Little did I realise after I finally put my feet down into learning Internet Marketing proper, that Internet Marketing is really a science unto itself – not a scam, but really a generic skill for marketing ANY product or service (be it your own or someone else’s) online on the Internet. Essentially, it is the online version of general offline marketing, though it requires both offline marketing skillsets together with online marketing skillsets.

With that, I set out to learn the techniques of Internet Marketing properly. There’s just so much information out there about “marking money online”, some of which is crap and others are scams. So it’s really best to learn tried and tested techniques from Internet Marketing Gurus who are known for their integrity and for their genuine successes in this field.

To this effect, I would strongly recommend the FREE and value-overloaded online Internet Marketing School. For those willing to pay a small but affordable monthly subscription of USD20, the up-and-coming World Internet Academy portal offers superb step-by-step guidance on all the key foundational subjects of marketing online!

In fact, Internet marketing requires hard work, commitment, persistent and determination. Though it is very simple, but it is definitely not easy. Most people fail because they fail to realize that they need to commit and put in hard work before they can profit from it.

Nevertheless, this is a great article.
Thanks, Mike.

Yes, I think this is the main problem, but for the beginner it begs the question as to what constitutes that which has profit potential. In other words, what overwhelms the beginner is his ignorance, and that is quite understandable. The inability to discern, and the analysis paralysis results from a desperate need to assimilate “enough” knowledge to be able to get to that blessed point. Of course, it is critically important to get rid of the “easy money” opportunist mentality. Only this will assure immunization against copywriting that appeals to the part of human nature that is always looking for the easiest way.

Beginners need to realize that there is more than one way to earn money over the internet; there are many possible business models. What is perhaps needed more than anything else is a good overview of basic business models that have proven to be successful. Most importantly, beginners need to realize that an internet business is a business, precisely. It needs to be taken seriously, and one has to strive to educate oneself in the basics of marketing and selling over the internet, which of course includes the basics of marketing and selling pure and simple.

The beginner needs to educate himself on the elements of:
market research, using keywords for market research, using keywords to determine profitable opportunity within markets, monetization of sites, integrating market and keyword research into the site, different ways of finding targetted traffic (social networks, blogging, PPC, etc.), acquiring and creating content (manual and automated); scalability and outsourcing, etc.

Having a a good overview; knowing what to learn (and most of the best stuff is free); acquiring basic business and online skills; using essential tools–these sorts of things, it seems to me, are what’s important. If you have that in place, you won’t be distracted or confused.