To all LeadsLeap members, I wish you and your family a happy and prosperous new year!!

On behalf of LeadsLeap team, I sincerely thank you for supporting LeadsLeap.

LeadsLeap was started in January 2008 and it’s turning to one year old.

Here’s what we’ve achieved over the past one year:

1) We’ve grown from zero member to 27000 members and we are now growing at a rate of about 100 members a day.

2) We’ve delivered more than 2,500,000 leads to our members.

3) We launched LeadsLeap blog, a viral blog that our members can advertise in. This blog is now well established in the search engines, getting more than 1000 visitors everyday, sending traffic to our members websites.

4) We also launched 3 powerful tools that our members can use for free.

The first tool is our Advanced Link Cloaker.

It’s probably the most powerful link cloaker available in the market. Besides helping you to cloak and track links, you can also use it as an advertising tool to promote your businesses.

The second tool is our rebrandable viral software - Affiliate ID Manager

Besides having a useful software to manage all your IDs and passwords, you can rebrand the software with your ads, distribute it for free and promote up to 6 programs of your choice.

The third tool is of course our latest M.Y.O.B. List Builder Script

This PHP script is my answer to the most common newbies’ question - “How do I start making money online?” M.Y.O.B. stands for Mind Your Own Business. That’s the message I want to give to all our members. Start your own business, build your own list, run your own affiliate program and sell your own products. With your own business, you can promote any affiliate program you like.

What’s next in 2009?

We’ve a list of new developments laid out for 2009. We simply need time and effort to turn ideas into realities.

Our developments basically focus on two areas.

1) To attract more traffic so as to deliver more traffic to our members.

2) To provide more values to existing members by creating more useful tools.

3) To continue educating our members by sharing my marketing experience in our blog.

My vision is to turn LeadsLeap into a community where members can advertise and build leads, and have access to useful tools that can give them a competitive advantage in winning the internet marketing game.

So in 2009, look forward to more traffic, more free tools and of course, more practical tips from LeadsLeap.

Once again, Happy New Year!!

Today we’ve got a question about long tail keyword research from Kelvin Tan. Here’s his question:

“I would like to ask some question about selection of long tail keyword. In PLRPRO video, it’s mentioned that when selecting long tail keyword, we should look out for keyword with 100-1000 search per month and competition around 500,000. Does that mean we have to look for 40 long tail keyword for each of the 40 articles? Please advise.

Is there a guideline for selecting long tail keyword? can you explain a bit in details on how to do it. I know we can see the search via google keyword research tool . Am I correct to say that for example, we select a phrase with 1000 searches. Then I will take the phase and search in google search engine. If the number of website is less than 500,000, I will take this as one of my 40 long tail keyword for my 40 articles?” - Kelvin Tan

I will answer this question in two parts. In part 1, I’ll show you how to conduct long tail keyword research in general. In part 2, I will discuss about long tail keyword research in relation to PLRPRO.

Essential tools for long tail keyword research

Before I begin, I need to introduce to you 2 essential tools for keyword research.

1) Firefox

Firefox is an alternative to Internet Explorer. You need Firefox so that you can use Tool #2.

2) SEO For Firefox Plugin

With this plugin, you can conduct long tail keyword research and analyze websites easily. I’ll show you how.

How to conduct long tail keyword research - step by step

1) Start with a general keyword

If your niche is about “back pain”, type in back pain in Google search. Assuming you are using Firefox with SEO For Firefox Plugin, you will see something similar to the screenshot below:

Click on KW Research link and you’ll get a list of keywords derived from the general keyword. The list includes long tail keywords, which are phrases with 3 to 4 keywords. See the screenshot below:

The objective is not to find long tail keywords. The objective is to find keywords with enough demand and low competition, so that you can get top rank and traffic easily. Due to increasing competition, such keywords happen to be the longer tail keywords. That’s why the focus is on long tail keywords.

2) Expand your search to long tail keywords

From the above screenshot from KW Research, you now have a list of keywords arranged in order of the daily search estimate. This data takes care of the ‘demand’ for the keywords.

Your job now is to check the ‘competition’ of the keywords.

Starting from the keyword phrase with the highest demand, you now have to type the keyword phrase one by one into Google search and check the number of results it returns.

