When, how & why you started?

[ShiftyBanana]

IM is something that is relatively new to me but I'm so determined to make it happen that I don't care if I'm eating $0.85 packet noodles all day, every day until I make it. I've known for a very long time that I don't want to be slaving away behind a desk making someone else 10x more money than I'm being paid.

Now that I've finished studying and I'm free...well kind of, I've been spending 10+ hours per day just watching videos on IM, reading articles or reading through forums. I've been writing down notes to learn about IM as best as possible. I'm so determined to nail this & start building a successful life for myself.

What I would love to know is when, how & why you started IM? Where did you learn everything you know today? What tips or advice would you give to someone who is new yet dedicated(I have to keep emphasizing how dedicated & determined I am because I truly am hungry to succeed)?

 

[CCarter]

There is nowhere you are going to read "everything". Even till this day I'm still learning fascinating new things.

Stop reading articles, forums, and watching videos - NOW!

What happens when you start down this route, you'll eventually get overwhelmed with SO MUCH information, you'll develop paralysis by-over analysis, and never truly get started.

Eventually you'll run into information or content that will contradict earlier notes and information you gathered, which will put doubt in your mind, and then go on searching for more information.

You "claim" to have dedication, great. It is one thing sitting there "eating packet noodles all day" and stroking yourself that you'll make it and reading a ton of internet marketing info for 10+ hours. When I got into this game, I only read bluehatseo.com - that's it - the writing and ideas allowed me to open my mind's creativity on what's possible with online marketing, but even then it's all marketing at the end of the day. After I understood what it was all about - internet marketing, then I started on creating my first website - a failure. Then my next website, and then another and then other.

Eventually I learned that simply creating a website or re-designing it for the 5th time, cause the "theme" is not perfect was just me kicking the can down the road. Realistically I needed traffic - a pretty website with no traffic means nothing, an ugly website with traffic is gold. So I decided to understand how to drive direct traffic. Driving traffic = marketing. Pretty websites != marketing. Traffic = money, Pretty website != money ("!=" means "not equal").

You've got content? you've got a call to action? hosting? Good enough, time to get traffic. There are multiple ways of generating traffic, learn them and testing out each way multiple times. If you want to traffic leak, try that for a month, 10+ hours a day - it's literally impossible for you to concentrate on actually ACTIONS for 10+ hours a day for 3 months without a single result. That's impossible. Reading 10+ hours a day is NO ACTION. Even blog commenting for 10+ hours a day for 3 months is going to drive traffic. You'll learn a lot. You'll know what is acceptable on what platforms and what's not. You'll learn to go after places with high amounts of traffic first, then you'll realize lots of traffic doesn't mean anything unless the traffic converts. Then you'll learn to blog comment on targeted traffic sites instead, and you'll see better conversions. Just blog commenting alone has a multitude of possibilities and is an art.

Maybe you want to email spam instead of blog commenting - that's more deeper knowledge you can explore.

Maybe you want to SEO spam - again more knowledge but nothing you read is going to "make traffic happen" - only by doing - not thinking about doing, or thinking about what you'll do after your done doing.

"You should know by now that a man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting, nor by thinking about what he will think when he has finished acting." - Carlos Castaneda
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My best advice for you is to just do it. Stop with all the forums, articles, and shit, and just do it.

"In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing." - Theodore Roosevelt
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First thing you have to do is research, figure out what niche you want to be in - basically what line of business you want to explore. Then do the research on what it takes to make it - be in that business, and figure out how you are going to drive traffic - since you are thinking of internet marketing as a marketing channel. Once you understand that do it.

Note: Yes, internet marketing is simply a marketing channel for your business, it's not a business upon itself unless you are providing it as a service to other businesses/people. The business you are in is the business you are in. If you want to create an eCommerce store selling napkins that you are bulk buying from Alibaba Express - you are in the napkin business, and can use internet marketing to generate traffic and revenue. Internet marketing has multiple approaches, SEO, PPC, PPV, CPA, and so on.

