The main decision you have to make when it comes to Internet marketing

Here is the most important thing to know about making money on the Internet.

If you want a sure return on your Internet investment, keep it simple and use the Internet to distribute info and market to prospects and customers generated by your existing marketing systems. If you have any kind of business at all, you'll get your investment back with a healthy return in short time...If you don't overspend on the front end and if you make sure include your web site in all your regular promotional activity (stationery, business card, flyers, sales letters, ads, etc.)

If, on the other hand, you want to use the Internet to generate brand new clients without leveraging your existing marketing systems, be prepared to spend buckets of time, money, or, most probably, both. The days of a "free ride" on the Internet are long, long, long gone. It's now one of the most competetive, complicated media environments imaginable. There are still opportunities for the intrepid, but the intrepid better have lots of cash and stamina.

A middle approach is to do lots of little things over a long time period. This is like a farmer who removes a few stones from a rocky field every time he walks by it. Eventually, without a huge financial or temporal strain, the field is clear and he's got a valuable new asset.

Just 40 minutes invested in "little things" each day equals 166 hours at the end of the year which is a little over FOUR 40 HOUR work weeks. If you want to put in a solid month of work promoting your site - the only realistic way to start getting real results - this is one affordable way you can do it if you want to limit your risk.

Before you embark on an expensive marketing campaign you should read what I've written about the hard core reality of Internet marketing and marketing in general and check out some of these books