Here’s a checklist that I use to check the competitiveness of any keyword phrase.
i) Search result should be less than 500,000.
ii) Some of the webpages in the top 10 results should have a PR less than 3.
iii) Some of the webpages in the top 10 results are internal pages of Squidoo.com, Hubpages.com, Blogger.com, Ezinearticles.com and/or Buzzle.com.

For example, if I do a search for “lower back pain”, at the time of writing, I get 17,600,000 search results. The phrase is not a good keyword because with 17,600,000 other websites competing for the keyword, it’s going to take a lot of time and effort to list in the top 10.

Going down the list, I found “lower left back pain”. This keyword phrase returns 446,000 search results. Not bad. With SEO For Firefox, you can see that the top 10 websites mostly have PR 1 and 2. This seems to be an easy keyword to target.

Another keyword I tried is “exercises for back pain”. This keyword phrase returns 408,000 search results. It’s less than 500,000 results. But the top 10 websites mostly have PR 4 and 5. This means although there aren’t that many websites to compete with, it’s not easy to get the top 10 ranking because the top 10 are already conquered by authority sites.

That’s about all in long tail keyword research. Not too complicated isn’t it?

Long tail keyword research for PLRPRO users

All PLRPRO niches come with complete keyword research in an excel spreadsheet. Frankly, I seldom conduct keyword research for websites built using PLRPRO. In most cases, I simply use the keywords used in the PLR articles.

Some of the keywords may be competitive. But I don’t really care. Most of the keywords are long tail keywords anyway. I am very lazy when it comes to making money from Google Adsense.

So, if you want to conduct your own keyword research for all the 40 articles, by all means, go ahead. You should get better returns. For me, I didn’t do it.

Final note about long tail keyword research

Long tail keyword research is important. But besides the long tail keywords that you ‘intentionally’ optimize for, you will also get traffic from other long tail keywords that you never think of. While such traffic is not significant, the sum of these ‘insignificant’ traffic can add up to a few hundred traffic to your website.

Do you face other challenges in internet marketing?

Send your question to support[AT]leadsleap[DOT]com, and state ***Ask Kenneth*** in the email subject. Your question will be answered in the future episode of Tuesday With Kenneth.

“My question is about how to make websites work in different languages. As I operate my business with customers throughout Europe I need to present my website in several languages. How does this work? Once I have the text translated, do I have to make separate sub domains for each version or is there some software that magically changes it when visitors click on the appropriate flag?” - Gaynor

Hi Gaynor, there is a software that can magically change your website content into 34 languages when visitors click on the appropriate flag. You can check out the product here.

Two years ago, translating websites into different languages was touted as a way to increase your website traffic from the search engines.

This is because of the lower search engine competition in other languages as compared to English.

This may still be true today. (I have not tried playing with different languages, so I can’t speak from experience.) But thanks to your reminder, I’ve just purchased a copy of the translator. I will apply it to my websites to see if it can really increase my web traffic. I’ll report the result in the blog once I get some results.

There are 3 scenarios I can think of when considering the possible website translation solutions:

1. For more search engine traffic

If your objective is to get more search engine traffic to your website, I think the paid translator is worth considering.

All the translated pages will be indexed in the search engines and you can potentially get search engine traffic from those translated pages.

2. For better visitors’ experience

If your objective is solely to enhance visitors’ experience, there is no need to waste money. You can use the free Google translation tool.

Your translated pages will not be indexed by the search engines. So you won’t get any extra traffic from the translated pages. But existing visitors to your website will be able to view your website in other languages.

To add Google translation tool to your website, you can either use javascript or PHP script.

For javascript solution, you can refer to

http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/11/add-google-translation-flags-to-your.html

For PHP solution, you can refer to

http://www.donutey.com/translation.php

3. For more sales

If your intention is to provide different versions of your salescopy to visitors from different countries, I think it’s better to manually translate the English salescopy into different languages. This is the most tedious alternative, but it’s the best option for sales conversion.

There is no need to arrange the translated pages into different subdomains, unless you are translating the entire website. If you are only manually translating a few important pages, you can simply keep all the pages at the root domain level.

Today I’m going to do something I’ve never done in LeadsLeap blog.

I’m going to share with you two videos that have nothing to do with internet
marketing.

