I've been at this marketing fun for nearly 5 years now. I started at the age 15, typically just wanting to make more than my minimum wage job. I had picked up my first book on programming when I was 12 years old. So by the time I had actually started marketing, I was able to build and maintain my websites without a problem. When I was 15, I really got deep into the "hacking" stage. Marketing really was not my biggest interest. I, like most, setup a few blogs hoping to acquire a side income... Well, needless to say, those blogs no longer exist. It took a while to find out how to make an income online. My first taste of money, was not until I was 17 years old. I started to venture into email marketing and made REALLY good money. I was netting nearly $350-500/day from blackhat methods of promotion (spam). I was making more than my father, whom then got jealous and started charging me $600/mo for rent at the age of 17! Like everything, the income came to an end. After being banned from a couple affiliate networks; and then the sites I was using to acquire my leads were all patched, I was left with no income, yet again. I stopped really caring, and got a job delivering pizza. I had a beautiful car that I had dumped loads of money into, so why not have some fun in it? Anyway, I partied hard and stopped marketing for a good few months. But... Money dried up quickly. One day I woke up with an epiphany: "I'm going to make money". This time, however, I came at the whole approach with a mature mindset. I wanted a stable income, an honest income, and a fun income. So I went to work, ideas are always popping into my mind. It can be a curse at times. I founded a few new websites in 2010. Three years later, a few I haven't even updated since then, a few are making small profits, and 2 are making a fair income. I'm now 20 and currently live off of my websites, but I'm not rich. I'm not making anywhere near as much as I was making during my senior year at highschool. But, I'm happy. Over the years, I've learned quite a bit. Now, my information may differ from your perception of marketing, but it works nonetheless. First tip: Don't worry about Pagerank, Alexa, or absolutely any other external statistic system that doesn't have proper server statistics of your visitors. Use statistic logging programs like Awstats or Google Analytics. It's pretty simple. If you're getting traffic, you're getting traffic. If you're getting a load of search engine traffic, obviously your doing it right. You don't need some biased app to demotivate you and waste your time. Second tip: Every self-help book you will ever read, will tell you, be yourself. This is the exact same when it comes to the internet. You can help yourself into a forward motion of change (change is a part of evolution), but trying to be somebody you're not; will probably not land you an income. Example: If you start up a website in a niche you know diddly shit all about, you're probably not going to make much. Third Tip: Study websites. Study ones you like and use often. Study their backlink structure, and how they advertise. Study, study, and study. You may consume 40 hours of information from this forum, but it's not worth 5 hours of studying websites on your own. You will acquire the real, unbiased information that you seek. Remember how you found that site? Maybe that's an advertising technique you should consider. Fourth tip: Don't be pathetic. This means, be respectful (to yourself and others), responsible (keep content updated), and never give up. If your website is taking off slowly, maintain it or outsource it to be further maintained. It's likely that all of a sudden it will vastly start growing... But if you give up on it way too early, you'll never see that stage. You'll be starting projects every couple of weeks, some won't even go live. Respect yourself, keep at what you're doing. Fifth tip: Forget any blackhat or "quick/cheap" aspects of marketing. First of all, these methods are not respectful to anybody. Secondly, even if you have a blackhat method that works at this current moment; wait a year and see where your website(s) are ranked. Google has a lot of money and employees, to think you can out-do their algorithm consistently, just makes you oblivious to the internet scene. Do things properly, it might cost more, or take longer; but it will last longer, and probably make more. Win/win, right? Anyway, this is some of my wisdom, take it or leave it. Hopefully it helps somebody
Thanks for the info. Your parents must be so proud of you for earning money even though you were still underage, but how come your father got jealous of you? sad. Anyways, don't get to caught up with the evilness of money, good to hear you are already mature. learn from your mistakes, and try not to do the same thing over again. try to save for your future as you try to build your own family.
Thanks. I'm not sure why my Dad was so jealous, probably because I was doubling his income and still in highschool. I won't be saving to build a family, that's not what I'm going to be doing with my life. But, nonetheless I will be saving for my future!