When I quitted my job (with no backup income and only a strong desire to succeed), I told myself that I’m going to build a passive income system that will make money on autopilot. By then, I will travel around the world, and sit in my office and shake legs (meaning: doing nothing).

Is that your dream too?

Well, here’s what is happening……

Yes, I now travel to different countries anytime I like. But I have to carry my laptop wherever I go. When I book hotel, I have to make sure that it comes with high speed internet access.

And yes, I really sit in my office and shake leg (as a habit). But my hands are always on the keyboard and my eyes are glued to the computer screen.

So what happen to my dream?

What happen is I’ve fallen in love with my work. (My wife hates me saying this!)

Sometimes I ask myself, what would I do if I retire. Guess what my answer is? I will still be doing the same thing as what I’m doing now!!!

Will you say you are going to ‘retire’ from your hobby? You won’t, right?

You may be wondering what is it that I’m doing everyday that makes my work so interesting.

Let me tell you the truth……

I’m doing all the boring things that you probably have been dragging yourself to do; things like writing articles, posting ads, replying emails, creating websites and managing freelancers.

I bet this is not the first time you heard people saying that to succeed, you must love what you do. But I bet no one has told you my version:

“To succeed, you must love the boring things that you do.”

Most people can’t succeed online because they’ve been painted with the fantasy of easy money, but when they get down to the actual work, they find it boring and quit. Those who eventually make it are those who love doing the boring stuff.

Don’t ask me how I fell in love with the boring things. It’s like falling in love with your wife (or husband). There is no reason!

So, how do you fall in love with the boring things in internet marketing?

Like I said earlier, I don’t know how. To me, it’s like falling in love with your soul mate. Is it fated? I don’t know.

But what I can tell you is that when I first started, I was motivated by money.

As I went through the process, I slowly get used to it and now it has become part of my life.

Come to think about it, that’s how two person fell in love with each other, isn’t it? You may fall in love with someone for some initial reasons, but when you’re truly in love, what you really love is the feeling of being together.

So the moral behind this is, if you want to fall in love with the boring things that you do, keep working until you get used to it.

Creating a passive income online is something that you probably have heard of. Many business opportunities use the idea of “creating a passive income online” to sell you their systems. It works because I’m using this trick too. But does passive income really exists?

In this article, my goal is to share with you some essential truth about creating a passive income online. I know most of you are more keen to learn how to create a passive income online. I’ll talk about it in future. But before I do that, it is important for me to cover some grounds and get your mindset right.

Passive Income Doesn’t Exist!

First of all, I need to get this straight - passive income doesn’t exists, at least not according to what most newbies define as passive income.

Most people define passive income as “making money without having to do anything”. If you are one of them, you will be very disappointed when you realize that this is not true.

Do you realize that whenever you get into an opportunity that ‘claims’ to give you a passive income, you end up being overwhelmed with lots of sh*t and often have to work like a dog? That’s when most people give up.

Truth is, there is no such thing as making money without having to do anything. If such opportunity exists, it’s most likely a scam (unless you’re talking about putting your money in the fixed deposit).

So what is a passive income then?

Here is my definition of a passive income - “A passive income is an income system that does not trade time for money.”

If you go with my definition, you are less likely to be disappointed and more likely to succeed because you’re prepared to work hard to create such a system.

Once you get the definition right, all you have to do is spend most of your time creating different streams of passive income and spend less time making money.

“Huh, what are you talking about, Kenneth?”

If you understand what I am talking about, good for you. If you don’t, let me explain.

Most people spend time to make money. One obvious example is working for a monthly salary. Some other less obvious examples include the following activities:

- Staring at the computer screen to trade the stock market or forex.

- Selling products in Ebay (unless you have plans to turn it into a system).

- Posting ads to sell Clickbank products (unless you have plans to turn it into a system).

- Providing freelance services such as graphic design, article writing etc (I hope my freelancers are not reading this!)

If you are pressured for money, yes, go find a job and do some part-time freelance jobs. But if you want to be rich, spend most of your time creating different streams of passive income.

