A tale of three business models in need of marketing

Hi guys,

I was happy to find this site over the weekend with like minded people, and was hoping to get some marketing advice and feedback.

I've been creating websites for over a decade, and had excellent results using Google to push visitors through search. No link building or advertising needed. Five years ago or so that changed, and I've had trouble generating other sources of income. Google no longer loves my new sites, and mostly pushes established sites. This has been great for my old sites against new competition, but has caused me to abandon trying to compete in new markets for the same reason. Since then I've created three different businesses that I feel are excellent, but dead in the water without marketing.

Model 1 - Paid Service

Last week I launched a more traditional paid service site at Api.Wikiocity.com. It's a mapping and search service that enables businesses and apps to show interactive maps, and translates addresses to map points. So far I've been accepted into the community, but in this market you only really make money on customers that generate around 1 million+ map loads a month. I'm sure over time those customers would find me, but I feel like it might be worth it to have a sales person calling these customers. After all, I don't think a lot of large businesses using Google Maps realize they could save thousands. For my own 1mil visitor a month site, it's the difference between $7k a month and $250. I've been wondering if there's a service I could hire, and it feels like it would lend itself well to a commission based model?

Model 2 - Word of Mouth

A year or two ago I decided to help my wife by creating a type of anonymous workplace chat forum at Unifyd.org. She's a teacher in Texas, and it's illegal to "collectively bargain", so this would allow her coworkers to at least share and talk openly in a safe space. I built it to be SUPER secure, allow blocking of work emails, and allow members to vote and send an email as the group itself. Groups are invisible unless you have an invite code, which can be restricted. I feel it could help so many people, but in the end most teachers were too scared to even sign up or speak when they did. Still, I feel there are a lot of groups not under as much pressure that it could help a lot. Cold emailing unions directly generated some interest, but I never followed up on any.

Model 3 - The OG

My original model was making large search friendly sites like Bibleocity.com. This site takes every version of the Bible I could get or license, and allows you to see individual words or phrase differences across them in a simple popup system. It also matches historical texts, so you can learn about the meaning of each verse or chapter, along with open comments for discussion. It required building a text comparison tool from scratch, as nothing available was capable of comparing old English Yoda speak against modern text. Nevertheless, Google hates it. My competitors meanwhile simply throw a bunch of versions of the same text repeated down the page, or side by side, and Google sends massive traffic there way. I need to try cold emailing churches, but maybe it's finally time for ppc?

I've done much more, but these are my newest and saddest losses. I'm lucky my past continues to support me, but it's been hard knowing I could have sat on the couch the last few years and done better financially doing nothing. Yet, I know that taking chances got me here, so I gotta keep coding away. Thanks for reading and letting me share, and I appreciate any advice you can give. :)

tl;dr; - Three sites, one paid service for large businesses, one word of mouth/invite, and one open and broad search friendly. Never used marketing, and not sure what actually works best or is worth it for them.