If you’ve never done any kind of internet marketing, but you’re interested in starting, it can be hard to find the best foot forward because it seems like there is always so much to do and to get done instantly that it can be hard to prioritize. With a guide, it makes the job that much easier, so read on and we’ll help get you started in the world of internet marketing.

*Pay special attention to the bottom of our post for a special bonus.

Entrepreneurship

There is little better in the world’s workforce than being able to be your own boss, set your own hours and where your future is as bright as you are – your potential untapped and limitless. But while owning your own business sounds like your ticket to freedom, it does come with some downsides that you should be aware of so that success will bloom later.

Things like time management are tricky when it’s just you as a marketer with your own business. There is so much to do that it can be very hard to do alone, without a strict time regimen that ensures you stay on task all the time. There is also imminent failure around almost every corner as you start out, and it is important to have the right mindset to ensure you keep at it, despite the failures. Look at a failure as a chance to improve, or something to learn from and move past so the same mistakes aren’t repeated instead of looking at it like a personal failing. You didn’t fail, but your strategy might, or other details like design, or SEO or other analytics you can track, and tweak until you get them right.

One of the biggest killers of early internet marketers is failure causing someone to just quit. Don’t quit, keep at it and you’ll soon find victory.

Niche? What is a Niche?

You’ll have to figure out what area you want to market within, and there are as many markets as you can think of. Just for example’s sake, there are: beauty products, accessories for electronics, apps and addons, informational products, e-products, actual physical products, accessories for clothing like purses or belts, or even custom t-shirt printing. Basically, anything you can think of to sell to others is a viable market, but you need to pick carefully because there are a couple very big things which will make or break your early internet marketing (IM) business.

Don’t choose a niche you don’t believe in

There are products out there offering things like penile enlargement (fake) or how to pick up a girl by pickup artists (fake, or at best – shameful), and if you choose to represent a product like this, despite knowing you’re basically scamming people and preying on their insecurities, you need to be prepared to have some guilt and unhappy customers if it doesn’t work for them, which also means usually giving their money back. This seems to be a market standard among internet marketers. “If you’re not 100% satisfied, we’ll give you your money back within 60 days” or something to that effect. If you don’t believe in your product, how can you expect to convince others it’s worth it?

Choose something you do believe in, something you’re passionate about, or something you think will change people’s lives and you’ll be far happier with more job satisfaction and it will lead to more conversions as well. (Conversions = sales from leads) (Leads = people who have not bought from you yet but seem interested in doing so in future)

Do some research

Now, we just said to pick something you’re passionate about, or may be life-changing, but if noobdy is looking for that, or if few are actually as interested as you are, then you still won’t make sales. Say for instance, you have developed a pen cap that doubles as an emergency whistle, so people can quickly signal for help if they’re in trouble. It’s a great invention to be sure, but how many people are looking for something like this? Use this tool from Google before you venture out into the unknown. The keyword planner will even help you look at your competition to see what words they’re using that convert visitors into buyers, and also to see if you are able to even compete with them.

Content is King

You can’t expect visitors without quality content so you’re going to end up writing it yourself if you’re a great writer, or hiring someone to do the writing for you. Now, there are sites out there like FancyHands who can give you writers for a nomimal fee that you set, and you’ll get a decently written piece.

What you don’t want to do, is hire anyone who is not a native English speaker, or isn’t completely fluent in written English, regardless how cheap they sell their services. You wouldn’t take your Ferrari to a dirty backyard mechanic with broken down rusting vehicles all over the yard, so you can’t expect people to read terrible writing either. Treat them like the Ferrari and assume they’re looking for the best you have to offer.

Provide constant content in the form of blog posts, updates, and create a social media presence on as many platforms as you have time for. To start with, Facebook and Twitter are excellent and easy bets. You can share content that others have put up, or create your own, host contests and more, but keep giving your audience content so you give them reasons to keep coming back, and always ALWAYS make sure that the content is of the highest quality. Remember, this reflects directly onto you.

Social Media Marketing

While you can create content for social media, and your site and share it all over the place, it won’t matter much if nobody sees you. You’ll need a marketing strategy for your social media efforts to gain a following. You can create an ad campaign within Facebook, and go for Likes or other vectors, and you can even tell it where you want those to come from in the world.

It wouldn’t help much if you have a great product to sell and you live in Brazil but your Facebook ads are going to someplace like Vietnam. You want to advertise both locally, and also internationally but you also want to ensure that your reach is small enough that people will actually see it.  If your reach is too broad, it won’t be seen by enough people. If it is too narrow, the same is also true. You’ll need to adjust your category terms to find the right people for your ad targeting, and it’s a tricky thing which takes patience and experience to perfect, so stick with it and watch your analytics.

SEO

We covered some simple SEO tips in our last blogpost but to summarize here, you want to optimize your site with keywords that people are actually searching for in your niche. This goes right back to Google’s Adwords Keyword tool, and you can find the top ranked keywords to use in your posts and within your metas like descriptions, titles and more that people don’t see in the background of the post, but which still allow you to be searched more easily. Refer to our post here for more information on optimization.

PPC Could Stand for Anything…

What is PPC and why all the abbreviations? Businesses have their own terms and it just takes less time when they are abbreviated, and in marketing PPC is “Pay per click” which is part of advertising and you will find it on Facebook and Google’s ad network. This just tells you how much you will be paying for each click on your ad. This can grow quickly, so it’s a very important metric.

This means you’ll need to work on targeting and retargeting your audience to ensure that the clicks you’re getting have the highest chance of resulting in a sale, so you’re not just forking over cash for people who are merely curious.

Affiliates

Affiliate marketing is another way to get started, which is the promotion of someone else’s product that you’ll get a kickback for. For instance, a company is selling a product that will transform your entire media center and they’re giving it a price point of $49.99 and if you sell that product for them, you’ll get a percentage of that sales price, depending on what the original marketer has set it at. Sometimes they will offer incentives and bonuses to be the top seller, so it pays to grow a great list of prospects who are willing to buy from you.

Email and SMS

This part only really matters once you have a list to speak of in the first place, which takes time and trust to grow. The same people who “Like” you on Facebook are the very ones you can market to if they give you an email address. You can gate your information or product behind an email capture, which means people must provide an email address to see anything.

There are other ways of gaining an email address or a cell number, like hosting a contest where you give away something with real value, or you can offer a crazy discount or sale, and have them text you a code you provide them online to get their coupon or voucher. When you have enough email addresses or phone numbers, you can actively begin an email marketing campaign. More on that here.

All of these topics and more are covered in even greater detail in an incredible FREE offer. You can get our “Internet Marketing for Newbies Training” (Free for a limited time) which will go into greater detail in all these areas, and help you get a giant boost to begin your IM campaign on the right foot. We want you to succeed, and we’ll be there every step of the way.