My Internet Marketing History

I just thought I would write up what I have tried so far, so that other people don't waste their time doing the things I did.

Some Time In 2005
I stumbled on a text file claiming to teach me how to make money automatically. Basically I had to sign up on a PPC site, and run a program which would automatically click on the links so that I would get paid.
This was the first time I even thought about trying to make money online, I wasted about 6 months on it, and a load of bandwidth, complete waste of time.

A few months later
I discovered some sites which paid you for each banner click you got, I signed up on a bunch of free traffic exchange sites, and spent a couple of months trying to make it work, I remember getting around 4000 hits (all from traffic exchange sites, so extremely UNTARGETED traffic), and made $4, and the site closed down.

Until 2007
For the next couple of years, my interest in making money online came and went, I tried a bunch of paid-to-click, paid-to-search and paid-to-post sites, and spent hours of my time to make maybe $2, which I never got to cash out, another complete waste of time.

Start of 2007
I discovered adsense and tried all sorts of combinations of blogs and websites to try and make money, I made $0.37. I also discovered paid survey sites, and made a total of maybe £100, it took about two years. First time I was ever paid for doing something online.

Beginning of 2009
A businessman who is a friend of the family (very successful, started off with £30, going door to door selling fishcakes, he is now a multi-millionaire) asked me to show him how to do some things on the computer. I spent a couple of weekends helping him out, and he decided he wanted me to to work with him, and a couple of people he knew, on internet marketing. He purchased one of Kim Roaches products, I can't remember exactly which, but we all studied the videos, and I learned a ton (highly recommended if you are considering purchasing any of her videos).

That's when I joined this forum, trying to market an Acne product I found. (Thanks a million to Steven Fullman, he helped me loads), I got a bunch of subscribers, but no sales. I also got some abuse from the surveys I sent my subscribers

I spent a few months on this forum, and I learned loads here, thanks guys

I finished school, and completely forgot about IM.

Recently
I got back into IM, I created another blog, tried some SEO and backlinking, but I wasn't really patient enough to wait months and months trying to get ranked. I got into adwords and advertised my blog. Got a couple of hundred hits but no sales.

I am now experimenting with direct linking, getting order form impressions but no sales yet, hoping that will change!

I will update this thread as I get closer to meeting my target of making my first ever online sale.