My Story
Blogging &
SEO Expert
My Story
From Self Doubt to Blogging Specialist.
I’m Chris Cortell, and this is my story. I have gone through every single type of phase that one goes through when starting out a business for the first time.
From a complete newbie to the online world and battling with self-doubt, to gaining some experience but then having to overcome imposter syndrome (spoiler alert – this never goes away), to finally considering myself as a specialist in successfully building blog businesses for myself and clients.
Now I’m not about to give you a list of my accomplishments and say how awesome I am like most About Me pages out there.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a great success story, but I am not about to pretend that I have made these huge achievements when in reality, I’m probably only a few steps ahead but continuously learning. I will forever be a student.
Having said that, here is my story, I hope you enjoy it.
How it All Started Back in 2015
I was recently married, and we were looking to start a family. Knowing that the cost of raising a family today is definitely getting tougher, I was on the hunt for extra ways to make money. Just a few searches in, and I found myself down the rabbit hole of specifically learning how to make money online.
Naturally, this piqued my interest will all the promises in the world of “making money while you sleep”. So I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea of selling baby clothes.
So I set out to build my first website. It took me a good couple of weeks to figure it out, and it still looked terrible. I turned on the payments on the website and sat back to watch the products fly off the shelf.
But that’s not what happened.
In fact, it was so hard to get any kind of sales that I was putting in so much of my extra time into the business with no results. So I turned to courses for help.
I bought an Amazon course on how to sell products on the world’s largest e-commerce platform. This was it, free traffic! But it turned out not to be free. Trying to get any kind of organic sales was not easy, especially without any reviews.
Up until now, I had never known of the term SEO before. The community I was in had partnered up with a digital marketing agency that would help with keyword research and paid advertising to get the most out of Amazon. I went all in.
I waited and waited and waited. Crickets.
After getting frustrated with various meetings with this so-called ‘agency’, I thought I could do better myself, so I got straight to work.
Fast Forward to 2019
After moving on from the e-commerce world (and getting scammed along the way), the thing that really helped move the needle was creating a blog for my store. This is the part that I really enjoyed.
And then the world shut down. Suddenly I wasn’t traveling anymore, and my income had been slashed. By now I had two children, and I couldn’t stop grinding because I had four mouths to feed.
So, I decided to put all of these skills out there online and become a freelancer. My initial services included website design and content creation.
Now let’s be honest, the pay wasn’t that good, but I was just starting out. I needed ‘reviews’ to validate the work I was putting out there for these companies.
As my client base grew, I was able to add other services including SEO optimized content, link building, and putting together content strategies.
Today, I own and manage a range of niche sites in different categories, including this website which I compare it more to a digital resume. I am still at my normal ‘day job’ and traveling around Australia (my home country) but my plan is to hopefully replace that job and fully convert to an online business.
After All of That Being Said – Thank You
So to sum up, I never started out in the digital marketing world or had ANY previous experience whatsoever. I have a very busy, young family and a full-time job. But, I am determined to change my life, and this is where you will find all of my findings.
I am a real success at failure. I have failed more time than I have succeeded but that doesn’t mean that I give up easily, because when I win, I win BIG!
To say I’m doing this alone would be a lie. That’s because I am actually putting myself out there with all of you in my corner.
So here is a BIG THANK YOU to all of you still reading this. The big takeaway here is that we all have to start somewhere. I will do my best to reply to every email I get from you – both the good and the bad.
Finally, I’m excited to share this journey with you. Whether you’re here for inspiration, information, or just a friendly chat, I’m here for it all. Feel free to explore more of my content, connect with me on social media, or drop me a message. Let’s embark on this adventure together, and I can’t wait to see where it leads us.