15 Facebook Friends You Regret Accepting

Facebook is a wonderful way to communicate with friends, family and coworkers, as well as reconnect with old friends, former classmates and other people from your past. Unfortunately, like all social networking sites, some not-so-awesome people manage to squeeze through the cracks. Whether you unknowingly accepted their friend request or you found out too late that they had a couple of screws loose, you have to face their face every time you sign on. It may only take one bad post or obscene photo to rub you the wrong way and make you regret befriending them. Here are 15 Facebook friends you regret accepting:

• Friends who post offensive comments
  Some people use Facebook as a forum for posting controversial comments that are generally political or religious in nature. These comments are guaranteed to be followed with a thread of arguments and negative comments that you would probably rather not see right when you sign on to Facebook. People will post certain comments just to stir the pot, regardless of how offensive they are being. The unfortunate part is that they could be a coworker or relative that would notice if you unfriend them and will surely write their next rant about you.
• Friends who post passive-aggressive comments
  Those who post subtle messages like, “Some people really tick me off – you KNOW who you are…” could be the most annoying Facebook friends to have. This passive-aggressive cry for attention is not only juvenile, but it makes everyone reading the post uncomfortable. You may be witness to some heated Facebook arguments, and will want to run for cover when you see that they’re online.
• Friends who really aren’t your friends
  There are always those people you didn’t particularly like in high school, but feel obligated to befriend now that you’re on Facebook. By doing so, you open up the door for wall posts, invitations and messages that you’ll wish you never received and a friend request you’ll deeply regret.
• Friends who blow up your newsfeed with mundane status updates
  “Went to the gym at noon, took a shower, now headed to class. Then, dinner with my hubby and working on my essay for the rest of my night. I’m sooo busy!” For some reason, people feel the need to keep their friends updated on what they’re doing every minute of every day, regardless if it’s interesting or not. These mundane status updates have zero relevance to you and the only person who cares is the one writing it.
• Friends who use Facebook for business purposes
  Everyone has friends like the used car salesman who posts links to his available cars, or personal trainers who advertise every day about their gym membership discounts, and you so desperately want to tell them that business and Facebook just don’t mix. As innocent as they may be, these people just become human advertisements who post spam and offer no real value as a Facebook friend.
• Relatives
  Accepting relatives’ friend requests can be a tricky decision. Your older sister may not think twice about your birthday celebration pics, but your great aunt Sue may faint from utter shock when she sees your album. Depending on how often your family snoops and how much they know about your college days, you may regret accepting the family circle on Facebook.
• Friends who share TMI
  Some people have no filter, and it only gets worse when they get on Facebook. The friends who share too much information, like “Ugh! Hate when it’s that time of the month…” or “Just changed my baby’s poopy diaper!” don’t know their limits and other people’s tolerance levels. These Facebook friends will make you squirm and regret accepting their friend request with every uncomfortable status update.
• Friends who post scandalous or obscene photos
  It seems like the same people who have no filter on what they say are also blind. They’re blind because they can’t decipher between decent, appropriate photography and just plain trash. Some Facebookers only seem to post photos of themselves and other scantily clad people doing some very questionable things. You can use your imagination or just get on Facebook and see for yourself, because chances are you’re regrettably friends with some people like this.
• Friends who are creepy
  Nobody likes a creeper and, unfortunately, Facebook is filled with them! Those who stalk your Facebook profile, recite your wall posts word-for-word or comment on every picture in your photo albums, are creepers. For example, a creeper may mistakenly interpret your friend request acceptance as an open invitation to ask you out via wall post, or send you a Facebook gift because he or she saw that dogs were listed in your interests. You’ll cringe just thinking about them and deeply regret accepting a creeper’s friendship.
• Exes
  You were once in love and now you’re frenemies. Being Facebook friends with your ex can be very unhealthy when you’re trying to get over him or her, but it certainly comes in handy when you want to peruse their profile and see if they are dating anyone new. On the other hand, this friendship can cause unnecessary Facebook drama or tension when they see you’re currently dating their college buddy.
• Employer and coworkers
  Face it – there are just some things you don’t want your boss or coworkers to see on your Facebook profile. No matter how “cool” your higher-ups seem, it’s hard not to worry about them going through your pictures and gasping. There’s also the nagging threat of your coworkers telling on you or gossiping about your profile.
• Friends that send you annoying applications, quizzes and invitations
  Is your Facebook inbox overflowing with unopened applications, quizzes, invitations and spamy messages from the same people? Just when you think you might open a message from an old friend or former classmate, you instead open up an invitation to play Farmville, Mafia Wars or take a quiz to see which Sex and the City character you are. As the messages build up, you’ll be wishing you didn’t befriend these unfortunate souls.
• Friends who profess their love on Facebook
  They boast about their boyfriends, say “I LOVEEE you” in wall posts, take pictures of themselves kissing and…you get the picture. This over-the-top profession of love is only cute to the couple and no one else. When your newsfeed is taken over with couples who want the whole world to know they’re so in love, you’ll quickly regret accepting their friend request.
• Old friends who want to relive their glory days
  Nothing is worse than people who try to relive their glory days when they’re clearly over the hill. They are the friends who cannot resist uploading pics from senior prom and high school parties, and relish in what was once the greatest years of their life. It’s sad, but what’s sadder is that you accepted their friendship.
• Attention-seekers
  From the wannabe models to people who post things like, “OMG, OMG, I was sooooo drunk last night! LOL!” attention-seekers are some of the worst and most regrettable Facebook friends to have.

