Some Truly Honest, Uncommercialised Advice For Newbies

OK, so I'm sick of so many threads here giving people wrong advice in order to sell products or for other dishonest reasons. When I knew absolutely nothing about internet marketing, warriorforum was the place I turned to for all my advice, but as I read more and more, I realized that a LOT of people here are either very new to this field or selling you something. This is the reason why I'm making this thread to help newbies understand what I have learned in my few months of internet marketing and what to avoid.

Firstly, I need to tell you that I am by NO MEANS an expert in internet marketing. In fact I've only been doing it for 2 months, but that's 2 months of true dedication, working a good 12 hours a day and checking my SERPs every single morning. Also, I've done pretty much everything manually to help me fully understand what I'm doing and what effects it has. I have seen good progress, getting 3 of my 6 websites on first page and making a bit of extra cash.

Anyway, without further ado, here's some advice:

• Despite what a lot of people will tell you, dodgy backlinking can be a factor that gets you penalized by google (penalized as in a massive drop in serps, not deindexed). Notice how I say it can be "a factor". I think that as long as you have good quality content, and a good amount of it, you are at a much smaller risk of being penalized. In fact, I would say that content is a much more obvious reason why people get penalized.

• Following on from the previous point. Watch out for all the dodgy backlink packages in the warriors for hire section or on fiverr. If you did want to blast your website, at least do it with buffer sites in the way.

• Internet marketing is DEFINITELY not a short term thing, and all the people that tell you that you can start making money in a few hours is trying to make money OFF you.

• If you are going down the outsourcing route, it is important that you understand everything first. One example where this is important is when people offer you high PR backlinks for cheap. If you investigate further you'll realize that a lot of the time it is only a high PR domain. What you really want are high PR pages.

• You have to be smart and find new ways for yourself. There is no point following in other peoples footsteps and reading guides that thousands of people have followed. I have found a couple of my own ways to find decent backlinks and keywords that I'm SURE only a few people use. Generally, avoid the backlink lists here as they are most definitely spammed to the rim.

• No matter what your monetizing method, make sure make sure make sure you follow the terms and conditions TO THE WORD! I've seen so many threads here going "$$&*()*&^% google banned me for now reason!!!!!" You check the site and they don't have a privacy policy or contacts page, and have about 2 posts worth of content.

• People that have sites like the one I described above, you might not get slapped now, but you most definitely will soon!

• Internet marketing can be a very volatile income source so if you are relying on it to live you might want to cover your back with different monetizing methods or even different types of traffic sources.

• My last piece of advice to you is to READ, READ, READ and then READ SOME MORE. This sub forum has given me ALL the information I've needed to make a bit of money for myself. Bit unsure about something? Just post a thread and ask.

As I said earlier, this is not a definitive guide to perfect success on the internet, I am just telling you the most important advice that I could have been given when I first started out. No one truly knows exactly what the google algorithm is unless they work for google, in which case they probably wouldn't be here.

Be smart about what you read and who you trust and you'll be able to swim through all the bullpoo in this forum and pick out the real useful information.

I hope this has helped at least one person