I personally would not limit your marketing channel to just online, but that's a choice for you. People are under the impression that internet marketing is "cheaper" or "easier" - you'd be surprised at what good old fashion cold calling to restaurants to sell your napkins can do for your business... I've got a direct mail approach I want to explore for one of my services - I've been planning it and figuring out all that I need to know, but eventually it'll be time to pull the trigger, and if it succeeds, ROI of 100x is very possible on the low end.

At the end of the day, marketing is all about driving traffic, online and offline - nothing more, nothing less. So get to fucking work.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Where did you learn everything you know today?

This is one of those questions that is meaningless when asked to the right people. The problem is the word "Where." There is no vault of information from which, after you gain access, you walk away in-the-know. Knowledge is a process that is earned as experience as you tread down the path. In SEO, if you're interested in that, you're going to need Wisdom as well. SEO is a huge game of "just because I can, doesn't mean I should."

My answer, then, to this question is... I learned as I went. Learn only what you need to navigate the next challenge you encounter. That is the way to keep you from dealing with info-overload. Eventually, you'll accumulate a ton of skills that actually have application.

What tips or advice would you give to someone who is new yet dedicated?

Forget about the concept of off-page SEO. Just disregard it. Master on-page SEO (again, just because you can slap the keyword on your page 100x doesn't mean you should), and then become an internet marketer. A marketer in the digital realm.

 

[Jarred]

There is nowhere you are going to read "everything". Even till this day I'm still learning fascinating new things...At the end of the day, marketing is all about driving traffic, online and offline - nothing more, nothing less. So get to fucking work.

Posts like this are something I wish I ran into early on instead of searching blogs aimlessly for the Holy Grail of "Here's how you make internet moniez" guides. The time I spent trying to find some A to Z solution was all for naught. When I actually saw success is when I just buckled down, threw up a site and tested, then failed, and did it all over again learning from my mistakes.

Like others have and will continues to say, just start. Get something up. There is a wealth of valuable information out there, and by all means you should absorb it, but it's not going to do you a damn bit of good if your fingers aren't slamming keys. Additionally, I've learned that without having that initial experience of just running your own site, you don't have much of a clue about what could possibly work. This will lead you to wasting time with WSOesque strategies when you could be implementing things that people like CCarter, emp, et al, drop on the regular. It's hard to win a battle if you've never been in one.

 

[DMAIC]

Now that I've finished studying and I'm free...well kind of, I've been spending 10+ hours per day just watching videos on IM, reading articles or reading through forums. I've been writing down notes to learn about IM as best as possible. I'm so determined to nail this & start building a successful life for myself.

It looks like you are waiting for permission to start.
Here, you now have permission.
I was in the same boat you appear to be in. That being wanting to just read and read and read and not applying what I read to see if it works for me.

Its just like learning to ride a bike.
Strategy 1: You can read a book and take notes and watch videos on riding a bike for 10+ hours every day. Feel like you may be prepared then hop on a bike, wreck that sucker, and swear off riding bikes as witchcraft.
Strategy 2: Hop on a bike, go a few feet, wreck a few times, and then get the hang of it.

Saddle up Sea Biscuit.

 

[Shooter]

It's already been said much better than I can put it, but yes you need to just take action and quit planning, planning, planning.

I'm a big believer that you learn more from your own failures (and better yet, successes) than reading about what others have done (which is outdated by that point and contains only selectively released information).

 

[ShiftyBanana]

It looks like you are waiting for permission to start.
Here, you now have permission.
I was in the same boat you appear to be in. That being wanting to just read and read and read and not applying what I read to see if it works for me.

Not so much looking for permission but I felt as though I needed a little kick start to be honest.

The people here are amazing. I love the fact that you guys can just tell it how it is without beating around the bush. After reading all of the responses so far, I'm just going to go for it. I've purchased a domain name and will have a website up by tonight. Learning as I go is how it shall be done from here on out!