Bush Mackel

Last week I introduced you to the project of mine that is probably nearest and dearest to my heart, Learn Stuff Online.

Before I had this blog, before I kinda started with web design solutions, I had LSO. It was AND remains to be a pretty ambitious project - But I think the good ones often are right? (#):)

So before we go into all the problems that came up for LSO, I’ll get into the nitty gritty of what I originally envisioned for the site so you can get a glimpse into the mind of a madman.

Why I Made Learn Stuff Online
Now I’m not talking about why I created a website… Most of that reason was to create residual income for myself. But as I mentioned before, I love teaching people about things that I enjoy. And at some level we probably all like doing that. Lots of times when we talk to our friends we’re just sharing are various passions with them. That’s kind of where LSO came from I guess. It gave me the flexibility to talk about whatever I wanted to, and hopefully have a place where it would all kinda fit. For instance, I couldn’t really talk about song composition on here because for one, it doesn’t really fit with the theme of this site and for two, you guys probably wouldn’t want to hear about it.

Anything About Everything
And THAT would be the tagline of the site that even now I really like. Not only is it pretty catchy, but it’s pretty true to the point as to what I envison/ed for the site. My first section on Learn Stuff Online was home theater setup. You know that it’s definitely one of my passions so it made a great place to start from. After that, I continued with other subjects but didn’t cover really more than 3. The thinking there was I didn’t want to extend myself too far before I knew if it was going to work or not. Recently, I just started the first new section in a while, iPod Help and iPod Information. More on that later…

Money Making Goal
Admittedly, I naively came up with various formulas that would net me Y amount of money based on X traffic. And while I don’t think I ever had a concrete goal in mind (say like $500/mo), I expected the site to… work out. But you know the more I think about, the more I realize now how doomed I was during my first go around.

And if you wanna see what I’m talking about, stay tuned while I cover *drumroll*… “The Problems - LSO (Part 3).

I told you that I was coming back and HERE I AM!

Part of the time I haven’t been “around” much is because I’ve been busy getting some other projects out the gate.

One of these projects is Learn Stuff Online.

This is the first part in this mini-series which we’ll look at where LSO has come from, its previous problems, and how I hope to fix them all to finally make it successful.

The Premise
Like I said, I started Learn Stuff Online years ago. As I write this I’m not at home, so I don’t have the bevy of LSO paperwork ahead of me where I documented potential AdSense formulas, and topics I was going to cover on the site. And for the life of me I can’t remember how I came up with the idea of LSO.

I’m guessing that shortly after I learned about AdSense, (this terrific thing that could make you “money for nothing” on the web), I just HAD to come up with a website that could harness this PPC advertising for my own nefarious schemes. I might have tossed around a couple of ideas, but I knew that one thing about myself that I love is teaching people how to do things they don’t already know how to do. And at the time, there weren’t many good sites that could do that, so I came up with Learn Stuff Online.

The Problems
Looking back, LSO had a lot of problems. And because I was the one at the center of it, I think it was really my fault that so many cropped up. Most of them probably came from me not being honest about things or more to the point, deciding to overlook some things desperately hoping it’d all come together in the end.

Looking at things now, I think the biggest problem I now know how to handle and have already taken steps to that end. Still - There are other issues that I don’t think I’ve quite addressed but will surely have to do so if this project is ever going to hit that $500/mo goal I setup for it a little while back.

Solutions?
Unlike other series I’ve done on here, this isn’t one that I’ve necessarily given a lot of thought to. So buckle up if you want to come along for the journey as I continue to BREAK DOWN everything with Learn Stuff Online and sincerely hope you kids will give me some pointers so everyone can benefit! (#):D

Thanks again for the reminders to fix my RSS footer guys!