How I made my First $ rather $$$$$ With Online Marketing

In the last blog post, I covered how it all started for me and How I entered the so called “Entrepreneurial World”. And yes, Thanks for the tremendous support everyone. If that post did not get such an awesome response I would not have take the next step and written another one so quickly.

Well lets start from where I left last time. I opened a blog. And I was way too fascinated by Ethical Hacking movies and guess what, my blog was on Ethical Hacking. I started by copy pasting articles written by others as I did not have much knowledge about the same but that did not get me anywhere.
I had a blog with a lot of content on it but it was not getting any visitors and that was the first time I went to Google and Looked for – “How to Drive people to your Website” and just like everyone I came across the term SEO – “Search Engine Optimisation”. It seemed like a whole new world with so many things to learn and yes, I loved it.

Driving Traffic to my Website

I tried to learn every aspect of SEO both Onpage and Offpage and whatever I learn’t I applied it on the website. Right from writing all the content again to optimising images and building backlinks, I did it all but the results were very slow. I almost left the website for 3 months and focussed back to studies but 1 day I just opened my Google Analytics just like that and wow…. I was blown at what I saw. My website was getting 800 unique visitors a day. I had no idea from where were they coming from. I was not updating my website or working on it since last 3 months. But yes, that moment gave me a boost of confidence that this can be done and I continued doing that and the website reached 100,000+ page views a month.

What can ONE do with Ethical Hacking Traffic?

Yes Now I had a website, I had some decent traffic but it had been over 8 months since I was doing all this but I did not make a single penny And Its quite obvious, I had a website on Ethical Hacking. Though what we were doing was completely ethical, the content was on “How can one Protect Themselves from Getting Hacked”, “How to Improve Website Security” but that did not work.
Google Adsense Never Allowed us and those who did had very little payouts. I preferred to keep my website clean rather than having all those spammy ads with such little payout.

I had no Idea of Affiliate Marketing at that time. So what Next?

Is that it? Was all this effort worth Nothing?
Though I learn’t a lot of things but I really needed a way out to make something better out of it.

The Eureka Moment

One day I was just working on my blog just like normal days and I got an email stating -“Hey, we are having an Ethical Hacking Book. We would like you to cover us on your blog and we will pay you $12”.

$12 for writing an article? I used to all this for free till today.
I thought Why Not. But again a problem. How am I going to accept the payment in USD. I was just a 16 year old kid with no knowledge about it. So I asked my Friend Snehil Khanor and with his help I got my first payment via his friends Paypal account. But yes, that’s when I realised what exactly could I do with my blog.

Building the Blog Business Plan

Yes! That’s what I Exactly did the next. I sat down and built a Business Plan for my blog. Sounds Crazy Right?

I made a list of all the potential Advertisers for my blog. Though there were fairly less advertisement options, there were very less options for the people to advertise at that time as well and I took leverage exactly the same.

I made a list of all the potential Advertisers and pitched them with several packages of the blog like:

a) 12 month banner

b) 12 month banner with 1 Review

c) 12 month banner with 3 Reviews + Social Media Engagement

And I focussed on 12 month banner as it got decent chunk of money. I tried different advertisers but it was a difficult one to crack. And Finally I got my first deal of $4000. Yes $4000! It was a dream come true or even something beyond that.

A 16 year old, getting $4000 for doing practically nothing. Writing a Review and Giving Banner on the Website. How cool was that.

I was blown by the thoughts of what I could do next with it. I made my Million Dollar plans. Maybe they came true, maybe not. That you will come to know later. But even till today, thinking about that moment gives me goosebumps and a new level of ecstasy (Just like I am feeling writing this blog post).

Then I made multiple pitch decks and closed several deals and had enough money in my bank account by the time I turned 18 than I could earn from Several years of Job (even if I saved every penny out of it).

Scaling up the Blog with Knowledge

Yes, Now I did something I could be proud of and my parents were already (which mattered to me the most). Often I would hear them talking -“Dekh lena, kuch galt kaam na kar raha ho Ravi”. They had a hard time understanding how could making money be so easy and that too for a kid of my Age.

Then came my 12th class when I had to study and I had to maintain a balance between by Blogging life and studies which I could not afford to spoil. I did that and work got quite slow then. I kept learning new things that year, managed my studies and gave my boards where I got 91.2% marks and again the family was happy so there was nothing stopping me from doing what I wanted now.

No matter what I do, I never miss on taking care of my family. The smile on their faces is one of the Biggest Motivation to do something even better and Never Let it go off their faces.

Now that I was done with 12th, I had to be back in business.
I decided to scale up my Blog Business and for that I needed some actual knowledge for that.

I wanted to Learn as Advance Stuff about Ethical Hacking as I could so I had to get some training.

I decided to go with an Institute called Innobuzz which was one of the best and Biggest Ethical Hacking Institutes of that time. I wanted to do each and every course they had in the institute and when totalled, it came out to be a few lakhs.

Though I had those funds in my bank account but I never wished to spend them this way so again I had to be innovative. I wrote an email to the founder of Innobuzz making an offer he could not refuse. I offered him free reviews for every course, 1 Big banner for 1 year  and Social Media Promotion on Blog Page in return of Sponsoring me all the courses they had. It was just a try not knowing what kind of response I might get but yes, they agreed to it. I got everything sponsored from them on my own. It was again a moment of achievement.

Over the next few months, I learn’t everything I could from there and most importantly shared it on the blog which took it to new heights but now that I look back, It was NOT the Blog that was going to new heights. It was My CONFIDENCE and BELIEF in MYSELF that I can do something awesome in life.

Key Learnings

There were a lot of things I learn’t in this time frame.

a) AGE IS NOT A BARRIER: Age is not a barrier to do anything awesome in life. You can do anything at any point of time. You just need to have to conviction to do it.

b) MY SUPERPOWER: I call once strength as once Superpower as one can do wonders with it. I may be good at Digital Marketing but that was not my Superpower. It was my problem solving skill and my SALES SKILLS.

Later in my life, I realised that I could almost sell anything to anyone (no matter they need it or not). For Eg: I have sold 5 page WordPress Website for $10,000+. We will talk about it in the future blog posts.
Its not about what you have but how you use it.

Every one has a superpower. Discover it and make the best out of it.

I am still waiting to hear some awesome stories from you guys about your life journey. I would love to cover the same on this blog in “Inspirational Stories” Section which I am planning to create. This world is full of awesome people who have done great both Professionally and Socially. Let others learn from their life experiences.

And if you like it, Do share it. Even if it changes life of 1 person for betterment. I would be the most happiest person.