Avoid the Not So Obvious Pain Points For the Inexperienced Internet Marketers

Now that I have your attention, let me start by mentioning these are all tough learning's I have been through myself and hope it benefits those who are either new to internet marketing and especially for those who are just plain frustrated with it.

How do I get in the game? - Pain Point #1: I call this the barriers to entry or risk aversion if you will. I would guess that since you are reading this that you have either crossed this threshold or you have gotten very close to the line. The first thing to avoid is to buy a website because you are too scared to go it alone. You probably think it is safe because they advertise their traffic and sales figures, right? You probably think purchasing a site avoids the technical gap you might feel as it can appear daunting at first. Trust me, if someone advertises an automated website bringing in loads of cash selling for 3 to 6 months earnings, run for your life. The cheaper the website is selling for the more scared you should feel. It all goes back to that saying if it is too good to be true, then it probably is. Odds are that this person could have made the mistake of jumping in and are now trying to pawn it off to the next person in line. So, do not let that next person be you.

There are legitimate websites for sale but you will see that they are generally higher in price and go for a much larger sale price to earnings, usually greater than 1 year. There are also people who simply design and sell their designed website over and over again. If these websites are so great, why do they not operate them? The other area that scares me at this stage is to fall for the dime a dozen "get rich quick" guys on the Internet. I am sick of seeing pictures of people chilling out on the beach or standing in front of their expensive cars while they display how much money they are making. They simply made their money by selling unsuspecting newbies a great sales pitch and no real product to go with it. I can attest first hand as I purchased 2 of these great pitches with one being a membership and the other one an ebook. Well, I came to find out after spending $49 for the membership and $10 for the ebook (I got a discount!) that they told me basically nothing. The membership was a load of links on places to buy traffic, links, seo, etc. The ebook was the equivalent of what I would picture if I tried to explain Internet marketing to my 6 year old. The only thing I will point out for your benefit is that you can learn a good tactic by reading their advertisements (sales pitch).

Time to make $ or is it? - Pain Point #2: Alright, let us say you are all setup with a website along with a product/service to sell (don't worry, I will cover off how to get there once we get through the pain points). The next thing not to do is to completely focus on monetizing the website. In other words, don't ignore the content by plastering your website with every money making banner and product you can find. As you can imagine, the point is to market a product, not just throw it in someones face. When you are able to picture each website as a money making machine, you will understand that the best marketers hide the monetary aspects very effectively. I will discuss this aspect in more detail when we get down to research. The other pain point here that could be more damaging is to not have a "draw" for your website. A "draw" is basically a way to capture your viewer's attention and suck them in. The most popular "draws" will be the sales pitch for the new product, the free offer that comes when you sign-up for the e-mail list, or even the discount pop-up that entices you to take advantage of the offer right away. I like to call it draw but you will frequently hear the term "squeeze" (i.e. squeeze page). Trust me, we have professional advertisers and marketers out there who know exactly how people cannot help but fall for them.

I will also honestly point out that this pain point was the one I overlooked the most. I was so proud of myself when I had that website up, poured money into advertising it, and sat back waiting to become a success. I was a little more than shocked when I had a load of visitors and not a single sale. That experience demoralized me so much that I did not return to the Internet marketing game for over 5 years. I spent almost $300 on that experience trying different forms of marketing not realizing I failed to draw people in to my website. That is why I recommend picturing all these for the marketing ploys they are, you will not be drawn into it and actually learn to appreciate the knowledge later on. Also, while we are on the topic of website design, this is about making money so I will not tell you that content means you have to be some insightful expert on the product or service you sell. You need to understand enough that you can effectively market the benefits to others. The Internet is so saturated with "experts" it makes you wonder who isn't one.

Where do I go from here? - Paint Point #3: Where you do not go is the bank if you get into this hardcore and then try to figure out later where it was supposed to go. I am the perfect example of this mistake and I am not ashamed to share it. I bought my Internet marketing website (that is right, I fell for pain point #1 as well) and immediately redesigned the heck out of the thing which was a fun process. However, my products were ebooks designed for people to resell yet my website image was to provide Internet marketing tools. Then I had the brilliant idea to setup the site to do both at the same time by signing up as an affiliate with Internet marketing service sites. So, by the time I got to advertising, I couldn't decide if I should label the site for money makers or for Internet marketers. Needless to say, I was not successful with either customer base. The point is to simply look at this based on your goals before you get in too deep. There is a large difference in commitment and planning between one person who wants to make $50 a month off their site and the one who wants to make $500 or more a month. If you are the latter, do not limit yourself to the initial website business but how you can expand that website into new money making areas. My personal goal with the site mentioned above is to expand out into specializations within Internet marketing from my broad starting website.

If I have interested you enough, I welcome you to get your free download of my full ebook, internet marketing Pain Points, which continues from here to explore the proper framework to online marketing. It will of course require further education and effort on your part to be successful in the long run but I must admit that I learn new marketing tricks almost every time I go online.