"Internet Marketing For Dummies" ... Have they written that one yet?

Have you ever noticed how all the "gurus" make it look so easy, how every product will grow your business' list to mind-blowingly epic proportions, 'til its sides are bursting and your pockets can no longer contain all those bank notes that magically fell out of your computer because they're so stuffed full? Well, I'm one of those people who not only takes seriously the sales copies' admonitions to read every word, but who also has a very hard time not believing every word too! I know, it's a problem. I wish I were the original sceptic like Sarah, my best friend - she's also my accountant, and I can't even begin to tell you how useful a trait scepticism is in an accountant - but I'm not. You see, I'm a very happy, trusting kind of person. I've always believed that what people say is the truth. What a shame my "list", yes, the same one all those "gurus" tell me to plug their latest, greatest ever system into, isn't made up of thousands of me's! But, as of the time of blogging, shock, horror, I don't have a "list". Now, I know I should - what else am I going to plug the "guru's" new gizmo into - but nobody's ever actually shown me how to get one. So, how do I get one? And how, then, do I plug my most recent acquisitions - doubtless acquired because I'm at the non-spamming mercy of someone else's list - into it? How do I get my own domain name, or a website, a hosting account, and an auto-responder? Which business model should I use: affiliate marketing; network marketing? What sort of advertising should I think about: free; paid; online; offline? What on earth is a "traffic exchange", and how do I master its slippery wiles? How do I ride the ineluctable and cruelly thrashing waves of the mighty search engines? And what is "content" anyway?

These are just a very small few of the plethora of problems that will besiege the "newbie" internet marketer once they have made up their mind, for whatever reason, that this is the way to create the alternative to old age on the government's idea of a pension. They are psychological, logistical, linguistic, sometimes just downright criminal, in essence, and they are legion. This blog is for all those of you who are trying to get to grips with some of the concepts of internet marketing and the application thereof. It's going to grow with me, with you, with anyone who wants to succeed in this industry with us, leading us, with truth and humour, perhaps even a little grace, through the labyrinth we choose to navigate towards our goal of financial freedom. It's going to have reviews of all the products I've ever bought and have yet to buy - and I mean honest, warts'n'all reviews, not the ones I may or may not turn out for the PayPerPosties (Google it for now; I'll cover it some other time). The products will be available to buy through their affiliate links too, always supposing I can figure out how to get them to line up neatly in a column somewhere suitable. It's going to chart my own journey through this infinite minefield, and, hopefully, it's going to help a lot of people to avoid the pits I've already unwittingly fallen into.

And the point is that internet wealth is for ALL, not just a select few who choose to keep it to themselves, shrouding their success in secrecy, then pretending that spilling one measly, inconsiderable little bean that affords no more than a nanoscale glimpse of possibility is an offence punishable by rack and thumbscrews. Yes, wealth! And once you know how to obtain it it's not really that complicated - it just looks that way to those of us who've never had the pleasure of experiencing it firsthand, right up close and very personal like. We can journey there together, and compile the REAL definitive guide to internet riches, the one that tells it the way it actually is, that reveals the GENUINE secrets behind the gurus' blackly enveloping cloaks and all their hype tactics.

A small remit, then? Hope I live up to the challenge. With the help and posts of my bloggership I don't doubt it one bit :-)

Tally