My wife recently sent me these two videos and I almost laughed off my chair when
I watched it.

Christmas is round the corner. Let’s take a break and have fun watching these
videos

Introducing…. the Chinese Backstreet Boys

And this is my personal favorite. (It’s a Chinese song, but it’s dead funny!)

Merry Christmas to all of you!!

Today we are going to discuss real ways to make money online. This is a question posted by our member. Here’s his question:

“I have been working on the internet for 4 years now, seriously, trying to find something that really makes money and as of yet I haven’t made but $1. I’ve read books and more books about internet marketing and MLM and Google and on and on but no matter how many ads I place on over 20 sites, either I get no response or I get someone wanting to sell me something. What should I do?” - Ken Drake

Ken, you said that you are seriously trying to find something that really makes money online. But based on what I read from what you’ve written, you are seriously trying to find ‘quick’ ways to make money, not real ways to make money online.

Sorry for being blatant. I arrive at this conclusion because your experience tells me that all you know is about placing ads trying to make money. That sounds like the common ‘get rich quick’ idea - “Just Signup And Advertise, And Your Will Be Rich”.

It’s not your fault. Most people are like you. They want to make fast money online.

Can you make money with this method? Yes you can. Many of my clients make money that way. But you need to spend money to test which salescopy works, which product works, etc.

Many people don’t do enough testing and they quit too soon. Moreover, if you are on low budget, you may run out of money before you find a gold mine.

I can’t say it’s not a real way to make money online. This method of making money online simply require more skills than simply posting an ad.

Personally, I feel that your #1 mistake is that you are not building an online business.

Take my advice, stop thinking of making money and start thinking of building a business.

I spend money to develop the “Mind Your Own Business” list builder script and give it free to our members because I want our members to start building a real online business. Have you seriously given it a look?

I’m not saying the list builder script is the only real way to make money online. But it’s the way I recommend. Build your own list, run your own affiliate program and sell your own product. You can use your initial sales to fund your future advertising campaign. With your own list, you can also sell other people’s products.

Making money through this method is not without challenge. The main challenge is that you have to think of a good business idea. A poor idea will give you mediocre results, but an good idea can make you very rich in a short time.

If you are someone who aren’t too creative and not interested to think too much, a simpler way to make money online is Google Adsense. You don’t have to know how to write effective sales letter. You don’t have to do any form of customer support. It’s by far the simplest and truly autopilot way to make money online.

Click here to see how I started making money with Google Adsense. No creativity needed. Just keep working and result is almost guaranteed.

When I feel uncreative, bored and tired, I usually simply ‘waste’ my time away building Adsense sites. I don’t have to think too much. Just work - like a robot.

Last but not least, you mentioned that you’ve read many books on internet marketing. If you do, trust me, you already know the real ways to make money online. The real ways to make money online are the ways that you are most reluctant to follow. If you don’t believe, make a list of all the ways to make money online and arrange them in order of preference. Take your least preferred method and start working hard on it. You’ll be surprised that is when you start making real money online!

Learning how to make money with Google Adsense is probably the easiest way to make money online.

In this article, I will show you what it takes to make money with Google Adsense and more importantly, how I got started making money with Google Adsense.

Get ready for some interesting screenshots……

How Much Money Can You Make With Google Adsense?

The sky is the limit, frankly.

But one thing about Google Adsense is that you are not likely to earn a lot of money right from the beginning.

Seriously ask yourself this question:

Would you like to be paid $4k a month? Or being paid $0 in the first month but getting a pay rise of $100 every month thereafter?

If your answer is the former, Google Adsense may not be for you.

But if your answer is the latter, that’s the kind of money Google Adsense can give you - at the minimum!

What It Takes To Make Money With Google Adsense

I’ll keep my answer short. You need to:

Step 1) Conduct keyword research
Step 2) Churn out good articles based on the right keywords
Step 3) Build SEO friendly websites
Step 4) Build links (to boost your search engine rankings)

If you are new to internet marketing, every one of these 4 steps can be a challenge to you. But trust me, each of these 4 steps are simple skills that you can learn and master. Once you’ve mastered these 4 steps, you simply have to repeat the 4 steps again and again.

How I Started Making Money With Google Adsense

To tell you the truth, I had been making pennies from Google Adsense since 2004. But I started making ’significant’ income from Google Adsense after I made a major decision in September 2006.

