Hey guys, today is my one year anniversary as an Internet Marketer. That’s right. Just one year ago, I didn’t even know what internet marketing was and now, I know so darn much. As a little present, I’ve put together the top 15 frequently asked questions of newbies. These are burning questions that I had just starting off and I know want to share my knowledge with you. So, read it through and let me know what you think.

1. How can I get people to click on my resource page after reading my articles? That one is easy. You bribe them. No seriously, you have to make people want to visit your site by providing them with enough quality content to make them interested in learning more. You can’t give them all your secrets in the article. Instead, you have to encourage them to read more by clicking on your resource link and visiting your site.
2. Do I have to spend money to make money? Yes, but not a lot of money. Although you can find most of the tools you need for free, you’ll likely need to invest in a few products to teach you the fast track secrets.
3. Do I have to work 50+ hours a week to be successful? It depends on what you call successful. Some people are successful making $100 a month whereas others want to make $10,000. One thing is certain; you will need to work hard to make your financial dreams a reality. You can’t just take the easy road if you really want to be successful.
4. How can I trust so-called internet marketing experts? You have to do your research. You can’t just trust every self-proclaimed guru professing to have the best magic money making system. Instead, you have to be selective and do your research and remember that there are lots of “gurus” who make their money misleading people, promising amazing results for techniques that may or may not work. Take it all with a grain of salt and season as you see fit.
5. Is content really important to an Internet Marketer’s success? Yes. You can’t just throw up junk content and hope that it will stick. Instead, you have to provide quality content that is useful and helpful to your visitors. This will entice them to visit your site over and over again because they will come to trust you for delivering quality content and not junk.
6. Do you have to have thousands of hits a day to be successful? No, you don’t need thousands of hits a day to be successful. The quality of the hits is more important. After all, you can make more money off small targeted traffic than large amounts of untargeted traffic. The key is to put the right offer in front of the right audience so that they can act and make you money.
7. How can you build your list? With a lot of hard work and effort. There are no easy ways to build a list. You have to try a lot of different things including giving out free products, article marketing, offline marketing, joint ventures, etc.
8. Do you really need affiliates? Yes you do. Affiliates will help you create the viral buzz that your product needs to be successful. Although you’ll give up a portion of your commission, you’ll make it up because you’ll make more money. So, by getting partners now, you can grow your list faster and skyrocket your profits.
9. How can I get my affiliates to promote my products? By having good products and then making the offer too good to be true. If you set your commissions high at 55% or higher and have well converting offers, affiliates will happy to promote your product or service offering. Also, make it easier for them by providing them with marketing tools like articles and other material as well.
10. How come nothing that I’ve bought has worked? Because you have been pussy footing around that’s why. There are numerous ways to make money online and just about every one of them will work if you put forth the necessary work and effort. The problem is that most people are looking for an easy way out and don’t stick around long enough to make something work. If you stay focused and committed to one project at a time, you can make it work.
11. Should I become an affiliate marketer or sell my own products? It depends. Selling your own products will allow you to earn the most money but this route can be riskier as you’ll be responsible for conducting market research, producing a killer product, hard hitting sales letter and website as well as handling marketing and customer service inquiries. For most newbies, this can be too much so it may be better to sell other people’s products for a commission. This way, you will only have to worry about choosing the right product and then marketing it.
12. Why haven’t I succeeded yet? You haven’t succeeded yet because you have to keep on trying. You can’t focus on your past failures. Instead you have to use any past failure as feedback and then do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. For instance, let’s say that you love creating products but hate marketing them. In this case, you might want to find a JV partner that will market the products that you create. This way, you can concentrate on what works instead of what doesn’t.
13. How can I make $10,000 a month or more? You can make $10,000 or more by leveraging your talents with others, working smarter, never giving up, and being open to learning and applying your knowledge. Although it wont’ happen overnight, if you stick to it, it can happen.
14. How can I find JVs? You can find joint ventures by being open and receptive. Just remember that you don’t have to choose JVs with only well named gurus to be successful. Instead, you can partner up with other non popular marketers and still make big bucks. The key is to be on the lookout for these types of partners, add them to your list, and then approach them for partnership opportunities. Once you do that you can succeed.
15. I’m overloaded with information, what do I do now? You create a business plan and then focus on one project at a time. You work hard to make that project a success and then you move on to the next project. Once that one is successful, you move on to the next one. You absolutely must stop switching around too much and simply focus, focus, focus. Simply use what you have and make it work for you and then move on.

