First annual report, my success online

On the 5th of December 2004 I returned to Sweden after having been worked in a non-profit organization in Denmark for 5 years. I had no contact with internet during those years and before that in 1999 I had only some minor basic knowledge with HTML.

Everything I owned then was about $40, around 20 books, some clothes and some other stuff. The only people I knew in Sweden were my family, some relatives and a few others.

But I had done my own studies in philosophy and had gotten every question I ever wondered answered. I no longer had any questions on how to live life, meaning with life, metaphysics and everything else that I had been figuring about earlier. Additionally I had learned the basics of managing a business, communication and got used to work a lot (I worked 70-100 hours a week for those 5 years).

This is the first report on what I have achieved year 1 and my plans for year 2.

History

My mother picked me up in a car in Denmark and I could rent a room in her flat. I borrowed my mothers computer to make the first web site. As I had no money I managed to get social welfare money for one month so that I could pay rent and food. I had dropped out of college and so I managed to get into school again. I was in school the needed hours per week to be considered a "full time student" and got money for living from the state. With this money I was then able to buy my computer and support my living.

I had to recover my lost knowledge about HTML and I made the first site about my short stories and essays. It was with dark background and frames.

My little brother told me about Google - a name I had never heard about before - and I got to understand that it is now Google instead of Altavista ...

I wanted to show up on Google and get visitors to my site and in this way I got into the area of SEO. I started to read articles from SiteProNews and various others - about 5 per week until I had read more than 50. I put back my old site about dragons I had made in 1999 on a free account on the Internet. I spent a lot of time submitting my two sites to search engines, web rings and directories. One of those directories was a ODP clone and by pure luck I got listed in the DMOZ - something I only understood what it was many months later. I was also submitting my short stories on various web sites to get feedback. I also made another site for an association I started to work with.

During this time I continued to write about one short story per week.

Then in beginning of February I did my first SEO job.

Shortly after that I remade my site about my writings so that it has a white background for easier reading and I also started to learn CSS which was totally new for me. I remade the site so that all design was controlled from the external CSS file. That was like incredible for me.

In April I made the JW Webbdesign site - my Swedish web site about SEO and web design. This I remade 3 times and a week later I put it up on it's own domain name and a web host.

In may I decided to start a company despite my parents advice not to do it and I registered JW Webbdesign as a company to the authorities in Sweden. It was in this time that I also started to involve in various forums. First a Swedish webmaster forum, then NamePros and Digitalpoint.

In June I bought arcadeshack.com on an auction for $75 and spent more then a week remaking it with different features.

In August I got the idea to make a list of the best free directories and list them. I took a free domain name for this, namely addurl.nu and later this list went from 100 to 300. Also I started a directory submission there that has been a total success.

During this time I also started to get clients for both web design and SEO and things started moving - very fast.

I achieved top 5 ranking on all major search engines for the term webbdesign (Swedish for web design) and this brought to me e-mails from new clients each week.

The money I received in my company I all invested in buying new web sites and buying links. In this way there was no income tax to pay and I could still live on the money from my studies.

This kept going on: clients in web design and SEO, managing my studies, my work in the association, own projects, investing money and so on - it was extreme some times, I can tell you that!

In middle of October I reached my first goal and could confirm: I am making a living online.

Today, 2 months later

Today I am operating 25 web sites with a total value of more than $7000. Each and every day more than 1500 people are visiting one of my sites.

I have established business partners in India, USA, UK and Sweden.

Even if I outsource half of my work I have hard time to keep up with clients coming to me even though I have doubled my prices.

My gross income has increased each month since I started to get income in august and are now over $1800 for December.

This was all achieved in one year, with no funds, no training - all by myself.

I am pleased with myself actually and it shows it can be done.

The future

The future looks very good.

I have now ended my studies and will move to a flat in beginning of February. This will enable me to be more effective. I will then also sell arcadeshack.com and hope to get as much as $2000 for it.

I have about 10 projects myself that I did not have time for that I want to put in reality. That I plan to get done during February to April.

In April my plan is to move to my business partner in India. From there I will run my business and also train them personally in SEO. They are running an IT company with 8 staff and I will make them all very busy, he he.

My plan in India is then to only work half of the days and the other half I will continue my writings. It was the writing that I originally came back to Sweden for and now when I make my living easily online I can put time for it. I want to finish my first novel and also write the other two novels. When I finish that I perhaps return to Sweden, I am not sure. The first novel is in Swedish, maybe I'll write the other ones in English, I will see about that.

You are welcome to follow my adventure on this blog!

First annual report, my success online

History

Today, 2 months later

The future

Other posts