Internet Marketing and How to Make Money Online

What is Internet Marketing and is it any different from the typical make money online crap that we are constantly inundated with?  The answer is it is and it isn’t.

Internet Marketing is nothing more than marketing online.  Bloggers and even website owners like to lump the two together.  An internet business doesn’t make you an internet marketer. Basically, it isn’t the stuff you are selling online..it is how you are selling it.

The rub to this is that what separates an internet marketer from someone who is just trying to make money online by blogging or whatever are the methods. An internet marketer is more creative and more adept to coping with changes. In essence, they evolve.

The make money online segment want blueprints that are built with regimented guarantees. When they don’t get the results they thought they should get, they give up, cry foul and walk away to the next big thing.

Internet Marketing is all about asking the RIGHT QUESTIONS…..

A marketer isn’t satisfied with the how’s on how to do something….they want to know why it works the way it does. By knowing that, they have more potential to increase their earnings…

People who are looking to make money online typically will do this one of two ways….

1. They will go into it haphazardly with really very little direction, not knowing who they are marketing to, what products their market wants and how to monetize their site. In essence, they are like a rudderless ship, buying into anything that may work without doing their homework.  Essentially what they think is right about making money online is very, very wrong because they have taken the common sense factor out of the equation.
2. They learn some fundamentals of marketing and the fundamentals of how to get their market to find them online. They study online business models that are proven to work and figure out a way how to bridge the two together.   Whether this is through building an authority site and branding yourself as the leader OR producing a ton of niche sites, doesn’t matter.  What does matter is how you build it and the internet marketing strategies you implement.

Most who are struggling to make money online suffer a slow death of marketing  information overload….they can build a model and even if they do, they are off to the next big thing before they finish. Here are some internet marketing techniques you can start to use today…

You are an online marketer if:

You are selling affiliate products via your own website, a web 2.0 property, through forum marketing, through interacting with a list, ect. ect.

You May Not be an Internet Marketer if:

You are selling ad space or placing contextual ads on your site.  In this case, you are building a business model BUT the business model isn’t centered around your creativity, a chief component to marketing in general.  And if this is you, you may or may not be leaving money on the table.

If you are brand new to internet marketing, here are a few articles that I think you should read right now to help clear things up for you:

• New to Internet Marketing?  Read this first
• Why Most Bloggers and new Internet marketers fail to make money online- If your strategy is the same as everyone else’s, prepare for a slow and hard climb to the top.
• 14 Myths most Online Marketers Believe- This article attempts to debunk some of the more common myths that are deemed as fact online when it comes to making money online.
• SEO is NOT Marketing-  New internet marketers get confused or “rabbit trailed” when they first begin to do marketing online.  They seem to think that SEO is the solution for passive income.  And then they get confused when things don’t go their way.

The differences between an internet marketer and the work at home, earn money online crowd.  First, understand that internet marketing is not a business model.  It encompasses many smaller groups in it community.  The internet is a medium for advertising and no more.  As a marketer, you job is to find ways to reach your audience online and “speak” to them in a way that will get them to buy from you.

I have been doing marketing online for over a decade at this point.  My sites aren’t pretty and aren’t meant to be.  I don’t bother myself (in most cases) with slick design.  For a better idea of what this site (and what I) is about, you can check out my 114 things I wished I knew about online marketing then, that I know now.  It pretty much covers my views on a lot of things that deal with making money online, including blogging for money, selling to a list (aka permission marketing), getting traffic, getting links and a smattering of more interesting sound bytes on things that have to do with how to make money online.

What you need to make money online as a living…

Making money online is not as hard as you think….there are only a few things that you REALLY need to do it.

1. Have a Marketing Model to Follow- In this case, you can take something “old” and refashion it to work in another market.  Model’s that work typically will work from one market to another.  For instance, I have an example of how someone took the artist’s market at etsy and created a product that was geared for artists to build their business.  You don’t try to create something from scratch….You take something that works and segment it to the market you are going after.
2. Be Able to Understand the Model-  Having the model is not enough.  You need to ask the questions that will help you understand why it works.
3. The Model Must Be Proven-  Once again, don’t try to fix what’s not broken and don’t try to build an alternative to a tire for your car.
4. The Best Model is Evergreen in Nature (won’t stop working tomorrow)
5. Must be scalable AND can be replicated
6. The Marketing Model shouldn’t be adversely affected by outside sources (a business model involving search or the potential for a google slap is not a good model).  How to google Proof Your Business
7. Finally, the products within the model should be just evergreen as the model itself-  If you are going to put the time and effort into building a business, why would you set yourself up for failure by making the product not worth anything 2 years from now?