Well, that’s it. Hope you guys enjoyed reading these 15 top FAQs. Now, all you have to do is apply the above advice and you too will be well on your way to becoming a successful Internet Marketer too.

About a year ago, I read the “Secret” and recognized its principles right away. The “Secret” basically teaches the “Law of Attraction” or the theory that you “basically attract what you think about on a regular basis”. Therefore, if you think about negativity then that is what you attract.Although I had some reservations about this, I half-heartedly tried it to see if I could attract more goodness in my personal and business life. And amazingly, my half-hearted attempt actually got me half-hearted results.

Whenever I would visualize prosperity, health and happiness, I would receive these things. However, when I visualized lack, unhappiness and sickness I would inevitably receive those as well.

After a while, I soon realized that there was something to this “Law of Attraction” stuff because the more positive my attitude was, the more good things I experienced.

Well, it took me about a year to realize this and I am now 100% committed to giving the “Law of Attraction” a chance to work in my life. Everyday, I plan to apply the “law of attraction” to my personal and business affairs and I am going to do it wholeheartedly.

No more half-assed attempts for me. Instead, I expect nothing but health, happiness and prosperity to flow to me exponentially from this point on. I know that there is good karma surrounding me and I can attract goodness into my life. I know that my Internet Marketing business is going to be a HUGE success.

I am not scared but focused in my IM efforts. I visualize myself achieving my daily, monthly and yearly financial goals. I see myself attracting goodness in my life.

I have even put notes all around my office and house to remind me that the Law of Attraction works and that I can achieve my goals.

I imagine the type of life that my family and I will live and know that we will achieve all these things if we believe and if keep working smarter.

Won’t you join me and achieve goodness in your life by attracting prosperity too? Won’t you practice the Law of Attraction too? Let’s do it together!

Hey guys, have you missed me? Sorry for the delay in writing the last few days but I went out of town for a few days and decided that it would be better NOT to work while I was away. Instead, I enjoyed spending time with my family and really engulfed myself in my travels.  My trip was emotionally and physically renewing.

During our visit to Houston, we went to the NASA space center and saw how astronauts train and live in space. Their training was absolutely amazing. They go through a very rigorous schedule and really have to adapt to life in space. Heck, going to the bathroom, brushing your teeth, and sleeping is a major chore in space.

But, the highlight of  my visit was visiting Lakewood Church, where Joel and Victoria Osteen are the pastors.  For the longest time, I have been a fan of Joel’s and I absolutely love hearing him motivate and inspire others. And, I promised myself that one day, I would attend his service in person and yesterday I did.

We were driving around downtown Houston, came across Lakewood Church and realized that he had a Saturday service. I was geeked to say the least.

Anyway, the service was mind-blowing! Well worth the wait!

During Joel’s service, he encouraged us to be different and not one dimensional.  He told us the importance of trying new things, meeting new people, and not getting in a rut. He told us that we should experience all that life has to offer. By doing this, we will truly experience success and fulfill our life’s purpose. He also encouraged us to “step out of our box” and “live life to be the fullest.” For instance, if you’ve always wanted to become an Internet Marketer, then do it.

Thank you Joel for your inspirational service!

I’ve been a member of Associated Content for over a year now. In fact, I joined them in April of 2007. Last year, I submitted about 70 articles and made a whopping $277 or so from Associated Content. Now, before you laugh and say “what a waste”, keep reading.I now realize that I gave up too soon. Like many new writers, I thought, they don’t pay enough and isn’t worth my time. Well, I now see that Associated Content works just like everything else…if you work it!

