Internet Marketing for the 1st Time, your journey begins here!

This article is for 1^st time Internet Marketers that are unsure which direction to take, given the huge choice of options available. It’s my take on Internet marketing from the last three years. I have made many mistakes along the way and found that one of the biggest problems facing IMs is their lack of cohesion or time management. Hopefully some of the advice and tips that you read here will give you a clearer picture on how to approach Internet Marketing. Even if you have been active in IM for a while you may still find the odd nugget of information that might be helpful, and why not share your thoughts on the best course of action for new starts. The article is not by any means comprehensive and is more of a condensed version on initial preparation to start Internet Marketing.

Decide where you want to start

There is no special skill set for Internet Marketing and it can be implemented any number of ways, that being said it’s best if you know which direction to take because of the size of the market. The obvious place to start is to do what you do best; whatever line of work you’re in you can find something on the market that slots in with this. Become an authority on your expertise and don’t let this frighten you because no matter what your subject is there will always be people looking for information. I have seen blogs on people’s personal lives which are very popular and get lots of feedback from site visitors. So even if think you don’t have anything to say you’d be surprised at what’s sells.

It pays to do your Research

This is a given for any IM whether new or seasoned, it’s the same as anything thing else in life, you just don’t buy into anything until you’ve checked it out first. Best advice here is to find say about half a dozen reputable authority sites that have an open discussion forum and stick to them. Discussion is what makes the web tick over and they are a goldmine of information to help you decide whether to buy into that latest IM product. Another tip is to set up alerts via your Google account; you can set the time intervals for email alerts to suite your needs. Go to your Google account page and look for the alerts icon.

IM Tools and Strategies

Internet marketing tools are what the big guns use every day and to a great extent, millions of wanabe IMs, the difference between the two? Commitment, strategy, connections and know how. So IM tools are not just the applications we use like auto responders but also your organizational abilities to put it all together. Should you stick to one task and see it to the end? Or should you diversify as much as possible to increase your chances of earning revenue? These two questions are very much prevalent for IMs and affiliate marketers. Take a look at the snapshot below of what’s available for Internet Marketers.

Internet Marketing Tools/Strategies (Snapshot)

SEO, content management systems, Recruiting affiliates, auto responders, Squeeze pages and sales funnels, Membership sites, Joint Ventures, PPC, AdWords, PLR & Resell Rights giveaways, Brandable E-Books & Reports, Video sales pages, YouTube Promotion, Podcasting,  Article submission, Social Networking, AdSense, Commission Tracking and many more.

Practically every publishing platform on the web can be used for promotion purposes whether it’s in text, Video or audio, even images can be used to gain traffic thus revenue.

Taking pause for affect

It’s a bit mind blowing especially for the newbie but if you’re serious about Internet Marketing then you will have to be prepared for hard work. There is one more vital component and that is TIME MANAGEMENT. Sticking all this together in a coherent and organised way is the real job at hand.

Where are you at the moment?

Are you at the start or halfway through? If you are just starting out into Internet Marketing then you need to decide which direction to take. Many people start out with a blog or a social network site either one can be used to make money online. Both of these options have good and bad points or to put it another way they have different levels of commitment. As I have said before in previous articles you don’t need to have a blog to be successful. Of course I’m talking about social networking where you can accomplish very similar or better earning results as opposed to just blogging. A lot of people, me included opt to use both mediums to diversify as much as possible, but this can be quite demanding especially if you have a full time job or family or both.

Pick a direction and stick with it

You hear this advice all the time on the web and to a great extent it’s the correct way to go about your business. For someone starting out for the first time this advice is crucial for focusing on your goals. There are never enough hours in the day to do everything online and if I were just starting out I would choose to connect up to a handful of social networks. By doing this you can take advantage of more experienced IMs advice and build your own knowledge up. Speaking of social networks you have a wide choice of options to generate income from. FaceBook is a point in case and is proving to be a very fertile location to set up what they call fan pages. Many other social networks do similar stuff and most of them allow you to monetize your space by placing ads or affiliate links.

Give more than you take

This is a tried and tested formula or strategy that has proven it’s worth time and time again. You have to give value to your readers whether through email, social networks or blogs. People are creatures of habit and when they click on a link to find out about certain information they expect to find it. So if they arrive on your page and don’t find what they are looking for they will leave and probably won’t come back again. Giving value also encourages people to share your link with their social network and so the viral effect begins.

Finishing thoughts

This is but a snapshot of Internet Marketing; hopefully it will give you an idea of where to start. I have left out Blogging because if i had to do it all again i would choose to concentrate on social networking first, but blogging is still a great platform to engage with people and to monetize. If you do choose to start with blogging put everything into it and study from your peers.

Feel free to leave your comments

Thanks for reading

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