About Your Online Money Making Plan…

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I read a lot of forums. I came across a good thread lately that was advice to internet marketing newbies that are just starting out in IM. Lots of really good advice for those that are new to this whole ‘make money online’ thing. In my opinion, this thread was aimed at real, live NEWBIES – those that know nothing about internet marketing. You see, I was once a newbie to online marketing =) Remembering those months as I first started online as I read one piece of advice made me laugh my butt off. “Have a plan of action – Stick to your plan of action”.

What Online Marketing Newbie Has a PLAN?

Maybe I am one of the weird ones…. ok, I KNOW I am ‘weird’ =) But when I came to my computer looking to make money, I didn’t have a plan. The only ‘plan’ I had was to TRY and figure out how all this stuff works.

It was frustrating. It was WAY over-whelming. It was confusing. I felt dumb and incapable – especially whenever I would hear more experienced marketers tell us newbies that we needed a plan.

It also seemed like every time I turned around, those ‘experienced marketers’ were also trying to SELL me a plan. Go figure. (Yes, that was said with a good bit of sarcasm)

To me, asking an absolute newbie to internet marketing what their plan is, feels the same as asking a first-time mother, in the hospital with her newborn, how she plans to potty-train her new bundle of joy.

It’s a question that breeds anxiety and feelings of inadequacy….and blank stares.

My Advice to Internet Marketing Newbies

Folks, if you are new to all this – relax. Take it easy on yourself. Just like the first-time mother hasn’t even changed a single diaper when she is asked about potty-training, you haven’t yet made the rounds thru the poop online =) Ok, sorry, maybe that is a bad analogy, but perhaps you get what I am talking about.

When I was a newbie-

I knew NOTHING. Literally, N-O-T-H-I-N-G. I didn’t know what FTP was, or php, or HTML, or making words that you could click and it linked to another web page… I didn’t know what keywords are or how to find them. I didn’t know what ClickBank was… or what a hop-link was, let alone what an ‘affiliate link’ was. Heck, I didn’t even know what PayPal was! Things like Page Rank, and SERPS, and bookmarking….not a clue. Meta tags, title tags, bounce rate, RSS…..nada. Seriously, I could go on an on about all the things I DIDN’T know…and probably really embarrass myself in the process, but again, perhaps you get what I am talking about.

My point is this… If you are really a ‘newbie’ to internet marketing, you REALLY don’t know anything. And guess what? IT’S OK TO NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT INTERNET MARKETING!

The Plan All Newbies SHOULD Have

The only plan any internet marketing newbie should have is this…

READ

LEARN

PROCESS

TRY

MAKE MISTAKES

READ MORE

LEARN MORE

MAKE MORE MISTAKES

BEAT HEAD AGAINST WALL

REPEAT

Then one day – you read something and a little light goes off. You have an “A-HA” moment where something clicks into place. Suddenly, you don’t feel like an outsider looking in – you feel like you are finally INSIDE.

And then something even better happens. You earn some money from all your fumbling around online. I don’t care if its 6 cents from AdSense, or your first payment from Squidoo, or an affiliate sale – YOU MADE MONEY. I will ALWAYS remember my first online earnings… my first check from Clickbank…my first AdSense clicks (and MONTHS later actually getting an actual PAYMENT from AdSense…haha).

There is no feeling like it.

And the power of it all… WOW! Just think about it. Between your brain and your fingers that made your online creation… you made money online. I don’t know about any of the other readers here that are now making money online, but for me, those first earnings were like a dose of a highly addictive drug.

The internet marketing ‘monkey’ was on my back. I was hooked. And hear me clearly – I wasn’t ‘hooked’ on the idea of becoming a millionaire, or making money fast and easy overnight…nothing like that hypey stuff you read.

I was hooked on the fact that I now had the power to change the quality of my life… and my family’s life…and our future.

By January of this year, I was so blown away with how it all really CAN work, that I wanted to tell everyone I knew to start some sort of online business. I want everyone I know to learn how to own and create small mini-sites that earn money…I wanted all newbies to learn about Squidoo… I wanted everyone to learn a way to make some money online because it CAN be done. I moved this blog to WordPress and changed my whole over-all theme to helping others learn how to do this, too.

The Two Things IM Newbies MUST Have To Make It All Work

There are two things that I feel that those coming online to earn money will simply HAVE to have. These things can not be bought and they can’t be given to you. There is no ebook or ‘super-system’ that will teach these things, either.

The two things are:

Curiosity and Determination

I have always been a painfully curious person. As a child, my curiosity was a real pain in the you-know-what to the adults around me, but that same trait has really helped me out when I became an adult.

My trait of determination (also referred to as ‘too stubborn’ by my loving spouse haha!) has been my saving grace that kept me staring at this computer screen all this time.

Those two traits combined made me someone who was determined to figure out how all this works. I refused to give up. I knew there was a way and by golly, I was going to do whatever it took to figure out my way to be a part of it.

My curiosity and my determination got me to where I could finally….

Have a plan =)

Now, you may notice that I didn’t say that ‘desperation’ was a needed trait to make money online. Folks, I am going to be honest with you… If you NEED money NOW and you think online is the answer – it most likely won’t work for you if you are a complete newbie. Worse yet, that same desperation can make you extremely vulnerable to those online personalities that would be more than happy to sell you a plan. Be careful.

Making money online is not much different than trying to start ANY business – you have to start at the beginning. There simply are no short-cuts to success….not even online.

Read…read more…learn….learn more. As I always say, “If you are willing to do for a year what others won’t, you can spend the rest of your life doing what others CAN’T”.

How Long Will It Take To Learn Internet Marketing?

Expect to spend no less than a year in the learning phase. Expect to spend a year before you personally have a plan. If you accomplish it in less than a year – GREAT! But don’t expect it to happen in less than a year.

In my personal opinion, I think all newbies should start at Squidoo. While learning to make Squidoo lenses, you will learn about keywords, and getting traffic, and creating content…and you are learning it all for free… oh, and Squidoo will be paying YOU to learn.

Once you have gotten a good bit of lenses, you will have probably earned some money from Squidoo (money that will keep coming every month whether you make another lens or not), you will probably have made some other income from affiliate sales (again, more potential earning streams that you no longer need to work), and most importantly, you will most likely have learned a LOT about internet marketing.

At that point you will have monthly income coming in from your online business that you can now re-invest into owning your own little piece of the internet…AND you will have the knowledge to learn how. At that point, you are ready for a site like 6StepNicheSites.com.

My Final Advice To Newbies

This post has gotten very long (even for lil’ Miss Prolific…haha).

As I close, let me say this – if you don’t understand something, ask me. I get a ton of email from newbies every day and I LOVE it. Seriously, those emails help keep me ‘real’. I don’t want to get so involved here on PotPieGirl.com that I am talking above heads and I’m not helping anyone.

Also, if you don’t know how to swim, would you jump in the deep end of the pool? Would you PAY someone to be able to jump in the deep end? I think not.

Keep your credit card safely in your wallet until you have learned how to swim.