Just to give you a brief summary of where I’m coming from and why I hope the information I have to share is useful to you, I’ve been designing, marketing, and operating websites online since 1998. For the really, really, long version please continue reading.
I, like many others, remember every detail about my first computer growing up. A commodore 64 that was a hand-me-down from my older brother. It was big, heavy, and made a lot of noise. I quickly learned some basic programming skills (a language called REXX) because in these days, you needed to know commands just to run an application (for anyone that owned a C64, LOAD “*”,8,1 to you). I continued learning about computers including Macintosh systems throughout high school and eventually graduated to 486 and intel-based PCs. After majoring in Computer Information Systems at Devry Institute of Technology, I began developing websites as a hobby in 1998 while studying to earn my Microsoft Systems Engineer certification. At the time I was a network administrator for a well-known credit card company and while I was excited that I would soon earn my MCSE (and two other certifications), I couldn’t figure out why I was so miserable providing desktop support to users during the day but so happy teaching myself web design at night. Web design didn’t feel like work to me, it felt like a very relaxing activity to take my mind off of the many headache-inducing annoyances of the day (if you’ve ever provided computer support, you know what I mean).
Suddenly it dawned on me (it seems so obvious now, but to my credit I was only 21) that the web was all that I cared about. I would spend hours and hours reviewing and reverse-engineering every site I came across (a really effective learning method to increase my HTML and programming knowledge in a short period of time) as well as reading the many books I purchased about web design. I knew I needed a career change.
So I started my first online company. Surreal Web Design was born and I quickly partnered with FlashToGo.com as a flash template reseller. I heard of something called pay-per-click advertising from my contact at FlashToGo as a recommended means of getting traffic to the site for very little money. So I opened my account with GoTo.com (name before they changed to Overture and now Yahoo Search Marketing) and began bidding on web design related keywords for as little as $0.01 per click. Also around this time I received many inquiries from the web that I know I hadn’t paid for, so I did some searching on the available search engines at the time (before Google) and noticed that Surreal Web Design was in the top 10 results of just about every engine. I began learning everything I could about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and how to create websites that pleased both users and search engines alike. Of course running my own business on the side required a day job, so during this time I worked a variety of systems administrator and software quality assurance engineer contract positions for companies such as GoDaddy Software, MCI, Best Buy, UBS Paine Webber, Pacific Bell, Informative Graphics, IBM, TeleSoft, and others.
After fumbling through many site designs as a rookie, I soon realized that I just wasn’t a designer. I had a good eye for design and my coding skills were above average, but when it came down to creating the kind of graphics that were popular in these days I just didn’t have what it took. While I did a great job at executing effective marketing strategies and achieving top rankings, my clients deserved better site layouts and graphics than I could design. I was now completely fascinated with internet marketing and felt I had found my true calling, so it was obvious that I needed to again change my focus.
I decided that I needed to find a steady job in internet marketing where I could really perfect the skills I had learned on my own. I accepted a full-time job at US Digital Media as an E-Commerce Specialist, a position that included all aspects of IT as well as online marketing including SEO, PPC management, web development, programming, and more. After two years, I felt it was time to go it alone once again with all of the real-world internet marketing and e-commerce business knowledge I had attained. It definitely paid off.
ProAction Media was founded in 2002 and is now one of the internet’s leading providers of CD and DVD duplication services, equipment, blank media, packaging, and accessories. I also run and maintain several other websites ranging from web hosting to personalized children’s books to internet marketing services. I hope by sharing what I have learned I can help online business owners avoid some of the pitfalls of operating a website. I also aim to keep online entrepreneurs and fellow marketers up-to-date with the latest internet marketing advice and news. If you have a topic you’d like to see discussed here or an idea for the site, please contact me.