I have been online for a number of years. I remember the days of having to wait for a line in to sign onto AOL, because they gave away more of those free CD's for trial memberships than they had hardware resources to handle. I still have my original Yahoo e-mail address when you could only have 10 characters in your user name. Hey, it's the address my mom writes to me at, so give me a break.
I have tried a number of money making opportunities over the years, both online and offline, trying to find a way to shuck the J.O.B. habit and find financial freedom. I tried SMC, No Money Down Realestate from Russ Whitney and Carlton Sheets, selling halon fire extinguishers for Safety Plus, dabbled into several MLM companies, including Amway (Worldwide Dream Builders, AKA Worldwide Group), Tupperware, Melaleuka (my upline took my money and ran, besides, who wants to smell like tea tree oil all the time) and several others. Online I have built a few websites to sell tangible products with some degree of success, tried paid surveys (averaged about $5.00 an hour a couple times a month), but I did get to sample and keep some pretty cool products before they ever went to market. I currently hold one of the top rankings in my catagory on Amazon for a product line I carry. This little business has provided a solid part time income, which keeps my wife from having to work, but regrettably, is not enough to quit my job. It has been enough to prove to me that it really is possible to make real money online though. From this we are generating an average of $20,000 a year in revenues, which isn't too bad. Not great, but not bad either.
Information marketing is something I have been exploring for the past 6 months or so. I have purchased enough of it, I figure it is about time to start reaping some reward from all the PDF's sitting on my harddrive. Like many of you, I have amassed a sizeable collection of e-books, PLR reports, articles written by somebody with English as a second language, some pretty cool little software applications, and a whole slue of mp3 copies of teleconferences. The realization hit my at some point that if I would quit simply collecting all this stuff, and actually start applying the knowledge I have in my head, and the wealth of resources sitting on my harddrive, there is no reason why I cannot achieve that dream of financial freedom.
One of my websites ranks on the first page of Google and MSN for my niche keywords, so I know first hand that achieving a high Google ranking for small targeted niches is simply a matter of applying some basic SEO techniques and being patient while Googlebot does its thing. There are numerous simple things I can do to greatly increase my success in this arena as well. Writing some articles related to this niche and posting them to the article directories to generate some back links being one of them.
A lot of the things I need to be doing I find I do not have time for because I allow myself to get side tracked by the 50+ lists I am subscribed to and all the e-mail they generate in my inbox every day. I feel compelled to see what the gurus and my fellow marketers have to say, and what freebies or products they are pitching that I just have to have for my collection.
The smartest thing I think we can do is unsubscribe from all but the select few that actually bring us true value and information we can use. If all that these fellow IMers have to offer us is an endless string of product offers, and not anything you can actually use, then what value are they bringing to your life. If I want to be advertised to continually, I can turn on the idiot box in the living room. At least I'll have some entertainment amidst all the marketing.
One of the hardest things for me has been to overcome the information overload and take decisive action to start making things happen. Information overload is in part a result of not filtering the constant barage of data coming into your brain. When you are first starting out, it is hard to know what to listen to and what to filter out, in part, I think, for fear of missing some critical element that coule make the differnce. There are dozens, if not hundreds of ways to effectively make money on the Internet. You can't possibly do all of them.
You have probably heard the saying, "Jack of all trades and master of none". Keep letting yourself get pulled in a hundred different directions and that is exactly what you will be.
That saying is attributed to Benjamin Franklin, though it is actually misquoted. What he acutally said is "Jack of all trades and master of One". This is the key - pick one thing, one business model, one technique and work at it until you have mastered it, be it creating AdWords campaignes to promote affiliate products, building a downline for an MLM business, selling products on EBay.
It doesn't matter which one you choose, you just have to find the method that fits your needs and capabilities and put everything you have into making it a success. Once you have mastered it, then you can look into other avenues. You have to put this puzzle together one piece at a time. You have to do something though. Do not just sit there collecting information and trying to stuff it all in your brain until your head explodes. Information overload is more like information overdosing, and that can be fatal to your success and your financial future.