Have you ever wondered how can you possibly figure out how to market your Internet business when you’re bombarded with so much conflicting information? Lots of “how to” advice applies to many online businesses.

But avoiding common marketing mistakes will work for EVERY business. If you make even ONE of these mistakes, you’re leaving money on table:

Mistake #1: Believing, “You can make a fortune online while you sleep.” This mistake has a sidekick or two: “Make millions in just 2 hours a day!” or “Give us a month; never work another full day again!” and “Make a living working less than 2 hours a day!” These are tempting; they’re all dangerous.

But these promises aren’t most amazing part - what’s outrageous is number of people who buy into them – with their time, their money and their hearts.

Avoid Mistake #1: Ignore pie-in-the-sky promises – you’ll have to spend serious time on a serious Internet business.

Mistake #2: Believing, “You can support yourself online with just a small investment.”

This headline captures attention, but that’s all it does.

Your Internet business is just that – a business. Develop a budget you can afford; don’t take a risk you cannot.

Almost everyone loses some money along way to making their business successful. Plan for that.

Avoid Mistake #2: Spend a realistic amount of money to grow your business.

Mistake #3 “Get in on opportunity you’re excited about FAST – before it’s too late.”

For an Internet marketer, this is probably worst piece of advice. These pyramid-like “business opportunities” sound too delicious to be true, and they are.

It’s never “too late” to begin with a solid business opportunity, and they are likely to generate profits whenever you set up shop.

Avoid Mistake #3: Do your homework before you do anything else!

Mistake #4: Having no marketing plan. With a little help, anyone can write one. Get started by making lists: a daily task list, a weekly to-do list, monthly benchmarks, and so on.

Figure out what you need to do every day to get number of emails out, flyers distributed, ads placed, press releases written, and articles published to achieve your goals.

Avoid Mistake #4: Outline your battle plan and follow it to letter.

Mistake #5: Not getting enough visitors to click on your site.

I’m sure you’ve read story after story about people who make mega-bucks on just a few hundred hits a day. Yes; it’s possible you could break records, too. But it’s quite unlikely you ever will.

If you build your website, they will NOT come. You’ve got to push them there.

Avoid Mistake #5: Use as many methods as you can to drive traffic to your site.

Mistake #6: Sending out sales and recruiting emails all day long.

Some say marketing is a Numbers Game.

Is it? Not exactly.

You can calculate number of prospects you must have to get number of hits you need to get number of click-throughs necessary to end up with enough visitors who read your sales message.

When we look at how people are using Internet, there are basically two types of people who use Internet for shopping. The first type is they know what they want and try to find out where they can buy on Internet. The second type is they want to buy something but don’t know what to buy. Who are they? The best example is people who shop for gift giving.

In general, when you buy something for yourself, you know what to buy, but don’t know price and place. So you go to Google to search shopping sites. For people who shop for gift, they may not know what to buy to fit their friends’ styles, not to mention what they can search using search engine. Perhaps, only word they can search is gift. Therefore, a gift giving sites can guide them to shop better gifts for their friends.

Don’t forget those people who visit gift giving sites are willing to spend money. They are not just looking for product or background information. They are not doing web research. They have intention to buy something. This is what you want.

Moreover, gift giving site can sell a little bit more expensive, or call upscale items. People may buy cheap things for themselves, but they won’t buy cheap things for their friends. Otherwise, you won’t see people borrow money from banks or credit cards for gift giving.

As I said before, some visitors may not even know what is correct keyword they should use to search. If you sell something that is unique or product type is new, then how can you expect people can search your site using correct keyword?