The Lure of Online Marketing

The most popular blog subject for making money online is making money online - seriously!  Everyone dreams of staying at home, working just a few hours a day and making at least enough money to pay the bills but preferably a small fortune.  As Americans, we are dreamers, and we are so willing to believe that we can achieve this dream of ours that we will swallow practically anything.

Just Google "making money online" and you will come up with 1,350,000,000 results.  That's more than one and a quarter billion hits!  Many of these sites won't even tell you how they propose that you will make your fortune; they just keep showing you accounting sheets with high balances that you're supposed to believe are actual income statements.

Let's Check About the Online Marking

The Hook

They make outrageous promises and then try to lure you in with a low fee, just $19.95 or something like that, to get their system, their software, join their network or whatever.  You're almost willing to pay the price of admission, just to see what is behind the curtain, but that low fee is just the hook.  For just this much more, you'll get this upgrade, and a little bit more will get you the full package and before you know it you're out a significant amount of money.

Phony News Websites

Some of these sites even create phony news websites that appear to be affiliated with a major news network.  But if you click on any of the "news" links on the page, instead of another article or news feature, you'll be taken straight to the landing page for the scheme that they're trying to sell you.

Research the Company

One way to avoid getting scammed is to research the company; try Googling the company name together with the word "scam" and see what you get.  A lot of these companies actually invest quite a bit of money in phony review sites, however, and flood the search engines with them.  These sites purport to be offering legitimate reviews but are really one-trick ponies trying to fool you into believing the product that you're researching is legitimate.  Try looking up other "reviews" on those sites and see if there are any actual negative reviews of any products or services to be found.

Is Anyone Really Making Money Online?

Yes - the people selling you the schemes to make money online!  There are legitimate ways of making money online, through affiliate marketing, for instance, but they will not make you an instant profit and they do require quite a bit of time and effort to get started.  Online marketing requires knowledge of websites, social media and a lot of other tools to help you succeed.

Online marketing is competitive; there are literally millions and millions of websites out there trying to sell products.  You have to find a niche; a reason for people to come to your website.  You have to cultivate a community, by not only providing captivating content, but by networking through WordPress blogs and social media sites.  It helps to have a pleasing website, or websites, using attractive, which are much simpler and less expensive than hiring a website designer to build you a custom site.

It takes time, dedication and lots and lots of effort to succeed in online marketing, and even then, there are no guarantees.  If it was easy, everybody would be doing it, and there would be no one to serve you at the drive through window where you grab you morning coffee.  If it were easy, 1,350,000,000 people would be marketing legitimate products instead of get-rich online moneymaking schemes to gullible novices like us!