What is Internet Marketing

Since I sold my last business in 2004 I have been trying
hard to make a living online. Most of my neighbors knew what
my last business was as it was very obvious from the garage
full of soda, water, snacks and vending machines. When I say
garage full I am talking about maybe 1000 to 1500 cases at
least. Yes, I was a vendor and I did this for about 8 years.
8 years of people complaining about out of date soda, warm
candy bars and dimes stuck in the machines. 8 years of
40 foot Pepsi and Coke trucks coming up to my driveway and
unloading materials.



8 years of counting coins and dollar
bills every day. Had it not been for the recession, 9-11 and
the dotcom bust I would probably have grown to where I hired
a few workers and I would still be doing it.

However things did slow down and besides, I was looking for
something with less headaches and had more of an upside.

Now my neighbors wonder what the heck I do. They see me stay
inside my house all day long and when I do come outside I am
in a robe, shorts or tee shirt and jeans. They ask me what I
am doing and I say I am doing some "internet marketing.



"
They just kind of look puzzled and don't say much else.
Nothing like " Oh. My son is doing that also" Or I know a
friend I who is an internet marketer and they are making
tons of money" Nothing like that.

So at times I try to explain and that is what I will do
now.

Internet marketing is very simply making money from the
internet. You may say "Duh. What a genious" but the thing
is, it has to be described in that broad of a sense because
there are so many types of internet marketing. Here are a
few different ways to make money online that I have
discovered:

1.



Affiliate programs.

Affilaite means you sell other people's and companies
products and you get a commission. Many huge companies
around the world use the affiliate system to sell their
products such as Yahoo, Microsoft, Macys, AT&T, Walmart,
Blockbuster, etc...The products that can be sold from
affiliate sites are never ending. I honestly can't think of
a product that can't be sold through an affiliate program.
Here is a short list of some of the products I can sell
through various affiliate programs: e-books, solar panels,
books, magazines, homes, mortgages, wart remoaval medicine,
hypnosis tapes, leads, movies, car insurance, anti theft
devices for cars, self improvement courses and the list goes
on and on.



As an affiliate you sometimes are able to have other
affilaites join under you and you also get a percentage of
their sales. The typical affiliate commission structure is
for the affiliate to be paid a higher percentage on their
direct sales, say 50%, and then a lower percentage on the
sales of those affiliates they sign up, maybe 10 to 20%
commissions. Usually what we consider affiliate programs are
limited to two levels. Most affiliate programs are free to
join.

Many of the top internet marketers used affiliate programs
to get started in their carreer.



2. Network Marketing.

Network Marketing is simular to affiliate programs except
they go more than two levels deep. They can go unlimited
levels even. What this does is create great leverage so that
you can possibly make huge amounts of money if you get an
organization of thousands of members. There are different
government rules for network marketing businesses, or MLMs,
than for the typical two tier affiliate program. Network
marketing has been around for about 50 years, way before the
internet started.



However the internet has proven to be a
great way to promote network marketing companies.

3. Selling your own products and/or on your own website.

Having your own products and/or services with your own
website is of course a great way to make money. There have
been constant improvements to doing this and additional ways
to make money this way. One addional way to now make extra
income from your own website is by using Google adsense.
these are ads from Google's customers who pay by the click
to advertise on other people's websites.



This can make a
good income for the website owners but you need traffic to
the sites to make money this way. You can also have links to
affiliate sites on your own website. Or sell advertising
directly to other website owners.

Here is an example of a website with Google adsense ads and
also some affiliate programs.
Cutting
Edge Real Estate

4. Blogs

A web log is called a blog. This is a way to instantly
publish any information online. There are 9 million blogs
out there, with 40,000 new ones popping up each day.



Amazing. A blog can be set up quickly at no cost at
blogger.com, a site owned by google. Anything that can be
sold on a website can also be sold on a blog so many people
are using blogs instead of websites.

Here is an example of one of my blogs.

Self
Improvement Now Blog