Welcome To My World…
Stephen Spry is a freelance web designer and Internet publisher who has been working online, full-time, since late 1995. I currently operate in excess of 25 sites of my own in a variety of niches… including employment, self improvement, internet marketing, small business advice, self employment, and article marketing, and also operate several significant regional and global web directories.
Throughout my Internet “career”, my primary focus has been to help small business owners succeed on the Internet by providing a wide range of useful and relevant information… without all the B.S. that seems to accompany this industry!
I’ve always wanted a more “obvious” place to bring together a lot of the things I do… A place where you can get a feel for what goes on in the life of a full-time, self employed, veteran Aussie webmaster and Internet publisher.
So welcome to my world… a site I launched around Easter 2009 to reflect on what I’ve done since 1995 while trying to earn a living online… and presented so that you too can benefit from my experience!
Please feel free to start or contribute to the discussions underway on this site. I really look forward to hearing from you!
Cheers
Stephen
Using Articles To Build Content
One of the things I discovered early on is that adding article content to your website is a good way to build up content on your site and get a lot of extra “back-door” traffic coming to your site.
I’ve used PLR (Private Label Rights) articles. I’ve subscribed to various article membership sites. I’ve used articles from the major article banks (eg Ezine Articles etc). I’ve used WordPress plugins which automatically add articles to your site (but not scraping software which “steals” content from other sites).
And in most cases, plonking Adsense ads on these pages provided a good return for the effort.
So it made sense that perhaps I should expand on this and build my own “article directory”. To have literally thousands of pages of good quality information, on all sorts of topics, dishing up mega ad impressions and making a fortune from it!
And, like my other “directory” sites… it would build fresh and unique content automatically for me because other people are submitting material for publication.
Another “Learning Experience”
Towards the end of 2007 I had, what was in hindsight, a major brain freeze!!!
Actually there was a product “package” that was available for the personal development market, and I thought it was a doozie.
Well worth the US$997 to purchase, or so I thought!
Now you didn’t actually get private label rights, where you can actually re-write the source docs and brand them as your own.
But it DID give you a reseller licence for a package that was (supposedly) doing really well in the personal development arena.
And that meant I could practically do what I wanted with the marketing of that package to make a killing… Oh yeah. Like I said earlier… Brain Freeze! I believed the hype and bought the dream…
Wot was I thinking???
Looking For Alternate Income Streams
While the Google income has been kind to me over the years, I was still looking for alternative income sources… as you do!
So there always has been a need for a useful “Plan B” to supplement my income long-term, instead of putting all my eggs in the Google basket!
Over the years, I’ve tried several things to do just that…
Including: Read the rest of this entry »
Earning a Buck On The Interweb…
Even though I’ve been online since 1995, earning a buck on the Internet has not been easy… and it still isn’t. Not really!
The early days of web design were a lot like the days when desktop publishing was introduced, where absolutely “anyone” can do it!
Heck there were (and still are) software packages available through my son’s primary school for 8 year olds to do their own web pages… that’s how “easy” it is supposedly… Not!
Anyone that “knows” understands that building a web “site” is but only one variable in the much bigger, complicated equation of getting a business online.
But you can’t really tell the public that, and my competition was hotting up, with the “kid-next-door” and “Joe Blow” all able to supposedly do the same thing I could… and they could do it for peanuts too!
But you know what you get when you pay peanuts don’t you? 
Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!
Around late 1997 through to 1999, difficult personal circumstances mean that my memories are a tad on the cloudy side.
I do know that during this time I met a couple of people who were to have a significant impact on my future in the industry… one of whom I’ve done a lot of work with over the years.
But around that time I saw that, by trying to do more for Australian web based businesses, and by getting my name “out there”, I could grab some more web design work.
And one of the ways to do that was to take my “SydWest” local business concept and enlarge on it a little more…
You know…
“Today, Sydney. Tomorrow – The World!”
(can you hear the evil maniacal laughter there?)
Well, maybe not quite the whole world… Australia should be an easier target