The major decision was to subscribe to PLRPRO, a premium membership site that gives you 440 unique articles a month in 11 different niches.

One thing I like about PLRPRO is that the founder has done all the keyword research. That saves my work in doing Step 1.

Churning out good articles in Step 2 is also easy, since I already have 440 articles to choose from.

Back in 2006, the only things I needed to focus on was Step 3 and 4. (Today, PLRPRO has grown so much that even Step 3 and Step 4 are semi-automated. With the latest PLRPRO that is launched today, the whole process has been simplified tremendously.)

Before you jump into building your Adsense empire, let me give you a preview of what you can expect.

As I mentioned, I subscribed to PLRPRO in September 2006. In that month, I only built two websites out of the 11 niches given to me. Apparently I wasn’t one of the hardworking members in PLRPRO.

Here’s my Adsense earning from the two websites in October 2006 - $17.57. Nothing impressive. (I purposely blur part of the website url so that you can look at the change in income for each website.)

In November 2006, I made $64.45 with Google Adsense from just two websites. No new website was added in that month.

In December 2006, I added 3 more websites. My monthly Adsense earning was $76.23.

The 3 new websites got established fast and in January 2007, I achieved my first three figure a month Adsense income. In January, I also added 2 new websites.

Things were starting to look promising, weren’t they?

In February 2007, my total websites increased to 9 and my Adsense income for that month was $349.19.

It’s worth noting that out of the 9 websites, 2 of them made me more than $100 a month!

Sidetrack: Take a look at my February stats again and look at my new website that start with www.rom….. I’m very fortunate to have built a website on this niche.

Why?

Because…… Look at what this website is making me now!

$626.54 a month from Google Adsense from just one website! I may be lucky on this niche. So far, it’s my best performing Adsense site.

Ok, let’s go back to my progress……

After 1 year, in September 2007, my Adsense income was $1099.62.

After 2 years, in September 2008, I made $2725.28 from Google Adsense.

Can you see how the income grow exponentially?

All the earnings I’ve shown above are from websites built using articles from PLRPRO, excluding my Adsense income from other sources. This gives you a better assessment of the potential of PLRPRO.

Final Remarks

In my opinion, Adsense is the easiest way to make money online. As long as you are willing to work, you will surely make money. There is no need to know how to write good sales letters or presell affiliate products.

Moreover, in the process of making money from Google Adsense, you will master the skill of generating traffic from the Search Engines. With this skill, you can easily diversify into other ways of making money online, such as affiliate marketing.

Special Bonus For Action Takers

The new PLRPRO has just been released today and it’s now more than just a content provider. It has transformed into something that is close to a push-button solution to making money from Google Adsense.

It’s excellent for newbies.

If you sign up PLRPRO through my link, I’m going to give you an invaluable bonus.

After two years of creating Adsense websites, I realize that certain niches are more profitable than other niches. Interestingly, whenever I create another website in the profitable niche, the website will be another winner.

As a special bonus for those who take action, I’m giving you a list of my top performing niches and poor performing niches. This will help you to focus on the profitable niches and avoid niches that are not profitable.

Yes, with this bonus, you will know what is the above niche that makes me more than $600 a month.

I will also give you a special report on “How I Promote My Adsense Sites”. I’ll tell you everything I’m doing, nothing hidden. There is no reason why I should hide things from you since I have a vested interest in your success.

Here’s what you need to do to get the bonus:

1. Sign up PLRPRO through this link.
2. Email the receipt to support[at]leadsleap.com, with the subject “My PLRPRO Bonus”.

I’ll send you the bonus personally.

PLRPRO is a limited membership program. So hurry. Take action now before it’s sold out.

Finding free MLM leads or business opportunity leads remains one of the challenges among internet marketers. And LeadsLeap is set out to help you on that.

For those who don’t know, LeadsLeap is a free leads generation system that allows you to build leads and advertise for free in our network.

If you are a LeadsLeap member, have you ever wondered, who is clicking your ad?

In our blog discussion today, I’m going to bring you to our back-office and show you some statistic of the leads that we send to you.

We did a similar study back in July but over the past 5 months, we’ve grown and it’s time to revisit the stats again.