10 Ways to Tell You’re Addicted to Facebook

No social networking site has brought more friends, families and old classmates together more than Facebook. Since its inception in 2004, Facebook has added photo albums, quizzes, newsfeeds, games, status updates, chats and other fun features that make it one of the most entertaining timewasters on Earth. Whether Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg intended for his site to be incredibly addicting or if users have just taken it to the extreme, Facebook users, young and old, have let it run (even ruin) their lives. From constantly signing on to read your wall to late night creeping on friends’ profiles even when you’ve got homework to do, Facebook addiction has become a real concern. If you think you might be one of the 500 million Facebook users, who is living through your Facebook world, check out these 10 ways to tell if you’re addicted:

• You check your Facebook every hour of every day

  You know you’ve hit rock bottom when you check your Facebook multiple times during every hour of every day. Whether you’re checking the comments on your wall post or have an ongoing chat with a friend that just can’t wait, checking your Facebook this much should be illegal.

• You can recite wall posts, newsfeeds and friends’ profiles

  If you know exactly how many friends you have, what their photo albums are titled and can repeat wall-to-wall posts between other people, you’re clearly a Facebook addict. Not only is reciting Facebook information a sign that you’ve OD’ed, but it also shows that you have spent way too much time perusing your friends’ profiles, also known as “creeping.”

• You check Facebook before anything else

  If Facebook is the first thing you look at when you get on the computer every day, consider yourself addicted. Checking Facebook before your e-mail, the news or getting straight to work, is a dangerous habit to start and a surefire waste of time.

• You use Facebook to follow current news

  If you sign on to Facebook to find out the results of the presidential election or keep tabs on the Iraqi war, you’ve got a problem. Not only are your “friends” likely feeding you bull, but you are obviously so absorbed in Facebook that you don’t find reading the news yourself a worthwhile activity.

• You are on Facebook during important non-Facebook moments

  If you have to hide that you’re looking at Facebook during work, weddings, family reunions and other non-Facebook moments, you probably shouldn’t be on it and may be addicted. There is a time and a place for Facebook, but then again, you’d probably disagree.

