Marketing Intro

I started trying to understand internet marketing last August 2009. As I am not a tecchie, and at that time I was also a newbie, the jargon used in the internet marketing business business for someone new and with almost zero knowledge or skills, it took me some time to search for definitions, tips and guides on where to start and what was important. Of course I relied on the Wikipedia and Google Search. After awhile, I encountered the following concepts:
- SEO
- PPC, CPA, CPM
- Niche Market
- Keywords, and keyword research
- Affiliate
- Blogging
- Squidoo
- Email Marketing
- AWeber
- GetResponse
- Domain Name
- Web Hosting
- cPanel
- Website Creation:Through software you can buy and install on your desktop; or through the creator accessible through the host cPanel
- WordPress
- Superscripts
- SSL
- HTML
- Adwords
- Adsense
- Clickbank: CB Engine, Vendors, Affiliates, Affiliate ID
- PayPal
Plus so much more that I was overwhelmed. Then I started to think that maybe I needed some sort of internet marketing training or at least, exposure to the concepts and terminologies used. I first thought of entertaining the sporadic, random emails I received from so-called marketing gurus who offered different products and systems with such compelling and urgent sales messages composed especially for email. At that time, I still had no idea of where to start. All I knew was that I had to start somewhere, anywhere. Otherwise I would never be able to understand anything.
I clicked on the links the gurus included in their email messages, and these brought me to their sales landing pages, which were even more convincing! After purchasing some products and systems, I started learning some things. Totally relying on the hype and the selling points on the gurus websites, I started to buy more products and systems. Only after about 3 months did I discover that some products I bought were so advanced that I could not use them until I had enough monthly income to regularly pay the recurring monthly fees involved. Some products needed a base of websites, sometimes as many as 50-100 sites, before the product becomes useful! Anyway, I could not totally blame the hype I was swallowing because it was primarily my lack of knowledge which forced me to go trial and error, with all the related useless costs and wasted time involved.
After a while, I started to become more prudent and cautious, carefully reading what the product was all about and studying if it was appropriate for where I was and what I really needed at that specific point in time. By this time I was overwhelmed by the huge quantity of emails I was receiving on a daily basis, sometimes reaching 150 different email offers from different internet marketing niche vendors, each one offering their revolutionary, powerful product or system. I later realized that some gurus from whom I bought products, had their own network of other vendors and of course in one way or another, these other vendors somehow learned about my purchases and this opened the floodgates, so to speak, for the huge quantity of email offers I received from these other vendors. Anyway, I continued to persevere and through the mistakes in the past which I am now able to avoid, plus the familiarity of most of the jargon used in the internet marketing business, I continued to grow in knowledge and skills more efficiently and less costly for me.
I can sincerely tell you that if I could have done it differently, I would have done so. Today, the blogs that I have and this series of articles on internet marketing are all part of a personal campaign to give out as much useful information I can and to give solid, quality recommendations which are often free. You may want to visit my blog, and find interesting articles:
Blog on Internet Marketing
Recently I came across an ad which caught my eye because it offered free training. This time I thought I had enough knowledge and experience which could be my guide to steer me away from any sign of trouble. I enrolled in the program, primarily out of curiosity, wanting to find out if the topics covered would be comprehensive enough, and if the layout or curriculum design was logical and useful for newbies, non-tecchies, and even for intermediate-skilled internet marketing practitioners. To my pleasant surprise, the program was of very high quality. And most importantly, it was really free, with absolutely no strings attached. I went through the modules and came to the conclusion that someone who would go through the lessons, not skip anything, study seriously, and do what is required such as practice certain things recommended, will be able to produce a good basic website and inject some internet marketing concepts to the point of eventually earning some revenues - all with the free, basic program.