In today’s doom and gloom economy, there are a lot of people who are exploring alternative ways to supplement their income. Other more ambitious folks are looking for a way out of working for someone else. Owning your own successful business is the ultimate in freedom, and educating yourself about how to make money on the internet can be a very economical, low risk way to begin. Finally having freedom over your time as well as building a reliable and steady source of income that you control are just some of the benefits of an internet business.
But please don’t fall for the myth that you can become rich overnight by starting an online business. There are plenty of unscrupulous people out there who will do their best to convince you with all sorts of outrageous claims that you must buy into their system today in order to achieve your financial goals. These over the top claims are simply false and you should head in the opposite direction and away from their so called systems as fast as you can!
There are really only three things you need to know to be successful marketing on the internet:
1. Examine what you already know. Some say that it does not matter what product you choose to sell online, if you are certain there is a market for what you are offering. But in my experience, you will be happiest if you pick an area where you have a personal interest and experience. Keep in mind that making a sustainable income online is a marathon, not a sprint. You have to be able to maintain your interest in your internet business over the long run, or you will likely give up too easily. What are your skills? Your hobbies? What is your area of expertise? Every person, you included, has something they are good at, from taking spectacular photographs of flowers to knowing how to train sled dogs. Your area of expertise combined with your unique life experience and perspective can be turned into an information product that you can sell online.
2: Research your market. This one goes against what many beginners believe. You want to see if others are already making money in the area you are interested in. It won’t do to just have a passion for a particular topic or even to have extensive skill in an area. There absolutely has to be an existing market for your subject area, or your niche if you will. One of the easiest and best ways to find out if there is a market is to determine if others are already making money marketing products that are related to what you want to produce. Simply go over to Google and type in the keyword or keywords that are most closely related to your topic. If your expertise is tomato gardening then type in something like “growing tomatoes.” Immediately, you will see there are many short advertisements (known as Adwords) on the right side of the search page. This is an excellent preliminary indicator that people are already making money and there may indeed be a market for what you are considering.
3: Take action immediately. This is where many people go off track. They decide on a niche and do the research on their market but then never actually do anything about making their internet marketing business a reality. One reason for this is that it’s easy to become overwhelmed with all of the massive amounts of information available on starting an internet business.
My advice is this: search out a reputable mentor, someone who is doing what you want to do. Stick with that person and follow their guidance until you have your business up making money. Patience, persistence and dedication are the keys to starting and sustaining a successful internet marketing business.
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photo: lliewcf http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
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Ellen — I think point #3 is often-overlooked. There are so many internet marketing “formulas”, “step-by-step blueprints”, etc. that it’s easy to get lost in trying to use too many of them, “just in case” there is some nugget in it that you haven’t already learned. (I know, I’ve been there!) It’s also very tempting to keep tweaking your website, wordpress theme, copy, graphics, etc. As we used to say when I worked at GE, “There comes a time in the life of every project when you have to shoot the engineer and ship it.” Better to get it out there and find out immediately what works than to spend hours trying to perfect.
Yes Terri, I couldn’t agree more! And I love the “shoot the engineer and ship it” quote…I know so many people who just become paralyzed and never go anywhere. I recommend all my students read Michael Masterson’s Ready, Fire, Aim! for a comprehensive look at this problem and how to solve it.