1. Pass on Buying into Get-rich-quick Schemes
The sad fact of the matter is that almost no get-rich-quick schemes that you can buy work. Neither will that colon cleanser make you lose weight. Both products have something in common, they make you lose all your... money.
There's actually a small story I remember a long time ago that someone told me about the stock market, which applies adequately to making money online. It went something along the lines of an economics professor and his student thinking of a hypothetical situation related to investment in the stock market.
The professor related the whole problem to finding a $20 bill on the ground. If you and everyone else was looking for a $20 bill on the ground, then they would all already be found. This goes the same for getting rich quick off of the internet, it doesn't happen.
2. Don't spam your website links.
I've seen many beginners do just that, spam their website's link all over the internet. It's a horrible idea. The way that search engines rank websites and outbound links essentially boils down to your link being on someone else's website, but your link must also be in a relevant context.
I could go along the entirity of the internet and spam my blog's address. It wouldn't do me a bit of good and it would just waste my own personal time. Now, if I were to write a comprehensive article detailing about internet scams and fraud, I could link my website in a manner such as:
95% of people who try to start a business on the internet fail because they lack true initiative. They buy into e-books and courses that promise them massive gains for a mere $100 starter investment fee, but those people fail to follow through the majority of the time and end up leaving a bad review on those courses. There are places that review online money making strategies fairly in an attempt to thwart this mindset.Probably not the best example, but you get the point. Relevant keyword text is king when it comes to outbound links and search engines. Don't just spam your website around, it's wasted time.
3. Easy doesn't translate into "no learning required!"
I've probably spent a thousand hours researching things for internet marketing. Landing pages, money making strategies, what types of offers convert the best amongst African American men who are balding and have only one foot.
Selling on the internet is like fishing in the ocean. Without the right bait, you won't hook the right fish. If you want a sea bass, you need to use the right lure, otherwise it'll be more-miss-than-hit with the fish that you catch. Oh, and did I mention that there were 6.7 billion fish out in this sea but only a small fraction are willing to buy your new fishing lure?
Like everything else, learning is almost synonymous with work. If you refuse to learn, then you're refusing to profit. The only people that hand out money to you are churches and charities, not normal people.
4. Competing with the Big Dogs while you're still a Small Dog is a bad idea.
I've seen it countless times before; the newbie to internet marketing immediately goes out and purchases $300 worth of ads on a PPC advertisement service. He then ends up with, and I say this tentatively, $10 in a return on his investment. Do not just jump into the pool and immediately expect to be able to out-swim everybody else.
There's countless free resources that can teach you the basics, but the intermediates are something you have to learn and figure out for yourself. That being said, it's like how you first learned how to ride a motorbike, then how to drive a car, then maybe if you specialized into the driving career enough, you learned how to drive a race car. It takes time to know how to be able to compete.
5. Try not to Spend Money You Don't Have
While this relates to the first point somewhat, it's a general lesson I've learned from life. Don't spend money that you can't do without. How many online money making plans do you think in the entire history have failed by people who would be considered experts in the field of marketing? Plenty.
The real question is, do you think that they bet their last dime and penny on their plans? Probably not. I know it's an oxymoron when it comes to talking to people who are trying to earn more money, but don't spend money unless you can do without it.
6. Spend Smartly
Once again, a point that's related to a previous point. Spend your money smartly, especially if you're starting out. Rather than buying expensive keywords in Google Adwords, buy some of the cheaper ones. Stay out of bidding wars for keywords, on that same note.
On the same side of that coin, don't be afraid to spend if you know what you're doing. If you can pay someone to do something that earns you a 800% return on your investment, do it (so long as it's legal and moral). There's two kinds of wasted money on the internet, that which is hastily spent and returns nothing on your initial investment and money that stays in your pocket and could have been used to increase your own investment.
7. Be Unique
The guys who profited from big ideas, Google, Apple and even Microsoft, all had one major thing going for them—unique ideas. Microsoft had DOS, Apple had the mouse, and Google had the idea to use ordinary budget PCs to run a giant search engine that now is the leading search engine on the internet. All of these were small ideas that grew into giant things.
Find your own niche when it comes to internet marketing, preferably something that you know something about. Write a whole bunch about it, practically until your fingers bleed. If you put enough effort into it and you can find a way to make yourself stand out from everybody else, you'll develop a following that will support you. Then and only then can you truly make a living from whatever niche you're writing about. Be unique, even adding a small spin to an already-made idea will benefit you.
8. Spam is Best Left Canned
This is the internet, 6.7 billion fish live here. Don't pollute it with something else that's unnecessary and makes it hard to swim. Every time I see a newbie starting off by spamming, be it either an affiliate link or whatever, it makes me sad. The poor kid will never get anywhere.
Now don't get me wrong, advertising can be used efficiently to market a product and turn a profit. Spam is advertising, but it's inefficient advertising. Who's going to click on an email that says, "xxx viagra market cows fish long nights microsoft word http://some-site-that's-fake.com"?
And please don't tell me that you can make it efficient by automating it. If you remember auto-dialers, they worked on the same concept. If you've been paying attention to the news, you'll know that you can go to jail for mass spamming. Just don't do it.
9. Build Rome One Brick at a Time
The old adage says that Rome wasn't built in a day. Nor was any fortune amassed in a week. You have to earnestly try and give it your all if you ever want to truly succeed. Do it and you will eventually get somewhere. I keep saying that get-rich-quick schemes don't usually work, but get-rich-in-the-long-or-mid-term plans do. Stick at them and make them work as best as you can, no matter how you're doing it.
10. Make Sure to Have a Constant Supply of Effort
Internet marketing is like a car that runs on fuel. What kind of fuel? Effort, my dear boy (or lass). Without it, you'll give up. What person has made money from trying something and then giving up? Not a one.
Sometimes internet marketing is about as simple as trying and failing until the one day that you try and succeed. It's a funny market and an even more peculiar job, but if you think about it, it's no different than anything else. Just keep at it and one day you're guaranteed to succeed!
And that about wraps it up, with my 10 tips for making would-be internet entrepreneurs succeed. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be going back to some seriously hard work and managing some more blog posts in which I review online money making strategies and schemes.
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