Remembering the good ol' days

I have been reading this forum for quite some time
now and have learned quite a lot of information in
the process. I am looking forward to being a part
of this community while hopefully contributing
value at the same time.

I thought I'd reminisce a little about the
different ways I used to make money online and
what I have learned in the process.

To begin, I was looking for a way to supplement my
income. As soon as I saw ClickBank I was hooked!

Here are some of the things I did...

Around 2004 I built my first content site around
the topic of weight loss. I wrote a lot of
articles but really had no idea what I was doing.

I ended up ranking number 1 for the term "weight
loss tips" in Google. I then bought a piece of
Software called Traffic Equalizer.

Remember that?

I plugged in tons of keywords into the software
and it cranked out page after page for me. I
uploaded them using my FTP and in no time I was
getting over 1000 unique visitors a day.

I then used the banner portion of the static pages
to promote a ClickBank ebook called Burn The Fat,
Feed The Muscle.

I ended up making close to $3000 a month.
Needless to say, this was only temporary.

Next in 2005, I created a simple landing page that
promoted another ClickBank offer that sold car
auction listings selling seized vehicles for
really good deals.

For traffic I started a link directory with other
auction sites. It brought in enough traffic to
earn between $150 - $300 a week on average.

I will tell you a funny story though. I used that
auto auction site to create a campaign in Google
Adwords using the term "auto trader" along with
other variations of it as my main keyword. It did
really well bringing in around $200 a day - I was
so excited! Needless to say the campaign was shut
down quickly by Google because the term wasn't
relevant to my site.

I actually got the idea when reading through an
ebook called Google Cash.

In 2006 I started up another fitness site related
to losing belly fat. It started to rank well in
the search engines and so I decided I would try
placing Google Adsense ads on it. I considered it
easy money because I really did not have to sell
anything.

In 2007 I discovered the Google Content Network
and ended up promoting another fitness product
called The Truth About Six Pack Abs. The
affiliate manager (Mike Geary) was very helpful,
spoke with me on the phone and gave me tons of
good advice.

All I did was use a masked domain and redirected
each visitor directly to the landing page. All in
all my campaign did very well and I was doubling
my money most months.

I was making a little over $1000 a month with
this.

As time went on Google started coming down on
masked domains and you would start noticing your
traffic drying up. The solution was simply to buy
another masked domain! Eventually though, this
technique did not work anymore as Google was
becoming more strict.

After that, I started to focus on niche marketing
making small, simple web sites that focused on a
really narrow topic. I started to do well enough
with this until the Google algorithms changes.

I still make some money with that method but
nothing compared to before...

This brings me to the present day...

What did I learn?

I learned not to take short cuts!

It is possible to make fast cash but in the long
run it is much easier to set up your business once
and do things the right way.

I have noticed that things have changed and it is
not as easy to use those 'fast cash' methods.

I am now focusing on list building and building an
asset that is truly mine.

Treat it like a business and it will pay you like
a business.

Sorry for rambling so long