The White Journal

You would think with the popularity of Internet Marketing (IM) and the years it has been around (since the mid 90’s) most Internet users would know what exactly it encompasses. Funnily enough, the definition and scope of its activities eludes so many of us… which of course is a good thing, that is if you’re planning to make some money online.

Internet Marketing (in my own words, go ahead and quote me 10 years from now) is simply a way of reaching out to potential customers on the Internet through the means of marketing activities. It may or may not involve the objective of making money. The possibilities of monetizing these marketing activities though is endless.

Just to throw around a few fancy words to get you familiarized with what you will expect to see in your money making quest, here is a list of popular methods Internet marketers use to generate an income:

• Pay Per Click (PPC)
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Social Media Optimization (SMO)
• Interactive Advertising
• Email Marketing
• Contextual Advertising
• Selling Own Products or Services
• Information Product Creation
• BUM Marketing
• Private Label Rights
• …and more than you can imagine.

Now the even bigger question for you is, how does Internet marketing work? Or better still is, how does it make you money?

What Next?

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The next topic I will cover in line with this entry is How Does Internet Marketing Work? Stay Tuned.

There are over 100 million blogs online to date and this figure is growing rapidly as new bloggers emerge on the scene everyday. If you don’t currently have one of your own, you probably will decide to set one up sooner or later.

Most people blog casually with no real intent of generating an income. If you think this profile fits you, there are a number of free blog hosting services out there. The popular ones include Blogger, Blogstream, TypePad, WordPress.com, LiveJournal and Blogsome. The set up is very simple for all these services. Just choose a user name, enter your particulars and you can start blogging in minutes.

If you reckon you can keep your blog updated often enough and would like an upgrade, you can move on to the next level by getting your own hosting. This is a no brainer for those who want to make some serious money from blogging.

Basic hosting with your own domain address will cost you approximately US$65 a year. There are definitely cheaper hosting available but more often than not these services are not very reliable and will cause you headaches in the long run.

After selecting your hosting, you will need to set up your blog publishing platform. The platform of choice is WordPress. It is a free download but you will need to install it to your host server. For those who are not savvy on the technical aspects, fear not. Just remember before hand to select a host that offers Fantastico or Simple Scripts. This provides you with pretty much a one click installation for WordPress without having to get into the coding and what not.

A good host for blogging activities that include the above features is BlueHost. I recommend it highly and it is what I am currently using on my blogs. It took me less than half an hour to sign up and install WordPress on BlueHost. Very quick.

Once all that is done, you can start posting articles while you gradually learn how to customize, personalize and optimize your blog. It’s a bit more complicated than setting up a free blog host but once you’ve completed the groundwork, you’ll thank yourself for it.

What Next?

Sign up for a free blog:

Blogger
Blogstream
TypePad
WordPress.com
LiveJournal
Blogsome

or consider your own hosting and domain name at BlueHost.

If you have decided that you are dead serious about wanting to make money online through Internet marketing, I would suggest that you firstly get the following set up:

1. Email Account - Open a main account to handle all your emails that will relate to your money making activities. You will be signing up with a lot of programs, newsletters and forums especially in the beginning when you are still very hungry for information. In the future, as you purchase domain names and set up separate email accounts for them, you will be able to link them to your main account to centralize email activities.

I currently use Gmail for this purpose. It has close to 700mb of storage, a clean layout, rich with features and it is free. It also allows me to check my email anywhere I go without having to rely on a program such as Microsoft Outlook. Learn to use the organizational tools provided such as the labels (known as folders in most email clients) to manage your emails.

2. Online Banking - If you haven’t activated your online banking services provided by your local bank, it’s about time you get it done! It will help you streamline all your bill payments, checking of account balance for your debit/credit card and all your usual banking activities. If you want to build an Internet business, you’ve got to keep up with the times! Enough said.

3. Debit/Credit Card - Nearly every transaction out there on the Internet requires plastic so it is essentially one of the most important tool in your arsenal. You will also be using it to withdraw funds from online payment solutions like PayPal especially for those living outside the US.

