Getting Started the Right Way in Internet Marketing (part 1)

SEO, PPC, PPA, CPA, SERP, LSI, Google slap, sandbox, the list goes on. Welcome to the world of Internet Marketing. It's hardly a wonder that people suffer from information overload. If you find yourself drowning in this labyrinth of paths leading you in a thousand different directions, you need to realize that success in Internet Marketing depends not on doing a lot of things but only doing a few things right. The first thing you have to settle within yourself is whether you are looking to build a business with Internet Marketing or merely engage in it as a hobby. A business means that you intend to make enough money through Internet Marketing to at least replace your day job income. If it is a hobby then you are looking to Internet Marketing as a part time activity to supply you with some extra pocket money. This decision is the basis of everything else you do because it determines the amount of time and effort you put into it and also the actual structure of your business or hobby. If you intend to make Internet Marketing merely a hobby, then you do not need a website, a product, a list, any JV partners or affiliates. You can do basic affiliate marketing by selling other people's products. You need to sign up with an open affiliate marketing website like Clickbank. An open affiliate marketing system practiced by Clickbank is where you do not need your own website and there is no application process to become an affiliate. Without your own website you would not be able to be an affiliate with closed affiliate systems like Commission Junction (they have an application process that requires a website). In Clickbank, there are thousands of products you can sign up as an affiliate for. You will be given an affiliate link and all you do is to get people to click on your link. You can do that for free by setting up free websites on Web 2.0 platforms like Squidoo or Hubpages or Blogging platforms like Wordpress or Blogger. You can do a search on these and you will get their websites where you can create your own website or blog. Yes, a website set up this way is your own but you are limited in some functionality because these are free websites hosted on the platform's servers. Nevertheless, they are good enough to drive traffic to your affiliate link. All you do is design your website or blog with some good content related to the affiliate offer you are marketing and insert your affiliate link into your content. Some web 2.0 platforms like Hubpages have strict rules about the number of affiliate links you can have in your content, so just make sure you abide by their rules. Internet Marketing is a numbers game, so the more of such websites and blogs you create to drive traffic to your affiliate link, the better it is. Sooner or later, some people will click on your links and if they buy the product that you recommend, you get your commission from it. That's all there is to making some spare cash through Internet Marketing. You may want to start your Internet marketing journey this way. But after sometime, if you want to progress further and do Internet Marketing as a business, then it becomes another ball game altogether! (Please see Part 2 in this series.)