You need to understand that making money and creating a passive income are two different things.

Creating a passive income may not make you money, although the ultimate goal is to make lots of money passively. When creating a passive income, you are creating a system that does not trade time for money and in the process of creating this system, you may spend more than you earn.

Many people can’t get pass the idea of losing money before making money. That’s why most people fail to create their first passive income online. On the contrary, those who are ‘lucky’ enough to create their first stream of passive income online will continue to create the second stream and third stream because they’re used to the idea of losing some money before getting it all back, multiplied. Another reason is because with their first passive income established, their risk appetite is higher and they are more willing to lose. The last reason is because they are more experienced now.

If you’ve just started out, go find a job to make money. But don’t spent too much time on it. Take 3-5% of your monthly income and most of your spare time to create a passive income online. Online opportunities cost much lesser than offline opportunities and 3-5% should be enough for you to learn the ropes. How soon you’ll see your first passive income established depends on how fast you learn and how hard you work.

Get your definition of passive income right and spend most of your time creating a passive income online. Once you’ve created your first passive income, go on to create the second, the third and more streams of passive income. This is possible since you don’t trade time for money with these systems. This is the sure way to make a fortune rather than just making a living.

Helping you to increase your web site traffic has always been my top priority and today, I’m going to share with you my best kept secrets to increase web site traffic from scratch.

Like many of you, I started my career in internet marketing with little knowledge, no JV partner, no internet marketing friend and I didn’t pay thousands of dollars to attend any seminar on internet marketing. I started from scratch, learning the ropes by reading tons of ebooks and email newsletters (blog wasn’t popular when I started online).

So I believe whatever web site traffic strategy that works for me will work for you.

My Most Important Web Site Traffic Strategy

My most important web site traffic strategy is viral marketing.

Viral marketing is a huge topic by itself and it encompasses many different strategies, including viral ebook, viral software, affiliate program, tell-a-friend system and even list building.

Before I even start thinking about the details of any new web site, the first question I will ask myself is “How can I multiply my initial traffic into more traffic?” If I can’t get a good answer to this question, I will not build the web site at all. (Clarification: I’m referring to mega web sites like LeadsLeap, not those little Adsense or affiliate web sites that rely on search engine traffic.)

The whole idea of viral marketing is that you want people to tell other people about your website.

You may think all you need is an affiliate program. If you do, you are dead wrong! Just because you are having an affiliate program doesn’t mean that people will start spreading the words. In most cases, they won’t!

The key in viral marketing is to create a buzz in the community. You need to position your new web site in such a way that there is some novelty in it, something that will make people say “Hey, it sounds interesting” or “Hey, this is something new”. If you can do that, together with a good supporting system such as an affiliate program, your web site will spread like wild fire.

Next, You Need Web Site Traffic Starter

I derive the term Traffic Starter from Fire Starter. When you set up a fire, you need fire starters. Similarly, if you want  your website to spread like wild fire, you need a traffic starter, which is the initial traffic to your website.

Can you imagine what will happen if you burn lots of fire starters but you fail to put some charcoal around them? Yes, you get some initial fire but it soon dies.

In the case of web site traffic, the charcoal is the viral marketing components. That’s why I say viral marketing is the most important web site traffic strategy. You MUST have that in place before even thinking about where to get your initial traffic.

Am I clear on this point?

Ok next, where do you get the initial traffic?

Frankly, it really doesn’t matter where you get the initial traffic, as long as the traffic you receive are targeted.

When finding the initial web site traffic, an important question to ask yourself is “Where can I find people who are interested in my web site?” Whatever answer you get, go there and find ways to channel the traffic to your website.

It could mean you have to pay some money to advertise. It could also mean you have to write to some website owners and strike out some JV deals.

When I first started, I had no JV contact and I got all my initial traffic from advertising. I spent quite a bit on advertising (5 figures to be exact), but I soon earned back the money because I put a lot of “charcoal” around my traffic starter. Get the idea?

That’s really my main secret to increase web site traffic and I hope you get the gist of it.

