In 2002 I created my first site,onetimesone.com,out of a love for music. The site featured offered music reviews of mostly independent bands and it was a great way for me to stay in touch with the music community and to hear the latest independent music. I wrote all of the content and focused on promoting the site as best as I could. I didn’t know a thing about SEO or marketing,but the site grew to having around 50,000 visitors in one year. This was enormous to me. On top of that,I had many of my favorite labels sending me new music to review and I had people that wanted to write for the site in exchange for new music. It worked out great and that’s how it works to this day for that site! Only now I have some major interviews on the site and get over 100,000 visitors a month and growing.
I never wanted that to be a money-making site because I always thought of it as too special,so I’ve kept the advertising to a minimum. And honestly,the advertising I have on there does not convert well (as is the case with most entertainment sites). Since I created this site and delved into the world of internet publishing,though,I realized that there were some great business opportunities available online. So while I kept enjoying my hobby site when I had the time,I spent more of my time venturing into the business side of internet publishing.
The next site I did was a paid survey site. I had been taking surveys for money and realized that this could be a pretty cool thing to promote,since I did have some experience with it. I became an affiliate of a few survey sites and made a survey page on a subdomain of my music site where I added my affiliate links and a little blurb. I bought some advertising throuh our local TV station and through some paid-to-read-email sites and actually started making about $100 a month –I couldn’t believe it! I was making money online on my own!
Eventually I took the survey section off of the music site because,even though it was its own subdomain of the site,I didn’t think it belonged there. But now that I was aware that it was possible to make money online, I still wanted to be able to have a profitable online business and was on the lookout for a real opportunity.
One day I stumbled across James Martell’s Affiliate Handbook. Since I didn’t have a clue about SEO or online marketing,everything in this book was a revelation to me,and it completely changed the way I thought about making sites! There’s a lot to be learned beyond this book,but it was perfect for a beginner like me!
So I created several niche content sites and began getting up at 4:00 in the morning to write articles before my daughter woke up! And fortunately for me,my hard work began to pay off and it was only a year later that I was making $1000 a month from the sites.
Since then I’ve learned a lot of things,and while I still only work part time (about 1 hour a day) on websites,I now make about $4000 to $5000 a month.
I’m at a point where I have a lot to offer from my experiences,and where I also have a lot to learn,so I thought this would be the perfect time to start blogging all about internet publishing and everything that entails.
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