I work with many beginners and see many of them making the same mistakes. I made many of these mistakes myself when I began and had to “live and learn” along the way. The quicker you can filter through all the dead-ends and focus in the right directions, the quicker success will come your way.

1. Don’t pay more than five or six dollars for your first hosting. I talked to a beginner the other day who paid $19.95 to host just one simple site! There are many hosting plans available where unlimited domains can be hosted for less than ten dollars!

2. Many beginners try to stick as many affiliate links and AdSense ads on their pages as possible. With respect to this, Less Is More. Don’t make your site look like its sole purpose is to make you money. Offer a LOT of quality content with a few ads.

3. Google AdWords is a way to promote affiliate products without having a website. Google makes it REAL easy to get a campaign up and running in just a few minutes. If only sales were as easy to get as clicks! AdWords requires plenty of practice (money) to become even somewhat successful. Some beginners have been known to wake up the next morning with a two thousand dollar AdWord bill. If you don’t know how this could happen, don’t start using AdWords yet!

4. Content is king! However, it must be original content! Beginners oftentimes do not think Google will know if they use content already found on other sites or from purchased private label rights articles. There is no substitute for writing your own original content or paying a writer for it. Plug your page’s URL into copyscape.com to find out if any of its content is duplicated.

5. Nothing is more aggravating than for someone to take an image from your site and use it. It’s probably ok in most affiliate relationships, but it’s best to check with the vendors. If you need top quality photos for your site, istockphoto.com is a great place to get any picture you need for your site for just a dollar or two. For this low price you have the legal right to use the photos on your site.

6. Beginners often learn so much about Internet marketing so fast, that they become overloaded. Their answer to this is to start about a dozen different projects in a dozen different areas. This spreads the marketer’s efforts so thin that none of the areas are given sufficient time and attention to succeed. It is important to focus your efforts on only a few areas at a time!

7. A beginner who wants to sell physical items on their site will often invest a huge amount of time and effort in a high-end shopping cart system. Just use the free PayPal shopping cart at first! No merchant account is required and it’s super easy to setup. After you start making several sales per day you can look for a more robust cart. Spend your time marketing the new site instead of setting up an advanced shopping cart.

8. Do not spend money on information products when you first become interested in Internet marketing! In the very beginning, it is too easy to fall for scams. Too many beginners fall for the “Get rich by next week” offers.

9. Beginners think paying $19.95 to “get listed in hundreds of search engines” is a good idea. It is, in fact, a total waste of money. Get listed well in the top 5 and that’s all you need! The best way to get listed fast is to get some one-way links to your site. This can quickly be done by submitting to article directories or regular (legitimate) link directories. These methods get better results than just submitting the link directly to Google, Yahoo, etc.

10. And the TOP mistake beginning marketers make is to expect an income right away. It simply is not going to happen! It will take many months of dedicated work before any kind of steady income, even a small one, can be enjoyed.

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