Today I’m going to share with you how I get one of my old websites back to top 10 in Google, spending very little time and money.

But before I tell you what I did, let me give you a brief background about this particular website.

I have a niche website that I created back in 2004 and it has been in the top 10 in Google for a competitive keyword for years.

To give you some idea, that ’single word’ keyword gives 6,900,000 results in Google, i.e. more than 6 million websites are fighting for that keyword.

A few months back, I realized that the sales from the website dropped. I suspected that my ranking in Google had probably dropped. Indeed, it dropped out of the first page into the second page. The exact ranking was 12th position. Just missed the top 10 by 2 positions.

To regain my top position, I needed to get lots of backlinks fast.

Thus, about 2 months back, I engaged a freelancer to submit the website to 1000 link directories for less than $30. That’s all I did.

A few days ago, I realized that sales from the website increased. I went to Google and checked. Indeed, I’m back to the top 10. I’m now in the 7th position.

From this experience, I once again prove that directory submission is still a viable promotion method.

Some Advice In Website Creation

When I first started creating niche websites to profit from Adsense and affiliate sales, I followed the advice of the ‘experts’ - follow your interest.

I wrote very good articles and each website took me one month of intensive effort!

Soon, very soon in fact, I ran out of interested topics and I had nothing to write. It took me a while before I decided to create websites using Private Label Articles.

I’m glad that I made that decision.

The traffic and earnings from some of the websites created using Private Label Articles outperform those ’sweat and toil’ websites I’ve created.

For example, one of the websites I’ve created using Private Label Articles is now consistently generating more than $500 a month from Adsense. The highest record was $700 in one month. It took me only a few hours to create the website and a few hours to promote it.

I’ve tried at least 4 different Private Label Article services in the market and there is only 1 that worth my time and investment. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), that website will be closed on 30th June 2008, i.e. it will stop accepting new members after 30th June 2008 (but existing members will still continue to receive new articles). When it reopens, probably after 3-4 months time, the same service will cost you double.

If you are just starting out but are committed to build some passive income online, I suggest you grab this PLR service that I use before it’s closed to the public and ‘naively’ follow the instructions laid out by them, especially their 90-day challenge as well as my step by step guide. If you can just do that, you will thank me one year from now.

Do you know what’s the #1 reason why most people fail to make money online?

The #1 reason is indecision!

They can’t decide if internet marketing is for them. They are getting mixed messages from everywhere, messages like:

“You can make a million trading the stock market.”

“You can achieve financial freedom with MLM.”

“No, I think I should be a REAL brick and mortar businessman. Internet marketing is not a career!”

One of the secrets of success is that when you make a decision, everything else will fall into places. It’s one of the secrets of the universe, as important as the law of attraction.

The tough part is to make a decision.

If you haven’t made up your mind that you’re going to create a full time income from internet marketing, I hope this article can help you to make a decision today.

Ok, let’s compare Internet Marketing with Stock Trading, MLM and a Brick And Mortar Business.

I’ve been through all the 3 other options and I believe I’m qualified to share with you my experience.

Internet Marketing vs. Stock Trading

I see stock trading as a form of wealth management. You should learn how to park your extra money in the stock market to get better ROI (return on investment) than putting money in fixed deposit.

But trading the stock market full time is a bad idea, unless you package it into a business, especially an online business. If so, you’re back to the idea of internet marketing.

The truth is most stock trading experts make money teaching people how to trade stocks! They create courses, software and books to teach people and make huge profit from there.

In stock trading, there is no sure-win. If you get a return of 50% consistently, you are considered an expert.

But do you know that you can get 1000% ROI in internet marketing? For example, I can invest $200 to get freelancers to rewrite articles, create a website and build links. In the years to come, this website will easily earn me more than $2000. That’s a return of more than 1000%!!!

My risk? The worse case is I break even. These days, I hardly have a website that lose money. It’s just a matter of time before I break even.

My advice is, trade stock if you are interested, but spend more time building your online empire because you can get better ROI at lower risk.

