Making money online should be, ideally, both fun and profitable. But here in the “real world” it is more often than not downright frustrating and expensive! Does that sound familiar to you? Yes? You’ve been there! You’re not alone! So have I along with thousands of others.

I have been involved in online or internet marketing for a little over ten years now. I would say that for the first three years I spent much more money than I ever earned! Yet still my belief and determination drove me on. My husband, Ross, says it was my “one eyed” and “pig headed” attitude !! Hahaha!

What I’d like to do here is just share with you some of my experiences and lend you the benefit of some of what I have learned.

You have undoubtedly fallen, probably more than once, for the “hype” displayed on the landing page of some guru or another, paid your money and signed up to the latest program which promises that you’ll make megabucks if you just follow this and that! With me so far? You’re told that you just have to add this “magic code”, or add “X” plug-in, or just click your mouse half a dozen times each morning and wallah!! You’ll be rolling in it in no time !! Yeah, right !!!!

Then there’s those sites which “put down” all that stuff and tell you that if you just sign up with their site, then you will, indeed, make megabucks – and look at these screen shots of our online bank account to prove it! Yeah, right !!!!

Then there are the sites that say that they really ARE going to tell it to you like it really is!!!! Yeah, right !!!!!

So here’s a line which will have you smiling !! I AM going to tell it to you like it is!!!!

There is no “easy ride” to internet marketing success or making money online!!

Firstly, it doesn’t really matter what you chose to market online. What does matter is the actual marketing! Make no mistake about this, the biggest factor if you wish to succeed in making money online is your ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN !! Isn’t it boring ?! Here I am saying something you don’t really want to hear!

All those gurus and other website owners brush over this when you’re on their landing page, or their sign-up page. It’s only after you’ve paid your bucks that they say “Of course, you’ll need to advertise in order to make money online“.

Admittedly, some of them make some sort of an attempt to give you some ideas on how and where to advertise, and in some cases they even supply you with pre-written ads, articles and banners. Well guess what?

Every time you click on one of the links on their site so that you can go do some advertising, you’re actually clicking on THEIR affiliate link and, if you upgrade from free member to a paid membership through those links, then they will get paid!!

Now, in itself, there’s nothing wrong with that, but by the time you’ve clicked on several of those links on their site, and consequently upgraded your membership on just a few of them, they have made quite a tidy little profit! So if they get, say, ten sign-ups a day then they are getting paid for their program and around 70% commission for every sign-up who upgrades to advertise using one of the links in their program. Could be quite a tidy income for them while you’re still wondering where to start !

Know this! To succeed at making money online or through internet marketing you must advertise, advertise, advertise !! And when you’ve finished doing that, then your next task is to advertise, advertise, advertise !! Then advertise some more !!

That means, whether you like what I say here or not, you have to get off your butt and do heaps of work !! Oh OK ! So you’ve read enough already and you’re going to click right on outa here right now !! That tells me that really, you’re not that serious about making money online, or you’re looking for the lazy man’s way to get to the megabucks !!

There is no easy or gentle way to tell you that, if you’re serious about internet marketing and making money online, you are going to have to work !! I mean really work – you’ll be working long hours to start with – and “to start with” can last anywhere from around three months to anything up to three years !!! Yep ! You heard right !!

I’m not going to go into what you’re marketing in this article – we can talk about that another time. For now, we’ll concentrate on what you can do to increase dramatically your chances of becoming successful in internet marketing or making money online.

By now, you’ve accepted the cold, hard facts ! You have to do heaps of work and you have to do heaps of advertising. ( Boring, aren’t I? I keep repeating this !!)

Once again, because this is an article and not a full length ebook, there’s a limit to what I can tell you here. But here’s one example of good advertising – you’re reading it right now ! An article !

Writing an article and submitting it to as many article publishers as you can is an excellent way to get fantastic, and practically instant exposure for your program, and a great way to get yourself known around the world of internet marketing. (The link to your site goes in your author’s box).

Ideally, you should be writing and submitting an article at least once every three days. Yep, you heard right ! There are several article marketers out there who will submit your article in bulk to the publishers, and they usually provide a ton of helpful info on their sites as to how to write your article.

You are allowed to submit a set number of articles each month for free through most article marketers, or you can upgrade for a monthly or annual fee in order to submit more articles. In my experience, the articles which get the best results are ones that you have written yourself. And don’t tell me that you can’t write !! You can talk, can’t you ?! Well, just write like you talk.It’s easy ! Really !

Don’t copy and submit one of the pre-written articles from your chosen program !! They’re not original enough and both the publishers and the search engines get a bit shirty about what appears to be duplicate material – after all, you and 50,000 others have just given them the same article!!

Don’t underestimate the power of email advertising. You’ll probably want to start off for free with these until you’ve got some seed money under your belt. But blasting out free emails means that they are not targeted specifically to your particular market customers. For example, you’re marketing hairclips, yet your free email ad winds up in the inbox of a motorcycle enthusiast !! Hmmm!!

But don’t worry too much. What this means is that you have to keep emailing, keep emailing, keep emailing, and then keep emailing !! Day after day, week after week, month after month !! It’s time consuming, but it’s free ! When you have some seed money, go for some targeted email campaigns. Shop around for these – the prices vary quite dramatically.

Blogs !! There are several sites where you can set up a blog for free. It’s a real learning curve, but get in there and just do it !!! The search engines love blogs, and they are undoubtedly a big factor in your impending success in internet marketing and making money online. And you can have more than one blog.

Lots of people with blogs have a comment box on their blogs. This is also a good place for you to advertise for free. You just add some comment relevant to the blogger’s topic, then add your own program url ( include the http:// ) beneath your name. Do HEAPS of this, you’ll get fantastic exposure.

Traffic Exchanges ! This is another very time consuming one, but if you really want to get ahead in internet marketing and making money online, then do this, too. Once again, you can start out for free – what that means is that you will need to spend a couple of hours each day surfing through the traffic exchanges. Once you have some seed money ( that’s money made online that you should now reinvest ) then you can start buying some credits which will cut down the amount of time that you need to be physically surfing.

I have by no means covered all the means by which you can advertise in order to succeed at internet marketing and making money online. But this WILL get you started.

My main aim here has been to make you ABSOLUTELY very well aware of the cold, hard facts that you MUST acknowledge and embrace before you have ANY hope of succeeding in making money online. You need a rock hard, granite-like mindset, utter determination, complete dedication, and bullet proof perseverance in order to succeed in the very exciting and very rewarding world of internet marketing.