I’m 22, from the UK, I have nothing but high-school GCSEs (B-Cs) and some college education.I was recently made redundant from a retail job, due to the current economic state here in UK, I don’t believe I’ll be employed again any time soon.
I’m seeing being unemployed as a mixed blessing, I have little bills to pay, live at home with parent, so lots of spare time on my hand.
For the past 6-7 years I’ve been studying Web Development. I’ve become more than fluent in XHTML/CSS, javascript, PHP, Mysql relational database design, SEO, typography, regular expression, and lots of other stuff, I’m a master at none but >= fluent in them all 🙂
I’ve only ever built sites for fun or stupid things like blogs or messed about with APIs such as Facebook and Amazon, yet now I find I have an opportunity to make a hobby a job. Question is I have no experience as an entrepreneur except maybe marketing/SEO, so I do not know where to start, I have no niche site idea, haven’t got lots of cash to spend on marketing, no products… I have nothing to offer users but fancy blank pages… not exactly king content!
So where do I start? 🙂
Kind Regards
Mike
Categorized | Affiliate Marketing 101
Unemployed Web Developer Advice Required?
Posted on January 14, 2012.
Maybe a visit to a small mom & pop store,pub or eatery and offer to create a blog/website for that location to help increase sales for a fee.
Hi i think you have pretty much answered this yourself, build a site demonstrating your skill set and purely seo it. Takes time but if aim for a niche to seo i think you could have plenty of skills to offer.
I would target a specific are i.e wordpress plugins or magento ecommerce for example then seo your site for a few keywords. You could also call around and pick up some website work look at theme forest and build a profile on linkedin. Blog about your skills what you can do and if you are good with code build a small wordpress plugin to get the traffic. 2-4 months you’ll be working 🙂
try http://www.businessventurenetworking.com, it’s not fully launched as yet so you may have to be a bit patient but the community will be growing very soon which will give you access to Entrepreneurs , Investors, and potential Business Partners who can help you fill in the blanks in your skill set. And best of all it’s free!
Hope this helps!
Steve
Hey Mike,
Man, you’re in a great spot. Sorry about the job loss, but it may indeed be a blessing.
In fact, you and I share similar education and hobbies, though I ended up concentrating solely on SEO. I currently make a decent living as a freelance SEO, offering my services to other companies.
But you have an opportunity to do something a little different. If you don’t have many bills, etc. then this is your opportunity to work for yourself. I would start blogging on all of those mentioned topics. In each of those you are looking at some pretty major competition, but if you stick at it and learn how to create quality content and promote it, you’ll be just fine.
I’m placing a few links in the resource spot. Primarily help on blogging as a business. I’m also placing a link to one of my sites. I would like to hear more about what you plan to do and your progress.