Internet Marketing vs. MLM

The dream of MLM (Multi-level marketing or network marketing) is that you can achieve time and financial freedom. This is the idea that most MLMers will try to sell you.

To me, the true value in MLM is mindset training. Success is all about mindset. Good MLM companies have good training that can instill the millionaire’s mindset into you. This is something internet marketing can hardly achieve.

Other than that, I really can’t see any advantage over internet marketing.

If you talk about financial freedom, internet marketing can definitely give you financial freedom. Online income is definitely more passive than MLM income. In fact, you can have multiple streams of online passive income, which makes it more stable than just 1 source of passive income.

If you talk about time freedom, MLM can give you time freedom ONLY after you are successful. During the process of team building, it’s hell!! Your working hours are nighttimes, Sundays and public holidays. These are times when your family members are free but you are not!

Internet marketing, on the other hand, gives you time freedom EVEN before you are successful. You still have to work hard, but you chose when you want to work. You can work when everyone is sleeping. Or you can work an hour and play with your kids for the next hour. It’s all up to you.

Moreover, if you truly believe in the power of MLM, you should explore online MLM instead of the old-school brick and mortar MLM. The old-school MLM is really a time waster.

Internet Marketing vs. Brick And Mortar Business

Ever since I tasted the goodness of online marketing, I’ve never thought of doing brick and mortar business again!

I started out running traditional business and it was a relief when I converted my entire business to online. When I ran my offline business, my mind was all about how to pay my rental, my staff’s salary, how to bring in customers etc. I hardly have time to think of business strategies and expansion.

But online business is almost stress-free. When you are small, you work alone. There is no worry of office rental and staff cost. You spend most of your time thinking of business strategies and how to expand your business, which is definitely more important than working hard to pay bills!

Another important difference is in offline business, you can hardly find people who are willing to show you how to make money. But in online business, many people (too many in fact) wanting to show you how they make money. Some of them may charge you, but you are talking about $47 or $97. That’s cheap!

Final Remark……

I hope I’ve been impartial in my comparison. I’ve been on both sides of the equation and I just hope that my experience can help you make a better decision.

Remember, regardless of which decision you make, once you make the decision, everything else will fall into places for you!

Today I’m going to share with you how to increase your odds in online success. It’s simpler than what you think, really!

First of all, do you know that 9 out of 10 entrepreneurs will give their lifeblood and fail?

When it comes to online, I believe the same odds applies.

So, how do you ensure that you are the 1 out of 10 online entrepreneurs who succeed?

Simple. All you have to do is to be an online entrepreneur 10 times!

Mathematically, if 1 out of 10 will succeed, it means if you do it 10 times, there will be 1 time when you succeed!

Make sense?

Some of you may think this is nonsense, but it’s not.

Many people quit too early. In fact, many people quit even without trying!

I didn’t succeed in my first online business. I have registered at least 5 domain names that I hardly do anything with. I also have at least 2 ‘BIG’ websites that I’ve spent at least 2 months preparing but they are now sitting somewhere in the web, collecting virtual dust.

But so what?

I don’t need all my websites to be successful.

Even if you talk about Adsense websites (I have about 70 of them now), the highest earner can make me $500 a month and there are some that are just earning $5 a month.

Again, so what?

All I know is the more websites I have, the more money I make.

Am I disappointed with those websites that fail to perform?

I am. But that only motivates me to continue looking for other ways to bring traffic and make money online.

How about promoting affiliate products through PPC advertising? There is no guarantee that your first campaign will be a success. What if your 4th campaign is going to be a great success but you quit at the 3rd?

The good thing about being an online entrepreneur compared to being an offline entrepreneur is that you can hardly lose your shirt.

I lost $50,000 in 6 months in my first offline business. Question is how many $50,000 can you afford to lose before you hit the jackpot?

But when it comes to online, if you invest $500 on an online business, which is already considered a lot, 10 businesses will only cost you $5000. 1 successful business can easily recover all your losses.

So, if you are thinking of quitting, why not think about what your next project is going to be?

If you persists and keep improving, success is inevitable.

Many new marketers fail to start because they are not sure how to promote a new website.

