Hey ,

I got a pretty heavy rejection today, last week I applied for a grant for the second year in a row and today I learned I would not be moving on to the 2^nd round (aka I was rejected 😔).

This is the 2nd time I've applied for this grant but I’m sad but not deterred it reminds me of when I first started building my own what I hoped would be profitable websites and the struggles I went through trying to make them work and become a business.

The businesses you see me with today are not the start of my little story and it didn’t start out all rosy like many business owners would have you believe.

My first websites (yes with an S) were a flop… but luckily, I learned some great lessons from each one that I can now share with you so you don’t make the same mistake.

Website 1 The first site was a fitness/healthy living blog  I wrote about all kinds of things healthy snacks, workout hair, Zumba you name it. It was a fun blog but only my friends and family visited and no conversions or profits at all, where I went wrong weight loss is a crowded niche, and writing about anything that came to mind wasn’t good for SEO or Monetizing a blog.

Website 2 Was a blog about African American Bloggers, it was a cool idea every day I highlighted a new blog and when they saw they were featured then they would share the feature and I would get traffic. Sounds good in theory but I missed a big step. A PRODUCT. Where I went wrong I had a site with lots of traffic but without a clear product the traffic wasn’t profitable

Website 3 My first real business blog this one was for my web and graphic design company, like most companies I built this amazing site and filled it with all kinds of information about getting graphics and websites done for you. It was great to send someone to see my portfolio, but it brought in very little traffic and sales on its own, where I went wrong Products all about me and my service didn’t attract my audience that didn’t know I existed.

I learned so many lessons with these sites, these are just some of them.

Do any of these sound familiar? Hit reply and let me know how many times you’ve tried to grow your online business.

Tomorrow I’ll send you a story about my 4^th site and the formula I created that changed it all.

Talk to you soon,

Akilah

P.S. While you wait for tomorrow's email you can still grab a spot in our upcoming  Build and Monetize your Website Workshop WordPress edition,