What you are seeing above is a screenshot of one of the tables in our database. This table records the number of clicks received from a particular userid and IP address.

Of course, this screenshot doesn’t show all the records. I just want to give you an idea of how I gather my stats.

For rows with a userid, it means the click is either by a LeadsLeap member or someone referred by the member. For rows without a userid, it means the click is from a non-member.

When I sum up the results over 24 hours, this is what I get:

Members Referred Clicks = 3074
Non-members Clicks = 7368

Total number of clicks received = 10442

From this study, we can make the following conclusion:

1) LeadsLeap generates about 10,000 leads for our members everyday.
2) 70% of the leads are non-members from different IP addresses.

Compared to our statistic in July, the number of non-member clicks have jumped by 300%!!

If you are a LeadsLeap member, this is a good news to you because you get to share the leads that we bring to you.

If you are not a LeadsLeap member yet, and are looking for free MLM leads or business opportunity leads, join us now and start posting your ad in our network today!

Working with freelancers is one of the best form of leverage you can get in internet marketing. You leverage on two resources: time and skill.

The disadvantage is you are now in a position to manage people, and people management can be problematic, sometimes.

This is what one of our members, Gerald Lum, is facing.

Read his full question to me:

———————————————
Hi Kenneth,

I’m facing some problem with my online business. Its not as easy as it seems to be. Being an affiliate is easier than become the creator of the site. One of the problem that I faced is finding the right freelancer for my website development. I also have problem with designer. I usually outsource my website programming and design separately as my own experience tells me that most programmers have no good design senses.

My lst project I got ripped off $1k without getting my website till now. My currently new website designer cannot be contacted for a month. I have not gotten my design for my new website project and hence its delay. My programmer does give me a cheap prices. This could be the reason of the bad services. But I have budget and I really have to try my luck.

There is so many freelancer websites like elancer.com, getafreelancer.com. But how can we really find a good freelancer with budget prices? I have wasted a lot of time waiting for them to deliver my project. How do you find a reliable and with cheap services??

Thank you so much!

Gerald Lum
———————————————

Let me reorganize his challenge into 4 separate questions and answer them one by one:

1) How to stop yourself from being ripped off?

The golden rule is: Never pay your freelancers in advance, regardless of how good your freelancer “sweet talk”!

I had an experience where a freelancer, who had worked with me on several projects, requested that I pay him some money in advance because he had some financial problems. Considering our past working experience, I agreed. He then went missing for a couple of months.

If your freelancer insists that you pay him first before he can start work, the best you can do is to transfer the money to an escrow account. It is a third party account where your money is held by the freelancing website and will only be released to the freelancer when the project is completed to your satisfaction. Escrow protects both you and the freelancer.

You should never be ripped off if you insists on paying after project completion or using an escrow service.

2) How to prevent your freelancer from going missing in action?

You can’t stop this problem from happening, but you can prevent it.

And you prevent it right at the beginning……

Before you award a freelancer with the job, you should always PM (private message) the freelancer. You can PM a few preferred freelancers and see who can respond fast and well. Those who don’t even bother to reply a PM will never get a job from me.

Through PM, you can tell whether they are serious and competent in the project. Sometimes, you can also tell if they are professional or simply a student trying to make some quick bucks.

Also check if they use Skype, Yahoo or MSN Messenger. I will not engage a freelancer who is not ready to chat online.

When the project begins, always make it a habit to ask the freelancer for a dateline in everything he does. Be friendly and not being pushy. You can ask something like “When do you think this part can be done?”. Let him suggest a date to you.

Frankly, I don’t expect freelancers to meet the datelines. Having a dateline is just a way to make them commit, to give them a clear target to aim for and an excuse for me to press them for results.

In the event if you feel that the freelancer is not progressing, you can always use the dateline as the REAL dateline for the project. If the freelancer failed to deliver by the dateline, you can cancel the project and get another freelancer. In my entire online career, I’ve only done it once. In my case, the freelancer went the extreme of not answering all my emails after committing to the project. Thus I cancel the project after the first dateline.

Lastly, make it an effort to email your freelancer every few days and ask them if there is any update for you. This will further reduce the chance of them going missing in action.

3) How to ensure that your job can be completed on time?

