Internet marketing is a big subject. It’s not the same as learning to drive a car where there are relatively few things to work out, instead it’s got a lot of components. The good news is that you don’t need to learn all of them before you start potentially earning some cash from your activities.

Decide which area interests you

Don’t focus on the money at this stage.

Instead, decide where the different aspects of internet marketing fit with your own strengths and weaknesses.

This could be advertising – typically this is very close to old school direct response marketing where you need a good level of attention to detail and you need to be prepared to test and tweak until you get it right.

It could be product creation – if you’ve got knowledge about a certain subject, you can quickly gauge likely interest and build up a following on article sites and YouTube.

Or it could be one of tens or even hundreds of other avenues.

Set yourself a time limit to do this – you don’t want to become a perpetual student – and then put your blinkers on!

Focus on your chosen area

This is part of the learning process.

Go deeper into your chosen area and do your best to work out where the best places are to spend your learning time.

This might be Amazon but there are some major time lags in the production of printed books (much less so for Kindle ones) which means that the information you get may well be out of date before it’s even published.

Forums are a good place to learn but you need to focus otherwise you risk getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information available. They are also normally full of conflicting opinions, some of which are highly opinionated and often very convincing, regardless of whether or not the opinion is correct.

Start doing something

Again, set yourself a time limit for this part of the process.

Whatever it is you’ve decided to learn about internet marketing, put it into practice.

That’s the only time you’ll really discover whether or not the section you’ve decided to work with really is for you.

If it isn’t – for instance if the idea of doing something today fills your mind with ways to procrastinate rather than do something – then go back to the start of the process and choose a different area.

It’s OK to fail fast rather than spend months or even years pursuing a dead end.

Do more of the things that worked

This assumes that you’re doing your best to monitor the results of what you’re doing!

Certain things you’ve done will have worked better than others.

Maybe your videos are getting views. Maybe your articles are getting read and the resource box is getting clicked on. Maybe some of your affiliate links are getting sales. Maybe subscribers are joining your email list.

Whatever it is you’re doing to get that reaction, do more of it.

Shift the time you’re spending so that most of it is being spent on things that get results.

But leave a bit of time to experiment with new ways.

Things are always changing and you need to make sure that you’re not stuck in a rut. That’s not always easy – entire industries have failed to do it – but you need to do your best to at least be open to new ideas so that you’re not left having to completely reinvent yourself in a few years time when all your current methods finally stop working effectively.

But that’s in the future.

You need to start first!

And if you’d like help doing that, check out my internet marketing coaching.