Share Your Story

I started working online (or at least trying to) work online when one day while casual browsing, I stumbled upon this website in which this guy named C******** (privacy and ethics) said that he was living a dream lifestyle working on the internet just 2 hours a day and was earning millions and billions and bazillions and scullions of dollars online, and that anybody could do it. I thought I would give it a try. Especially since those were the days when I had started doing a part time job and had a few extra dollars in my hand to afford his ebook which he was selling for 97 dollars and which he claimed to have all the information and knowledge under the sun which was making him a lot of money.

So I bought this book and built a website on the exact same pattern as he had told me to (through his book obviously). And I uploaded the website on my server...

And bang... I would now get Absolutely tons of dollars...

ahem...Ahem..

Ahem...

No traffic...no visitors...

So I bought another ebook...this time exclusively on traffic...and then another...and now I was starting to get traffic. Like 20 visitors a day.

Then I heard about SEO...and I decided to check it out. After all this hardwork and implementation of strategies, I was not getting the search engine traffic. I needed the SE traffic. It seemed to be the be all and end all of my IM career. I worked really hard on optimizing my website. But the results were not so rewarding.

And then I heard about list building. I bought a few ebooks on list building, and started building my list. This was back in June last year ie 2007. But since I was not really getting a lot of traffic, I needed to work on that first prior to list building.

And my focus again shifted. Back to getting traffic. So much shifted that I actually forgot about the 100 people on that odd list and didn't communicate with them. So naturally, when I started corresponding with them again, they didn't remember my name. And most of them instantly opted out of my list. So technically I was rendered listless again.

Anyways this time I was committed. Committed to get traffic to my website. So I started looking for ways to get it. They say...

Where there is a will, there is a way

And I started discovering some real traffic systems. Some real cool concepts which changed my overall perspective on Internet Marketing. And it was when I applied them, I started making some serious income. Of course I will not mention the numbers now, since they now seem to be very small. But at that point of time, it was like...wow, I could actually replace my part time job with internet marketing. That was... just a couple of months back.

And then the best thing happened to me. I met a self made Internet Marketing Millionaire, whom I had actually known for sometime and I knew that he was a real genuine guy. He makes a real killing online. And he offered personal coaching to me... that is complete assistance and personal mentoring.

This was what I was looking for. This was what I actually needed to create the same success that many people have achieved online...that he had created online. He is actually a millionaire and it might not sound to be true but he had actually at a time worked as a postman.

So I decided to jump on the offer and here I am...Personally being coached by him. We are actually not even halfway into this coaching and I am already feeling that I know a lot about Internet Marketing...lot more than the ordinary guy or a newcomer.

I do not exactly feel as if I am an expert right now. But I do feel that my knowledge and it's application is taking me there... at the top... where I want to be.

And that is pretty much all my story... about my IM career.

I will keep you updated about everything else on the blog through my posts.

And by the way, did I tell you, I was looking forward to quitting my engineering career as I did not really like that, and working full time as a marketer. I am already there making 5 figues a month online.

-Lakshay

Very interesting story Lakshay.


Mario

One day, for some reason I decided to look at my spam and saw something about Buddy Tags. I was about to graduate from college soon and didn't really enjoy the idea of working a job for the rest of my life, so I bit. I joined it and tried to figure out ways to promote it. They offered some "helpful" advice, like submitting my replicated affiliate site to the search engines for indexing. Suffice it to say, I didn't stick with that program.

Then I joined some program that was selling technical mumbo jumbo with a downline... what I was actually promoting went completely over my head, so I didn't stick with that one either.

Then I find out about SFI. Joined that and soon realized I would be promoting a very popular, saturated program that already had some of the most established 'gurus' in the make money niche promoting it. That was a bit discouraging, so I moved on.

Got involved in an illegal autoresponder matrix scheme. Paid almost $300 to get in, and I got most of my money back before they were closed down. Got involved and paid a few hundred dollars for another illegal matrix scheme and didn't get one penny back.

Next, I discovered the idea of online information publishing. Ebooks, article marketing, list building, and so on. Tried my hand in all of them... in the make money niche. I also discovered affiliate marketing and did that... in the make money niche.

Soon, I got it into my head that maybe I ought to try another niche. Along the way, I discovered that I'd still rather be an affiliate marketer, so I've stuck with that. And I've discovered other likes and dislikes that help me limit what new "make money" product I even read about, much less sign up for.

I got involved in Adwords... and had some success with a product over the holiday season. Unfortunately for me, they shut the affiliate program down soon afterwards indefinitely, and I haven't bothered to check to see if it's been reinstated. I've done the eBay thing, selling items from my house, and even managed to sell a few copies of a southern cookbook on CD that I got the resell rights to, but I didn't really enjoy that and I didn't like putting my income in the hands of a single company.

And there are probably some other things I've tried that I've forgotten. I'm still discovering other ways to earn money and what I'm willing (and what I'm not willing) to do to get there.

Well, it started in 2005, when i first started Fantasy Football. I couldn't find a great resource for fantasy players. so i decided to create a community of people who shared their fantasy ideas, players, stats everything. I have always been a computer nut.

Then i decide to start producing fantasy draft kits and player status cards. this was my name to fame. Since then i have created sites in the fitness, and dieting niches.

Now, I am trying something new...I go for a while and then I need a new fix. I am currently testing a idea I had while shopping at the mall.

i am emberrased to say it...but i got the itch once i read "The Rich Jerk" ebook No matter what people say about the book and the information in it...it got me started.

Do not be embarrased because that
ebook changed your life.


Mario

You share your story. Infact i am also new to the arena of internet marketing. hence i am also looking for success stories.

For meit just happened. I never planned or thought of making my career in the field of Internet Marketing. It just happened by chance. But once i jumped into this , i liked it and kept on going forward in this and now this is the only thing i know and the only thing about which i want to know.

Hey Mario2001, great question.

I started my first online business about 9 or 10 years ago. I had a computer background and the web was the hot thing. This coincided with a three month hiatus from work.

I made the decision to use the time to start an online business. I was living in the UK at the time. DVDs were an up and coming technology back then. So I decided to start an online DVD store (before Amazon or any of the big boys sold them).

It was a complete disaster but the best education of my online life.

I got the site launched pretty quickly, ran some online and offline advertising.

What went wrong? Volumes were low, suppliers were still geared for VHS and CD over DVD, fulfillment was a pain.

I learned over the 12 weeks that everything I did was wrong.

I decided I didn't want to deal with suppliers, physical products or fulfillment.

The last week before I went back to work I decided to figure out what people wanted/needed. I went to the reference section of my local bookstore and eyeballed every book that had the text "sold over a million copies". Within a week I created an ebook in one of those niches and a site to sell it.

That site, over the next three years using organic seo made over $100k.

I'm not sure whether I was smart or lucky, but the one thing I will say about this business is that you have to learn from your mistakes and apply that knowledge.

It's a lot easier to get started today but a lot harder to succeed. Traffic is tougher, competition is stronger and customers are shrewder.

Der

Great sharing
I'm totally new to the forum...so much good stuff to read
I will share my story shortly...just need to send off my girl therapy...will be back....

I started over 4 years ago messing around with those silly mlm programs etc.

After about a year I went niche, learned how to slap up webpages and the rest is history.

Newbies have it much easier these days.

TL