If you need something to be done in a hurry, you must let the freelancer know the urgency before you award him with the job. Or else, you should understand that “most freelancers cannot complete their project on time!”

Sounds like a joke but this is the truth.

Once you understand this fact, all you have to do is to give enough buffer for your real dateline.

Let’s say a freelancer says he can get the project done in 7 days, you can expect the project to be completed in 3 to 5 weeks!

I’m not exaggerating.

This is especially true for programming type of job, where there are testing and debugging to be done.

If you expect the completion date to be 3 to 5 times longer than the suggested dateline, you will be happy that most of your projects are done “on time”.

4) How to find good freelancer at budget prices?

The key is this: The more you know, the less you pay and the better freelancer you can get.

For a $1000 project, I can have freelancers bidding from $250 to $1000. The question is, do you dare to choose the low-bidder.

You can try your luck, but ‘luck’ is not always reliable.

Alternatively, you can ask.

During the bidding phase, you can PM a few low-bidders, check if they understand your requirement fully and understand how they intend to deliver the project.

Some low-bidders will not reply your PM. Ignore them. Some may tell you that they’ve under priced. Ask them to re-quote. But there are some who really understand your requirement well and are willing to provide you with their solutions for the price that they offer.

If the proposed solution sounds, you can go ahead award the project to that freelancer.

However, this is only possible if you know exactly what you want. That’s why I said “The more you know, the less you pay and the better freelancer you can get.”

In some cases, you may not know exactly what you want. In such cases, you may have to add a bit of premium to the project and get a freelancer with good reviews, which usually will mean a higher price.

If you have been studying the subject of affiliate marketing leads generation, you will agree with me that there are really not many new sources in generating online leads.

You have heard of search engine traffic, web 2.0 traffic, article marketing, different forms of online advertising etc. You probably have tried one or more of these sources and failed.

What’s wrong?

In today’s discussion, we are going to discuss the myths relating affiliate marketing leads generation. In particular, we will discuss about search engine optimization and online advertising.

Myth #1 - You Can Generate Affiliate Marketing Leads Through Search Engine Optimization

The story is always the same - If your webpage can rank in the first page of the search engines, you can drive lots of marketing leads to your affiliated product and make money.

It’s not true!

Well, it’s true that you may be able to drive lots of traffic, but you may not generate any sale.

Memorize the paragraph below by heart!

The first secret in affiliate marketing leads generation through search engine optimization is to find targeted leads who are “planning” to buy. The second secret is to find targeted leads who are “about” to buy.

The two may sound similar but not quite so. Read again if you don’t get what I mean.

Before you even think about search engine optimization, you must first decide what kind of keywords your leads may use.

Let’s say you are selling an ebook called “Forex Made Easy” (I made up this title), you should ask yourself for those who may buy “Forex Made Easy”, what kind of keywords will they use?

For those who are “planning” to buy, they may search for “forex ebook review”, “forex trading guide” etc. You can do your research using various keyword tools, through forums or even spying Adwords competitors.

For those who are “about” to buy, it is relatively simple. They will typically search for “forex made easy review”, “forex made easy scam” or “forex made easy bonus”. These are leads who are about to buy and with a slight push and some incentive, they will buy from you.

Myth #2 - Just Post An Advertisement And You Will Make Money Instantly

Many newbies loss money in advertising because they don’t understand the advertising industry, or should I say they don’t understand the mindset of the leads viewing their ads.

Most forms of online advertising involve promoting to a group of leads with a common interest. This means instead of targeting leads who are ‘planning’ or ‘about’ to buy, you are now targeting leads who have a common interest and may not be thinking of buying anything yet.

You may be asking what is the difference?

The difference is HUGE!

It affects the way you craft your salesletter (or presell letter).

Let’s use the same example - to promote a forex ebook.

You can advertise to a group of leads who are interested in forex trading or you can advertise to leads interested in making money online. The approaches are different.

If you are advertising to leads interested in forex trading, you want to write a salesletter (or presell letter) to share with them how you lost money in forex trading following some gurus’ guides and then finally, you make it all back after using “Forex Made Easy”.

But if you are advertising to leads interested in making money online, you want to show them that you are an online newbie trying to make money online but failed. Then you stumbled upon this guide “Forex Made Easy” and you naively followed the guide. To your amazement, you made $1000 in your first month of trading forex.

