Internet marketing can be a good way to earn a second income, but the pitfalls are many and vary in nature.

I’ve been doing various forms of online marketing for 9-10 years now at the time of this writing and I’ve gone through the stages of being a “newbie” internet marketer, to super-affiliate, master list builder, email marketer etc…

Yes, I’ve made 2-6, 000.00 in a day, but my hopes for my internet marketing business have more to do with helping people that it does with how much can I rake in, take in.

There’s tons of internet marketing forums out there, believe me I know,  I used to frequent many of them because it WAS my market place, it was where my target audience hung out.  I was in the niche of marketing to other “marketers” but truth be told, the niche was really marketing to 95% home business owning wanna-be pipe dreamers.

And that’s the point I’d like to make here, that your success is not dependent upon ANY ebook, internet marketing course, tip, method, ninja tactics, stealth marketing methods etc….

The people that I see who do well with internet marketing

• aren’t marketing savants,
• They’re not master technical whizzes
• They’re not WordPress, XSitePro, Joomla experts…

Nah, none of that really matters…

The one consistent ACTION that most successful people took in order to go from fledgling newbie internet marketer to money-making intermediate to pro-marketer was… wait for the (internet marketing) secret called….hard work.

“This is where you fall down” like the guy says in the Mortal Kombat movie.

Yes it takes hard work of one kind or another to get going with a successful online business, and once you figure out what works for you (might not be anything those ebooks and courses told you, and then again it might be something you learned there…it’s a crapshoot though).

The allure of internet marketing is that the start up costs are low, the entry level is non-existent to get a website going, but what this “open-range” mentality does to newbies without direction is they take internet marketing not as seriously as they should.

Because it’s so easy to get started, some newbies to internet marketing will think that being successful is easy too, so when those “experts” start selling easy-to-do pipe dreams, it’s a self-fulfilling fallacy that’s being propagated because it’s HARD to be successful as a newbie unless you’re focused in a certain direction, and developing the few skills you need to get good at this “game”.

Do you need to be good at building websites? No

Email marketing? NO

Do you need to struggle a little bit at first with marketing something on the internet for profit until you find something that works for you, THEN apply massive action and leverage and time into the “thing” or action that works for you?

YES

If I had to start all over again with Internet Marketing, what would I do?

Well, first who the heck am I?

Am I someone who just told you he was successful, and dared to publish it on the Internet, therefore it must be true?

Why would you believe me when I say I’m successful at this “internet marketing” when truth be told, I don’t have the biggest Aweber list, the best technical skills with websites, the highest-trafficked blog to sell stuff to internet marketing newbies…

Answer is: You don’t know, do you?

All I can say is that I  make next to nothing selling ebooks to internet marketing newbies and as some of my buddies in the marketing-to-other-marketers niche know, which this is a profitable business to be in, you will always have to be on the  lookout for the latest internet marketing product launch, ebook, course, tell-all, BIG SECRET etc…

What are those guys doing, really?

They gotta keep coming up with the latest hot sellers themselves or run hand-in-hand with other markets touting their stuff in order to stay relevant in this game.

So, if you want a BUSINESS, think like a business-person.

If your JOB as a marketer is to spend more time finding new stuff to sell, and less time learning how to be better at internet marketing, then you , they… have a job not a business.

And if you dare to go on the “dark side” (sarcasm here) and try to become an expert at something, or cast all the hype aside and just work, work, work, then you’ll increase your true worth as a human being and as a marketer who has something of true value to share.

I’m jaded. cynical, realistic…whatever you wanna call it, but to get back to my original question….”what would I do if I were to start internet marketing all over again?”

My gosh, you read this far down, Bless You, you might have a shot at this!

First of all, business is business and jobs are jobs

Be able to differentiate between the two.

As was aforementioned a few blathering paragraphs ago, some marketers have a job of touting and promoting hyped up products they never applied themselves towards testing or implementing.  Many of them claim to have an “online business” but that business is to be a shill for the next great launch.

Look into different business models that work with internet marketing methods.

Recurring income is great and provides a stable income but you need to be in the right niche and the gains, income come very slowly at first but they accumulate nicely over time (do you have the patience and faith for this?).

Selling one-time fee products - you have to do this on a massive scale in order to make massive profits and will need to have the ability to reach a wide audience easily, REPEATEDLY, in order to do so.

Selling high-end products- now this one makes sense because it means you put less effort into the “marketing” and make more form doing so, but it’s still a one-off proposal, you sent a great customer to buy something form someone else.

Blogging- blogging is great, it’s easy but what do you sell, what is the site’s personality, where’s the business plan for this, where’s continuity of the income, how can you scale it up and out?

Products- making your own products is definitely a laborious thing to do for most people, IF they care about what they create.  If you’re passionate about a certain niche and want to stick with it for a while, then it makes sense for you to become the sole voice for your readers and to provide them with the products you feel they should be buying.

Then just make more of your own products and own this niche, develop an affiliate program for it if you wanna go big with it.

This is the point where I should tell you to sign up for my newsletter to get more awesome content but I don’t want you to do that, not now.

Just think about this as a business treat it as a business, think about things like business models, which ones do your personality and strengths align you with most properly, what do you feel comfortable doing long-term etc…?

I’m not a savant at building websites, nor at marketing, not by a long shot, but I do just fine with my internet marketing business after I stuck to following the things mentioned above, in random non-focused detail

My Internet Marketing Blog