How to Make It Work

If you are subscribed to several internet marketing email lists, then you probably know how crazy, confusing, and time consuming internet marketing can really be.  There seems to be a “flavor of the month” in this industry, which I’ve been tracking since 1996.  Here’s a rundown of internet marketing models I’ve come across, on the top of my head:

• PPC – CPA arbitrage
• Information product
• Google AdSense
• MLM schemes
• Site swapping
• Continuity models
• Niche product eCommerce

As an internet marketer, you either sell your own product or somebody else’s (affiliate marketing).

But that’s the easy part.  The hard part is getting your product seen; i.e. driving web traffic to your site.  This is where it gets really messy.   At this point, two camps diverge:  (1) those who put up a quick site and force immediate traffic to it using paid search (PPC), forum posting, internet classifieds, and, for some of the aggressive ones, email spamming; and (2) those who focus on building a respectable, content-rich site  that grows over time and builds natural traffic and buzz slowly but surely.

Which one is best for you?  It depends on your personality.  Both approaches can work; there are people making a lot of money in each.  If you can’t wait for the money to start rolling in, can get a lot of things done back to back fast, are very good at doing internet research, and are willing to spend some upfront money in PPC costs, then perhaps the first option is for you.  You’ll spend your time doing keyword research, setting up, testing and tweaking PPC ads, visiting competitor sites, researching and participating in related blogs and forums,  and using various spy tools to see what others are doing with their PPC campaigns.

For me personally, I am more methodical.  I prefer to invest my time building up my website properties– adding useful content, building natural search traffic, and later monetizing by selling ad space and embedding the site with affiliate links.  I prefer WordPress and SiteBuildIt to build my websites because of their superb functionality and great customer support.   It’s all about how many indexed web pages you own on the world wide web.  As my sites grow in volume, they will get exposure and will build up incoming links, driving its pages to the top in the search engines.  This is stable, long term, free traffic.  Stable because I will continually add fresh content– Google prefers updated websites over unattended/ abandoned websites and will reward them with higher rankings.

But that is just me.  I am the turtle, not the hare.  Something to think about…