I Told You IM Is Easy!

One of my favorite blogs to read is run by Josh Spaulding.  Josh is a really bright guy who always has interesting insights and ideas.

In his latest post he pretty much summed up the main concept of my blog: Internet Marketing Isn’t As Difficult As It Seems!

Josh points out that people tend to make things out to be more difficult than they really are…often because that’s what they’re led to believe by experienced marketers who know better (but who want to cash in on your confusion by selling you the next big thing!)

If you don’t already read Josh’s blog, I strongly suggest you check it out and subscribe to his feed.

Affiliate Marketing in Plain English

It always surprises me how little the average person understands about the world of [tag-tec]affiliate marketing[/tag-tec]. Whenever I try to explain how I make money online everyone in the room gets a kind of glazed look over their eyes…its like they understand the language I’m speaking but I’m just not making any sense.

I guess its because people like you and me are ahead of the game when it comes to the future of business. We’re already working on building a presence online whereas most people can barely check their own email.

Or maybe you’re new to internet marketing and don’t fully understand how affiliate marketing works?

Whatever the case, I’m going to explain the concept of affiliate marketing in plain English so everyone can understand.

Let’s say you want to make a purchase online…perhaps a new video game. Traditionally you would see the transaction like this…

A consumer such as yourself goes to a merchant website and buys the product they need. For example, if you want to buy a Shrek video game for Xbox you’d go to Amazon, search for Shrek video games and purchase the one you want.

That’s the way most people see online transactions. But often there’s another party involved. A mostly invisible party that few people know exists. The affiliate.

An affiliate is basically a salesman. The affiliate promotes a merchant’s products through special links. When someone like you or me clicks on one of those links and makes a purchase the affiliate gets paid a commission. Pretty simple huh? Here’s what it looks like visually…

Staying with our video game example…let’s say you weren’t sure which game to buy so you ran a search for the most popular games. The website listing the top selling games may be using affiliate links so when you clicked on a link and bought a game he would have gotten paid.

The process is seamless from your point of view. You paid the same price whether it was through an affiliate link or directly through the merchant. The affiliate merely received a cut of Amazon’s profits.

Affiliate marketing is a huge business and there’s a lot of money to be made…so if you’re looking for ways to make money online I strongly suggest you consider becoming an affiliate.

I’m going to be writing a whole series of articles on affiliate marketing so be sure to subscribe to my free RSS feed so you don’t miss a thing.

 

What Batman Taught Me About Internet Marketing

Batman has always been my favorite superhero. Don’t get me wrong…Spiderman and Superman are cool and all, but they pale in comparison to the ultimate crime-fighter…Batman.

photo credit: Hot Rod Homepage

Do you know why I love Batman?

Because he’s just like you and me. Sure he’s got lots of money and cool gadgets…but underneath the mask he’s just a guy. He can’t fly. He can’t see through walls. He can’t shoot spiderwebs from his wrists…

He’s just a complete bad-ass who succeeds through the sheer force of his will. You can’t help but admire him.

Batman displays a lot of qualities that internet marketers like you and me can learn from. Below I’ve listed 3 that I find particularly important.

An incredible work ethic. Batman/Bruce Wayne busts his butt day in and day out to achieve his goal. He trains himself and hones his skills until he is the absolute best at what he does. And he never takes a night off. He’s consistent and reliable.

This is an important lesson for you to learn. Many internet marketing strategies can be easy to maintain, but it does take some work to get them rolling. You’ll achieve your goals a lot faster if you take your work seriously and treat it like a business. Put time in every day in the beginning and you’ll soon see the results you’re looking for.

Discipline. Batman’s self-discipline is legendary. Not only does he take a physical beating without giving in but the emotional toll of living two lives must be just as brutal. And he always stays focused on the task at hand. To Batman…being distracted for an instant could mean death.

Focus and discipline are absolutely essential for any online business owner. Time and time again I see bright entrepreneurs undone by their inability to stay focused. They jump around from one “system” or “method” to the next. They become a jack of all trades..but a master of none.

There are 8 billion different ways to make money online. Pick one and go with it. Once you master it and are producing steady income you can look to diversify and open new streams of income. But if you are constantly distracted by the latest “sure-thing” then as Seven of Nine would say…

You will fail…

You must stay focused. Constantly ask yourself “Is this moving me toward my goal?” If the answer is no then stop and get yourself back on track.

Perseverance. Batman knows all about failure and pain. As a child he saw his parents murdered right in front of him. As Bruce Wayne he is forced to keep everyone at a distance. As Batman he regularly takes crow bars to his rib cage and sees criminals like the Joker escape his clutches. Yet he never, ever gives up. No matter how many setbacks he faces, he always come back stronger.

In the 2005 movie Batman Begins, there’s a line that is repeated several times to Bruce Wayne:

“Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

As a fellow entrepreneur, let me tell you right now that failure is part of the game. Get used to it. The idea of being an overnight success story is a myth.

The person interested in success has to learn to view failure as a healthy, inevitable part of the process of getting to the top.
Dr. Joyce Brothers

I failed many times before I really learned how to make money online. My first website was about wine, which is an insanely competitive keyword. I built a site of about 20 pages or so with the idea of monetizing it with AdSense units and affiliate links. It was a solid plan…but my execution was horrible.

I targeted all the wrong keywords. I knew little about [tag-tec]SEO[/tag-tec] tactics. My promotion and link building was almost non-existent. In the end I was lucky if I brought in $10 a month in AdSense.

Next I tried building a simple site to promote Site Build It. I basically took their sales pages, made a few adjustments, and quickly wasted a few hundred dollars using AdWords. The product was great but I had no clue how to run a successful PPC campaign and my sales copy flat out sucked.

