Everyone needs a mentor to  help guide them to success.  Even the top marketers have someone that they consider their mentor or someone that helped them to the next level in the industry.  Without that guidance one may be doomed to failure.  Internet marketing employs a variety of different tactics that if not done correctly could leave you feeling like your business has no future and possibly cause you to quit before you even get started.

When you are new to the industry it can be a bit overwhelming trying to figure out who to listen to and who to completely ignore.  There are so many self pro-claimed ”gurus” on the internet it’s very easy to get sucked in by someone who has absolutely no experience at all or does not have the proper ability to train you so you too can be successful.  Alot of internet marketing products out there will only teach you so far and will not give you the exact ingredients to fully be a success, leaving you with still plenty of room for error.

So where do I start?  Myself personally I follow many top internet marketers.  I have joined many email list and subscribed to a number of blogs.  Usually these are affiliate marketers that are willing to teach you some of their methods to success without charging you in hopes that you buy their products sometime in the future.  I don’t join these list to buy their products, although from time to time you will come across some great deals, I  join so I can see how these successful people market to their audience.  

Below I compiled a brief list of people that help influence and motivate you.  Google these names and join their list so you can start learning right away:

• Frank Kern
• Mike Dillard
• Todd Falcone
• Joel Comm
• Craig Perrine
• Brad Callen
• Eben Pagan
• Mike Filsaime
• Howie Schwartz
• Jeff Johnson
• John Reese
• Michael Cheney
• Keith Wellman
• Ryan Deiss
• Perry Marshall
• Stompernet

This is only a brief list and you may have others that you follow and learn from.  Remember these people have a wealth of information to offer to you and you may want to buy some of their products, but if anything analyze everything they do, take notes, and implement action. 

I invite you to comment and let the readers know who your mentor is and why you choose to follow them.

Let’s face it, internet marketing is not as easy as it sounds like it should be.  Very few are successful in owning their own internet business due to many different factors.  The good news is that there are a few successful marketers out there and alot of them are willing to share how they got to the next level in their marketing efforts.  The best way to learn how to be successful online is to follow the ones that have already been there and use their best practices to optimize your income. 

Everyone needs a mentor to  help guide them to success.  Even the top marketers have someone that they consider their mentor or someone that helped them to the next level in the industry.  Without that guidance one may be doomed to failure.  Internet marketing employs a variety of different tactics that if not done correctly could leave you feeling like your business has no future and possibly cause you to quit before you even get started.

When you are new to the industry it can be a bit overwhelming trying to figure out who to listen to and who to completely ignore.  There are so many self pro-claimed ”gurus” on the internet it’s very easy to get sucked in by someone who has absolutely no experience at all or does not have the proper ability to train you so you too can be successful.  Alot of internet marketing products out there will only teach you so far and will not give you the exact ingredients to fully be a success, leaving you with still plenty of room for error.

So where do I start?  Myself personally I follow many top internet marketers.  I have joined many email list and subscribed to a number of blogs.  Usually these are affiliate marketers that are willing to teach you some of their methods to success without charging you in hopes that you buy their products sometime in the future.  I don’t join these list to buy their products, although from time to time you will come across some great deals, I  join so I can see how these successful people market to their audience.  

Below I compiled a brief list of people that help influence and motivate you.  Google these names and join their list so you can start learning right away:

• Frank Kern
• Mike Dillard
• Todd Falcone
• Joel Comm
• Craig Perrine
• Brad Callen
• Eben Pagan
• Mike Filsaime
• Howie Schwartz
• Jeff Johnson
• John Reese
• Michael Cheney
• Keith Wellman
• Ryan Deiss
• Perry Marshall
• Stompernet

This is only a brief list and you may have others that you follow and learn from.  Remember these people have a wealth of information to offer to you and you may want to buy some of their products, but if anything analyze everything they do, take notes, and implement action. 

I invite you to comment and let the readers know who your mentor is and why you choose to follow them.

Search Engine Optimization
A great way to drive traffic to your website is through the search engines.  Search engines, like Google,  MSN, Yahoo and so forth look at two major things when indexing your website.

How relavant is your website,  meaning how well you can tell the search engines what your website is about.  You have to become a master at “On Page Optimization”.  Ways to optimize your website pages is through your keywords, metadata, site maps, your domain name and website description.  This is majorly accomplished through your content on your website. 

The second category which is very important is how many links that point to your website and the relevancy of the link pointing to your website.  This is called “Off Page Optimization.”  The more  relavant and quality links that point to your website the better.  If you have good quality links pointing at your website from websites about your topic and it is also optimized good for your keywords then you should not have a problem ranking well in the search engines.

Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)
Another way to drive traffic to your website that is alot faster than Search Engine Optimization is through Pay Per Click, (PPC).  As the name relays with this style of driving traffic, you pay for each time someone clicks through to your website. 

It’s important to start small with PPC as with any new marketing strategy.  PPC campaigns can get out of control quickly.  You need to do your research, set your budget and stick with it.  Test, track, and analzye your campaigns and pay close attention to your campaign for the best long term results.

Article Marketing

Article marketing is simply what it says;  Article marketing is the process of writing quality articles and submitting them to relavant article directories.  Publishers grab these articles and post them to their websites, blogs, and newsletters all while keeping your author information and link’s to your website in tact.  This produces relavant links to your website (remember SEO), but it also drives traffic to your website after someone reads your content, enjoys it, and clicks through to your website for more quality information.  This method is a highly effective method for generating traffic to your website, and it also is free.  The downside is that it can be labor intensive.  We will talk about ways to make this less painful in the future.

Social Networking

Social networking has hit the internet world by storm and is the newest and best way to attract visitors to your website.  Social networking is the process of communicating with other people/prospects on social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, and Twitter or any industry specific forums or chat rooms.  Social networking is a very effective method of increasing your presence.  You can build your profile and connect with a large group of people that share a common interest.  A social networking profile typically allos you to list your contact information as well link’s to your website so they can learn more about what you do.  This means when you make connections and provide interesting or beneficial information to other social networkers, they’ll be inclined to visit your website, thus generating traffic and your internet presence.

Affiliates
Last but not least and yet another great way to get traffic is to get affiliates to promote your website.  An affiliate is someone who promotes your product or service for you in return for a commission.Commissions can be based on purchases or click throughs or a combination of both depending on your business and affiliate model.  Affiliates are an exceptional strategy for broadening your audience and increasing your internet presence. 

Use any of these five methods or a combination of them to increase your internet presence and help to drive traffic to your website amplifying your earnings.  Choose your strategy and get started growing your business today!!!