If you found this post, I imagine you have been stung by various programs, courses and “secret systems,” promising to make you money online.
It’s led you to wonder… Is internet marketing a scam!?!
Or is there anything legit to this whole thing at all?
There are many reasons why the very idea of internet marketing is thought to be a scam these days and that’s completely understandable.
I have literally come across hundreds of scam-related products and I know there are thousands being created all the time.
The reality is that…
Somewhere along the way, the legitimate definition of internet marketing has been mixed up, (and used by) scammers online.
It’s been used as a way to sell you make money online products and get-rich-quick schemes.
So, what’s the difference between legit internet marketing and the scam-like products that flood the internet?
I will try and explain this as best I can, throughout this post.
What Is Internet Marketing Really?
“Internet Marketing,“ is really an umbrella term that refers to a bundle of different marketing strategies.
These may include…
- Email marketing,
- video marketing,
- social media marketing,
From the get go, I will just say: That I’m not a giant fan of multi-level-marketing, although it can have a large vocal following of devoted fans.
Partially this may be because, to be really financially successful at a majority of MLM’s, you need to recruit other people into the business.
When the success or failure of a “business,” simply relies on bringing more people into the business opportunity, (rather than the sale of legitimate products or services) then this is not a legitimate business.
MLM’s can often use controversial tactics to get people on board, trying to sell this opportunity your path to financial freedom.
The unfortunate reality is, only a minute amount of people ever succeed within the industry and it’s not at all as glamorous as they like to portray it.
While there are arguably some legitimate MLM companies out there, (big names such as AVON for example)…
There are many MLM’s that have been revealed to be scams and are often criticised for selling poor quality products and using dishonest marketing tactics.
Related post: The difference between an MLM and a pyramid scheme.
A majority of people who enter an MLM, will end up worse off than they started prior to joining, (that is the case whether it’s considered a legitimate MLM, or not).
While many MLM’s in on their own may have little to do with internet marketing, many MLM’s are now encouraging internet marketing strategies
…Some MLM’s are also entirely online now.
However, those who employ internet marketing tactics in order to get sales and leads, will generally be more successful than those who ignore that side of it.
More an more MLM’s are becoming internet focused – supplying individual websites and encouraging online marketing.
Internet Marketing – Is It That Easy?!
Internet marketing and trying to make money online in general, is not as easy as many people try and have you believe.
In fact, it’s not easy at all!
For many people, it can take months to see a single sale online, let alone regular ones coming in.
Many will give up before they make anything substantial online and for those who are determined, it can take some years to generate a full time income.
Unfortunately, there are many online programs and “gurus”, that claim they have some secret internet marketing strategy, that will make you very rich, very quickly.
Whether it be through some push-button system, some magical secrets of the industry they’re revealing, or a new revolutionary technique…
They will usually claim that you can make cash on autopilot, cash while you sleep and so on… you’ll have so much money, you won’t know what to do with it.
But, if it was all so-easy, don’t you think everyone would be jumping on board?
Additionally, if someone had created some automated system that makes them millions – do you really think they’d be letting THAT cat out of the bag?
You Can Quickly Get Information Overload!
When people first come online seeking out how to make money online, it’s a minefield as different programs are promoted left, right and centre.
What’s more, there are so many differing opinions out there about what you should be doing, that’s it’s easy to become confused and overwhelmed.
People are often inspired into this by a few success stories they’ve read about, but try as they might, they never seem to get anywhere.
There is a whole spectrum of very poor internet marketing programs, courses, webinars and e-books.
While many may not always be complete scams, (they may claim they have a money back guarantee, they may contain some elements worth knowing), signing up to them will usually chuck you into a sales funnel.
Your email address will then be sent on to other internet marketers – who will bombard you with relentless offers.
While many programs may contain some snippets of useful and honest information, many will constantly leave some vital information out, encouraging you to buy more and more expensive products.
People will buy product after product, trying to work things out and end up even more lost than when they started – and seriously in debt.
Many will quit before they’ve made a dime and will be in a far worse off position than when they started.
So, after a significant struggle, they give up and conclude that the internet marketing industry was just a scam all along.
While that conclusion may be understandable for people in that situation, it is also wrong.
Generally people give up trying around the 3-4 month mark of trying to make money online – however they go about it.
