Netalot

This is such a hot topic right now that it’s being talked about everywhere and not only on the internet. Regrettably it is often associated with people who show off with a picture of themselves clutching an oversized Google cheque that shows hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of earnings – for one month!

This kind of ill-gotten publicity has given internet marketing a bad name. It has resulted in an old-fashioned gold rush where many people are bringing their shovels and sieves and are hoping to pan near somebody who has already found the motherload.

In typical Wild West style the snake oil sales people are out there offering instant cures. They promise untold riches in three easy steps if you follow their lead. They tell you it’s all about easy easy easy, success is guaranteed, money will flood in within a few days, no more worries. Trust us. Pay us.

This entire hype has resulted in many people running around on the internet just like headless chicken do in a farmyard. They jump from one ‘big’ solution to the next. None of them are working for them. It’s easy to understand why. The fundamental principles of marketing are being ignored.

For all those people, and for anybody who is new to the concept of internet marketing it might be a good idea to sit back, take a deep breath and have a look at what internet marketing is really about.

In reality, just like opening a shop on the main street, internet marketing is about the ordinary concept of selling and buying.  You offer something for sale and somebody comes along and buys it, or maybe decides not to buy it.

The only thing that is different is that it’s done digitally. In other words the internet marketer uses the internet to promote and sell his goods. This brings with it many benefits and a whole stack of disadvantages which the internet marketer has to learn about before he can become a success.

It’s no different to trading on the high street. Lessons have to be learnt. In fact many of them are quite similar to what the owner of that little dress shop had to learn. The basic principles of trade have been around since the early days of humanity.

Learn these principles and add new ones that apply to the internet before launching yourself into this commercial environment. And having a fair amount of patience is also a good character trait to have. It’s not as easy as many people try to tell you and success is not to be had overnight.

Just as McDonalds started with one restaurant many years ago and grew into a huge empire, so can you start a tiny business on a website or blog and grow it into an empire. The only thing to remember is that it took McDonalds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mcdonalds) 15 years of hard work and much experimentation before it really took off!

Knowledge and patience will be useful when trying out internet marketing!