• You’ve got carpal tunnel, burning eyes and a hunchback

  If your pointer finger aches from clicking through too many photo albums, or your eyes are dry and bloodshot from hours of reading wall posts and chatting on Facebook, you’ve got a problem and then some. Facebook is supposed to be a leisurely activity, not one that makes your body hurt.

• You upload photos before the night is over

  Uploading pictures in the midst of a party or vacation you are supposedly enjoying, screams Facebook addict. We know you just want your friends to feel like they’re right there with you, but for goodness sake, give yourself a Facebook break.

• You get mad when Facebook changes the layout

  Facebook addicts know the layout and features so well they could navigate through the site with their eyes closed; that is, until it makes its yearly updates. If you’re one of those people that gets mad when Facebook changes the layout or rearranges the features, and you share your frustrations in a status update or letter to Mark Zuckerberg, consider yourself an addict.

• You have played and beat Farmtown, Happy Aquarium, Mafia Wars, etc.

  If your life revolves around playing and conquering the many Facebook games, like Sorority House and Farmville, you can consider yourself a Facebook addict. As if Facebook wasn’t addictive enough, their computer games will suck you in and further feed your problem.

• You comment on or “like” everyone’s pictures or posts

  If you take the time to go through hundreds of your friends’ pictures and posts and comment or “like” them, you may be addicted to Facebook. By “liking” every picture, (whether you’re in them or not) you are not only saying you have no life, but it’s likely that you’ve wasted a good chunk of your day admiring others’ more eventful lives than your own.

Full Sail University

Full Sail University offers one of the top Internet marketing degree programs and prides itself on hiring only the best experts in the industry to give you the tools you need.

Kaplan University

Kaplan University will help you discover new ways to leverage technology with to empower Internet marketing with their B.A. in Business Administration – New Media/Internet marketing.

Rasmussen College

Rasmussen College has a very innovative Business Mgmt Associates – Internet Marketing degree. While getting your degree you will be learning Internet marketing from the ground up.

Tips for Making Money via Pay Per Click

Post written by Dana Prince

Those who want to be successful online in e-business quickly learn that traffic is a vital ingredient for profit and success. They also learn that there are many ways to capture traffic; although the methods aren’t always easy and they’re not always free. A PPC (pay per click) campaign offers several ways to get traffic to your website. Do it well and that traffic could translate to profit. Do it wrong and it could be an expensive lesson.

 In a nutshell, traffic received via PPC advertising can arrive to your sales landing page and you can then work on converting that traffic into a paying customer. Your ad could be placed in search engines, on websites and blogs, and even in someone’s email. PPC via Google Adwords could be a very profitable proposition.

 What is a PPC Campaign?

 A pay per click campaign involves paying a fee for visits to your website from people. You can arrange this with various search engines and marketing companies. You could pay a fee per click and you could also pay fees per page impression as well.

 Learning how to use pay per click to your advantage could be very lucrative and some websites and entrepreneurs use pay per click quite successfully as part of their search engine marketing strategy.

But how can you Make Money with PPC ads that cost money?

Here are some examples:

• Open an online store. Set up the website and start a pay per click campaign to drive interested traffic to your store. If the cost per click is low and the profit margin is high, you’ve got great potential.
• Do affiliate marketing. By being a facilitator that drives traffic to someone else’s site, you can make a commission for every sale. Bid on keywords that relate to an affiliate product and write great ads to drive qualified traffic to the landing page.
• Create a website and sign up for a Google Adsense account which will put contextual advertising on your website. Once your site displays ads, you can earn money when your site’s visitors click on the ads.

Let’s look at each of the above scenarios a bit more closely:

E-Commerce:

If you sell something in an online store, pay per click ads could be created to drive interested individuals to your store. If you sold shoes, for instance, you could arrange to have your shoe ads shown when people key in specific words related to shoes. Those people may be shopping for a new pair of shoes and land on your online store.