I received lower offers because I didn’t have a clue how Associated Content worked. I wrote on topics that interested me and didn’t concentrate on articles that they might find helpful. I didn’t concentrate on keyword density at all. But, most importantly, I didn’t promote Associated Content at all and I didn’t use it to my benefit.I basically expected them to promote my articles for me and guess what, this didn’t work.

What I have learned now is that you have to conduct your research, write informative articles and promote them to receive higher offers. You have to prove yourself to Associated Content so that you can make more cash. I also learned that Associated Content is not only great for extra upfront payments, but they also drive targeted traffic to your site.

Unlike EzineArticles however, Associated Content doesn’t allow you to put a resource link at the bottom of your site. However, they do allow you to place links in the resource section as well as your profile there. So, if a reader enjoys your article, they can then visit your recommended resource (your main site) in order to learn more information about it. Cool – right?

Well, after I started funneling traffic to my niche sites from Associated Content, I noticed an increase in site page views referred by Associated Content which lead to more revenue for me. So, now, I see Associated Content in a different way. It is a great way to drive targeted traffic to your niche sites and you can even receive extra money from upfront and performance payments too. Therefore go ahead and give Associated Content a try as it may become one of your favorite ways to make upfront cash and draw targeted traffic to your website.

Take it from me – in the past few eight years, I have been through my share of web designers. Some have been good (an absolute dream) and some have been really bad (a real nightmare). Arrghhh. Arrghhh. Arghhh. Whew, just thinking about the bad ones gives me the sweats.

Although I would love to learn web design and build my own sites, I honestly don’t have the time. Instead, I choose to concentrate on what I do best – write and let my designers do what they do best – design. And, this works well.I have to be honest though. There are times when I do create my own sites. Typically I do this to evaluate a niche to make sure it is profitable before I go all out and create a powerhouse site. When I create my own site, I use www.blogger.com or www.weebly.com because these platforms require absolutely no knowledge of HTML at all. None. Zip. Nada. You simply click and point and you can have a great looking site.However, there are often times when you need something more advanced and need to hire a professional web designer.Here are some tips to help you make the process easier:

1. Know your budget before you start looking for a designer. Visit tons of websites and evaluate their features. See what type of capabilities you would like to have and know how much money you have available for this project. For instance, do you need an integrated shopping cart or will a 3^rd party processor work just as well? Either way, researching beforehand will help you keep your costs down.

2. Get quotes (and lots of them) from various designers. This will give you a sense of the price range for your project. For a smaller project, look for a fixed price and for a more complicated one, you will probably be given an estimate. Either way, try and hone down the price before you begin working with a designer so that you aren’t in for any surprises.

3. Evaluate prospect’s portfolios which will enable you to evaluate their web designing expertise. Ask yourself these questions: Are the sites aesthetically pleasing? Do you like their layout and style? Once you’re done, compare the portfolio samples with other samples in their portfolio. For instance, does it appear that the prospective designer uses a cookie-cutter approach or does each sites seem original?

4. Interview prospects carefully. This can be done by phone or in person. During the interview you should ask them about the types of clients they’ve worked for in the past, technical knowledge and customer service skills.

5. Trust your instinct. If you don’t have a good feeling about working with a potential designer or team, then don’t work with them. You must be able to trust your designer and can’t believe that they are ripping you off. Your designer should have your best interest in mind. They should work quickly and efficiently and not pad their time for a higher fee.

6. Get everything in writing. Use a standard contract and be very clear about your project expectations, delivery and payment terms, project milestones requirements, etc. For instance, when will the site be delivered? Will you own all the rights to the design once you’re done? Will your designer use a template or stock photos? Will it be search engine optimized? Will you be required to host the designed site on the designer’s host? Will they charge you regular price for any updates? How many changes will be required?

7. Negotiate any discrepancies. Always negotiate any discrepancies in the contract BEFORE you sign on the dotted line. This will help you avoid any unpleasant misunderstandings before you get started.

That’s it. If you follow these tips, you will find the perfect designer. One that meets your needs and that you can trust. And when you do, you’ll end up with a great site and a long term writer/designer partnership that could benefit you both for the long haul.