14 Myths that Most Online Marketers Believe
If you are just starting out, you have probably seen that there are a lot of arguments when it comes to internet marketing. The reason for this is you have a massive amount of other marketers vying for your dollar to help you learn internet marketing. Few know what they are talking about. Most talk about things as fact because everyone else around states them as fact.
In a second, I am going to go into the 14 myths that for one reason or another most make money marketers believe. But first, what do YOU need to make money online? (hint- it isn’t as much as you think)
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, in reality, to make money online, you need just 2 things-
- Something to sell that people want or need
- A way to get them to find YOU or your site to buy it
The strategies that you employ to get there are really up to your creativity and marketing knowledge. Marketing online is not a one size fits all paint by the numbers kind of affair. Just to give you a real world example, a couple years ago, I built an eBay portal with ads of sellers selling pinball machines. I wanted to make some quick money and decided to use craigslist as a way to promote my page. The problem was that I didn’t have any pinball machines to sell.
To work around this problem, I posted ads on craigslist selling various pinball machines. On the backend, I created an auto responder that said I had sold it but I found a site that they may be interested in looking at that had great deals on pinball machines.
I worked craigslist hard and as a result was making roughly $50 a day for my efforts. Of course, this is a summary, since then craigslist has come down fairly hard on marketers and I have since abandoned the effort. But the point is made….
Regardless of what you think of this plan in terms of ethics or if you think it is clever or dishonest, it shows two viable things that are vital in every marketing campaign….
- Find you target market (people looking to buy pinball machines cheap)
- Send them to the place where they could buy what they were looking for(in this case, a link to eBay)
This is true regardless of whether you decide to get into list building, contextual ad marketing, content marketing, PPC marketing, or any other types of marketing. If you as a beginner can sink your head around that, you will be further ahead than 90% of the other bloggers blogging for dollars and social marketers that think that twitter is going to be their cash cow.
Here are some common myths that are espoused as fact that you will find elsewhere in blogs and other people’s sites online.
Number 1-I have heard that in order to make money online, I will need to have a website
Internet presence is important but not always necessary, depending on your strategy. For instance, if you are content to push affiliate products, then simply redirecting to the affiliate site through a forwarded domain can be done. In order to do that, you need to have an effective strategy to pull it off.
For instance, chances are likely against you if you are hoping to get traffic through organic listings. PPC will cost you far more if your site is a redirect. However, if you are marketing via the forums or some other social platform, then it is a viable option. That said, having website presence can be more beneficial than not having it.
Number 2-I have also heard that in order to make money online, I need to purchase hosting & a domain
While there is something to be said for owning your own domain and hosting it yourself, owning your own domain is not necessary. Usually, the folks that started this myth are marketers who stand a chance to earn some money if you decide to go with the host they suggest. The rest of the people simply have jumped on the bandwagon.
As more people suggest it, the more everyone thinks it is true. The reality is that Google pays no mind whether your site is on a free host or paid hosting. There is no benefit or penalty either way from an organic search view although the negatives from a marketing view would be that it looks less “professional” or “credible”.
Number 3-I see ads all over the place that promise to show how I could make $xx,xxx amount of dollars in a relatively short period of time with no experience or money necessary using a secret. Is that really possible?
Possible?…yes…but the chances are greatly against you. Listen, internet marketing is highly competitive and if it was truly that easy, everyone would be doing it. I recently saw a survey that polled 1,000 internet marketers. Out of 1,000 online marketers polled, nearly 70% had never earned over $100 in a single month. That is a reality check.
Number 4-So, are you saying that I shouldn’t try?
Not at all. Making money online is fun, addictive and much better than a day job. But be smart about it. Be realistic. If you are starting with nothing, then chances are earning a living online in a relatively short period of time is unlikely. Just like anything worthwhile, you need to learn the business and find what works for you. That means taking a lump or two on the head every now and then and learning from your mistakes as you go.
Number 5-I have heard that adsense is a great way to earn passive income
Let me be fairly clear here. If you think that you won’t have to work to make money and do it from legitimate platform, you are mistaken. While it is and certainly should be every marketer’s goal to make passive income, getting there is hardly passive. And depending on the niche you select and how competitive it is, you may have to fight to keep the traffic coming in.
All that aside, adsense is a perfect way to earn a living and many do so. But the principle above applies for adsense marketing as well (which will most likely require some knowledge with basic SEO and content marketing)….create a site that will solve a problem or issue…give people an exit point on your website (in this case, adsense ads) to discover a solution to their problems.
I want to make it clear that while I do make money via adsense, the majority of my income is not derived from ad networks. Personally, I think it is the lazy man’s way out. Unless, your CPM’s (cost per thousands) for your adsense ad is high (<$30), chances are likely that you could make more money as an affiliate.
Think about it this way....if someone is willing to pay $2 per click to have someone look at their offer, then chances are they are converting enough people to their offer to make money. If you were to affiliate with this same offer, then chances are you could be making more money than $2 a pop over the long haul.
Of course, the only way you can determine this is to look to see if YOUR CPM is higher than the adsense.