I don’t like the idea of a credit card. I consider it lethal. You run the risk of overspending and if for any reason your information gets stolen, your risk of loss will be higher. With the debit card, you only get to spend however much money you load into it (this is where online banking comes into handy). That way, you will be less likely to sign up for every promising sales page that comes into sight. The conscious act of having to load money into the card will help you manage your spending. I recommend getting a Visa debit card exclusively for your online money making activities. It works exactly as how a credit card would but to be safe, double check with your bank that the debit card it issues can be used for online transactions.

4. PayPal Account - PayPal is an online payment solution that overtakes the role of a credit/debit card. It allows you to make/receive/withdraw funds through various avenues other than plastic such as your bank account. It does not require that you directly share financial information with merchants therefore it is overall a much safer paying option. All fine and dandy but the full range of PayPal services is not available in all countries outside the US, hence my statement on debit/credit cards being an essential item.

It is very important for you as a merchant-to-be to set up an account to ensure that your customers can pay you easily. It’s much cheaper than setting up a payment gateway which can run into the tens of thousands. If and when PayPal finally expands across the globe unleashing its full capabilities in every country including Greenland, you can finally throw away that debit/credit card. Until then…

Having all the above will help you commit to your plan of generating online riches. Although not all the tools will come into play at the very beginning, it is best you set them up early because certain processes such as PayPal address verification or debit/credit card application may take a while. You don’t want to be caught without the necessary tools half way through your game plan. No one goes to war without weapons right?

What next?

1. Sign Up at Gmail
2. Get your local information on Visa Debit/Credit Cards
3. Sign Up at PayPal

When it comes to the topic of creating a successful blog, there are literally thousands of how-to articles, e-books, and many of those who claim to be able to help you …for a fee. Before you know it, you will end up with a frazzled mind and empty pockets.

Don’t you wish you could just get a one-on-one session from the high profile probloggers who are making millions of dollars from blogging? Let me tell you how you can get those lessons for free. I’ll share with you the most basic method that so many people overlook in their quest for information. It’s so simple. All you need is a clear mind and an eye for detail.

It’s called Observational Learning. You use it in your everyday life to learn new skills by mirroring what more successful people around you do. It is a survival skill hard wired into humans. Just recently, newspapers worldwide showed a photo of an orangutan attempting to hunt fish with a spear. Where do you think it learned that? Unlike the orangutan though, we have the capacity to learn new skills by the power of observation at a much much faster pace.

So how does this work again you ask? Simple. Follow in the foot steps of those who are already successful. Observe what the high profile probloggers out there are doing. Visit their blog and find out what components you can take to make your own. It’s the quickest way to figure out what works.

Things that you can look out for : The layout that they use, the average length of their posts, what type of ads they run, what type of scripts/widgets do they use, what social networks do they put above their comment boxes, how often do guest bloggers submit an article, frequency of updates, method of categorizing etc etc etc. There are so many components you can find.

The next step you have to take is to find out ‘how’ you are going to get hold of these components. Google is a good place to start. Maybe if I saw something foreign I can’t name but I reckon it’s some sort of comment email follow up feature. What do I do? I’ll Google “blog comment email follow up feature”. Refine the search and you’ll find the HOW that you are looking for.

In the early stages of setting up your first blog, choose components that appeal to you or you think will be of use to your own blog. You will definitely need some tweaking at a later time to find the most suitable mix to be used in your blog but at least now you’ve already started the trial and error process so early in the game. You’re already ahead of the pack.

I used this method throughout the early creation process of my first blog. From time to time I will still observe the bigger blogs to find out what is fresh. Although I do a lot of my own research, I’m bound to miss something. I can’t after all be updated on everything.

With Observational Learning, you will save yourself a lot of time. No point in trying to reinvent the wheel when you haven’t even figured out how the wheel itself works. Observe and emulate before developing your own techniques or seeking paid professional services. Get the basics right first.

What Next?

You can try the method I shared with you at the ultimate high profile problogger’s blog there is:

Problogger (www.problogger.com)

Have fun and enjoy the FREE lessons there!