It’s Week Forty Seven Of The Niche Site Challenge.
The Niche Site Challenge is a challenge where I aim to create multiple sites that generate recurring revenue over the long term. Some other brave stalwarts have also taken up the challenge.
Building niche sites is fun. If you’re a writer or interested in making money online, you should consider looking into it.
I feel like I’ve written about every conceivable topic concerning niche sites. I haven’t really, but just use the search bar above and you’ll find tons of material on how to build niche sites.
One day, I’ll organise it all.
Anyway, every week I write about what I’ve done in the challenge, and this week’s no different.
What I’ve Done In The Niche Site Challenge This Week
Last week I had a major success story. I created a whole new niche site within about ten hours of work – spread over the weekend.
This week my plan was to get it all finished today, as I’m out otherwise being interesting tomorrow. I figured that I could get up early and be a little more productive and we’d get there.
Today has been a train wreck.
I didn’t even get close to creating a niche site today.
It started off early. I was up before nine, ready to work on my site.
Internet down.
Alright, so I went for a morning walk, fixed that and then we’re at 10a.m. There was still time to recover.
I log on to the internet, go to check my websites… they’re all down. Every single one of them – including the site I planned to work on. (More on that in a minute.)
Sites do occasionally go down. Every host has issues and so it’s not a problem. I check back in five minutes. Still down. I wait and write some material. Half an hour later, my sites are still down.
I then sent a support ticket in to my host and waited. Forty five minutes later, I get this response (paraphrased.)
Hi Jamie. We’ve just checked… all of your sites are accessible on our end.
Thinking that strange, I decided to use a proxy. All of my sites were still up. I tried another proxy… same thing.
Now, everything else on the internet worked. I could browse YouTube, check Twitter and all that stuff, but my sites didn’t work.
So I clear my cache. I restart the computer. Then I try it on other devices. No luck.
After what felt like three days of trying stuff, I reset my router. Five minutes later the problem was solved.
It’s about mid-day by this point and I’m fed up, but I should be able to start working.
What I should have done was started writing. But this site is going to be hosted on an unused domain, so I thought I’d set that up.
ERROR: SSL has NOT been installed.
Today I was cursed. Normally installing WordPress, themes and plugins is straightforward. Not today.
Anyway, it’s two-thirty by the time I actually get there.
Since then, I managed to write two and a half articles. Realising that there’s no way I’m going to complete this project – or even get close – I’m cutting my losses. I’m writing this update and an article for tomorrow, and then I’m taking the night off.
Sometimes, things just don’t go the way they’re supposed to.
Final Thoughts
I’m cutting it short this week, because I haven’t come up with any particular insights that are useful save one:
Sometimes things don’t go to plan. Keep moving and don’t let them get you down.
I’ll see you all next week, where we’ll have straightened this all out.