Here is a snippet of an e-mail I got today.

……”I was looking at your website and it looks great.

I have to ask man…do you have any recommendations for a internet marketing ‘starter’? I’m sure you get asked that alot but I really really want to do something online, just a little lost on direction.

Any advice would be sooo helpful…….”

Here is a copy of my e-mail response to him. I realized he’s right, and this is what I generally tell folks that ask me where to get started.

“Hi [removed],
I’m sure it might sound evasive, but you’ll need to find something that fits your personality and resources. There are infinite ways to make money online. Also, by resources I mean not only money but skills and time, etc. By personality I’m thinking risk tolerance and interests.

Digitalpoint forums and Warrior forum are good resources for beginners. Abestweb is nice. Blackhatworld is good too. Wickedfire forum is pretty harsh. If you go there, only lurk for several weeks. They tend to be hard on newbies.

I would advise you to keep your money and avoid buying e-books, etc. All the information you can buy is available for free elsewhere. When I was getting started, I stumbled upon something that let me make enough to scrape by and spent about 3 months reading Digitalpoint forums. Like 14 hours per day….7 days per week. Now, I spend almost no time in forums. I just do the shit I know how to do to make money. But if my shit quits working, I go back to the forums.

Good luck bro!
Danger

P.S. When you’re ready to start building money making websites, get some good hosting and sign up for some affiliate networks.”

Now, I’m sure he just wanted me to tell him to do exactly this and that and cash in, but I’ve come to believe advice like that isn’t really practical. You gotta find something that fits you, that you will enjoy doing. Also, the internet is ever-changing and to be successful long-term requires broad enough knowledge that you can reinvent your business models often.

I got a phone call a couple days ago from a good friend of our family who is interested in making some internet monies on the side. They have a busy life, family, and career but want to make a little extra every month.

I’ve received similar requests from various people who have varying levels of knowledge of the internets. My responses tend to vary to try to match what I think that person’s level of expertise might bear, but generally, I’ll help anyone I can.

First I try to figure out what that person wants to do from these 3 choices.
1. You can sell your labor to others for nearly guaranteed income. (write articles, sell stuff on Ebay)
2. You can trade your labor for free traffic. (SEO)
3. You can pay for traffic. (PPC, etc.)

Then, most of the time I tell them to go to digitalpoint forums or to warriorforum. (Google it if you need to. I’m too embarrassed to actually link to them.) If someone is already making money online and is new to the affiliate space, I’ll send them to wickedfire.com with a few words of warning. Here are micro-reviews of these 3 resources:

1. Digitalpoint forums. Great for newbies, but you don’t need to ever buy an e-book. There are many 1000′s of participants, but the problem is that most of them are newbies too. When I was a newbie, I spent a fair amount of time here but no more. I feel like I’ve outgrown it. Still, because of it’s massive size, it’s worth mentioning.

2. Warriorforum. Back when I was a newbie visiting digitalpoint, my wife was a newbie visiting warriorforum. I personally have spent less than an hour on the site, but 2nd hand I’ve learned that it’s a great site for women or people new to making money online who want to SEO their way to free traffic. The folks at warriorforum are ‘nice’. Which leads me to our last mini-review.

3. Wickedfire.com. From the perspective of a newbie, woman, or anyone with much of a sense of decency, wickedfire is hostile and offensive. Nudity and hostility are celebrated. Newbies are not welcome. That being said, it is the place to be if you are into affiliate marketing and want to read what people who make $1K to $100K+ daily have to say. For what I do, this is my first stop when looking to get a question answered. Well, maybe I’ll ask a friend first, but you get the point. If you are a new affiliate I’d advise you to lurk only. Try not to speak.

So generally, if someone asks me how to make money online, I’ll try to pass the buck to one of these 3 resources. If someone knows nothing about how internet money moves around, they can get a good feel of it from these forums and along the way probably make a few new friends of their own with similar interests and skill levels.

What advice do you find yourself giving to marketing newbies?

I’m here to help you make money with internet marketing.  What’s the catch?  There’s got to be a catch right? Yes there is, but it won’t cost you anything.  The catch is that I’m going to encourage you to sign up for some of the major affiliate networks through my link to their website.  If I get you to sign up, I can receive 2% to 5% of the money you make with affiliate marketing.  It doesn’t come out of your pocket.  It is an incentive many networks offer to get new affiliates (people like you) on their network.

I can’t make money from this plan unless you are successful.  So I really am here to help you succeed.  I want you to make lots of money.  I’ll be exploring various techniques, sharing my own strategies and am happy to answer questions you may have. 

If you become my sub-affiliate with any network, I’ll share really specific info I wouldn’t share with my mother. Things like exactly what offers I’m promoting, keywords and negative keywords, ad scheduling, and more.  If you are wanting to sign up to any network not listed here, but still want a mentor, let me know. I am probably a member and can send you a sign up link. If you e-mail me. danger@dangerbrown.com

I’m a member of several networks, but these are my three favorites:

Join Hydra Network, The Leading Performance-Based Advertising Network, Today!

Sign up for Neverblue, a great company with high standards.

Sign up for MarketHealth, they own about 90% of their campaigns. Their campaigns are not fly-by-night. Good if you want long term profitablility in a PPC campaign.