How I Ruined This Blog, More Than Once.

Today I got a message from Vincenzoo and it inspired me to share the story of this blog with my readers:

I enjoy the blog very much. I am a daily reader. I enjoy reading it, because i can relate to almost every piece of content you put out there… thanks!

Short and to the point, right? Feedback like this reminds me WHY I’m writing a blog in the first place and it motivates me to write even more.

Extra Paycheck Blog was started in 2008 and although it seems like a long time ago, this blog hasn’t always been active in the past 6 years. I have abandoned it more than once but somehow always came back to it.

Here is how I ruined my blog more than once and how you can do it too!

The Beginning

In 2008 I wrote a total of 32 blog posts which comes out to almost 3 posts a months, however my posting wasn’t consistent. I could make 6 posts in 1 month and then not post anything for the next 2 months – and this is not good: for your readers and for Google. The posts were short and the content wasn’t great, mostly because I forced myself to write it.

In 2009 I completely lost my motivation for the blog but I kept writing “not-so-great” content and created a total of 11 posts, that’s 3 times less than in 2008.

I lost my motivation because in 2009 the blog got hacked and I lost all my content. Hostgator helped me figure out that my blog was hacked through a security hole in the free WordPress theme I was using. This is the main reason I tell people to use premium WordPress themes.  Fortunately my hosting provider had a back-up of my data and I was able to restore most of the posts but the motivation was already gone.

Lesson #1: Buy premium themes for your blog, they aren’t that expensive and are totally worth it.

Also make sure that you create  backups of all of your content.

The Final Fall

In 2010 I wrote 2 blog posts. Yep, only two blog posts for the whole year. In January/February 2010 I went to Europe and simply didn’t have time for this blog. By the end of February I came back to Montreal just so I could fly out to the Wealthy Affiliate Conference in Las Vegas. Then in June I flew to Europe again and stayed there until mid-December – that’s 7 months away from Montreal and 7 months away from my Internet business, including this blog.

When I got back from Europe I realized that Aweber, Hostgator, GoDaddy and a few other companies had the information from my old credit card which no longer existed, so while I was in Europe I lost a list of 6,000-7,000 email subscribers, I lost a few domain names and I lost my hosting due to a failed payment. Call it negligence, call it stupidity – I have learned my lesson. Once again, Hostgator was very understanding and they helped me re-instate my old account and found backups of my site – Extra Paycheck Blog was back online once again.

Lesson #2:  If you are running an online business – treat it as such. Make sure your payment information is correct and up-to-date at all times. An expired domain, hosting or list can end up costing you a fortune.

Also, once again, make sure you have backups of your data!

The Revival

Since I lost most of my sites during 2010 I needed a break from affiliate marketing so I did very little of that. In early 2011 I started offering marketing services to small local businesses: Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, content creation, etc. I did manage to make 11 posts on the blog although most of them were just promotion posts selling products or services.

In 2012 I kept on doing a little bit of Internet marketing and I started a Reputation Management company. That year I only wrote 8 posts on Extra Paycheck Blog, I was proud because most of these posts were not promotional but rather informational.

Finally in 2013 I decided to get more active in the Internet Marketing world. Besides building new sites I also wrote 16 posts for this blog and 13 of these posts were made in November/December 2013. In October I got a sudden motivation to write content and bring Extra-Paycheck back to life and that’s exactly what I did. As I started posting consistently I noticed a spike in my rankings, more people commenting on my articles and more people sharing my content all over the internet. The more you do it – the easier it gets. It’s January 8th and this is already 4th post this year – this make me really happy and I will try to post at least 3 articles per week throughout the year.

Lesson #3: Create original, unique, good quality content and post it to your blog consistently. You readers will be happy and Google will be satisfied. Creating a post schedule will make your life a lot easier.

Did I already mention that you must make sure you have backups of your blog/site?

Well, that’s the story of Extra Paycheck Blog. 2014 will be a big year and I am aiming for loads of great posts so stay tuned!

Have a question? Want to share something with me? Don’t be lazy, comment below!

– Alex