About Me
Cash The Checks Blog Information..
Cash The Checks is a free financial advice and inspiration resource blog that began in 2004. This blog is supported 100% by ad space. Support our site by adding our link to your blog or by purchasing ad space. The more you help spread the word the more we can deliver. All posts are custom written and we do not sell any products, only provide free information.
Background Information..
My name is Edwin, owner of Cash The Checks. I’m a 28 year old who went from rags to riches becoming an internet entrepreneur. I had no knowledge of HTML nor marketing. I had $0 in my pocket. I didn’t even have the internet. Here’s a look at my journey..
The Beginning..
I got myself a compaq desktop computer that was extremely expensive at the time, but now isn’t worth more than $100. I got my hands on a “Juno free trial internet CD”. When my free trial ran out, I got a free trial with AOL. When that ran out, I finally became a paying AOL member. I wouldn’t be caught dead using AOL now, but you gotta start somewhere.
Just for fun, I created small simple sites at Angelfire.com using their templates. Now the best place to create a free site would be at http://pages.google.com. Whenever I saw a cool effect on some page I came across, I’d view the source of the page, find it, then copy it onto mine. After seeing codes long enough, I began to learn how to code myself. Just simple HTML and nothing else. It’s the easiest language you can learn, as the basic codes can be learned in a day.
That was when I began to see there was a potential to make money online. Here’s how I began. First there was a membership to FreeRide.com, where you get “points” for filling out surveys, visiting advertisers and subscribing to newsletters. The points could be redeemed for gift certificates. Nowadays the best place to do this is MyPoints.com. A membership with All Advantage was next. They paid $0.60 per hour to have an ad running at the bottom of your screen while surfing online. That amount was pitiful, but when you’re broke, earning 5 bucks a day for using your computer all day sounded like a good deal. Then Spedia.com was next, which was the same type of company but they paid slightly more. I would use a company called PhoneHog.com which gave you free phone cards in exchange for viewing advertisers’ websites. With no money invested whatsoever I managed to pay for my internet and have a hobby as well.
My introduction into the affiliate world..
None of these things directly led to me making any decent money though, just freebies and some lunch money. But the knowledge and experienced gained was priceless. I realized that the way to make money online was through affiliate program sales. Since I had no real business ideas nor any capital, making a simple website with a link to a sponsor was the way to go. Free hosting accounts were easy to find, I had an angelfire account, a tripod account and an account with 8op.com, which offered free bannerless hosting at the time. My first real sponsor was CDNow.com selling CD’s. While I didn’t make a sale with them, it taught me how the sponsor-affiliate relationship works. Nowadays there’s much bigger affiliate programs like ShareAShale.com, CommissionJunction.com, Amazon.com and Google Adsense that sell a wide variety of products and pay you a percentage per sale or pay you a few cents per click you send them.
Advertising..
Free traffic is always the best kind of traffic, but it’s hard to get. So paying for it was the best alternative. It was at this time I was introduced to Google Adwords, Overture (now Yahoo! Search Marketing), and Findwhat (now Miva) and Kanoodle. These PPC SE’s (pay-per-click search engines) allowed me to purchase traffic and direct it straight to the sponsor. So not even a website was necessary. It’s not as easy as it sounds, there was click-fraud, trial and error, biddng wars and many negative ROI (return on investment) campaigns. You have to know how to write an effective ad, how to properly utilize capitalization, action words to drive buyers (not browsers/clickers/lookers) to your ad. Other methods of advertising included link trades, directory submissions and social networking sites. All of these methods were employed and the checks began to grow.
Online Entrepreneurship..
Next up came the creation of dozens of websites. Each one created in a few days, costing only the value of the domain, hosting and the labor (time is money). Advertising expenses were also kept at a minimum to start. Sites with little to no maintenance, making a few dollars every day was the goal here. I’ve always believed it’s better to have 100 small businesses (sites) making you $10 a day profit rather than having one which makes you $1,000 per day. Why? Some sites work, some don’t. Some get top Google placements, others don’t. It’s always trial and error. Don’t keep all your eggs in one basket. Spread your domain registrars out, spread your hosting accounts out, spread your niches out, spread your advertising techniques out. You don’t know what works til you try it, so try it all.
Biggest Mistakes I’ve Made..
“Leaving money on the table”
I have an idea, I research it, I begin to implement it, but never get finished with the project, so all the work done is wasted until the project gets done. Instead, I should finish everything I start and get it out there.
“It’s not good enough”
A new site is created and finished, but I hesitate to advertise it heavily, because I feel it can be better, and I don’t want to send people to an “unfinished” or “imperfect” site. I’d rather not have any traffic rather than having it and losing it. Instead, I should realize that nothing will ever be perfect, and you don’t make any money unless you advertise it. An ugly unfinished site will make more money than a well designed robust site that never goes online because it’s not perfect.
“Find your niche”
I still have not found my “niche” yet. I have sites in many different diverse fields, yet I’m not a “leading authority” in any one of them. I’m trying to conquer the financial blog market, the travel blog market, and the gadget market all at the same time. There’s this hesitation to stick to one thing because then I’d have nothing to fall back on.
The future..
Future projects include a network of city-specific travel blogs, niche social networking sites, converting old static sites to blogs, buying old sites and spicing them up and more involvement in dating site reviews websites. Other than that the creation of new projects will come to a halt and a greater emphasis will be placed on further developing and advertising existing sites like CashTheChecks.com.
Contact Me…
To inqure about advertising or link trades or anything else, email me here.
Eddie on 05/02/07
I sure do, full time since 2000.
bill on 10/26/07
Hi Eddie, did you start up your tutorial concept yet? I’m a newbie looking for some guidance on how to make money on the internet.
Bill
Eddie on 10/26/07
Not quite yet, but it’s in the works. 
mike grohalski on 12/30/07
hi…I just came accross your site and amazed…here i invented a new game and got a website in the last few weeks and never knew you were here…:(, i sure could of used your info and probably still can…any suggestions i am a dinosaur in the computer world!
H R on 01/18/08
Hi Eddie: I’m curious about several things you have going here. I have played two poker tournaments, knocked out by a king on the turn both times. I now play my home sim without looking at my hole cards. Won 50K last time. I also am looking into internet businesses as I can retire in less than two years. Would appreciate any advice you could offer… Harold
tim on 04/27/09
i am very interested !!
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dave on 05/02/07
Hi Eddie, Nice group of sites you have there. Are you doing this full time? Dave