So today I’m going to show you step by step what I normally do when I start a new website.

Before listing down the step by step instructions, I need to clarify that what I’m doing is to promote 15 to 40 pages Adsense website or product review website. It can be a static site or a blog.

“Why is it important to clarify on this?” You may ask.

This is because you can start many kinds of websites. Adsense or product review website is just one easy way to make ’small’ money online, but when you have 100s of these little sites, it’s more than enough to quit your job!

Other forms of website you can start include a squeeze page to build list, a mega service site like LeadsLeap, your own product site such as your own Clickbank product etc. The strategies required for these kinds of website is different from promoting Adsense or product review website.

For one, you can’t do any form of joint venture for Adsense or product review sites. You can do advertising, provided you know what you are doing. But search engine optimization is a surefire free traffic source that you can rely on and once you get such traffic, it’s going to serve you for years!

So in this article, when I say promoting a new website, I’m really talking about promoting it to get search engine traffic.

I’m not going to talk about on-page search engine optimization here. You can read it somewhere else or if you post a request below, I’ll probably discuss it in my next blog post.

Today, what I’m going to share with you is off-page optimization, which is all about building link juice to your website.

Ok, I hope by now you get the whole picture and are ready to see the simple steps that I use for all my little sites that are enough to earn me a full time income.

Step 1 - Bookmark 1 page of your website at Digg and Propeller

This is the first thing you should do once your website is ready. Just choose any 1 page and bookmark it at Digg and Propeller. This will get your website indexed by Google, usually in less than 3 days.

Warning: Don’t bookmark more than 1 page and if you have tons of websites that look similar, make sure you open different accounts to bookmark or your account may be suspended. I have my account suspended twice! Technically speaking, you shouldn’t bookmark your own website. But if you do it under the radar, it is the fastest way to get your website indexed.

Step 2 - Write 5 articles and post to as many article directories as possible

Some of the directories you must “hand” submit to are Ezinearticles, ArticleDashBoard, Buzzle, GoArticles.

Next, take up a lifetime membership here and submit all your articles there. From my experience, 5 article submissions will give you 100-200 backlinks.

Step 3 - Submit your website to link directories

There is an argument on whether submitting to link directories is still effective as a form of link building. I’ve been doing it since 2006 as an integral part of the whole process and frankly I’m not sure what would happen if I stop doing it. Maybe one day I should try!

However, one thing for sure is the links count. If you do a link search for some high PR sites, you’ll see that many links come from link directories. If you believe that every link to your website will help you in your search engine ranking, submitting your website to link directories is a great way to get tons of one way link.

You can either do it yourself, which was what I did when I first started, or if you have the budget, get a freelancer to submit for you. You can get some cheap bargain here.

Step 4 - Set up 3 way link exchange

You probably are familiar with 3 way link. Yes, it’s one of my favorite tools too. If you are new, 3 way link is a little too ‘expensive’ for you. The price is $47 a month. Get it when you have 10-20 websites.

That’s all I do whenever I launch a new Adsense or product review site. Even without step 4, just by doing step 1 to 3 will get your website to PR 2-3.

What can you do with a PR 2-3 website?

Well, besides making money from Adsense and affiliate sales, you can sell link and make another $20 a month from each website you own. You can read about selling text links in this post.

Many people can come out with innovative ideas. But coming out with innovative ideas that sell requires some skills. Today, I’m going to show you how to do it.

There are only 3 steps to follow:

1) Find a hot market with lots of buyers

2) Identify the limitation of existing products in the market

3) Think of an innovative solution to overcome that limitation (Tips: the innovative solution is usually a combination of two existing solutions!)

That’s it. If you follow these 3 steps, you will be able to come out with innovative ideas that can easily make you money.

Let me show you how others, including myself, use these 3 steps to come out with profitable ideas.

In the 90s, someone came out with a viral lead building system known as a Safelist system. In this system, everyone in the system is able to send emails to each other, and hence the name “Safe List”, i.e. a list that is safe to send emails to. When it first started, everyone was excited because suddenly, they can reach out to thousands of people for free. However, what they didn’t realize was at the same time, they were receiving thousands of other emails from other members too!

