I came across an article the other day about the average cost of college tuition.

The average cost for a year of tuition ranged from $2,700.00 for a two-year college up past $28,000.00 to attend a year at a private, four-year university. Multiply that by 4, add in books, housing, food and alcohol and that is one expensive education.

Don’t even ask about graduate school.

And don’t get me started on the quality of a university education, or whether the skills taught in college translate into the real world. That’s an article unto itself.

The article did make me think of how valuable the internet is for getting an education. When I started doing research on internet marketing, there were tons of resources online to read. Some of them were paid, many were free.

It took me several months to find good resources, put everything together and understand what I really needed to focus my time on. I probably spent about $700.00 before I really had a good understanding of things. That includes books, ebooks, memberships and tools. If I actually knew the best resources to go to first, I could have done it a lot cheaper. Either way, it’s a pretty good deal if you ask me, especially compared to what a degree in marketing would cost at a university.

An online education in internet marketing is extremely valuable. Internet marketing can be applied to any industry or market. You don’t have to use it to help others learn internet marketing or how to make money online. In fact, internet marketing is most effective when you apply the principles to markets outside of the make money online world.

One problem with getting an online education in internet marketing is that people tend to get addicted to learning. Some people want to learn everything before they actually start doing something and end up never getting started.

I know, it’s not easy to resist that $20 ebook that promises to give you the “secret” to automated cash flow using an untapped source of traffic. But, before you buy another product, consider these tips first.

LEARN THE FUNDAMENTALS

If you’re interested in learning internet marketing, the first thing you need to do is learn the fundamentals from a legitimate source. There are always exceptions to the rule, but legitimate sources are not anonymous. If you land on a sales page that promises you easy money, with no identifying information, it’s probably not a good source of information.

Here, at Superbad Internet Marketing, I focus on the fundamentals of internet marketing. That’s what you need to know before you get started. You will need to learn more to excel, but once you understand the basics, you’re ready to get started and start learning by doing. Consider it your internship period without the sky-high tuition.

Don’t get stuck in “learning mode” forever. You can learn the basics in a couple of weeks, then start implementing what you know. You’ll learn so much more once you start putting things into action. After you’ve learned the basics, spend 80% of your time, or more, executing the tasks that will generate traffic and revenue. The other 20% you can use to do everything else, like read and learn.

TAKING ACTION

Taking action is an important step because your results will tell you which direction you need to go. You will ultimately need to change things based on the results you get. Even if you “succeed,” you will still want to improve upon your success or scale your success to grow even more. The way to do that is to keep learning and growing.

Before I buy any product, I ignore the copy (after reading it, of course) and look at the substance of what the product offers.

If the product, tool or service doesn’t tell you what you get when you buy, do NOT buy it. If it promises to reveal some secret, it’s almost guaranteed to disappoint. Most, if not all, legitimate products will tell you what the product is all about. There are no secrets, just things you haven’t learned yet.

The next question to ask is whether the substance of the course will help you in some way. If it’s a copywriting course, it could help you increase sales. If it’s a tool, it could save you hours every day. Assuming the sales pitch is true, how will this product or service help your business grow?

I generally break down products or services into four categories. There are only so many ways that other products or services can help you. Everything else is a gimmick.

If they promise a fully automated system that requires no work – gimmick. If they promise you top ranking in Google in 1 week – gimmick. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.

Here are the 4 categories:

Strategy
This is your overall plan of attack. Do you want to create a website, drive traffic and sell affiliate products? That’s a strategy. Do you want to drive customers to your brick and mortar business using the internet? That’s a strategy.

There are many different types of strategies. For example, maybe you’re interested in selling physical products online, but you know nothing about it. If you find a good course that teaches you how to sell products online, that’s a good reason to buy a product to learn a new strategy.

Tactics
Tactics are simply methods for accomplishing certain tasks. For example, a year ago, I didn’t know that people were successfully using podcasts to drive traffic and generate sales. If that were something I were interested in, it would be a good reason to invest in a high quality product that teaches how to use podcasting to make money.

Tools
Tools are important for online businesses. You use different tools all the time, such as WordPress, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, forms, email, etc.

Tools can help you be more efficient and help manage your time. Twitter is a tool that can help you connect with other people and drive traffic to your website. If you don’t know how to use Twitter, or you want to use it more effectively, you might spend some money on a good course.

Resources
This is my catch-all category that encompasses everything that doesn’t fall into the other 3 categories. To me, resources include websites, people, coaches, events, relationships, etc. Anything that can help your business function more effectively is a resource.

If you don’t know where to get backlinks from, it might be worth it to pay for a list of high quality resources. If you want to connect with a high-level person, you might want to pay to join a one on one membership program.

The resources you need to grow your business and become more effective will vary depending on your business model and strategy. However, be careful about paying for resources because in many cases, you can find them for free if you’re creative enough. Sometimes convenience is worth the cost, sometimes it’s not.

LEARN INTERNET MARKETING

Having a strong knowledge of internet marketing is a great talent to have. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, if you’re good at marketing, you can get traffic, clients, or whatever you’re looking for. But, it’s important that you learn from trustworthy sources that will get you on the right path. Check back soon for my free guide – Internet Marketing Simplified.

What tool or resource have you purchased that helped you “get it?”