Do you know anyone who runs a successful traditional off-line business who does all their advertising for free? The people who try to do this generally fail within the first year or two. So why should legitimate internet businesses be any different?

What is unbelievable though is that there are a large proportion of internet marketers who actually believe that they can succeed using only free methods of advertising. It should therefore come as no surprise that so many of them fail, especially in the network marketing field.

One way in which legitimate internet businesses could use help with their advertising is by paying someone to do it for you.

In both network and affiliate marketing there are many co-op advertising programs available on the internet and these programs will do all your marketing for you. This is an excellent way of spending your money as you are paying for results without the necessity of going through the whole trial and error stage of trying to find what works.

A lot of these co-op programs are designed to generate leads for a specific online opportunity, but there are also those that will generate prospects or leads on a more generic basis.

If you have ever tried to generate all of the leads yourself then you are well aware of just how much this can cost. Therefore using paid advertising to take care of this aspect of your business makes good sense as it frees your time up for the parts of your internet business that you enjoy doing and are good at.

Consider carefully how paid advertising can benefit your legitimate internet business and help you to build it more effectively. Often you will find that this will be money well spent at is moves your closer to your goals and dreams of success.

Throughout our lives we learn and grow by following the example of people who have the knowledge and ability to show and teach us how to do the things we would like to be able to do. These people are called mentors, and they play a major role in your success or failure when starting an internet based home business.

When I first became interested in starting an internet marketing business, I began researching the various opportunities available on the internet and there are literally millions and not all of them legitimate internet opportunities. The more I researched the more overwhelmed and unsure I became.

This was when I decided that my best option would be to follow and learn from someone who had done this before me and succeeded at it.

Fortunately I had a friend who had already done this. I joined My Affiliate Power Site as I knew from first hand information that this was a legitimate internet based business, and the great thing was that it comes with a website and 6 money making affiliate programs that are ready to market plus free training. As a complete newbie to internet marketing, this was just what I needed.

In spite on all the above I still felt completely overwhelmed and this was when my mentor (whom had succeeded before me) suggested that I join the Affiliate Power Group. This is a group of five mentors who saw the need for beginners to have further training and guidance.

They are a group of hands on people who are there to guide teach and support you every step of the way to success and this is what a mentor should be there for. Their training and support in phenomenal and the success I have achieved is due to these mentors as without their help the road would have been twice as difficult.

The cost of joining the Affiliate Power Group  was worth every cent, even though I thought it quite expensive at the time. This was just plain silly of me. If you are thinking of starting an internet based business then having a mentor is
very important and this program is one of the best available.

Incoming search terms:

• internet marketing mentor

In case you haven’t heard about Squidoo, this is a website which will allows anyone to set up free web pages and write about their interest, passions and hobbies and each webpage is called a “lens”.

These Squidoo lenses can be used to point to content elsewhere on the internet where the information is more detailed. Linking and recommending is encouraged actively by Squidoo, as they see themselves as an enormous network directory. It has the feel of a dynamic internet community.

Creating lenses is simple and they can be made is as little as ten minutes. Prior technical knowledge is not necessary so anyone, even people with no knowledge of how to build a website can make a lens in no time at all.

In order to “Create a Lens” you just need to click on the button which will direct you to the “Lens Wizard”. It will take you about five minutes to build a basic site.

In fact it would really be a good idea to build a basic site initially and then to keep adding fresh content at regular intervals to it. Squidoo rewards lenses which are frequently updated. This will result in more exposure on Squidoo and also in the search engines.

Squidoo is an excellent quick and simple method of getting your message out on the internet. You can also add Youtube videos, Amazon Books, eBay auctions, surveys blogs, articles and RSS feeds including a whole lot more to your lens.

Squidoo is also a good tool for your internet based home business and offers several benefits that are free of charge for internet marketers. Below are some of them.

1.    You are permitted to promote your own website or blog or whatever else.  It is popular with the search engines, and this helps to improve your website ranking. It is easily done by making a series of lenses and pointing each one to a page on your website.

2.    Squidoo is popular with the search engines, so the more lenses you make and point to your web pages, the higher your website will rise in the rankings, especially if you optimize your lenses for your keywords.

3.    Squidoo has a very permissive attitude towards internet marketing, so you are able to link your lenses directly to whatever affiliate marketing programs you have.

4.    You will be able to post items from sites such as eBay and Amazon on your lenses and every time anyone buys something via your links you will earn royalties.

5.    Visitors can post comments and links on your lens and also give your lens a rating of between 1 and five stars. You will also be able to post your comments on other people’s lenses and will get links back to your lens.  The wider you spread your net the more traffic you will generate. People will visit to check out your lens and post comments or rate it.

6.    Another useful interactive feature is the option of setting up a poll to survey your visitors. This can be done with just a few easy steps. Again no technical knowledge is necessary and you can learn a lot about your niche market.

7.    Squidoo shares its profits with its lens masters so you can also make some money by simply making lenses and promoting them. Also you will need to keep them up to date with regular fresh content.

Last but not least Squidoo is a lot of fun to play around with and hang out on. As a free, simple and entertaining method to get extra exposure for your internet based home business and to make extra money, it is hard to beat.