Ironically, this is also exactly around the time that many may start to see their first sales trickle through.
There can be a number of issues going on here:
- There are a lot of scam programs and products online. When someone has been let down a couple of times and whatever they’ve tried doesn’t work – they may conclude that everything to do with internet marketing is a scam.
- There are legit programs available that can teach people how to
make money online, but they require hard work, they also require you to implement the training and put in into action.
- Unrealistic Expectations! Because people have seen so many get-rich-quick type programs, they expect it to be easy and quick.
- Unfortunately, many people skip the training, they do not take action, OR the action they do take is too small and too slow and they get frustrated that they are not progressing.
- Many people take limited action and still expect huge results quickly.
- People may not implement what they’ve been learning correctly. For example, they may have misunderstood some of the basics, such as keyword research, then get upset when they don’t rank in google and quit.
Those are just a handful of reasons that people may not succeed using internet marketing strategies and give up before they’ve seen any success!
>> Beginner Friendly Zone – Where I Started*.
Affiliate marketing: Is it REALLY a beginner friendly option?
One of the most widely known and used methods of internet marketing is Affiliate marketing.
Related Post: Affiliate Marketing Explained.
While it’s a legitimate way that people can make money online- many “internet marketers,” try and sell it as a get rich quick schemes.
Generally, these will be marketed as some sort of automated system, that can bring commissions in for you on autopilot.
They’ll claim you don’t need any experience, they’ll say that you just need to drive traffic to an offer, (for example).
But the reality always is, those sort of programs are not good for beginners and they’ll be a total waste of time.
Alternatively you’ll get a program that has a cheap course on the front end, that immediately tries to upsell you into higher and higher priced items.
In many cases, the higher priced items can reach into the tens of thousands of dollars.
But if you don’t purchase the upsell, you will always be something missing from the training and so you end up feeling cheated and right back where you started.
BUT
There are some straight forward training programs available without all the hype.
While these are rare, they should just be teaching you what affiliate marketing is and how to implement it from scratch…
They should be enabling you to create your own independent business, not to be part of any automated system.
Getting-rich-quick programs SELL really well and that’s why so many shady marketers fall over themselves trying to promote them!
Many marketers make a lot of money by selling this dream to people online.
You can make money using certain internet marketing strategies online: but it’s not a get-rich quick option!
In fact, a majority of people will quit before they have made ANY money whatsoever.
Let’s take blogging as an example – the article below comes from a post on Life Hacker about blogging for a living.
As it says above, a survey of Problogger readers showed that a majority made under $3.50 per day, (many of these under two years old)
However, 9% did make between $1,000 – $10,000 per month. You’re talking 9 out of 100 bloggers bringing in a fairly decent income.
The article was written in 2014 above, so no doubt those numbers will have changed since.
In any case, while those numbers probably wouldn’t get most people running to set up a blog, it does show that it’s certainly well within peoples capability to make money through blogging.
It’s not “blogging,” itself that makes money though.
It’s the internet marketing strategies used to bring in money and sales!
For example; they may using affiliate marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, generating traffic via SEO or paid traffic methods and various other ways to generate an income.
Blogging is a legitimate way to make money online…
But the numbers speak for themselves, it’s not just something that will happen overnight via a push button system!
Affiliate Programs Should Be Free To Join!
You shouldn’t have to pay to promote a brand, program, product or service!
Legitimate affiliate programs are usually free to join – you will normally just need your own website or blog in order to sign up to them.
While affiliate marketing and other internet marketing techniques are not that difficult to learn, it can take a lot of work before you start seeing results.
You won’t start making commissions overnight.
You will need to learn a few skills to be successful and work consistently.
There is a high earning potential, but most people hoping to get-rich-quick, quit long before they see success.
As an affiliate marketer, you are simply promoting products on your own website, (it’s very simple to create your own website these days – even with zero design skills).
Useful Posts:
- How to make your first affiliate sale online.
- Is Amazon Affiliate A Scam?
- How long does it take to make money online, affiliate marketing?
If one of the visitors to your website clicks through one of your affiliate links and buys a product, you receive a commission.
Usually somewhere between 4-75% depending on the product/company… but can range from 1-100%!.
One of the biggest challenges is getting people to your website in the first place.