My next project was a 10 page site about mesothelioma. I had read an article about keywords that earned between $50 and $100 per click from Adsense and jumped at the chance to make big money. But I never had a chance. Mesothelioma is an incredibly competitive niche and it would take a lot more work than slapping together a few crappy pages.

Next I decided to create my own ebook and sell it on Clickbank. It was a short but full of useful tips for saving money on just about everything. Unfortunately I knew almost nothing about copywriting and I positioned the ebook poorly. I targeted the wrong market and never recovered.

I sold exactly one copy.

But I learned from my mistakes and converted that site from a one page sales letter into a portal for people trying to save money or make extra money from home. I still earn AdSense and affiliate commissions from that site even though I haven’t really updated it in over 2 years.

I don’t fear failure anymore and neither should you. Failure is how we learn what works and what doesn’t. If you try something and it doesn’t work out as planned, don’t just give up. Analyze what went wrong, learn from your mistakes, and try again.

It’s what Batman would do.

Is It Too Late For You To Start Making Money On The Internet?

It’s a question that every newbie and wanna-be entrepreneur asks…

“Have I missed the boat? Is it too late?”

photo credit: bogenfreund

In some markets, it may indeed be too late. If your plan was to open a video store that rents VHS tapes then you’ve definitely missed the boat. And you might have a hard time releasing your own operating system now that Microsoft pretty much has a strangle hold on the market.

But as far as [tag-tec]internet marketing[/tag-tec] goes…we’ve barely seen a glimspe of the surface. There’s a whopper of an iceberg hiding out of sight and the market is set to explode in coming years.

If you had jumped into the world of online business in the late 1990’s (and survived the dot com bust) you wouldn’t be reading this blog right now. You’d probably be laying on a private beach somewhere being fed grapes and fanned by beautiful women (or men, for the ladies).

But you know what? I perdict that 20 years from now people will be saying the same thing about 2008. I really do.

The internet is still just a little toddler learning to walk. Its nowhere near its full potential. There are millions of people who don’t have internet access or whose connection speed is so slow that even routine browsing is a chore. And millions more are still too afraid of scams or identity theft to make purchases online (sounds ridiculous to you and me right?)

As more people come online and connection speeds increase there will be an incredible influx of business conducted on the web.

And the best part of it is there’s still plenty of time to position yourself as a mover and shaker. You see the mere fact that you’re reading this gives you a distinct advantage over 99% of the population. They have no idea what internet marketing is or how to [tag-tec]earn a living online[/tag-tec]. Heck, they can barely figure out how to add a link to their list of Favorites!

To them YOU ARE A GURU! Even if you haven’t put together all the pieces of the puzzle…at least you’ve started putting it together. Most people don’t even know the puzzle exists…

As marketers we tend to take our knowledge for granted and assume everyone already knows what we know. But it never ceases to amaze me how many of my friends have never heard of Google AdSense, affiliate marketing, ebooks, autoresponders, etc. To them I’m some kind of technological genius (trust me I’m not! ).

To them making a measly $200-$300 a month would change their lives. It would mean having some extra play money or a vacation fund or paying down some debt. And $300 a month is so easy a goal if you just put in a little bit of work.

Anyway, the moral of this post is this…

We’re only in the first inning here. There’s still a lot of game left to be played and its still early enough for you to jump in and make a killing. So what are you waiting for? Get off the bench and get in the game!

photo credit: frigante

Making Money With Private Label Rights

Awhile back I wrote a report detailing various ways to use PLR content to make money online. 

It was orginally just a bonus that I offered people who bought some of my PLR packages at Fresh-Niche-Content.com, but today I’m going to give it to you for free.

There’s no strings attached…you don’t even need to fork over your email address.  Just right click the link below and save it to your local drive. 

Making Money With Private Label Rights

You’re also free to give it away or use it as a bonus as long as you don’t make any changes.  All part of my plan to overdeliver to my readers every chance I get. 

What to Expect from IMIsEasy.com

Since this is a brand new blog I figured it would be good to set some expectations.

I don’t expect to be posting every day…I have too many other things going on and I’d rather write one or two high-quality posts per week instead of 7 mediocre ones.

As far as topics go, anything related to making money online is fair game including:

• Affiliate Marketing
• Article Marketing
• Blogging
• Passive Income
• Product Creation
• Pay Per Click
• Copywriting
• And more…

I’ll also recommend products that I use and find helpful, and review books that will give you the knowledge you need to succeed. 

And that’s not all…you’ll also get lots of free reports and tools to help you build your online empire.  So stay tuned because there’s a lot of great content coming at you…

Internet Marketing is Easy

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. A secret that many internet marketers don’t want you to know.

Are you ready?

Making money online is EASY.

Yup. It’s true. Anyone can make money on the internet. Even YOU.

There must be a thousand different ways to make money online…some are complicated and costly. But many are free (or close to it) and have the potential to make you thousands of dollars a month. And once you learn some basic skills and build a foundation of knowledge these methods can be implemented in no time.

That’s what this blog is all about…teaching you how to make money online one step at a time. You’ll learn about the countless ways to earn a living online so you can choose which works best for you.

But I’m not going to wow you with ridiculous claims and unrealistic promises of making you rich overnight. It just doesn’t work that way. Trust me you can get rich if you implement these methods, but it will take a bit of work to get there.

But hey, that’s cool because you don’t want a flash in the pan that makes you a few bucks and then stops. You want to build a solid stream of revenue that keeps the money coming in day in and day out.

Right?

Well you’re on the right track. Bookmark this blog right now and subscribe to my RSS feed so you don’t miss a thing.