At last! You have just uploaded your pristine new Internet marketing website, full of exciting product offers and affiliate programs. Unfortunately however, you soon discover that despite your efforts, nobody is visiting your site, let alone purchasing the products on offer there.

Then one of those Internet gurus publishes a $144 Internet Marketing Secrets For Beginners courses which is guaranteed to guide you to the promised land of Internet marketing profitability. You jump at the offer even if the price tag makes you wince.

You and 1,999 other newbie marketers who are all in the same boat as you!

Half of those who bought the course don't even bother downloading the materials.

Half the people who download the materials never get beyond the first couple of lessons.

Half of those who actually finish the course don't apply any of the stuff to their own online businesses.

Of the 250 people who complete the course and begin to apply the lessons to their own businesses, half get tired of the work involved and go back to what they were doing before.

The rest begin to see some improvement to their business, but have not yet made any money at it.

Then, one of the other Internet gurus publishes another course which promises to turn newbie marketers into the latest Internet success stories and you hear that the course comes with an excellent affiliate program built into it. Most of the people who'd completed the first "Internet Marketing For Newbies" course promptly buy the second... and the whole procedure begins once more!!

The problem does not lie with the nature of the materials they purchased, nor with the willingness of this group of newbie marketers to put in the hours working.

No, it is a question of focus and leverage. Or rather, it is a question of focusing on the wrong thing - website development, clicking for traffic, chatting in forums, searching for new affiliate programs... buying new "Internet Marketing For Newbies" courses.

These are all the wrong things to be focusing on - and focusing on the wrong things is almost as bad as not focusing at all!

Okay, so what should you be focusing on?

Well, there are a series of steps that each requires your attention.

First, focus on finding a profitable market packed with customers who buy again and again.

Second, you need to focus on finding a range of products to sell to the market.

Third, you need to focus all your efforts on building a list of people in that market niche to whom you will sell your products.

The third step is the one that requires most focus and attention. In fact, once you have found a lucrative market you should start list building even before you have found or developed a range of products to sell to the list. Obviously, without a list to sell to, no amount of good products will be of any use to you.

The question of How To Build A List will be dealt with in my next article, "Focus On Building Yourself A Qualified List Of Customers Who Are Eager To Hear From You And Buy Your Products".


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David Hurley is an Internet marketer who is based in Japan and is the owner of http://grasp-the-nettle.com, which focuses on success mentoring for Internet marketing start-ups.
Get your own work-from-home Internet business set up free and find out how you can build an online business and master the net.

Tags: traffic, money, marketers, affiliate programs, affiliate program, internet gurus, internet success, price tag, success stories, profitability, willingness, leverage, new internet marketing