This can be done by learning SEO techniques, (search engine optimisation), keyword research and content creation.
Also, connecting to other people in your niche, guest posting, posting questions/answer sites, (such as quora) and social media marketing, can help build up your following.
Later down the road, you may also want to look at paid advertising via the search engines, (e.g. google adwords) or social media, (e.g. facebook ads).
Additional methods to generate sales may include: video marketing, email marketing and kindle publishing.
One of my websites actually generates most of its traffic from pinterest alone, so don’t overlook the power of social media.
How To Spot Internet Marketing Scams Online:
There is a massive number of scam courses and products online popping up constantly.
Some potentially costing into the thousands of dollars and promising to make you rich online.
So, it’s no wonder the internet marketing industry receives a lot of negative press.
Unfortunately, the sheer number of scams out there can make it hard to navigate for new people coming online.
But the fact is: literally thousands of legitimate companies and individuals have affiliate programs that will pay YOU for bringing them in sales and selling their products.
Do you think all these companies would bother having affiliate programs if they weren’t profitable for them?
Thousands of people make money every day via different internet marketing tactics, often with affiliate marketing being a major source of income for many.
The range of products that you can promote, is limitless.
In order to avoid scams, remember to always look for the following signs:
- They will often claim you could make six figures within a year.
- They will often claim there is very minimal work involved.
- If they have a website, it may only contain thin content, generally short posts, which are likely stuffed with affiliate links or Ads.
- Instead of focusing on what you will learn, they will only focus on how you’ll be able to quit your job/have freedom/have an amazing lifestyle.
- They may talk about a “secret system” or similar, that’s simple to set up.
- They may claim that you can make money then “on autopilot” – with next to no work.
- They will often show off luxury cars, big houses and the like.
So, What Do You Need To Get Started?
In order to get started learning about internet marketing from scratch, you will need the following:
- A website.
- Domain name and hosting, (or you could start up with a free website initially).
- Decent training learn the basics – whether free or paid.
There is one program I recommend to people getting started, because you can check it out for free and also get two free websites thrown in. Check it out here*
You Could Try A Free Website!
While I recommend you do get a domain that you own if you’re serious about making money online, you can still experiment with a free website first.
Once you see how simple it can be to build a website, (that actually looks OK!) the other stuff becomes a bit less intimidating.
You can try and build a free website in the WordPress Siterubix builder below.
Simply type in the name of your new website above in the box and go and create your website.
You can created a website based on anything you’d like to blog about.
Think about hobbies, passions, interests… Or even something you want to learn more about.
Alternatively you could use your name, it’s really up to you.
You’ll be quickly told whether your website name is still available.
You don’t need to over think it, you can actually delete the website and restart with a new name if you change your mind.
You can also switch your free website over to a domain that you own pretty simply as well.
For more info about setting up a website, this post can help.*
Additional Thoughts:
Many people come looking online because they want to make money FAST and reckon there must be an easy way that they can make lots of cash quickly.
The quickest way to make money online instantly would be to do something like sell your unwanted stuff on ebay, or set up A Fiverr gig!
but if you’re looking for a long term business, you need to be prepared to dedicate some time to it…
Just like ANY business in the real world.
One benefit to an online business is, it’s certainly much cheaper to set up than a regular business.
You wouldn’t expect to make money overnight with a regular businesses and exactly the same applies here.
Unfortunately there are plenty of people out there ready to POUNCE on desperate people that want to make money quickly, or who really want to make a tonne of cash but aren’t prepared to put in the work.
Is Internet Marketing A Scam – Or Legitimate Industry?
No, it’s not a scam – but it is a space literally saturated with scam artists and a never ending stream of scam products.
If you’re clued up on what to avoid, you should be able to learn how to navigate the internet marketing world more safely.
The best thing you can do is to just get started, rather than procrastinating about it!
Just remember… don’t think of internet marketing as a business in itself.
This is how people get trapped into these business-in-a-box, or automated type programs.
Internet marketing really involves methods that you will use to make money within your own business.
So, what you want to do, is learn those skills – (affiliate marketing, email marketing, social media marketing and so on…) and how to implement them.
Have you been scammed before online?
Leave me a comment and let me know!
I hope you found this post useful!
