So what is an online marketing Guru? Well one of the definitions for the word Guru is “somebody who is prominent and influential in a specific field and sets a trend or starts a movement”

You notice it doesn’t mention anything about honesty, integrity or the obligation to help you make money. I would break online Gurus into two classes. Both have a Guru status because they are very successful at making money online. The differences in the two groups are one group honestly has as one of their primary goals, helping you to make money. Sadly there are way too many in the second group whose primary mission is to sell you anything that you will buy. They don’t care if the information or the product is next to useless just like the example that we found while doing a Google search on making money online.. The information that site was selling for $49.97 is widely available for free on the Net and the major part of it is outdated and just doesn’t work any longer.

The fact is some marketing strategies become ineffective so quickly that the reputable Guru must continue to update their products for them to be worth anything. Those that continue selling products and or information that they know does not work, only care about one thing… the money they can make off the millions of people trying to make money online. So how do you tell a good Guru from the one that is only out to take your money? Good question and one that is not all that easy to answer, but let me tell you what I have learned over the last eight years the hard way.

1- If is sounds to good to be true it ALWAYS is. This is something we have all heard a million times, but we still end up buying something based on a hyped up sales letter. Fight the temptation!

2- If they say making money online is easy then run away, because it’s not. Come on if making money online was that easy you would already be rich. Building a business online is just as much work as building an off-line business. If you’re not willing to put in the hard work and time then save your money, no software will do all the work for you.

3- Look for total marketing strategies first and then look for the tools to automate the tasks as best as you can. There are many marketing strategies to pick from and spending your time researching each before you start to buy software, could save you a truck load of money.

Do you know what is meant by virtual real estate? Do you know what a mini-site is? How about a money site or feeder site? Do you know what kind of sites Google classifies as spammy sites? What kind of site does Google love? DO you know the difference between a white hat site and a black hat site? If you don’t know the answer to all these questions you need to do some research before you build a website.

I’ll write a future article comparing different marketing strategies and list resources were you can find good information on each. Until then do some research on Google… join some marketing forums and read what others are saying about their experiences. Just keep in mind… if it sounds too good to be true it ALWAYS is!