Top 10 Internet Marketing Myths (and how to avoid them)
1. You can make lots of money quickly and easily
There are very few ways to make money easily and internet marketing (IM) is certainly not one of them. If you aren’t ready for some serious hard work and a fairly steep learning curve I suggest you get back in the queue for a lottery ticket. To make money online you will need at the very least good products, good promotional skills, some technical ability and lots of time. If you choose IM as a job you are not in for an easy ride.
How do you avoid the trap of starting out on the IM road and not making any money? Put some research and planning in place to give yourself some targets to reach. Have you ever heard the expression Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance - it’s no different for internet marketers.
2. Google AdSense is a sure fire way to make money
When I included AdSense on my first blog I was sure within a matter of weeks I’d be sitting on a sun lounger, sipping a cocktail, watching the dollars roll in. After all it was very easy to put AdSense on my blog. Unfortunately that just wasn’t the case and I would imagine the majority of other bloggers / website owners are in the same position.
When you include AdSense on your site, first of all be realistic, don’t expect to retire overnight. Consider these tactics to increase your AdSense revenues:
- consider testing different ad formats and placements and use the statistics to analyse performance changes,
- ensure the ads match the content on your site / blog by writing on consistent topics with consistent keywords,
- work on driving traffic to your site / blog as this will increase the likelihood of receiving clicks,
- read and understand Google’s terms and conditions - you don’t want to get banned by clicking on your own ads for example,
- read a book written by an AdSense expert.
3. The first thing to do is set up your blog
It’s easy to believe all the hype about making money online and specifically through blogging, after all, it is very easy to setup a blog. Don’t jump in with both feet though until you’ve sat down with a pen and paper and written a proper plan of action. If you want to make money online you will need to take a planned and structured approach.
Consider writing a marketing plan. You should consider the following steps:
- situation - where is my business currently at?
- objectives - what do I want to achieve with my internet business?
- strategy - how will I go about achieving these objectives?
- tactics - what specifically will I do to make this strategy work?
- action - who is going to make these tactics happen and when?
- control - how will I know when I’ve reached my goals i.e. what measures will I use?
4. You can work for 4 hours a week writing a blog and make money
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen this in the sales hype of some internet marketing guru’s squeeze page. I have never heard of anyone who works this little and reaps massive rewards, it just doesn’t happen. If someone offered you an office job working just 4 hours a week which earned millions of dollars, would you trust them?
Be realistic in your objectives and plan how much time you will spend on your business. There is simply no substitute for hard work when it comes to internet marketing.
5. You don’t need any technical knowledge e.g. HTML, PHP etc
It’s true that you can achieve a lot on the internet with very little technical knowledge these days. There are lots of freeware options available for those that need help writing copy in HTML. Having said that, some basic skills will increase your confidence and help you to continually improve your site, blog and other online materials without incurring extra expenses. You should also become familiar with new software such as FTP, WinZip etc which are all essential for running an online business.
My advice here is to spend some time hitting the books and learning some basics. For more advanced programming challenges you might be better off finding an expert and I suggest you head over to Rentacoder.
6. You don’t need to be good at writing
This is another golden nugget that is more fallacy than fact. People like to read well researched, well written content, whether it’s on a blog, an ebook, an article or even your website. If you are selling your content rather than giving it away this is especially important. Ask yourself if you’d be happy paying for a magazine that’s full of grammatical errors, typos and misspelled words.
Again, take some time to learn the basics from a grammar book. Alternatively you could hire a professional to edit your text and provide guidance on how to make improvements. You could also hire a professional to write the content for you and there are lots of options available online for finding copywriters.
7. You can make money on the internet writing about anything
In actual fact much of the advice you’ll read online about internet marketing is how to make money selling internet marketing products. Bear that in mind before you consider internet marketing for your particular niche. A great piece of advice I read recently comes from CapForge.com that suggests to make money online you need to prove a solution that people are having a problem with. For example:
Your house is on fire, and I am selling buckets of water. The problem is clear, concrete and immediate, the solution is available, complete and demonstrably effective
8. High traffic = high profits
Not necessarily true, in actual fact you need well targeted traffic, good products and a well functioning website or blog to capture sales. It’s not all about getting traffic, although of course this is important.
So how do you get highly targeted traffic? See above.
9. The money is in the list
This is every Internet Marketing gurus mantra and it’s easy to buy into this. Surely the more people you promote your product to, the greater the number of sales you will get? Talk to any direct marketing professional and they will assure you this is not the case, the money is actually in the quality of the list.
Think carefully before you buy lists, participate in joint ventures or other list building schemes. It will be far more profitable in the long run to grow your own list by offering quality and well targeted content and products.