Any shares are welcome of course.
All the best…. 🙂
Hi, want so badly to make on the Internet, I know it must be hundreds of ways of making money online, but it is so hard to find them.
Thanks to this post, at least I can considerer that to make it, I will have to make some time and dedicate a lot of myself to it.
I will like to know from you, if there is something out there that can guide you through this dream of making money online? Someone reliable that really shows you what is the path someone who want to make should follow?
Thanks
Hey kevin. Definitely if you dedicate yourself to it, you can. As far as a guide or what have you, well the best thing I would suggest is wealthy affiliate because you can start up for free and there is a great 10 part step by step course, which really goes through everything very clearly. It’s the best course that I’ve come across, but there are some other options – check my review section and see what you think. Thanks for your comment!
Hi, Nat! Great post! Unfortunately yes! I have been scammed online, I have bought a lot of bad products and coaching in my time, and maybe I have also been too naive when starting out. When you read sales letters which all say push of a button internet riches is possible, you start to believe. I have learned it that it will take work, consistency and usually tweaking your mindset to get results. I have a great post on my site about which niches to choose if you are starting out online and don’t want to be in the internet marketing niche. I found it difficult starting out what niche to choose, but I eventually choose IM. Anyway, I was a member of wealthy affiliate for a few years, and it is a great place to be, so I definitely recommend it too.
Hi Mia – thanks for the post – I shared on G+ and on twitter @nniches :). Thank you for your comment, I think I genuinely thought it would be relatively easy to get started, but you really have to be dedicated long term and see it as business from the beginning in order to succeed. I agree with all you say. 🙂
Internet marketing sure is, but not a scam, an opportunity to be free. To work from home and set your own schedule, to spend time with family, to do what you love without having a nasty 9-5 job.
That’s why I started it, because I never worked one of those neither do I want to when I finish college.
hey there – great aless- well, I hope you’re well on the way to earning a decent income from internet marketing, (if you’re not already). Thanks for your comment
Internet marketers promote internet marketing!! Its profitable to sell the idea but the reality is its definitely a scam. Most of the products that are sold as “the best thing for SEO” “keyword research” “backlinks” etc etc have great sales videos and promotions to suck people in to buying them but they rarely have any tangible benefit i.e. putting money in your pocket.. Getting yourself on the front page of Google is pointless unless you have something to sell and it seems to be the holy grail but it doesnt mean a thing even though you are brainwashed into thinking it does. And the lists and building it is one of the most annoying things. Every person with a website these days wants your email address. All i get is spam forever with offfers that I dont want, never wanted and will never do anything with except unsubscribe and delete. Every internet marketing guru says it all in the list, sales is in the list, you need an autoresponder buy one here and they get a commission, host here and they get a commission, by the time you get everything you need you need to go and get a job to pay off the CC. even this website wants your email address, heaven forbid the send me an email with an offer.
Hi,
yes it’s true, internet marketing includes a tonne of people trying to promote the next get rich scheme, or special “secret,” regarding something or other and in reality, it’s just crap. But that’s the problem, sometimes these products may contain some information of value, but they miss out on vital steps that someone brand new online would need in order to actually make any money from the information. Then you’re generally sucked into a sales funnel and email list that will be sent on or sold to other internet marketers and you’ll be spammed with product after product. BUT internet marketing is not all about that – for example, bloggers online in all sorts of niches make money in a variety of ways, they could still be called “internet marketers,” because they are making sales online through a lot of the same methods… building an audience, building a list, SEO etc… but it’s not about selling get rich quick schemes. The reason I’m on page 1 for plenty of keywords is because I did it the long way…. learning SEO basically! There is no quick fix – but plenty of marketers make a lot of money out of convincing you they can make you millionaires. Your story is a very common one unfortunately… it sounds like your email address may have been sold on to other marketers, which is common if you sign up to spammy products. When I review some of these things, I make sure I use a separate email address, so that I’m not bothered by them via my personal email. I hope that helps!
