Greg Vandagriff

So today at work I discovered that if I push myself, I can generate a prodigious amount of content within a short time frame! I guess I had never really “pushed” myself that hard before and so it was somewhat of an epiphany for me to discover this myself. I’m thinking that I’m going to continue to do everything I can to produce a ridiculous amount of content at my work for SEO purposes, as I think this may be one of the best ways for me to contribute to the success of Sewell Direct. Not to mention the fact that, at least from what I’m told, the more you do something, the easier it becomes. I certainly hope that this is the case, as I wouldn’t mind becoming a better and more proficient writer. If I plan on freelancing at all, I’ll definitely need to put the money where my mouth is in this regard…

Freelancing. Hm, what a fascinating idea.

For the benefit of others, I will explain exactly how I got fooled into wasting money on the magnetic signs utah domain: I relied on only one source for information. SEO book’s keyword tool is excellent, but I don’t think it’s smart enough to catch bots spamming a search query. When you enter “utah” into the keyword tool, the 4th or 5th result is “magnetic signs utah”, clocking in with roughly ~370 hits/day. This was where I stopped and ran off to buy a domain with $ signs flashing in my eyes.

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It looks like I got punked with the Utah Magnetic Signs- I strongly suspect that the traffic I observed through my research was a result of an automated, computerized query system, as further research has led me to believe that there isn’t any *real* traffic for Utah Magnetic Signs
So it cost me $10.00 to learn that lesson, but hey, it was a lesson worth learning, right? Do careful research on your keywords before you jump into something.

What is it about entrepreneurship that fascinates me so much? I admit there are a number of factors to it that I find attractive; the biggest ones being the feelings of independence and ownership. There’s something appealing to me about putting in hour after hour of painful work and seeing growth in something that you own; being able to say “Hey, I did that.” The sense of accomplishment as you face, and overcome, the numerous challenges associated with your enterprise.

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I’m still in the process of getting back in touch with “the digital world” since coming back from my mission, I think, because I was mostly oblivious to how huge blogs have become over the past few years. Regardless, I was reading one such blog and came upon an article describing how, much like one can “flip” houses in the real estate industry, one can similarly flip websites for a profit. I must say that this idea really makes my entrepreneur sense tingle like crazy! The real question is, if you execute such transactions successfully, are they truly profitable in an economic sense? What I mean is that, like house-flipping, one must be either extremely adept at web development themselves, or they must be willing to contract out those services to another; both require man hours. I wonder how good a developer one needs to be in order to obtain a good ROI with site-flipping, taking into consideration the hours you put into it and how much money you could have made in another sector with those hours of labor. My guess is that a seasoned siteflipper would be skillful at assessing websites prior to purchasing them, performing “due dilligence” if you will, and would be able to, based on his assessment, determine how many hours would be needed to optimize the site.

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I have recently become rather enamored with digital entrepreneurship, that is, making money off of the internet. I have the benefit, thanks to my current workplace, of the wisdom of several SEO experts, and they have encouraged me to jump into the online realm and start making websites. After doing a little research, I discovered that there is an inordinately high search volume for “Magnetic Signs Utah” and little competition, thus I have purchased a domain and constructed a basic site about magnetic signs in Utah. I’m not expecting to make an enormous amount of money, but I do expect to make back more than it costs me to have it. The beauty of the digital realm is that the capital required to launch a startup is tiny, although well-capitalized competition within the key terms you’re gunning for can greatly frustrate market penetration. I believe that SEO is one of the most interesting fields I’ve ever delved into. Although I can confidently assert that I know next to nothing about it, I hope to, in time, learn more. Thanks to google’s constantly changing algorithms, the field itself is constantly in flux, which keeps things fresh and interesting.

Yeah, I like to think of myself as being a capitalist. I have been known to champion the private sector against unnecessary and needless regulation. I firmly believe that, outside of serving in a few core capacities, the Government needs to get out of the way and stay out of the way, as their involvement leads to, in most cases, more inefficiency than efficiency. That is, I feel that public policy measures inflict a net loss on the social wellbeing of those it was designed to improve. The Government should exist to enforce property rights, contract law, and to act as an impartial judge during tort cases. In short, the government’s role should be to facilitate and enhance the ability of a free market economy to thrive and grow, nothing more.

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Can’t say that I’ve previously been a real big fan of blogs. In fact, were it not for the encouragement from friends, family, and coworkers, I probably wouldn’t be a real big fan of writing much of anything. Yet here we are. On a blog. Owned by me. Truly this is a momentous occasion and I thank you for sharing it with me.

My name is Greg Vandagriff, I’m a 23 year-old student at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. I work part-time at an online electronics retailer and generally enjoy my job there. My interests include entrepreneurship and business in general. In fact, I seem to be absolutely possessed with the idea of owning my own business and selling it off for lots of money. What would I do with the money? Uh… start more businesses?

I guess I’m kind of stupid that way.