Most people who start out in internet marketing begin with a dream. Most then quite rightly set themselves short term and long term goals and start on the road to wealth. But, let’s face it, internet marketing can be a pretty confusing business when you first start out. Be kind to yourself and realize that there is a lot of learning to be done. Some days it feels the more you read and find out the stranger it all looks, and you find another piece of the puzzle that you can’t quite see where it fits. How can you put it all together so it makes sense to make money online?

One of the most useful things you can do is to create a really big mind-map. I’m not talking here about using mind-mapping software or a small page on your computer, or in a book. Grab yourself a really big piece of paper, at least 1 yard by 1 yard and pin it to a wall or a large board where you can work on it laying flat. This is the start of your master map. Give it a central title and image; “Internet Marketing” would be a logical choice. The purpose of this giant mind-map is for you to visually be able to start connecting all those dots, to organize your developing knowledge.

Start by using great big letters for the main points of internet marketing and making money online. Some ideas to start with might be; PPC, Traffic, Websites, Affiliate, Investment and so on. Use whatever seems important to you, these are just the main ideas or areas behind what you understand internet marketing to be. It doesn’t matter at this point which of these methods you intend to use. Neither does it matter if you think you may have left something out.

The whole idea behind this map is that you’re going to keep adding to it as you learn. Next look at what you know already that you can add branches to from those main ones. As an example branching off traffic you might have; social networking, blogs, and forums. Keep going and add in whatever you know and whatever means something to you.

Because this is a very personal mind-map it doesn’t have to be neat and tidy, in fact if you are really thinking about things it won’t be. Go back to the basic rules of mind-mapping and use lots of colors and symbols and different variations in size. If you don’t know what I mean I suggest researching Tony Buzan who originally came up with the concept of mind-maps.

As you keep digging down through your knowledge feel free to include little notes to yourself, (you can even use post-its), e.g. – I don’t understand this, find out more. Include emotions too, both positive and negative. Examples of this might be; I hate writing, this bit scares me. Just put in anything that comes to mind. Make links, (oh yes, links – that is something else to do with internet marketing you think) – ah-ha your mind just made a connection – add it on. Back to making links – as you go through your map, use lines, arrows, asterisks, however you prefer to link things to each other.

You have now started your mind-map. Use it to help you plan where you are going next with your internet marketing career. Look at your beginnings and decide what the strengths in your knowledge are NOW that you can be using to drive your business? Look too at where there may be gaps in your current knowledge; these are the things you are going to be looking to find out more about, from e-books, forums and experience. Keep adding to your mind-map keeping in mind that it’s a working document, your personal puzzle. As the pieces start to fall into place you never know in what great directions your internet business will go, and you’ll so be making money online!

There has been some debate recently; particularly with the huge amount of focus on Social Marketing strategies as to whether content really is still king on the internet. Forums, blogs and social sites are where people want to make conversation, not content, right? So as internet marketers are we kidding ourselves to believe that content is still king? Make Money Online

We love to talk with our friends, and the internet has become as much a place for socializing as it is a place to find information. People are no longer spending hours on the internet just to find out about stuff, they come to find and make friends and communicate with each other; Chat rooms and social sites are the prime examples of this.

Some people may even find it a little scary that there are people on the net who can’t even make a trip to the local shop without consulting with their facebook or twitter friends first! This is of course one reason social marketing has become so important in internet marketing. Cory Docotrow (you can find his bio at craphound.com) pointed out that if you chose taking your movies to a desert island rather than your friends, you would be labeled a sociopath. Content just gives us something to talk about. Make Money Online

Having something to talk about seems pretty important though. How many of you have ever had one of those conversations with a friend, or colleague, where after a couple of hello’s and how are you’s there is nothing left to talk about, except perhaps the weather? Chat rooms and back yard fences are of course great places to spread a little gossip and some people never seem to run out of it. Where does that leave the internet marketer?

You can of course waste hours of your time gossiping on a chat site, and letting all your followers on twitter know that you are going to the bathroom, but we all know that would be ridiculous, and it’s not going to do much for your business either. Some content writers manage to fill their pages with celebrity gossip and this is one answer to the content/conversation issue. For most internet marketers though, this is not really an option.

So should we all throw in the towel and forget about providing content? Most definitely not! Have a look at what people ARE talking about and you will find it’s content, content, and more content. Internet marketers are also well aware of the fact that the search engines just love content. Even if no-one was actually reading the content, the search engines still look for it.

Good, fresh, interesting content. People read articles, read blogs and read website content. Much as people enjoy chatting with friends and socializing they also want information, news and interesting new knowledge. Content is most definitely still king. So as internet marketers, let’s give them something to talk about!
Make Money Online

Thousands of people every day make a start or a re-start in internet marketing. With hope in their heart they follow the dream of “How to make $997 a day without lifting a finger”. Three weeks, months, or years down the track they give up, no richer and probably not much wiser. Here is a light-hearted look at 11 surefire ways to fail.

1. Sign up as an affiliate for every product that you think looks like fun. Set up a free website with your affiliate links, sit back and wait for the money to come rolling in.

2. Open every e-mail and buy every new make money online product that is sent your way. Don’t worry that you have only completed step 1 of the last miracle program – this one has got to be better!

3. Set up a brilliant landing page for your product, and then cover it with adsense ads that people can click on instead of buying from you.

4. Comment on 50 blog sites a day with “Hey, that was interesting, have a look at my site www.GuruCreation.com”

5. Do similar things on 50 forums a day, which have nothing to do with what you are trying to sell. Make sure not to add anything useful to any threads, but do be sure to make a new thread entitled “Check out this great new product.”

6. Write one article every six months. Submit it to Ezine articles and wait for the traffic to come flooding to your site. Oh yes, make sure to use your targeted keyword at least once in every second sentence. If you are very clever you can change where you put the sentences and submit the same article to around 20 other sites.

7. Open ad campaigns on Google and Yahoo. Start with a daily budget of $500 and around 80 keywords that you think have something to do with what you are selling. Write one killer ad that tells people to buy it from you because you are the best and they need it. Sit back and wait for your bank manager to call.

8. Buy a list of 2,000 strangers and send out e-mails once a day to let them know that you understand their pain and can personally help them enlarge their penis size. Sit back, relax, and wait for the money to pour in.

9. Pay your 8 year old brother to get all his friends on bebo to follow you on twitter to be in the chance to win a free iPod. Sit back, relax and be ready to face a law suit for showing 8 year olds how to enlarge their penis.

10. Make sure to visit yahoo answers 3 times a day. Questions such as “How can I tell if I am pregnant?”, “Does my dog have fleas?” or “How do I remove noise from a picture in Photoshop?” can all be answered with “Click here to find out how to enlarge your penis”. Sit back and wait to be banned.

11. Tell everyone that all internet marketing is a scam. Give up and catch the bus to work.