Welcome to Marketing Mire.

Sigh. Another internet marketing blog? Do we really need another one of these? Maybe not.

I decided to do one because I’ve learned from other marketers that even if you never get a single reader, a blog is a great place to learn and practice writing; and a place to chronicle successes and failures, sort of like a diary. Also, if nothing else, it’s a great place to learn your blog software of choice and how to work with links, RSS, Adsense, etc. So, some days this blog might look good and other days it might look like crap.

Who am I? My name is Scott. I won’t use my last name because my name unfortunately happens to be the same as a (I assume) popular p-o-r-n star. I don’t want people who are looking for him to find this blog. That’s also why I didn’t want to use my name in my domain.

What’s my deal? In October of 2005 I was thinking there must be a better way to make a living than commuting and working 12 hours a day. I had started to look into online surveys, secret shopping and that sort of nonsense, when my wife found a link to a copy of Google Cash.

So I read it and got started with Google Adwords. This appealed to me because it’s quick to set up, you don’t need a web site, and you could be making money in less than half an hour. Little did I realize at the time, the copy of Google Cash I read was two years old. Even still, the basics were the same. It just wasn’t as easy to make money on adwords. When I didn’t even have one click after a week, I clicked on one of my own ads to “test” it. How pathetic is that? Then I tweaked some keywords and got $30.00 in clicks. I got excited and turned up the budget and blew another $30.00 the same day. Google said thanks for the new conference room chandelier. All that money and no sales. Then I got a grip, made some adjustments and finally had my first sale three weeks after I started. A $21 clickbank commission after spending $223 on adwords.

I was discouraged and wanted to quit, but one of the first things I learned is that this kind of start is common, and you should stick with it and give yourself a chance. So here I am almost two years later, still at it and still working my day job. Along the way I’ve learned a lot about Adwords, various other angles of internet marketing, and the tricks and tactics of the gurus.

It’s impossible to know everything, but I want to learn as much as I can with anyone who’d like to join me. I hope to be able to help people learn from my experiences (so far) on this blog. One of the things I love is finding tools, software, content etc. for little or no money. I’ll be sharing as much of that as I can find.

Scott

This page is not an opt-in list. If you write to me, I’ll respond.