I am 73 and have been in the computer business all my life, so I decided that working from home on the Internet would be the amswer. I have invested several thousands into the endeavor, learning g alot but making nothimg. I have found that once you say no to the next additional investment the support staff basically drop you. Because it is not possible to work a couple days a week and doing it right is not possible, I have been thinking I would sign up with an Amazon related program. What do you think of their programs? How do you really get people to go thru you site when they can go directly to Amazon. Worlds Best marketing systems charges 10,000 to get you into the Amazon program and train you. Their online reputation is positive, but I don’t have the stamina to get into anot her program that requires far more energy I have. What do you think. Also is there any attorneys that are going after the scammers? Thanks, sharun
Hi there Sharon, are you talking about the affiliate program with Amazon? In which case, I rate it very highly, but it does take time and effort to start making money with an affiliate website. That said, I think it’s one of the easiest to START making money with. These posts may help:
How to make your first affiliate sale online.
3 great ways to make money with amazon.
You send people directly through to amazon via an affiliate link – which is just a link that includes your affiliate tracking ID and this means that amazon knows that it was you who sent people. There is then a 24 hour window for people to buy something, (anything) in order for you to make a commission. Other affiliate programs have much longer cookies, (such as 30 days). Etsy is another affiliate program that I use on one site, (for example) and you can use various affiliate programs, you don’t need to just stick with the one.
I haven’t looked into worlds best marketing systems, (I will check it out) but I would strongly urge against ever spending 10,000 on any program. You certainly don’t need to do that to get a grip of the amazon affiliate program. As far as scammers and the law, plenty of scammers are eventually brought to justice for things, but I see that more in the case of blatant pyramid schemes or cash gifting schemes. But other programs can work well within loopholes, even if most people that join them have a very limited chance of any success by joining them. Often this is done by providing a small amount of value at low cost and then making the individual pay more and more for the more “advanced,” information… as the person finds it too hard to understand, (due to elements in the training being missing) they either feel compelled to spend more, or just give up and move on the next thing. Most people who join the programs have a get-rich-quick mentality to begin with and this is why they are compelled to join programs that promise they can make thousands in a short space of time – but that’s not realistic online. I hope that helps.
Thank u so so so so much !!
This is the most honest post I’ve ever seen !
Yes, you’re totally right ! Internet marketing is not a scam but it is a space literally saturated with SCAMS.
My experience : I’ve been blogging for five months, and then I finally ranked one of my post on Google first page ! I thought I could start making my first sale, but the reality is… I didn’t even get ANY TRAFFIC
I was so so disappointed… I’ve already ranked my post on the first page, but still not getting any traffic, wtf ??? So I stopped blogging for three weeks, and then the magical thing happened ! My ranking dropped to the Google second page… That was the moment I realized that blogging is a “JOB” It’s not a passive income on my opinion. You still have to work really hard every single day in order to maintain SEO.
So I quit blogging because I’m not passionate about writing at all… If I can really make money online, then it will still be my “JOB” because I really really really hate writing articles since the day I started my blog !
So it’s definitely not like what other scammers said… internet marketing is not a get-rich-quick game. If you can really make money online, you still have to work hard ! It’s just like a JOB
Hi Sam,
I feel your frustration!
I think, regarding the zero traffic on page 1, that could be due to a number of things.
Including, what keyword tool you’re using to determine how much traffic that precise keyword actually gets. That being said, keyword tools are still going to be an estimate and you can’t judge for sure how much traffic a keyword will bring to your site. I generally see a big difference if I’m in the top 3-5 positions, but below that it can be minimal, (depending on the keyword!).
Sometimes I *think* that ranking highly for a keyword should get me thousands of pageviews a month for that alone…and it doesn’t at all. But also, sometimes I target a keyword that supposedly has very little traffic and it ends up being one of my highest viewed pages…. (this tends to be because I also rank for various other keywords I hadn’t even targeted though!).
Anyway, getting off track here! But basically, if you have a domain with high authority, (that has a LOT of content and has been around for years) you can maintain your rankings far easier, than someone who has only been at it for six months and has a low domain authority.
So, let’s say you were blogging four years from now and had hundreds of posts – then you would find it much easier to maintain your rankings.
This site is going to be coming up to two and a half years old – but around a year ago I took a month off completely and didn’t work on it at all. If anything, my rankings improved.
I also made money in that time from the site, without doing any work at all. But I had done a lot of work to that previously. So, you can make “passive income,” with a blog but it takes a lot of work to get to that and then you still have a lot of work to do to continue to maintain that year after year.
