There’s so much conflicting advice in internet marketing, who can you believe?

Surely it can’t all be true so how can you figure out what works and what doesn’t work without testing every single theory yourself?

First, use your instinct

We’ve all come across a sales pitch or even a news story that – at a minimum – stretches the truth to its absolute limits.

And you probably knew instinctively that something didn’t add up as soon as you reached the page or read the headline.

But there’s still a nagging voice in your head that’s asking you “what if?” and almost begging you to believe the hype.

Which is why top copywriters are paid very high sums of money – they know the “buttons” to push in your mind.

Precise figures – often right the way down to cents – are more believable than round figures. Google uses the same tactic in its keyword tool.

Screenshots of earnings can be easily faked – that’s happened on lots of occasions and since most “earnings” screenshots are snapshots of web pages, anyone with a basic knowledge of HTML can manipulate them.

One way to reduce the impact of sales letters is to sleep on it.

Come back to the offer tomorrow. It’s rare that it will have vanished and if that’s the case there’ll be another never-to-be-missed offer in your inbox pretty soon.

Sometimes it will have gone up in price – scarcity, especially in internet marketing, is elusive which is why increasing price dime sales are used so often.

One way to find out whether or not an offer really is counting down to a deadline is to open a window in a different browser (or a private window in your current one) and see whether the clock starts ticking from a different time.

But even if you miss out on today’s “bargain” price, chances are you’ll save money in the long run with all the offers that you don’t take up.

Be careful on forums

It’s difficult to know who’s behind a forum profile.

There’s no real verification process apart from maybe replying to an automatic email.

Google, Twitter and a few others use a text message verification but few, if any, forums do that. And anyway a new SIM card is cheap and that gives a new number.

I was a member of one forum a few years ago where I’d spoken to the person on the phone so I knew he was genuine but he also said he had an alter ego he used whose name and photo were totally fictional. The same has happened on the Warrior Forum at various times. Often to prolific posters.

Which means your radar needs to be up on forums.

Forums can be a very good way to get business – I know someone locally who uses them to generate thousands a year in web design jobs – so you can’t even use the technique of “how are they successful if they’ve got so much time to spend on forums”. It doesn’t take long to skim posts or even set up a Google alert, so people can do forum marketing in spare minutes and appear regularly in the threads.

Do some research

This isn’t necessarily easy.

Some companies use lawyers to send some quite threatening letters to keep their name clear on the web.

And the European Union Directive allows people to ask Google to remove results they’d rather didn’t appear. Which can make a web search less easy than you’d expect.

Hopefully you won’t uncover anything untoward but if you’re spending money with someone, there’s a level at which it pays to run a few quick searches.

Start small

This isn’t always possible – some internet marketers have an entry level product that isn’t cheap ($500 upwards isn’t unheard of).

But if at all possible, at least until that kind of money is in the “trial” price range, start small.

Buy one or two or three cheap products from them – a lot of internet marketers have cheap trials and low priced introductory products, it’s part of the traditional sales funnel approach.

You can then dip your toe in ythe water and decide whether the base level information makes sense and works in real life.

Ask a trusted friend

That may or may not be easy.

If you’re just starting out in internet marketing then you may not have anyone you know who’s directly involved and might know whether or not a particular approach will work.

But they can still give you a reality check by asking a few questions about that sales page that’s been drawing your wallet ever closer to their bank account.

And if you’d like to start really cheap, how about a free video?

It’s one I’ve created about affiliate marketing.

And, naturally, there’s an upsell that I’d love you to take but there’s no pressure.

Watch the video, work out whether or not you like my approach and take it from there.