t going to do anything for you.

Cost of Mistake: $205

Mistake # 3: Trying to take on too much at once

I currently own 46 domains.  Of those 46 domains I have, at one point or another, put content on 44 of them.  Of those 44, I purchased 30 prior to September, when my Internet Marketing abilities were comparable to Tim Tebow’s ability to score in the first 3 quarters of a football game…not very good.

As of writing this I’m down to 13 active sites  and 3 domains for future sites.  The problem is I don’t enjoy building half those sites, if not more.  In addition, 13 sites is a bit overwhelming when you’re not outsourcing anything and work a full time job on top of managing those sites.  My wife saw how frustrated I was last week with trying to prioritize what to do that she actually made me sit down and created a schedule for me to follow.

Cost of Mistake: $160

Mistake #4: Purchasing premium WordPress themes

I’m not a fan of FREE themes.  Mainly because I’m not capable enough to make them look the way I want and would rather pay a little extra instead of getting frustrated.  So, I figured I would purchase a couple premium themes.  Themeforest is a great place to grab 1 or 2 premium themes to get you started, but I got a little addicted…

The bigger problem came when I didn’t stop there.  All of a sudden I found Thesis, Pagelines, Catalyst, Genesis, and so on.  Now, I don’t own all of those, but I did end up purchasing a couple, and they aren’t cheap.

If I had to do it all over again I think I’d start out with a FREE theme for my first couple months until I had a basic understanding of CSS.  After that I think the best thing you can do is pick 1 premium theme, such as Thesis and learn all the ins and outs and use that one theme.  A lot of people may disagree, that’s just the way I would do it.  I know going forward I’ll be using Pagelines and Catalyst and I don’t see myself purchasing any new themes for quite a long time.

Cost of Mistake: $299

Mistake #5: Hiring an Adsense “coach” on the Warrior Forum

This is probably the one thing I’m least proud of.  Within 2 weeks of finding the Warrior Forum I was hooked on trying to create thin Adsense sites.  I was reading about all these people creating sites with only 5-10 pages of content, tossing a few backlinks at them and then making thousands of dollars.  The problem was I really didn’t understand what I was doing.  I thought to myself, if I could just find someone to coach me I’d be so much better off.

So, not really understanding my mistake at the time I created a new thread titled, “Looking for an Adsense coach,” or something like that.  To make a long story short I had around 10 people PM me and I ended up paying some random kid (it turns out he was around 20 years old) $250 to coach me.  He seemed legit, we talked on Skype before I paid him, he even let me review his “course” material and offered to let me talk with other students he’d coached.  On top of that he guaranteed he’d get me to $10/day within 30 days.

To make a long story short I ended up creating around 10 sites, all of which had domain names that broke copyright laws, at his direction.  I did hit $10/day in about 30 days until I found out just how black hat the methods he was teaching me.  Needless to say I took those sites down instantly afraid I was going to get my Adsense account banned or worse.  I requested a refund, but obviously that didn’t happen.

Cost of Mistake: $340

How can you avoid making mistakes?

Unfortunately you can’t.  I think the best thing you can do is try to stay focused and start small.  Once you’ve spent a few months building out your first sites then it might be okay to venture into some forums or add a certain SEO tool to your arsenal.  But early on you just need to stay focused on your sites and stop worrying so much about if you’re doing things perfectly.

While The Keyword Academy isn’t perfect, this is the one place I wish I would have found earlier on.  They do a great job of streamlining the information you need to start in internet marketing, while also providing a community that helps keep you focused and working hard.

So, what about you guys?  Anyone else made any silly mistakes lately?