Truths About Online Marketing That Guru's Wont Tell You

It Takes Time

Now that you’ve got a watchful eye for things, you’re ready to get started. You’ll need to decide whether or not you want to approach making money online on a part-time or full-time basis. The benefit of doing things part-time is that you can learn while you’ve got another source of income, which means you don’t have to have a large nest egg you can live off of while you get your income ramped up. The downside to part-timing is that it will take you a bit longer and you might not be as motivated to get things up to speed quickly.

Approaching making money online on a full-time basis is very risky if you’re new to the internet and how things work. If you’ve got some marketing, advertising, copywriting or blogging experience, you have a good base to go off of and you’ll likely be okay if you can afford to be without a steady income for a few months. You’re pretty much set if you already have existing websites which are generating traffic, as you can begin marketing to these visitors and start generating some revenue almost immediately.

It Takes Money

As mentioned above, you may have to invest some cash to get things started. Especially if you’re doing affiliate marketing or making money online through any medium that involves paid advertising. Learning how to use Google AdWords, Facebook ads and the like will cost you a bit to get started and get things mastered. However, once you’re proficient you’ll make this back very quickly as your campaigns scale up.

How much money do you need to get started? Honestly, not that much. It costs about $10 per year to own a domain name, and you can get reliable web hosting for $4 per month. You can do your own writing, graphics, and programming for free. Or you can hire these things out for very cheap. (In future articles I plan to write more about how to outsource everything for unbelievably low prices). You can do your own online promotion and link building. And you can even get started buying advertising with free introductory vouchers. So don’t let a “no money” situation prevent you from getting started. There are plenty of ways to “bootstrap” a fledgling online business. Just keep in mind there will be minimal costs along the way, and you’ll grow faster if you re-invest 100% of your profits for as long as you can.

Do Some Research, But Don’t Get Stuck

If you’re new to things, begin by researching the various methods of making money online. The most common are through affiliate marketing, which is the marketing of others’ products for a cut or commission, doing business through eBay or Amazon partnerships, and through selling or placing advertising on your website(s) or blogs. Fully explaining each of these areas can take virtually forever, so you’re on your own with learning more about them. Pick the one that suits your skillset the best, and learn more about it to see if you think you’ll be successful.

If you know anyone that’s already making money online that can mentor you, see if they’re willing to help. Don’t ask someone to “teach you everything they know”, as it’s somewhat insulting that you haven’t done any research for yourself and your request will almost certainly be denied. Instead, do your homework first, write down a list of intelligent questions, try to research the answers, and then bring the questions for which you couldn’t find answers to your mentor. This is a far better approach and will allow you to get your questions answered without looking like a beginner.

There are a ton of blogs and forums out there that focus on make money online, especially when it comes to advertising and affiliate marketing. Spending a few hours reading through these can provide you with an immense amount of information and may help dispel any myths you had come upon while researching. You will also find communities of like-minded individuals from which you can learn as you go so if you find a resource that’s full of knowledge, be sure to bookmark it and return frequently. When it comes to making money online, you can never know too much.

Keep in mind that researching, however important to get your bearings, is not putting money in your pocket. So many new would-be entrepreneurs get stuck in “analysis paralysis” and fail to get any projects off the ground. Don’t let this happen to you.