Soon, people realized that their emails were flooded and they started to think of alternatives. A simple solution was to redirect those emails to free accounts such as Yahoo and Hotmail accounts.

Guess what, the trick soon spread throughout the industry and everyone started doing the same thing.

The end result was, everyone was trying to email to everyone but no one was reading any email!

As you can see, lead generation is a hot market. But the existing ‘Safelist’ solution has a big problem. People do not want to flood their emails.

Here comes the idea maker who thought of a solution to this problem……

In 2000, a renowned internet marketing guru, John Reese, came out with an ingenious system. He combined the idea of safelist and network system. In his novel system, members can send emails to their 10 levels of members. Let me explain……

For example, A1 recruits B1 and B2 who become A1’s level 1. B1 and B2 then recruit C1, C2, C3, C4 who become A1’s level 2 and so on. It’s something like your referral structure at EmailCashPro. To A1, he will be able to send emails to all the Bs, Cs, Ds, Es, Fs…. all the way to the 10th level.

This is a powerful system because in this system, the maximum number of emails each member can receive is limited to 10, since only the immediate 10 uplines can send emails to the member. But the member can email to thousands of people in his 10 levels of network. If you don’t get what I mean, take out a piece of paper and work out the maths. It’s not hard to figure out.

John’s ingenious system has shaped the lead generation industry. Today, many other lead generation programs use a similar system to build leads.

What John did was he took the safelist idea, which is an existing system but with a limitation, and combined it with network building system, which is another existing system. I hope you can see that nothing truly innovative is created here. He merely combined two systems into one in order to overcome the limitation of the safelist system.

John’s system solved the problem of members’ emails being flooded with thousands of emails. However, members in the system still have to receive emails from their 10 uplines in the system, which is still obtrusive and annoying. In reality, many people in such system still divert their emails to junk accounts.

There you have it. Another limitation that is waiting for someone to overcome.

This time, I grabbed this opportunity to create a system that allows members to build leads without having to receive any email from any member in the system. You may have guessed it by now. Yes, the system is called LeadsLeap.

Basically, I took John’s system, which is already an improved version of the safelist system, and combined it with contextual advertising system. For those who don’t know what is contextual advertising, go to Google.com and do a search for “birthday gift”. Look at the advertisements on the right hand side. Those are contextual ads.

In a nutshell, members of LeadsLeap.com will not have to receive emails from any other members in the system. They will only receive info-packed newsletters (now info-packed blog) from me.

The twist in the system is that I allow members to post their contextual ads in my newsletter. To a member, besides reading high quality newsletters, he will also see the contextual ads posted by his 10 uplines. He can click on the contextual ads in the newsletter if he is interested in the ad. If not, he can just read my newsletter and learn more about making money online.

Again, nothing truly innovative has been created. I simply combine two existing systems into one in order to overcome the limitation of John’s system.

That’s it. 3 simple steps you can use to come out with innovative ideas that sell!

Make use of these 3 steps. The next winning innovative idea can be from you!

Last week, I wrote an article called How To Find Your Own Niche In Internet Marketing.

One reader feedback to me with the following comment:

“This article addressed on finding a unique strength and then making it into IM. But it does not address on the issue on what if the niche market is too small, and there are not enough customers to feed this niche business. Customers are a reason why businesses are successful; too small a target size of customers, and the profits will sink, together with a sinking business.”

To give you a better picture, I decide to discuss this topic again.

In my last article, I said that you should understand your personal talent, leverage on that talent and convert it into your own niche in internet marketing.

So, what if your talent or strength is in a niche market that is too small and is unprofitable?

My answer is simple; just use your talent in a niche market that is big and profitable!

In internet marketing, the term niche has been commonly used to refer to a particular “niche market” and that’s why when I wrote convert your talent into a niche, some of you may think that I’m talking about converting your interest into a business.

That’s not what I mean.

Let’s look at the actual definition of a niche. A niche is a position particularly well suited to the person who occupies it.