10. It’s free to run a business online.
It’s easy to sell the idea that making money online is free, but it’s simply not true. As with any business you will incur start-up and ongoing expenses including, but not limited to, buying your domain name, web hosting, broadband internet connection, PC / laptop, books / literature on IM (believe me, you will buy some!), software (FTP, WinZip, Photoshop, others that aren’t standard), AdSense advertising and more.
Be realistic about your internet marketing business. This links back to the planning stage, think carefully about what you will need to spend to get your business rolling and then add a contingency fund on top. Granted the costs are lower than if you opened a shop on the high street, but don’t consider this to be a free exercise.
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Hi Andy
Please add to your myths the lies of rentacoder staff.
Their mental abilities do not alow them do deal with more than patches.
It is fair to warn about the pitfalls with rentacoder.
Please note with bigger/serious projects rentacoder staff are INCREDIBLY STUPID PROFESSIONAL LIARS.
They lie even with their slogan.
The DUMMIES in rentacoder staff are proficient to blame someone else for their mistakes in attempts to hide their stupidity.
PERFECT evidences at http://kamen123.blogspot.com
Hi Kamen, ouch, do you not like Rentacoder or what? Feel free to share why you are so p*ssed.
My own experience with RAC was great. A quick, cheap and simple service that got me in touch with some professional assistance at a fraction of the price I would have paid here in the UK.
Hey,
thanks for putting it that clear!
Just printed out your blog and handed it to some colleagues - not to demotivate them, but to give them some usefull information
Great stuff, glad you found it useful. I love internet marketing but there is a lot of rubbish out about “turning on autopilot riches” etc etc. If you know what the myths are, you can do your best to avoid them.
Hi Andy
I agree that rentacoder helps to use the advantages of global sourcing. With such online marketplaces you have access to highly specialized professionals working at best price. Also rac staff are proficient to deal with small tasks for about several hundreds.
But as I mentioned it is fair to warn about the pitfalls:
- rentacoder staff can not deal with projects significantly bigger than several hundreds. Just their mental abilities do not allow them to understand the issues. So they can not provide arbitration as promised on site. For example you can see in my blog how they are not able of understanding the PERFECT documentation of ASP/IIS during years…and they blame Microsoft…
- the slogan of rentacoder is lie because supposes that there are serious projects done on site. But actually the majority of the tasks are up to several hundreds. This is patches not software.
- rentacoder staff are proficient to blame someone else for their mistakes
With different words if someone tries to make serious project he will stumble in the incredible stupidity of rac staff. People interested to make serious projects have to go far away from rentacoder.
Do you see now what I mean? Would you like to have more details and evidences?
Hi Kamen, thanks for explaining further.
Everyone else take note, if you’re planning anything larger than a patch or some simple coding, you’ve been warned. Use Rentacoder at your peril
If anyone from Rentacoder is reading this, please feel free to fight your corner here. I’d love to hear your side to this story!
Hi Andy
The problem with rentacoder staff is that their mental abilities do not allow them to understand that I’m right and they try to hide the facts with barking.
You can see in my blog how rentacoder staff bark against Microsoft during years thinking that Microsoft are responsible. But the real problem is that rentacoder staff are not able of understanding the PERFECT documentation of ASP/IIS…
Rentacoder staff follow the same pattern with me. Probably soon will appear Sergey saying that I’m insulter or other similar statements…stupidity can not be beaten…
Hi Andy
With different words the dummies in rentacoder staff do not like the truth
And they try to hide the facts with barking against Microsoft, me, anyone
When they see that you posted my opinion they will start sending emails to you to convince you to hide the facts
Also they may pay you to hide the facts
The insulter “kamen123″ has been banned from RentACoder.
Read more about his personal failure at RentACoder:
http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/ArbitrationInfo/KamenKaburov/RentACoderArbitration/KamenKaburov_RentACoder_Arbitration.htm
“kamen 123″ spoil perfect site in revenge.
OK thanks Sergey and Kamen.
@Andy,
I been researching Internet marketing all day here in Chester UK. And finaly I starting to understand…
Quote.. “If you aren’t ready for some serious hard work and a fairly steep learning curve I suggest you get back in the queue for a lottery ticket.”
LOLOL Yup I agree. Ty I now off to the lotto shop
Stuart
Very nice and useful post I really appreciate you posting
It’s true you can’t succeed either offline or online without working hard at it. Also focusing on the job in hand is a key element what with all the great must have offers flying around and hundreds of messages piling up in the e-mail inbox.
I am very much impressed with ur tips on online earnings.I wil try to implement those in the real time. Hope u write much more posts on earnings.