it could literally be anything from underrated websites, tools, or communities to unique resources or tricks that make life easier or more enjoyable online...

I have been dabbling in websites for 25 years. But not ONCE have I ever had success with SEO. In fact, now things are harder still. I can't even find a cost effective way of advertising by paying for clicks or impressions.

WTF is the secret?? Are the effective techniques closely guarded by people who have intricate knowledge about modern internet marketing techniques? Or do you just have to get lucky, and create a buzz so people link to you on social media and websites to get you more visitors? Or is the best thing to hire a competent marketing agency to do all that work for you? And if so, how on earth do you chose one that will give you good ROI?

I tried buying clicks from Google. Turned out terribly expensive per click, not viable. Same for Facebook. Tried propeller ads, got a lot of clicks but they were terrible quality and didn't get a single purchase, I presume they either used bots, hidden Iframes or just terribly targeted traffic that had pretty much zero value to me. I tried following guides to optimise SEO for Google, I tried listing on hundreds of directories, and effectiveness was atrocious.

It also strikes me that techniques are always changing, and SEO effectiveness is getting harder and harder while spammers and search engines battle each other making it harder and harder to make SEO effective. I started trying to get somewhere on social media, promoting there in various ways organically, but that flopped too. I have read so many articles on internet marketing techniques but have got nowhere. Just lost a hell of a lot of time, and wasted any money I invested into it.

How the hell can I market on the internet cost effectively? I'm extremely discouraged by all my failed attempts and am at the verge of giving up trying to market any websites I make, and investigate completely alternative sources of income, but even that is hard, because everything seems to still depend on marketing yourself on the net.

Any advice would be hugely welcome. I have disabilities which prevent me from getting regular jobs, and the only skill I really have is designing full stack websites from home, but it's extremely competitive given competition from countries like China, India, Pakistan etc and not only that, I'm quite able to design websites from scratch but most freelancing websites require people with skills that I just don't have, often requiring advanced knowledge of large frameworks and so on that I just can't get my head round.

Any advice would be great!

It could be anything. A super useful website that you stumbled upon and now can’t live without, an underrated tool that saves you time or solves a problem nobody talks about, a random niche forum where the most wholesome or bizarre conversations happen, or even a YouTube channel with 50 subscribers that’s putting out content better than most big creators.

Basically, I’m talking about those hidden corners of the internet that feel like you’ve found a secret club, or a cheat code to life. Something incredibly cool, helpful, or entertaining that somehow isn’t all over social media yet.

Edit :Front page!!!!!! Thank you guys for all your responses .
Edit 2 : Thank you for all your responses but many of them are getting repeated, so it would be wonderful if somebody made a summary of all the tricks in this thread and post them in a single post, also it would be a great place to refer to instead of scrolling through this long thread.
Edit 3: For those who enjoyed this thread there is a cool new subreddit started by u/gamehelp16 called r/coolinternettricks/ why dont you consider joining it and continue to teach and learn new internet tricks.

On the first day of 2023 a website appears on every electronic device capable of accessing the internet.

It contains every single secret that has ever existed on the internet including emails, private messages, pictures, search histories, trade secrets, government secrets etc. All you have to do is search according to any number of parameters (person, group, time, specific words etc) and you’ll have access. The site can not be deleted or erased in any way.

How would everyone react?

How would civilization be affected?