Number 6-Someone told me that in order to make REAL money online, I need to have a list. Is that true?
No, it isn’t true but it definitely won’t hurt your chances. Chances are good, that the person you heard this from is someone that heard it from someone else and perceived as fact. It was simply a case of everyone believing something because everyone says it is true.
It is all in your marketing strategy and what you intend to do with the names and how good you are at bridging relationships. List building or email marketing can be beneficial in some markets while other markets won’t respond to it at all. I
f you think that by simply collecting names and sending them offers that it will have some sort of automatic benefit to your marketing, think again…relationship marketing is all about the relationship that you have with your list, knowing what they want or desire and requires more thought and planning than simply hosing your list with offer after offer.
Number 7-I have heard if you build great content, then the masses will eventually come
Content is king and fodder for the search engines. In fact, if you were going to break down google and it capabilities, it is nothing more than a text parser on steroids, meaning that it deduces your site by the content you have on it. That said, just because you have a knack for writing isn’t indicative of the amount of money you will make. Content isn’t King….the RIGHT content is.
Number 8-So if content isn’t king, does that mean that I shouldn’t focus on it?
You could and many do but understand that google closes these loopholes fairly quickly, leaving those with time invested holding the bag (I could give a dozen examples of this happening over the past two years).
Choose your spots when you attempt to cheat. Ask yourself what you hope to gain. While the search engines are definitely “cheatable”, the reality is that you are dealing with real people who will visit your site.
And while the quality of content isn’t indicative of the money you will make, consider this;
…when people find your marketing credible, they will be more willing to buy from you. The real question you should be asking is not how to cheat your way to the top but how to convince your website visitors to do what you want them to do when they arrive. That comes from understanding metrics and other basic marketing principles that you won’t find in most make money e-books online.
Number 9- I saw a picture where Shoemoney/John Chow/(________ marketer) held up a check from Google/clickbank/_____some other affiliate company for $xxx,xxx. They make it sound so easy….
Understand that most of these folks showing this are showing you the net profit and it is very likely that this was before expenses were taken out of it. People like Shoemoney and John Chow have companies in which they employ people and have big budgets to do what they want to do. They have a marketing plan and simply follow the plan. You could do this too.
Once again, it is all about having the tools and (in their case) the capital to do it. As for the checks, it makes them credible to the rest of the world although it doesn’t really mean much…they could have spent $120,000 to make that check. Perception is a mother.
Number 10-What would be you do if you were just starting out, had no money and needed an extra $500 within a month?
To be honest, I would get a pizza delivery job. The odds of making that much money coming out of the gate when you have very little experience online are very small.
Doable?…Perhaps. Likely?…not at all
The old adage “it takes money to make money, is really true online but if you have no money, then you will have to sacrifice your time (which is money too, right?) in place of capital. And the road to getting there is a lot longer in most cases, especially with all the booby traps and myths that circulate on the web.
Number 11What would be a better time frame then?
It really depends on your market and the competition associated with your market and how you plan to attack the market. I got into internet marketing by accident. I started a site using a website builder (aka websites for dummies) over 10 years ago with no thought of making money with it. After roughly a year, I was making $20k. After 2 years and with a concerted effort, I had made $60k. This was primarily done in a market that wasn’t competitive that I already knew and that I kind of fell into by luck. Dumb luck, I should add…
What you choose and your strategies you employ to reach your goal will greatly affect the time frame. From my perspective, typically, I will give a new market 6 months to mature to show if there is potential.
Number 12-Can one website make me a living online?
It could but more realistically, you would have a better chance of succeeding with many websites. For most marketers, volume speaks louder than focusing all of your efforts on one website. Some marketers have 1,000’s of pages out there earning them a little here and there. It is definitely easier to make a $3,000 a month income from 5 sites than a $3,000 income from one.
Number 13-I have heard that I should build a wordpress blog because blogs are better than normal (static HTML) sites. Are they?
The answer is no. Google doesn’t care what site platform you use. You won’t rank higher or lower using either. This said, blogs do have the benefit of RSS. But come on…use some common sense. If wordpress and other blog platforms were all that, wouldn’t other bigger businesses have gravitated to them? The answer is they haven’t and most likely won’t. I use blogs and static websites in conjunction with each other as both have their benefits.
Number 14-If you had one piece of advice for someone new to internet marketing and the make money online market, what would it be?
I would suggest getting and staying organized. Organization will be the difference between you working 12-15 hour days and having little to show for it or working 4 days a week, a few hours a day and actually making money online.
I personally spend one day a month organizing my work schedule…this includes all of my day to day stuff that needs to be done.
If you can’t stay mentally focused on what you need to do, it doesn’t matter what road you take in terms of strategy. It won’t matter if you are simply trying to build a list through permission marketing or simply trying to make money with adsense by ranking on the search engines.
All of the strategies can be learned and learned rather quickly. The internet is full of distractions and if you aren’t careful, you will spend most of your ‘work’ days buying marketing material, checking your email, and surfing the web.
…and THAT is where most live….