Q: How did you get started in marketing?

A: I started marketing in 1995. At that time, I wasn’t doing it for myself. I was hired by a friend to create a website and promote it. I built a simple brochure-like website and then she started to refer other business owners to me.

Q: How did you learn how to build websites?

A: The internet was so new back then. In 1994 I started playing around with a browser called Mosaic. I’ve had years of experience with BBS’s, and the idea of learning host to make websites was pretty exciting. So I ended up reverse engineering websites just to learn HTML.

Q: How did you get involved in affiliate marketing?

A: In 1998, I was struggling to pay off my debt from college. I ended up searching around for ways to make money online. It was at that time that I ran into a website called Ebates.com – a site that pays affiliates by promoting online rebates. I created a niche website focused on helping consumers find great deals on DVD’s and DVD players.

Q: How did you promote the website?

A: I promoted that website via classified ads – mostly online.

Q: How did you get started with search engine optimization (SEO)?

A: After building the affiliate website, I decided to create a merchant site where I actually sold Video CD’s (the predecessor of DVD’s). I started to notice that most of my competitors were found through the search engines like Lycos, Altavista and Hotbot. So I reverse engineered my competitors to figure out what they were doing. At that time, it was just a bunch of keyword stuffing so it wasn’t so tough. In the early 2000′s, I ended up learning more while promoting my financial consulting business.

Q: Have you ever tried offline marketing before?

A: Yes. I learned the bulk of my offline experience while trying to promote my own brokerage in 2003. I was trying to find any way to promote my business. I ended up doing cold calling, door-to-door, workshops, and tons of direct mail.

Q: What other promotional activities do you use in your business?

A: I’ve tested out quite a bit over the years. Right now, I mostly use offline marketing, traffic exchanges, pay-per-click advertising, press releases, SEO.

Q: Is there anything personal that you’d like to share?

A: I’m married with 2 children. I have a daughter that just started high school and a son that’s in 2nd grade. I’m also a Christian and use Christian-based values as I build my business. I enjoy traveling overseas and I’m also on my way to becoming a black belt in Taekwondo – with both of my kids!

To your success!