I’ve seen bloggers who may have been at it for many years and earning five figures a month, get a bit fed up with it all and take longer and longer breaks… only to find their traffic slowly plummeting and their business disappearing. How hard it is to maintain your rankings/traffic, will also depend on other things… like how competitive your niche is.
I wouldn’t suggest anyone blog who doesn’t enjoy writing on some level… Although, you can outsource writing pretty cheaply if you wanted to. That would take some financial investment on your part though!
Anything online will take considerable effort – but I have seen people far further ahead than me who do make it far more passive, because they outsource a lot of the work. Personally, I enjoy the work. However, it’s definitely hard at times and I’m sure I will outsource in the future.
Anyway Sam, I wish you luck in whatever you go ahead to do in future and thanks for taking the time to comment! Nat 🙂
😀
Thank u so much for replying !!! Yes, you’re right ! It all depends on the keyword…
I think the reason why I didn’t get any traffic is because the post I ranked on the Google first page is a *long tail keyword* It’s less competitive but also *low search volume* So I really got discouraged at that moment 🙂
I think it’s all about the “mindset” I’ve joined so many affiliate marketing trainings(Wealthy Affiliate included by the way 😀 ), and almost all of them promised that you will start making money in 0 ~ 5 months. So I was expecting to see my first sale in 5 months, but after not getting any traffic from that post… I immediately feel like I just got scammed 🙂 because it’s definitely not like what they said… It actually takes much much longer than I thought. I should have prepared for at least one year….
You’re right ! you can make “passive income,” with a blog but it takes a lot of work to get to that ! But the biggest problem is that I’m not like those people who enjoy writing 😀 (by the way, English is not even my first language !!!)
So it would be a big challenge for me to maintain my blog ! I know I can outsource writing, but it will cost a lot of money ! I would rather spend those money on advertising than hire writers for my blog 🙂 Maybe I will move on to e-commerce store because I don’t have to write long blog posts anymore 😀 But I know… it’s still very difficult !
Anyway, thanks for your reply ! You inspired me a lot !!! I will keep going on my entrepreneurial journey !!! 😀
By the way, do you have any experience in facebook advertising or email marketing ? Do they really work ?? XD
Hi,
Yes I think when I started, I literally thought I’d be making a full time income within six months lol, or a year at most! I did make my first sale on another two websites within three months though and they were both mainly using the amazon affiliate program. One of those websites worked well with Pinterest, (which has helped to continue to make me sales with that site, even without adding to it at all).
However, with this site, it took me six months to make a single sale! So, it can really vary. I have spoken to other people where it’s taken well over a year to even make one sale! That must take real dedication on their part.
Unfortunately though, you can give someone the same instructions and yield different results every time. Going into a broad niche, for example, you’re probably going to have a hard time and it will take you longer. If you start with a narrow niche that can expand later on, this can give you a better chance of seeing some results earlier. Then actually getting that first sale will depend on so many things.
But it certainly does take a strong mindset and also I think a lot of research and tweaking, testing, changing… You really have to grow and develop overtime and learn from others that are doing well. It works well to really research other people in your own niche and what they are doing well, or what they may not be doing so well.
But yes, it’s going to be really tough if you don’t like writing! Outsourcing could be done fairly cheaply, if you can find a good writer on a budget – but still an expense. You could go into e-commerce.. that’s something I’d like to look more into in future for sure.
Anyway, I’m pleased to help and I hope you find something that works for you. Regarding email marketing… this is something I’m working on right now and don’t have much experience in, but am learning at the moment. As far as Facebook… terrible! Lol, I hardly touch Facebook really. I’ve been focusing more on Pinterest right now, but social media has not been a strong point for me yet!
🙂 Nat
😀 Thank u, I feel better now XD
Yes, it’s going to be really tough because I hate writing… it usually takes me 4 hours each day and 3 ~ 7 days to finish a 1000 ~ 3000 words blog post… I know it’s ridiculously long !!! XD I’m just sooo terrible at writing… Maybe I can hire u as a writer ?? 😀 nah just kidding !
