Ok so today I am going to talk a bit about how I got started in internet marketing.
I think I first started thinking about making money online in 1999 when I clicked on a banner ad for one of those paid-to-surf programs, I think it was called All Advantage or something like that. They would pay you for watching banner ads on your computer. Of course I did not make a cent, but I thought the idea of making money on the internet was very interesting.
Later, as I tried to get referrals for my paid to surf programs I discovered traffic exchanges like www.clickthru.com. These sites allow you to get traffic to your sites by visiting the sites of others. While surfing these sites I discovered online MLM programs. I don´t really remember their names, but I joined some of then and promoted them using traffic exchanges and safelists. I made some money, not a lot though. I soon learned that they were pretty much all scammy pyramid schemes and gave up promoting them. For more info on MLMs visit this page: http://www.vandruff.com/mlm.html
Around this time I also started making my first websites. I actually got started with the online site builder at www.homestead.com. It was free back then, I think you have to pay for their services now. I made a very simple dating website for my country (Belgium) using the free web tools at www.bravenet.com. I submitted it to a couple of local directories and search engines and guess what: I got visitors, quite a few of them actually!
Now that I had these visitors I started thinking about how to make some money from them. At first I placed my paid to surf banners on the site (LOL). Then I found the affiliate program of the dating site One and Only (I think they don´t exist anymore). I placed their banners and links on the site and crossed my fingers… Slowly the affiliate links started generating some sales (about $100 a month). This is where I realized that it really is possible to make money on the internet.
After this I made some more basic dating sites and dating site directories, but I didn´t really focus much. Ah yes, I also remember joining a site that sold a financial ebook. I took one of the emails they provided to their affiliates, pasted it on a site and sumitted it to the search engines (it didn´t have any links at all). I made about $100-$200 per month from them!
Then a couple of years later (around 2002) I read an ad by someone who was promoting an affiliate program using the new Google Adwords program (it wasn´t pay per click back then!). I joined a satellite tv merchant and promoted their link on Google. I got a few sales but nothing spectacular.
One day I got a message from the satellite tv merchant about an affiliate marketing course by a guy who was making tens of thousands of dollars a month building content websites. This guy was called James Martell.
His ebook, called the “Affiliate Marketers Handbook 2002″ offered a great, step-by-step approach to building affiliate sites. I loved it. I started writing lots of articles and and in about a week my first site was ready. After exchanging links, as the book instructed, I slowly began getting traffic. This site made about $50 from affiliate sales in its first month. No much, but it was enough for me to know that the approach worked.
I started building more James Martell type sites and hired ghostwriters to help me with the content. I made OK money from affiliate sales, but when I added Adsense (which was brand new back then) the sites really took off.
I kept building more James Martell sites and also did some PPC affiliate marketing using the strategies from Google Cash.
I also began doing Adsense arbitrage back then. I bought traffic from Adwords and sent it to my Adsense sites. Amazingly I almost always (2 times out of 3) DOUBLED my investment.
Another strategy I discovered was building small sites around brand names. These converted very well and began making me almost as much as my Adsense sites.
Out of all these strategies, I was making the most money with Adsense arbitrage. It was just so easy and quick to set up and the results were instant. Then I got an email from Google telling me that my account was banned because they didn´t like my “business model”… I basically lost two thirds of my income.
After being banned from Adsense I began focusing completely on affiliate marketing and slowly built my income back up. Now I mostly build affiliate sites and promote them using article marketing.
Popularity: 43% [?]
My journey
Ok so today I am going to talk a bit about how I got started in internet marketing.
I think I first started thinking about making money online in 1999 when I clicked on a banner ad for one of those paid-to-surf programs, I think it was called All Advantage or something like that. They would pay you for watching banner ads on your computer. Of course I did not make a cent, but I thought the idea of making money on the internet was very interesting.
Later, as I tried to get referrals for my paid to surf programs I discovered traffic exchanges like www.clickthru.com. These sites allow you to get traffic to your sites by visiting the sites of others. While surfing these sites I discovered online MLM programs. I don´t really remember their names, but I joined some of then and promoted them using traffic exchanges and safelists. I made some money, not a lot though. I soon learned that they were pretty much all scammy pyramid schemes and gave up promoting them. For more info on MLMs visit this page: http://www.vandruff.com/mlm.html
Around this time I also started making my first websites. I actually got started with the online site builder at www.homestead.com. It was free back then, I think you have to pay for their services now. I made a very simple dating website for my country (Belgium) using the free web tools at www.bravenet.com. I submitted it to a couple of local directories and search engines and guess what: I got visitors, quite a few of them actually!
Now that I had these visitors I started thinking about how to make some money from them. At first I placed my paid to surf banners on the site (LOL). Then I found the affiliate program of the dating site One and Only (I think they don´t exist anymore). I placed their banners and links on the site and crossed my fingers… Slowly the affiliate links started generating some sales (about $100 a month). This is where I realized that it really is possible to make money on the internet.
After this I made some more basic dating sites and dating site directories, but I didn´t really focus much. Ah yes, I also remember joining a site that sold a financial ebook. I took one of the emails they provided to their affiliates, pasted it on a site and sumitted it to the search engines (it didn´t have any links at all). I made about $100-$200 per month from them!
Then a couple of years later (around 2002) I read an ad by someone who was promoting an affiliate program using the new Google Adwords program (it wasn´t pay per click back then!). I joined a satellite tv merchant and promoted their link on Google. I got a few sales but nothing spectacular.
One day I got a message from the satellite tv merchant about an affiliate marketing course by a guy who was making tens of thousands of dollars a month building content websites. This guy was called James Martell.
His ebook, called the “Affiliate Marketers Handbook 2002″ offered a great, step-by-step approach to building affiliate sites. I loved it. I started writing lots of articles and and in about a week my first site was ready. After exchanging links, as the book instructed, I slowly began getting traffic. This site made about $50 from affiliate sales in its first month. No much, but it was enough for me to know that the approach worked.
I started building more James Martell type sites and hired ghostwriters to help me with the content. I made OK money from affiliate sales, but when I added Adsense (which was brand new back then) the sites really took off.
I kept building more James Martell sites and also did some PPC affiliate marketing using the strategies from Google Cash.
I also began doing Adsense arbitrage back then. I bought traffic from Adwords and sent it to my Adsense sites. Amazingly I almost always (2 times out of 3) DOUBLED my investment.
Another strategy I discovered was building small sites around brand names. These converted very well and began making me almost as much as my Adsense sites.
Out of all these strategies, I was making the most money with Adsense arbitrage. It was just so easy and quick to set up and the results were instant. Then I got an email from Google telling me that my account was banned because they didn´t like my “business model”… I basically lost two thirds of my income.
After being banned from Adsense I began focusing completely on affiliate marketing and slowly built my income back up. Now I mostly build affiliate sites and promote them using article marketing.
Popularity: 43% [?]