See the difference?

In advertising, you have to understand your target audience, know what problem they are experiencing and customize your ’solution’ according, although the ultimate solution is the same.

As I said in the beginning, there isn’t many new sources in affiliate marketing leads generation. The sources may be the same, but the approaches are different. The winners are those who know how to use the right approach for the right source in the right situation

“I am an internet marketing newbie. All I am asking you to do for me is to introduce me to the internet marketing from scratch, that is leading me step by step to the internet marketing system. Presently, I have no website, no list and no business yet.” - Akinbiyi Yinka Akinrinola

Many internet marketing newbies have been asking me similar questions and I usually do not bother reply.

Why?

Because the question is too general. Also, I got a feeling that anyone asking such a question is usually not serious in internet marketing.

But today, for the first time (and also the last time), I’m going to answer this question and post it up on our blog, so that I can direct whoever asking such a question back to our blog.

For all the internet marketing newbies out there, there are only 4 steps to making money from internet marketing from scratch.

Step 1 - Make a decision

Step 1 is to make a firm decision that you are going to make it in internet marketing, no but, no however, no unless, no excuse!

If step 1 is not accomplished, there is no need to proceed to the other steps. Quit now and go back to your comfort zone. Internet marketing is not for you. Nothing is, until you make a decision.

Let me tell you something I’ve never told anyone.

I started to explore internet marketing back in 1999, made my first $100 some time in 2004, made my first $1000 in 2006 and made my first $10k in the same year.

What happened in 2006? Did I stumbled upon a secret formula? Not at all.

What happened was that my offline business failed in 2005. I was $50k in debt and I desperately NEED to find an alternative to make money, so as to pay back my loan and keep my company alive.

For the years before 2006, I had been exploring internet marketing, but I was doubtful whether internet marketing was for me. Moreover, I had many other opportunities available and frankly, internet marketing was just one of the many options.

By 2006, I’d tried 3 different offline business, failed at each one of them, and owed $50k to the bank. I ran out of all my offline options and I had little cash on hand.

I was in a situation where I either make it in internet marketing or quit my entrepreneur dream and look for a job.

Not to give up my last option, I turned to internet marketing, with no other backup plan!

Here’s a little secret about the universe:

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Opportunities will be open to you. Ideas will come to you. Your saviour will appear.

So, before everything else, make your decision first.

Step 2 - Stop looking for shortcuts

Forget about shortcuts or quick cash. There is no shortcut. What does exist is leverage.

To make money fast, you need to leverage. You leverage on advertising to bring you more traffic in a shorter time. You leverage on freelancers to save your time and provide skills that will otherwise take you time to learn.

Other than leverage, there is no shortcut. You have to take the down-to-earth ‘boring’ steps of building websites, promoting them and doing all the maintenance work.

I’m not saying internet marketing is tough. It is tough initially because you’re still learning. Just like the first time you ride a bicycle. It was tough isn’t it? But once you get used to it, it’s as easy as ABC.

Step 3 - Decide on a business model

There are too many ways to make money online. You can make money from Adsense, PPC ads, Affiliate Marketing, Ebay, MLM etc.

So your 3rd crucial step is to decide on the business model that you want to adopt.

If you want to make money fast, one way is to become an instant guru!

I’ve seen many newbies who position themselves as a guru and start teaching people how to make money online. It works! Many of them who ‘dare’ to pretend to be a guru eventually becomes a real guru.

As a guru, you need to have your own website, your own product and your own affiliate program. That’s why I invested money to create the free M.Y.O.B List Builder Script for our members. Make this script work for you and you’ll become an instant guru overnight.

Read these two articles if you haven’t done so. They will shed some light for you.

What Are The Steps In Creating An Online Business

How To Drive Traffic To Your Website

Step 4 - Keep learning and keep working

Remember, there is no shortcut. You got to work hard and you got to learn fast while you work.

In offline businesses, you can hardly learn because very few people are willing to teach you.

The good thing about online business or internet marketing is that many people are willing to teach you, for free or for a very small fee. As long as you have your own business set up and are willing to learn the ropes, you will eventually grow and become another guru.

Lastly, after today, don’t ever call yourself an internet marketing newbie again. The faster you believe you are the guru, the faster you can succeed online.