Okay, one more question here ! Do u make a full time income from your blogs ? 😀
Haha 🙂 wow… that is quite a long time ;). But I can understand if you hate it and it must be even harder with English not as your first language. With practice though, you could really get tonnes quicker. There are a lot of bloggers who do freelance to support themselves, many earn more from that side of things in the end! You could probably find bloggers in your niche who would write articles. Or you could look for writers somewhere like upwork, or freelancer. Am I making it full time? oooh it’s been up and down for me! Not quite, but close. I wish I could say 100% yes! But, it won’t be long, I can say that :). There are some people who have got there way quicker than me, but we all have our own journey and way of doing things I guess! Keep in touch Sam 🙂
Thanks for this Nat.
I had a long reply, but when doing the CAPTCHA code, an error swiped my reply, therefore a shortened one.
I notice March was the last activity on this blog? What successes can you share since that time? Any changes in strategy?
Is a website compulsory for internet/online marketing, or should blogging be sufficient?
I am a tour operator in Cape Town, South Africa, and have had some international clients, especially youngsters who mostly answered Online Marketing when questioned about what they do, and that triggered me to look into this possibility?
I am in fact saving this blog for reference in the future, should I make a step into this venture. Thank you so much.
Hey there Anslin,
I’m sorry you lost your reply then, but thank you for taking the time to respond.
Yes, I’m doing well, still working away at this site mainly, although I am starting a new niche website this year. I haven’t particularly changed – I’m focusing now on learning to drive traffic with Pinterest, because I was hit by a Google Birthday update this year where I lost some of my traffic and I don’t just want to rely solely on the search engines for traffic indefinitely. I also finally set up a free mini email course this year, which I’d intended to do for the last several years LOL…. (I’m a bit of a procrastinator).
I use the term website and blog interchangeably… Rags to niches is a blog, but it’s still a WordPress website. If you mean, do you need to own your own domain to make money online, or just have a free blog or website – then I strongly recommend anyone have their own domain whatever they choose to do.
By having your own domain, you have a piece of internet property that you own and will become valuable in time, (if you work on it). Websites that are making money, can sell for very good money if you ever choose to sell!
Fortunately, owning your own website certainly isn’t too expensive at all.
Below are some posts that could help you! I currently make money from having paid advertising, (with mediavine) on my website and also, from affiliate marketing.
– What is a niche website.
– How to choose a niche.
– How to make your first affiliate sale.
– How to make money from a simple blog.
Hopefully that will help somewhat, if you do choose to get started in the future. Despite what you may read online, it’s not a quick path to making money, but it can be a lucrative one in the long term, (if you just stick with it and keep going!).
The great thing is, it’s just something that you can keep growing and is certainly something you can work on part-time.
The best of luck to you! Nat 🙂
Hello Nat – thanks for your site. Nice to see not everyone are scammers. Like many I have been scammed. Scammed in the eighties with making security devices. No matter how good I made the product it was never good enough ( later found out the people went to prison for this. Mid nineties a scam setup to con would be inventors ( I had an idea which I thought could be beneficial to the public domain) Late nineties a mortgage broking scheme (setup during the housing boom). Mid ninetine. Late 2000s signed up for Internet Marketing training . MLM schemes. I have had my share ( I know it is not a contest) Naturally I now am sceptical . Currently unemployed taking time out to finish my home . I am a keen DIYer and I have story to tell. Looking at writing a book. Previous work in computer support and although I am grateful been reasonably successful it is not want to do. I am not expecting a get rich scheme but a living would be nice instead of existing. It is not just the financial position it is about the journey. Change in direction,position in life. As I have failed many times ( may be not my fault) I would like now to succeed at 56. I am not really a social media follower WhatsApp is just about my thing. May be I should be looking at DIY as possible option. Any help would be welcome.
Mike
Hey Mike,
Well, it sounds like you have tried many things – that’s for sure! But maybe you were seeking out quick results? That’s where many people fall short. I started trying to make money online many years ago and it was only through trial and error, a bit of luck and a lot of persistence that I eventually did find things that worked for me. If you like DIY, what about creating a YouTube channel. Tiktok would be a good idea for DIY… I’m not a fan of it myself but lots of people do have success with it. I know you say you’re not into social media and I totally get it but it’s probably the way to go, if you want to do DIY related content. It will take a long time to grow but it’s still something with potential if you’re passionate about it. You could then promote your book that way also. All the best, Nat