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The truth about 8 internet marketing myths

// June 15th, 2009 // Internet Marketing

I am not necessarily an internet marketer but more a design/web programmer. Still, in my years as a website owner and administrator I learned a few things. I made this post to share some of the knowledge I gathered in the past two years. There are many internet marketing myths out there. Here I am going to tell you some of them and it they are real or not.

1. "For just 5$ you can get your hands on this eBook that will teach you how to make 200$/day!"

Now let’s be serious. If there is a method that will teach you how to make 200$ a day it won’t be sold for just 5$. Usually the persons that sell such eBooks fill them with a lot of affiliate links or try to sell something even more expensive. There are also "free" eBooks that pretend to make you rich in a short period of time with little or no effort. I have read many such eBooks and all are useless.

2. "Anyone can have a website. "

This one is actually true. Anyone can make a website these days. There are many CMSs out there. From Joomla and Drupal to Wordpress or just Blogspot, they all make your life a lot easier. Five years ago you would need to know at least HTML and CSS to make a website, but now you get everything already made. All you need to do is install it, write some articles and you are ready to go. Everyone is good on a certain topic. So everyone can have a website on the things they like and are good at.

3. "Who needs a SEO expert/courses. I can do the SEO myself with what I already know."

Actually no (unless you already are in this field from some time and know all the tips-n-tricks). You can do some basic SEO for your website, but if you want to really get some search engine traffic than you will need to learn a lot on SEO. There are many eBooks out there, many articles,many video tutorials. Most of them are really good and some are even free or really cheap. Don’t hesitate to read/watch them. Search engine traffic is sure to get you money.

4. "It doesn’t matter how my site looks as long as my content is good!"

Being also a designer I tend to put accent on design. It is true that content is what users read, what search engines index and what people are generally interested in, but the design of the website is also extremely important. If you have good content, but the website is really cluttered, hard to navigate and filled with ads all over the place (and in wrong places) than I can grantee that the user will not come back. Most remember a site wrom how it looks. So having a good design will really help your website. Also, if the design is unique you get some extra points.

5. "With no effort your site can make 200+$ a month! Just follow these simple steps."

Another title you usually see on DigitalPoint forum in the Freebies section (Please note that in the freebies there can also be sold products that are under 5$). I’ve said it once and I will say it again. There is no easy money if you want to do it white-hat. Almost any site can make 200$ a month but you will have to work, at least in the first 6 months. There is no such thing as a "self-promoting" website. You will have to write articles, promote the website, get people to visit it and also buy the stuff you are selling. The first 6 months may be the hardest one because this is the time when you struggle to get visitors and make your site known. After that, if you done everything correctly, you can say that it get a little easier, but you will still have to post new articles and keep an eye out on your website. If you can reach 200$ a month than good for you, keep doing what you are doing and it can grow, but DO NOT stop and say: from now everything is on auto-pilot.

6. "Just spam people with your affiliate links/products."

We all hate spam. Why should you do it? Also, it is illegal and can cause a lot of problems. I know you may have read that "with this software you can generate 1000s of email address". And it is true…in just 5 minutes I made a software that generates 720000 email addresses(some valid and some not valid) but that does not mean anyone should use it. It is unethical, illegal and I can guarantee it won’t be successful…at least not on the long-run. Maybe it will get you a few sales at first, but once people (and email service providers) get to know what you are doing  it won’t get you one cent (or even wors…get you in jail).

7. "Social Bookmarking is the way to go!"

Digg, StumbleUppon and others can really boost you site if done properly. If you can get your website on the front page of any of the major social book-marking websites than you have struck gold. I know it is hard, but not impossible. Even if you don;t get it on the front page you will still get some visitors. just 5 Diggs on an article can get you 10-15 unique visitors per day. So yes: Social bookmarking can raise your website’s visitors.

8. "Having a website is costly. There is no way you can make a profit."

Actually that is not true. I first started with a free domain (and I am not talking about a .co.cc) and free hosting. I got a domain from ddBoard.com, hosting from ej.am and I was up and running in no time. I enjoyed posting on forums and I also learned a lot of stuff this way. So it was perfect. I was doing something I liked and also getting something I need/wanted. In just two months I had a domain, a hosting account and a website running. Only after that I discovered that I needed more hosting space and bandwidth. But still, it was really cheap. With just 10$/year I got an excellent plan. Also, 10$/year the domain…that is 20$/yer. With a little advertising and some work and effort you site can make this money in one month. If you put more effort and are good at advertising you can make 200$ a month. So yes…there is profit…but only if there also is work.