How do you started webmastering?

Ok, this has been delayed to post for a long time on DP, I think this time I will post.

What made you think this is the right way to go ? I mean how was that you started building sites, started marketing your sites, seoing etc ?

My Story: I had a forum for class mates for almost 3-4 months in begining of 2004, while thinking to monetize my friends visits I got an adsense account. Then next thing was to commercialize the forum so that i could invite international members. Hence started thinking how to build traffic ?

Thus ended up learning seo/sem from DP forum. As I got hold of other ideas, started building content sites and the story continues.......

What kickstarted your webmastering business ?

 

I first started in the net after reading the famous Googlecash book.

Sent almost $1000 down the drain, but I knew there was a way to make money on the net, so I changed to webmastering, and now I am addicted and have over 30 sites and growing...

 

When I started using Internet I was mainly using it for chatting, downloading and for email stuff. Soon I thought I should have a site and this started learning myself HTML, photoshop etc. Than, in year 2003 I started my own webhosting company... Oo .. la.la..

 

I remember when I started... using Mosaic as a browser and searching Gopher for information, no forums, just some weird ugly things called bbs, you had to use strange commands like telnet... and your desk looked like a Nasa module with the huge 56k modem with 10 little leds blinking all the time

 

I built my own home page using Netscape, then taught myself HTML and got asked to do a couple of commercial sites. I then realised that I could make some money this way and got asked by one of the companies who I'd worked for to continue updating their site on a regular basis, so I went into freelance web design whilst carrying on as a student.

In the last couple of years I saw things like Adsense come out that allowed pretty much anyone to make some money from their site, unlike agencies such as DoubleClick that used to demand 10,000 page views per month (or something along those lines) before they'd even consider you. I realised that if people with little technical experience could make money from basically buying cheap turnkey sites, then I should be able to make a few extra bucks by doing things properly.

 

I hired somebody who talked a good game to build a site for me. Pretty soon, it became evident that the person was completely clueless. I figured/am figuring it out on the fly.

 

Back in 1996 there wasn't a lot of Nintendo sites, so I start geting codes for a site, then six months later on June 13th 1996 I start making a web page at ahem, Geocities. (Yes, I was a Nintendo freak, hince the username.) For a few years I got just that site and it get's up to 12,000 uniques a day (Now it's dead.). In 1997 I discover you can make money simply by placing a CPM banner on the site. *WOW* A few years I start making a second Nintendo site to make more money. I also discover per click ads, and per search ads. Then 2,000 comes, the gold rush and I make $100,000 that year from just two Nintendo sites. Then the Internet Gold Rush crashed!!! Soom I start making other sites, and then try non-Nintendo sites by using Wikipedia content. Once it get's indexed it starts making nice AdSense earnings. Then I start making affiliate sites, ie Amazon AWS sites using MrRats COOL script. About a year later I discover mod_rewrite and with in two weeks I am indexed in Google and start geting bombed with orders. Then I do the most stupidest thing I have ever done on da internet. I RELEASE THE MOD_REWRITE HACK TO THE PUBLIC FOR FREE. OH CRUD!!!!!!!!!! That's like Apple giving Microsoft there secrets. Look what Microsoft did to Apple. Other people start using it. Google updates and....CRUD!!!! Orders go down. Soon I get my IQ back up higher than a rocks IQ and start charging for it (Can't stop giving it out since some one else'll start giving it out/selling it.) Over the next year AWS dies and now there geting banned left and right. Once it starts crashing I try other affiliate sites, like datafeed sites. Now I'm back to trying content sites again, making a news site and press release sites. Since January 15 of this year I've been doing this full time. Oh the joy of not having to get up at 7:00 AM for work!!!

Here's monthly earnings...

2004

January: $2,900
February: $10,700 Oh the joy of AWS!!!!!!
March: $1,970
April: $1,690
May: $5,080 Ack, AWS is droping!!!
June: $1,440
July: $2,180
August: $2,080 AWS is dead.
September: $2,250
October: $2,560
November: $2,230
December: $2,020

2005 *Uggg, goes down! Good thing I don't live in the city!*

January: $2,510
February: $1,360
March: $1,570
April: $1,730
May: $2,402
June: $2,380

 

Wonderful story Nintendo!

What was the script you were mod-rewriting ?

 

No need to grin (Ie, think *tell me and I'll get rich quick.*) Google's dumping us left and right. I went from over 1,000,000 AWS URLs indexed a few months ago down to.....CRUD!!!! A measly 8,010!!!! Now Yahoo get's me most of the visitors and my older AWS sites don't have PR, ie, they've been banned.

http://www.mrrat.com/aws/ MrRats script + my mod_rewrite hack.

First I'll have to discover another nice money maker!!!!! And yes, if I ever do, odds are I'll reveal it. As we all know, I'm messed up, BIG time!!!

 

nah, really?

 

Dude, don't try to give me any ideas!!!!! *Tries not to hijack the thread.* Hey ladies....

 

What's the first forum you ever registered at? I noticed you are a long time member of geekvillage

 

Geekvillage WAS the first!!! Jack Weaver (A mod there that I've known since 1996 at another video game site.) gave me a URL to a post on AIM. It took two AIM chats with a link there each time to get me to register, since before that I had never been active at message boards except my and Jack's own video game boards. It was there that I learned about making money with search boxes and per click. Geekvillage was the reason I had a nice $100,000 earnings in 2000! Before going there I only knew about CPM banners. I joined the CommonwealthNetwork back in 1997 as soon as I dumped Geocites to having my own domain, and until 1999 that was the only thing I knew of that could make you money on the internet.

Then a few years later I found SitePoint, then GoogleDance (aka banner infested, slow SEOChat), then WebmasterWorld, then WebsitePublisher, and then FINALLY Digitalpoint, but took about eight months after registering here before I finally started posting, in May.

pze no regreat that I registered here!! I provide entertainment, right!! Think GoogleGuy, my virginity, and pictures!!!

 

I started on AOL 2.0 or so and made my first website with a friend of mine using AOLPress. We collected all the pay phone numbers we could in local bike riding distance, even at the mall, then we put them onto a webpage so everyone could call. We would call them from home just to see who would pick up. Some random person would always pick up at the mall if you let it ring enough.

Then we started collecting midi files because that was the closest thing to free downloadable songs. I remember the first time we embeded a midi file into a website, it felt like the coolest thing in the world. Someone would visit our site (mainly us) and "music" would just start playing. OMG!

OK so it branched out from there and now, 10 years or so later, I work at home with my wife and we make webpages that make us money. YAY for the Internet!

 

I've only been doing this for 3 years. I applied for a job as a IT technician at a University in the UK and got it. On my first day they asked me "do you know HTML and coldfusion" to which I replied "NO". They told me I was the new Internet/intranet web designer and I had to learn

JP