I was talking to a contact I’d met online recently, which is something I’ve been doing a lot more recently. Chatting to people over instant messenger isn’t usually my style, but I’m finding there’s lots to be learnt from the small snippets of wisdom you pick up.

Not in this case, however. This time, I was talking to someone who didn’t think that there was any money in SEO. I say SEO, because this guy was an SEO.

He honestly didn’t believe that there was any point in SEO’ing his own sites.

He would quite happily do it for businesses and clients, but seemed to think that there was no point getting search engine traffic unless you had a “killer idea”. I find it hard to believe that someone who’s involved in the web development industry so much wouldn’t see the stupidity in that.

The thing is, I’m noticing this more and more. People don’t seem to recognise the potential in internet marketing. I’m an admin for a web design forum, and I often here people complaining about some web design problem they can’t solve and I just have to laugh.

We don’t have to deal with that sort of crap in internet marketing! Unless we want to of course.

Internet marketing isn’t about pretty pages, it’s about making money. And yet so many people miss out and try to start their own “web design” business or “graphics design” business. You’d think that these people would know better.

Ah well, we can’t complain. The less people in the game, the more money for us.

I read a comment on some article that I found on my feed reader, all about these sites that use Lightbox to get a quick squeeze page up for their mailing lists. It went like this:

Waaaah, waaaah, every time I go on a site that’s got this lightbox thing on I immediately press the back button. I’m not signing up to their newsletter just because they put a box in my face, waaah, waaaah.

Boo hoo, so you don’t like it? We don’t care. We being internet marketers care not for your opinion, for you are just one man. What we care about are stats: impressions, pageviews, clickthroughs, and most importantly conversions.

So if you don’t like lightbox or anything like it, of course you are entitled to not watch it. But we don’t care. We own the internets, and laugh in your face.

The fact is that people use Lightbox and other devices similar to it to increase conversions, not that non-internet marketers care because they aren’t marketers, therefore their opinions are not valid.

Whenever I see this:

…I know I’m on a Make Money Online blog. How many people are gonna use the same theme? I’ve seen it on Cash Tactics, which is a blog I actually like and I imagine they might have been one of the first to use it. But now it seems like every man and his dog is using this theme.

Everytime I go to a site like that I think I’m about to get scammed. Usuaully I am.

And I’m fed up of seeing these make money online blogs saying how they are “for the newbie” and that they don’t want to make any money themselves, they’re just giving away the info out of the goodness of their heart. And then all you see is product review after product review, and program after program.

There’s not even that much money in the niche, i don’t understand why people are so bothered about having a blog about making money. The only reason this blog exists is because I sometimes feel like writing about my experience online. Hardly anyone visits it and I have to say I’m not really that bothered.

The point I’m trying to make here is this. Why don’t these expert marketers go out and find a niche that doesn’t has every other jackass trying to make a profit in it. Or, here’s a real novel idea. Actually put information that isn’t a load of crap, and have the guts to give out something helpful. Otherwise just go away and leave the rest of us in peace.

Scumbags.

I’ve had a page up for a few weeks now advertising my own internet marketing coaching programme. I just want to say it was a stupid idea, not because it won’t produce results for me, but because it goes against everything I believe in.

If I had advertised the thing, which I didn’t bother doing, say I’d gone over to Digital Point I’m sure I would have got a few sign ups. And while I really would have made sure that complete newbies to internet marketing got a proper start in the industry, the price tag I put on it wasn’t justifiable.

I’m not saying I have a problem with people making money by helping other people make money, that’s not the issue. It’s that I could quite easily just point newbies in the right direction for free through a really good blog post. There’s a crapload of good info out there and all I’d need to do is point them to the right places to find the info.

It’s simple for most of us, but some people really struggle to find the good info and end up getting scammed by ebook sellers. Perhaps I meant well, but I feel like I’ve just become a dirty scammer myself. I have no issues selling things and with paid community sites either, but telling people stuff that is freely available on the net does put me in the same league as all those dirty gurus.

I am not guru, I’m an internet marketer.

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What’s that crazy man on about? Well, I was reading one on my regular blogs in Google Reader when I came across something quite extraordinary. Here’s a quote with some of my own thoughts:

Stop labeling. It’s amazing how much we think we’re experiencing life, but we’re really just thinking about it.

Erm, no. But I’ll read on anyway…

I want you to try a little exercise with me. Take a look at something around you. Maybe it’s a photo, a plant, or your keyboard.

Ok, I’m looking at the keyboard…

Our normal state of mind is to think about the object we’re looking at, to conceptualize it in our mind and place labels on it. Now look at the same object and don’t think about it.

OK…

If this is difficult for you, that’s okay.

No, it’’s fine, I’ll manage.

Relax and just look.

Yep.

Let go.

Gotcha.

Notice a difference?

Nope, not a thing. I’m just looking at my keyboard.

That’s because when you’re not thinking about what you’re things, you’re actually experiencing life directly. The labels in our mind are simply abstractions, they’re not reality itself. Try doing this more often: when you’re in line at the grocery store, walking your dog, listening to music, etc. You’ll start to enjoy your experience much more.

That’s pretty much what went through my head, what is all this psychological mumbo-jumbo about anyway? I usually love the posts this guys writes, and to be fair he probably really is a good guy, but I get frustrated when people try and tell you to “experience life” amongst other stupid phrases.