A Newbies Guide to Internet Marketing (with GIFs and memes)

Do you want to make money online? All this talk of disruption, global economy and being able to “work from anywhere” has finally got you thinking seriously about making a change. We live in a global economy and the tools are in place to make new things happen. Heck, Canada just legalized smoking weed across the entire country! The smell of change is in the air and you’re ready to spark up on these Internets.

But the truth is more complicated. You only have one social media account, Facebook — because “everybody is on it”. And you don’t understand why anyone needs a whole YouTube channel. You’ve never uploaded a video to YouTube. And starting your “own blog” is crazy talk. Your read blogs — like this one, but why start your OWN blog? Sounds scary. Hell, you’re still on the bubble about whether you need a website.

You my friend are part of what marketers call the “Late Majority”. Maybe even a Laggard — riding the tail end of the Technology Adoption Curve. Well I’ve got some good news for you if you read on — there is still hope. You can still punch your ticket and get on-board the internet marketing train.

Creating Content

So where do you get started? Let’s talk big picture. To make money online you need to build relationships with people by delivering helpful, informative content. Some can be free and some can be paid. Some you can create and some you can curate.

The psychology of it is people are more likely click your link, take out their credit card and pay you money if they also know, like and trust you. I learned this early on in my sales career and it has remained true to this day. Apply it.

You need to work on getting a gang of followers that are almost desperate to throw money your way. Giving them amazingly valuable, relevant and free content is your entry point into their mind.

You may be thinking how I am going to make money if I give it away content for free.

Any successful sales person will tell you that a warm prospect beats a cold prospect.When your free content helps people solve their problems and helps them achieve their goals and gets them what they want — they will warm up to you and your message.

So warm them up. Get them sizzling. And they will want to do business with you as they need your products or services.

How People Will Find Your Content

Buy Traffic. Look you’re a newbie so you need to get your name out there fast to your target audience. The real players in internet marketing spend money to buy traffic. Whether is buying Facebook adverts, YouTube, Google or other “secret” traffic sources you need to think about spending some money to buy traffic that will convert.

There are hundreds of millions of users on social platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Google, LinkedIn just to name a few. Many of these people are looking for exactly what you offer. And unlike traditional marketing where you must pay huge monies upfront for advertising in print, radio, television and outdoor the digital marketing world has changed the game. You can get started online advertising with daily budgets as low as $1. Then optimize and scale up based on research. You can even boost your free content to increase views and conversions.

Now that we have that out of the way here is another fact. All of your traffic cannot be paid. I know a lot of you got scared when I said buy traffic. But I’m glad you kept reading because I am a huge fan of free, organic traffic.

I find the best way to get your free content online and to build relationships directly with your audience is with your own blog. There are tons of reasons to have your own branded space on these Internets. Remember our goal is to make money online. Long term we build a property with huge traffic, engagement and conversion it is an asset we can sell.

But wait there’s more! Your blog is the first place people are going to find you and then find out even more about you. Oh and did I mention you can run ads on your blog for your own products and even get other advertisers? Lets all say cha-ching together right now.

You can create your blog about yourself with your own name as the domain name (www.yourname.com). If you type normbond.com in your browser you’ll see it brings you to my website (which actually has a different name). I’ll share more on that piece of magic in another post.

Since I’m in the digital marketing niche my blog includes a lot of great content and freebies on the topic for my audience. It also provides the additional benefits I mentioned earlier.

You should create your blog focused on whatever niche you choose. Some people competing in multi-billion dollar sectors miss the opportunity of a blog. Don’t make this mistake.

What to Blog About?

Before you can start blogging you need to choose a subject to blog about. On what subject are you both knowledgeable and passionate? That’s a good one.

See if you’re passionate and knowledgeable on a topic it will pop through in your writing. It will engage your audience. And it will be much easier for you to create content on a regular basis. This makes it fun.

You don’t want to go into a niche where you have little or no interest. That’s a problem with some gurus who say just go with what is selling. You could end up hopping into a new niche every week and competing against people who are knowledgeable and passionate. Guess who the audience will trust.

To be honest it can be difficult to find a niche that brings the right combination of passion and knowledge for you. So don’t just rush through this step. Do some research. Look at some existing blogs. Who are some of the influencers in the space now? What type of content is being created?

If you think creatively and apply what know it is totally possible to put your voice into the market and make a profit from your passion.

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