But before you reach for your credit card yet again just take a moment and ask yourself this: Do you realistically think that you could set up any ‘normal’ business and make it successful just by buying a $99 ebook and then sitting back while the money floods in?

No, I thought not. You will very soon be on the road to financial ruin if you follow such a path in the ‘real’ world of commerce.

So why do you think it’s possible to do it online? I’ll tell you why:

Because it’s the INTERNET!

We all know that millionaires are made overnight on the INTERNET, right? It’s different on the INTERNET.

Well I’m sorry to pee on your fireworks, but it’s NOT. It’s just as hard to make a living online as it is offline, or anywhere else. In fact it can be even harder because the interweb waters are full of sharks, imposters and wannabees. And they all want only one thing: YOUR MONEY!

Basically you have to look at your online business in exactly the same way as any offline business. For either to succeed you need to concentrate on the fundamentals.

The 6 Steps To Success

1. DETERMINATION – You have to WANT it, and want it enough to see it through, come what may. There will be many pitfalls and disappointments along the way, so you need to be able to overcome them and carry on regardless.
2. KNOWLEDGE – You have to be a SPONGE for knowledge, to soak up everything you can about your chosen niche. You have to be the expert in your field, the go-to guy who solves the problem.
3. APPLICATION – Knowledge is power, but only if you APPLY that knowledge. Make it work for you and use it to further your business and make more money. Use your knowledge also to empower your target market, give them something they can’t get anywhere else, then you’ll have a happy customer who’ll keep coming back.
4. STAYING POWER – No matter how many ‘Gurus’ tell you otherwise, it is NOT going to happen overnight. You have to stick with it and stay focussed. Whatever you do, don’t start thinking, “This is too hard, I’ll try something else”. You have to KEEP GOING on your chosen track. By just doing this one thing you will have out-lasted 95% of all the other ‘online entrepreneurs’ out there.
5. DISCIPLINE – Folks, someone has to tell you this: You have to get out of bed in the morning, start up your computer and GO TO WORK! You need discipline to do this EVERY DAY. Do NOT believe anyone who tells you otherwise. Okay, you don’t have to give up your day job in the beginning, but if you want to make the big bucks you have to put in the time and effort. And once you’re making good bucks you CAN give up your J-O-B! How good will that make you feel?
6. RUTHLESSNESS – Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting you go out there and ’shaft’ everyone while you’re clawing your way to the top. But you need to be ruthless in weeding out those daily non-important tasks and concentrate on the things that make you MONEY! You have to be ruthless and unsubscribe from the hundreds of time-wasting emails you’re going to get from other ‘Gurus’ recommending their ‘buddy’s’ latest system/course/ebook for making money while sitting on your butt with your feet up.

Never forget that business is business wherever you conduct it and the rules are the same. You will find that all the self-made millionaires out there, online and offline, have bucket-loads of every one of the above attributes. If you’re very lucky, you might find one of these successful businessmen/women to share his/her knowledge with you and set you on the right road from the start.

But beware, check out their credentials thoroughly first, and look for the proof to back up the hype. Be very careful who you listen to, and be even more careful who you give your money to, on the big w3.

If you do find someone who’s walking the walk and not just talking the talk, grab the opportunity with both hands and GO WITH IT! You will have just left most of your competition choking in your dust!

You’ll find one guy who definitely walks the walk at www.W3MoneyMakers.com Go there and see what he has to offer, then make your own mind up.

Other resources:

Never use any link inside the content that you can’t control or change later.

You should always use redirect links from your own domain when putting any kind of link inside your ebook or publication.

Most people will insert their affiliate link for an affiliate offer inside their ebook that they are hoping readers will click on and earn them some cash.

Big mistake!

They can easily become obsolete, unusable and therefore unprofitable.

For example: If your affiliate program owner decided to no longer use Clickbank to handle his affiliate program and went with a different affiliate tracking link, what happens to the thousands of copies of your viral eBook that are in place with his old affiliate link in there?

Or, suppose you are linking to a dating service that goes out of business? What then?

I’ll tell you what then: Your links are toast! They are worthless to you.

Instead, you want to link to a page at your site that refreshes and redirects the visitor to your assigned affiliate link. Something like this… http://www.yourdomain.com/offer.html

This is important so you can change the link anytime you want to in the future.

With a redirect link set up like this you can easily adjust the landing page and send the traffic to a new affiliate link, or a different dating service, or to a sales/squeeze page at your site.

With a redirect link the changes are made at your site, which you remain in control of regardless of what happens with the products and services that you linked to.

Even if you change hosts or servers, you still remain in control. You don’t have to make changes to all of those eBooks – which would be impossible to do. You simply make a 2 minute change at your site.

You would be amazed at how many dead links there are in the thousands of earlier ebooks out there that could still be paying their authors a residual income.

The other downside is that you’re going to get plenty of emails from people saying, “You’ve got a dead link here, can you give the correct one?”

It creates a lot of extra work in answering emails and is certainly throwing away potential profit from the countless people who never bother to ask for an updated link.

So be smart, never use any link inside the content that you can’t control.

Always use redirect links and your product will be earning for you in years to come.

You can’t seem to go anywhere on the web these days without coming across some internet marketer or other telling you about the value of website visitors from the various social bookmarking sites.

Each of these so-called ‘gurus’ would have us believe this traffic is essential to our online survival.

I beg to differ.

Answer me a question: If you’re marketing anything online what would you rather have, 10000 useless vistors or 100 targeted, ready-to-buy visitors? I can pretty much guarantee that social media traffic will fall into the first category.

If you have a blog or website which manages to get popular for a day on any of these sites (like Digg, Slashdot, Furl, etc, etc.) you will get a TON of traffic. But what will this traffic do once it gets to your site?

In a word: f*#k all! (Yes, I know it’s two words.)

Here’s what will really happen:

1. The majority of these visitors will spend all of three seconds on your site before bouncing straight back to their social lifeline.
2. Of those that remain, most will probably read a couple of paragraphs of the page they landed on before getting bored and crying out for mummy.
3. The few that are now left may well read your article or post but very rarely will they delve any further into your site.
4. You won’t have made any money, or gained a subscriber, or achieved whatever else it is your site was hoping for.

Meanwhile your server will have gone into meltdown because of all the extra hits you’ve had, and quite probably will have lost you your one or two real paying visitors into the bargain.

While I would be the first to agree that any traffic is good traffic, I really can’t see the value in traffic for traffic’s sake. I suppose it might help your SE positioning if you achieved this on a regular basis but IMO you would be much better off concentrating on organic SE traffic or PPC campaigns if you’re in the business of internet marketing.

After all if you’re in the business of marketing online then it’s not just any old traffic you want, it’s targeted traffic. Traffic that gives you results, puts a few dollars in your pocket and keeps your kids out of the poor house.

Don’t get me wrong, without traffic of some sort your website or blog might as well be written on the back of a bus ticket. We all need it so we all do whatever we can to get noticed or Dug or Stumbled.

I’m just questioning the Mighty Gurus and their never-ending moving of the goalposts in order to get more money out of all the poor saps who hang on their every word.

The primary purpose of this blog is not to make money, it’s to be read (and hopefully give people a bit of food for thought or entertainment) so I need all the traffic I can get!

Please don’t take offence, I’m not having a go at you, dear reader. Wherever you’ve come from I sincerely hope you’ll keep enjoying my verbal diarrhoea for years to come.

Oh yes, and keep bookmarking me!