How did you get started in IM?

nethead01

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So it would be interesting to hear some members story on how they got started in doing IM, so let me go first..

I got started when I got scammed for a .99 cent ebook on ebay.

I then turned around and was pissed even though it was little money the fact I fallen for a scam really got me heated.

Well I took his method and scaled it up to about $200+ daily which lasted about 1 year then I got kicked off ebay and banned from paypal.

Once that happend I never looked back and started building my own sites and learning IM from research. A few years ago I found this wonderful forum :)

So whats your story?
 
The first buck I made online was as a cam whore. Took me 12 minutes to realize that wasn't the route for me. (Even though I made $36 in those 12 minutes LOL)

Then I started selling on ebay and amazon. I was selling over 10k a month. Broke up with my child's father and dissolved that. I came back selling wholesale and now I do a little bit of everything. CPA can be addictive.
 
I was bored with looking at porn online so decided to try to build me a site and found geocities. I created a tupac dedication site, had all the makaveli cds on their for download realpayer files. Then people started hitting me up to buy them from their it spiraled into wanting to make money online on and off but didnt really get serious till late 07 early 08.
 
Back in '93 i was at my boys house, playing super nintendo and he was always on the computer, so i asked why is he always on the computer? and he showed me that he was chatting to a girl from another state and got her picture even.. I thought that was the coolest thing ever.. once i got my own computer in 94, i quickly took notice at spam mail i was getting and looked into why people get spam mail. It's because every piece of spam mail your getting is a different person trying to make a buck. And I wanted to be one of them. And here I am, almost 20 yrs later still in the game.
 
friend of a friend tells me he earns 6 figures a year. hes a lot younger than me. my testosterone kicks in and i said i can do that.!!
 
I started as a moderately popular mommy blogger (5k+ uniques per day) but ended that when some super creepy readers/stalkers tracked me down in real life.

One of my blog readers was always sending me stuff about SEO saying I could earn way more if I combined mommy blogging with SEO but I thought SEO tainted the feel of the blog. When I dropped the blog I dived right into SEO and haven't looked back. I've dabbled in other ventures along the way and probably always will but I am too addicted to SEO to make anything else my primary focus.
 
Original source: 6th grade selling Runescape Gold to noobs. Little did they know I was marketing on the game by buying LOW selling HIGH. Oh the days when I would have triple the lunch money :)

Then High School:
Took a programming and web design class in HS. I found leaks for the school's grading system as well as the school website. School had a "virus" planted around at every teacher's computer. Needless to say I had straight As

Then Now:
I said fuck it and decided to make my own sites. Bought three "new" sites on Flippa and then worked them. Found this forum made some more money.

Now working on monetizing three out of my 8 domains. Once that is done I'll have a recurring income of approximately 3k a month. Then I'll work on my two revolutionary internet sites more. Needless to say each of these have the potential to earn me a residual income in the millions. No I'm not saying it is a possibility, One of them have no prior precedent on the internet and the other is a mashed site (two winning formulas combined to one). Needless to say it will be a fun journey from here on.
Forgot to mention CPA. Currently refining methods to make me money on the regular as well. Earning about 1k a month with it.
 
Everything started 5 or 6 month ago when I download an Italian book of making money in 7 days, after that I started reading more books with the idea of writing one myself and then sell it, but the traffic source was (in the book) Adwords (too expensive) so I searched how to drive traffic, I made a seduction blog and searching how to promote it I found BHW, now I am at the computer 10-11 hours per day XD
 
Lets see, i guess i got tired of taking lil kids money so i decided to make my own.
 
Made first 100$ doing blog and forum comments/account creation for a semi-popular IM guru.

Since then moved on to fiverr and made some money over there...in the meantime PP fucked up since i had no CC all IM experiments were frozen :-( now i found the right guy to help me and after having read a lot..on the verge of starting my own adsense castle :D
 
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I started making what were called adult "free sites" (basically four page mini sites with a warning page, a main page and 2 gallery pages with free pics) in about 2001 and submitting them to sites like Greenguy's Link-o-rama and Tommy's Bookmarks. Pretty soon I was making enough to quit the job I had managing a skateboard store while I was at university and it went from there and I tried all kinds of promotional avenues within adult.

Google was the upstart on the block back then but I was always fascinated by stories about people making millions with no pics at all on their sites - just text based html pages that they used to get mega traffic from Altavista and Inktomi. I started learning Linux and PHP in about 2004 and here I am now. I do a little bit of non-SEO IM work but most of my income still comes from cranking out doorway pages.
 
First I started from my BLOG, then I maximized the number of sites
 
When I was in high school I had built a couple of geocities sites for fun but never did much with them.

One day while surfing the web for porn I came across a banner ad that had a little text underneath that said "webmasters click here". So I did and they were paying per click on banners. So I started a porn site and put banner ads on them. I got content from irc and I gamed one of the top100 sites (remember those?).

Basically these were sites that ranked you based on how many people you brought to the site through their little banner. But it just brought you to the ranking page so it was kind of like a web ring. I figured out they reset their counters at midnight (9pm my time). So I would click the banner from my page and had a bunch of friends do it to so I would be on the top of the rankings for the first part of the day. That caused a lot of traffic to my site (for the time) and a lot of banner clicks.

My parents were a little concerned at the amount of money I was pulling in but I showed them the checks and explained the whole thing (minus the porn part).

I had a long haitus but got back into it about a year ago after reading a reddit post about a guy who was pulling a few grand a month from his youtube videos.
 
Interesting to read everyones stories...

Let's see, I came here to BHW in mid-2008 not knowing a single thing about IM, or anything about on, or offline marketing. I spent about 6 months reading (while on unemployement after being laid off from my 9-5) and researched my ass off here before making a single post.

I initially started running the "outsourcing rewriters for AC" method, and anyone who remembers that http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/associated-content-writing-articles/77524-made-30-two-articles-today.html knows it didn't end well, with AC tracking me down and slapping a lawsuit on me as an example for all BHW members who were running the method. Things I learned from that experience were...

1) Never assume you're anonymous online

2) Take the blackhat mindset of "clever thinking" that I love and use it on whitehat ventures moving forward.

Number 2 above was what made all the difference for me personally. Once I learned how to market to people in a straight up, no bullshit manner, my campaigns and earnings started snowballing. I usually am not one to talk about total earnings from my existing campaigns, but I will say it's more than $10K a week. I sure as hell never approached those kind of figures with my old 9-5 job.

Being laid off was the best thing that ever happened to me, it forced my hand, and made me take accountability for my own financial well-being. Not only for myself, but for the future of my family.

Without BHW, I don't know that I would ever have ended up in the position I am now (knock on wood), so a personal "thank you" to all who have contributed to this forum over the years...you know who you are.
 
Started with PTC site and got paid 2.00$ back in july 2010...

Now Affiliate marketing :)
 
I shared my journey recently. It's a pretty damn long post, so be warned haha. Here it is:

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/blackhat-lounge/379560-1000th-post-my-im-journey.html
 
Started with seo, the company where i worked ask me to find information about how to make our site on first page google.
After i found the method, i build my own seo company.

Not quit from my 9 - 5 job cause its easy job and i dont have to go to the office.
I did my "office job" from home.
Of course its pay very good for an easy job.
 
I get started with get paid to surf program in the 90's from a company called Spedia.They sent me a check for US$25 and i got motivated to learn more about Internet Biz. :)
 
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