Humans love to complicate things! We do it all the time - just look at our lives! We have all this wonderful technology at our disposal and yet our lives generally are far more complicated than they were 50 years ago (so I'm told by 85 year old mum anyway)!

When I look at some of the "red hot money making opportunities" that are promoted online I get really confused - I haven't got a clue what half of them are on about! And that is with some years of online business experience behind me. Heaven knows what someone new to Internet Marketing would make of them! Just what is 5 level forced matrix anyway?

There is a Japanese term that I love, "Shibumi". It means that something has a simply stated functional elegance. Something that does the job it was designed for perfectly without any unnecessary embellishments being added.

When I look around at the current state of Internet Marketing I see very little Shibumi! I see a lot of gaudy, over hyped, nonsense, being peddled to the unsuspecting masses! People get sucked in by the false promises and clever advertising, into a scheme that will never work, and end up many dollars poorer and with their dreams shattered.

There are two things that Internet Marketing virgins need to consider; what they are going to sell and how they are going to market it? The first is relatively simple - find a good affiliate product. It is in the second area that most people fall down!

The biggest problem faced by anyone running an online business is....... just how do you reach your "market"? How do you get customers to see the wonderful product or service you have for sale? You may have an all signing, all dancing, website, but if no one visits your store you are not going to make money!

I call this the "Sahara" approach. Many people open up their shop front in the middle of the desert, and then wonder why they are not getting any sales. The difference that makes the difference is not the product, or the way it is presented, but the way in which it is marketed.

If you are looking to earn money at home with an online business you would do well to remember this simple fact: 95% of your efforts should be geared towards driving traffic to your product!

That is one of the reasons I like business models that are "ready to go". If I have to worry about website design, HTML, or all the technicalities of presenting a site then I have problems. My energies are split and I am not concentrating on the right thing!

If I can find a product where this side has been taken care of then I am happy! All my energies can then be focused on marketing the product, which is the only thing that is going to make me money anyway!

The difficulty sometimes is staying focused on this simple truth. There are just so many wonderful distractions out there! It is vital when you are working on building your business, to stay focused on what you are doing and what you want to achieve.

It is vital that you learn to see things through. If you start one project try not to get distracted. Don't move on to something else until the first project is complete.

Do just ONE thing at a time, e.g. spend an hour generating traffic, a day writing a report, etc. etc. Don't try and write a report, do link exchanges, install affiliate software and create a new website all at the same time! You will end up getting nothing done. Do one single thing at a time with complete focus and you will succeed!

So, remember these three crucial rules for staying on target with your efforts to make money on the internet. Keep your business model as simple as possible; avoid the temptation to chase each new "opportunity"; and focus on the task in hand. Follow these simple steps and you will soon start to make good money online.

Copyright (c) 2009 Steve Cowley