That’s what I mean.

Regardless of which “niche market” you are in, you can always make full use of your talent and carve a niche for yourself in the “niche market”.

I hope you see my point now.

I feel that the best is to give you some real-life examples:

Internet marketing expert, Derrick VanDyke, started as a programmer, helping some of the big names to do programming work. Today, he leverages on his programming talent and creates a system to help his members to build lists and make money. My observation tells me that Derrick’s strength is probably not in marketing. Neither is he a seminar person who likes to speak in front of the crowd. (No offence, Derrick.) But that doesn’t stop him from becoming one of the most successful and respectable marketers out there.

Todd Gross is a national on-air television meteorologist. Speaking in front of the video cam is like his second nature. Todd applies his talent to internet marketing and created PreSaleVideos.com, a powerful presale tool that converts sales like crazy.

Both of them manage to carve a niche for themselves by focusing on doing what they are good at.

So, my 3 simple steps to start your online career remain unchanged:

1) Study how the internet marketing works (This would mean joining other people’s lists, spying on how other marketers make money online, reading ebooks, watching video tutorials, spending some money and possibly losing some money. This is a stage of confusion and most people give up at this stage.)

2) While studying, see how you can fit yourself into the game. In other words, you got to find out where you can best use your talent in.

3) Convert your talent into your own niche in the internet marketing game and deploy all the best practices of traffic generation to build traffic to your online business. (Spend most of your time, money and resources to generate traffic. Nothing can happen until you start having traffic to your website.)

Knowing how to find your own niche in internet marketing is probably the most important first step in making money online.

Why do I say that?

Because everyone of us has our unique talent. It’s only when we make use of our unique talent can we excel in what we do.

Internet marketing is no different.

If you try to copy the way other people make money online, yet the method does not resonate with your natural self, you will not be able to excel in that area.

For example, some marketers make big bucks conducting seminars. My question to you is, do you like to do public speaking? If you don’t and you force yourself to do that, chances are you will not do well in it.

For me, I enjoy working with technical people, coming out with innovative systems and programs that can help people. I don’t mind spending hours with my programmer, trying to resolve some technical issues. (I know these are non-income generating activities and I should avoid them, but I enjoy the problem-solving process.) That’s me. But you may be different.

Another example. You know who Ewen Chia is right? Do you know what he enjoyed doing most before becoming a successful internet marketer? He liked to compose songs!! He could be spending nights composing songs. Now instead of composing songs, he put his talent into ‘composing’ sales letters! He likes to try out different kinds of sales letters and see which one converts better, something that I don’t enjoy doing! But if you talk PHP or HTML with him, he’ll frown.

Internet marketing is a huge industry and there’re a lot of ways through which you can use your talent.

If you are good in graphic, you can leverage on your strength and provide graphic services online. You can also upgrade your skills by learning HTML and create website templates. You can sell these templates, use them to build leads or simply create websites that make money.

If you enjoy writing, you can start a blog, create content websites and make money from Adsense or by selling affiliate products.

If you have a flair in selling, you can get freelancers to create products for you to sell. Your main focus would be to write powerful sales letters that convert!

“Kenneth, what if I’m good in nothing but I just want to make money online?”

Seriously, this is impossible. Everyone is born with a unique talent. If you haven’t found your talent, that’s because you’re too lazy to find it! No one can help you if you are lazy.

Here’s my 3 simple steps for you to start your online career:

1) Study how the internet marketing works (This would mean joining other people’s lists, spying on how other marketers make money online, reading ebooks, watching video tutorials, spending some money and possibly losing some money. This is a stage of confusion and most people give up at this stage.)

2) While studying, see how you can fit yourself into the game. In other words, you got to find out where you can best use your talent in.

3) Convert your talent into your own niche in the internet marketing game and deploy all the best practices of traffic generation to build traffic to your online business. (Spend most of your time, money and resources to generate traffic. Nothing can happen until you start having traffic to your website.)

Remember, there is no “best way” to make money online. As long as you enjoy the process, it would be the best way for you.