There are thousands of web sites, books, CD-ROM's, cassette tapes and various other forms of communication devoted to topic of Internet marketing. The majority of these sites profess to offer "secret strategies" and "killer tactics" which promise to increase your chances of having success on Internet. Of course you must fork over your hard earned cash for these wonderful pearls of wisdom. (Many of which turn out to be nothing more than pyramid schemes and other scams)

With all of these so called experts lining up to take your money and fill your head with dreams of making easy millions you may find it difficult to filter out facts from fiction. I will take unenviable role of fact giving, bubble burster and tell you flat out, "There are no secrets to successful Internet marketing!"

Let me repeat myself, I said, "There are no secrets to successfully Internet marketing"

Successful marketing, whether its online or off, requires careful planning and a lot of hard work. And no amount of marketing will ever meet with success if product being marketed is a bad one. This is especially true of web sites, which carry remarkable distinction of almighty back button. I know this from first hand experience with companies that have spent ridiculous amounts of money to market web sites which were basically unusable.

Now that your dreams of sailing around ocean sipping margaritas, while an Internet cash machine deposits six figure sums into your bank are thoroughly dashed, lets explore some of common issues associated with true Internet marketing success as well as a few of many misconceptions.

The same principles that govern off-line marketing practices apply to online marketing. Research, Planning, and Analysis.

Research:

Determine what makes your product or service stand out from crowd. What do you offer that competition doesn't? How do your prices compare to others in market? What features of your product are one of a kind? All of this information will help in designing your web site to reflect a unique selling proposal. A unique selling proposal answers customer's question, "What's in it for me?" Gather all information possible that answers this question and use it in planning your web site.

Planning: Develop a marketing strategy for your web site.

Are you selling merchandise online? Are you advertising a service? Who are your customers? You must determine exactly what it is that you want your website to accomplish. Example: If your web site is focused on making it easier for potential customers to learn about your services, focus your attention on offering as much information about your services as possible. Price comparisons of your competition, directions to your business location, contact information, testimonials, etc.,are a good place to start. Plan your web site around a central goal.

The casual computer user can afford to play with fire and risk catching a virus but business user cannot afford to damage his or her business by being careless in this area.

I asked Danny, who sorts out computer problems on a daily basis, what advice he would give to people who are stressed out when their computer is put out of action by a virus or by some similar problem.

He was in a relaxed mood and replied jokingly at first and then got down to business: “I have a method that will guarantee you never catch a virus or have any problems with your computer.”

I played along with this. “What is this amazing method?”

“ Don’t turn it on! “ Danny smiled triumphantly.

He continued: “Computers are inherently insecure and whatever you do, you will, sooner or later, run into problems."

Danny always tells it like it is: "However, there are a number of things you can do on a daily or weekly basis that will considerably reduce your chances of running into trouble. Cut both your hands off or don’t pay your electricity bills."

Having had his fun, Danny came up with goods.

"Follow a two pronged approach to security. There is prevention and there is cure. Prevention involves avoiding a number of risky actions: Avoid sites like gambling and porn sites that might automatically download adware and other malicious code.

Avoid installing internet utilities like speed boosters, wallpaper changes and other utilities that put programs in start bar or any other utilities such as toolbars that change internet explorer.

Avoid file swapping networks. If you want to download music, whilst we don’t condone it, you can use these networks for music files (like mp3) but DO NOT share program files (.exe etc) since you will get infected with a virus that way.

Many file share programs also include advertising mechanisms that will interfere with your system and secretly download all sorts of rubbish. Avoid porn sites that you have never heard of. Stick to household names.”

Danny and I had a good laugh at idea of household names in porn industry. Neither of us, incidentally, download porn.

"There are also a number of actions a safe computer user should take:

Install a reputable firewall like Zone Alarm. Many companies do a free version for non commercial use so it doesn’t have to cost a lot.

Install anti-virus software. Again there are free ones (www.grisoft.com). Be careful with some of newer internet security suites as they are large and require top notch hardware to run them properly. If you don’t have modern hardware (younger than 12 months) don’t install these new suites. They will reduce your machine to a crawl.

Delete email from unknown sources and if you use Outlook Express etc. turn on security features that filter out attachments. Better still use a more secure internet/mail client like Mozilla or Opera.

If you run XP make sure it is getting regular updates from Microsoft. This facility can be turned on in Control Panel. XP has a built in firewall so make sure this is turned on. Microsoft released patch for Sasser worm a week before it hit but a large proportion of people did not apply patch.

How do you update from Microsoft? Go to Control Panel; click on System and select Auto Update tab. Select option that automatically updates your machine.