Affiliate Marketing:

Campaigns can be created so that you can direct traffic to a landing page that has your special affiliate code.  When that traffic results in a sale, you earn commission. The concept is used by many online entrepreneurs and by being an affiliate internet marketer, you don’t even have to touch product in order to earn from its sale. By getting traffic for the wholesaler or product creator, you could make commission fees.

Content Sites:

Many blogs and other topical websites are filled with ads. The website owner displays ads on their site and if people click those ads and / or buy something from the resulting page, the content site owner makes a percentage of a fee shared by a company such as Google.

More about Pay Per Click

PPC enables targeted advertising based on keywords and phrases.  Because people may be on a web page due to an interest in a particular topic on the page, relevant ads may also appear. If you’re the owner of a website selling vitamins, for instance, your ad could appear on a search engine results page related to particular phrases as well as in banners on health blogs, health forums, and in someone’s e-mail because of words in their messages related to health, vitamins, or illnesses.  

A PPC advertisement for vitamins might look like this:

Need vitamin C?

Check out our specials on vitamin C. Free Shipping!

URL

The advertiser pays for the click or the showing of the ad (depending on their campaign) and if you, the web surfer, buy something from that site, they’ve benefited from their PPC investment.

A Word of Caution:

A lot of different companies use paid search engine marketing campaigns to gain an edge but not everyone is able to do so successfully. Most use a combination of search engine marketing and organic search engine optimization (SEO) to drive as much traffic to their website as possible. Not all traffic is equal, not all pay per click ads will result in a sale, and not everyone will master PPC and make money at it.

Pay per click can be expensive and just because someone clicks, that doesn’t mean their click will result in a sale. It’s important to learn strategies of successful internet marketing techniques before creating a paid campaign.  Learning ‘as you go’ could be an expensive lesson.

Do You Need An Internet Marketing Degree to Succeed Online?

Post written by Dana Prince

If you want to be a successful internet marketer, search engine optimization is one of the most important things you should dedicate time to learning. For many, the question is: should you learn it alone or get help?

The time and effort you spend learning how search engines work will pay a huge return on your investment. A solid foundation in understanding how search engine optimization, or SEO, applies to marketing online can enable you to:

• Reach a larger online audience,
• Reach the right audience;
• And help you save money on your internet marketing efforts.

Learn SEO

SEO, also known as search engine optimization (or search engine optimisation in the UK), is a vital aspect of search engine marketing. This equals the act of optimizing your site so that it will be more likely to be featured in the top rankings in search engines relating to your niche. There are many different ways to do this and not all suggested methods are going to work.

SEO is an advanced topic with many facets and learning SEO the right way will help you reach success and profitability sooner. The wrong search engine optimization techniques will slow down your progress and lead to frustration.

The desire to be featured on page one of Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines for your business niche is huge and those who do get to the top of the rankings for the right keyword phrases have a good chance of being profitable with minimum (to no) advertising costs.  SEO isn’t just about reaching the top spot on search engines for your keywords, though. It also includes: knowing which words and phrases will get you there, which words and phrases will be more likely to lead to a sale, knowing how to optimize every page of your website, doing off-page optimisation, unleashing the power of social media, and being able to stay on page one despite fierce competition and changing search engine algorithms.

Some internet marketers try to buy their way onto to the front page through pay per click sponsored advertisements and while this does have its place in a search engine marketing strategy, organic SEO placement is the best way to get traffic and make money online without a huge investment. Getting educated on the latest organic search engine optimization methods is the best way to make money online with minimal investment.

In terms of search engine traffic, organic results are something to strive for. When people surf for something, they’re much more likely to choose the organic results rather than the sponsored ads on the sidebar and learning how to be naturally featured in the top spot by your target audience is an important first step in being able to market your product or service to those who are most likely to buy from you.

Search engines are vital. Trying to navigate the internet without them is difficult and they were designed to help people find what they are looking for. Learning proven SEO methods as part of a search engine marketing strategy will bring you the type of traffic that will convert from a visitor into a customer. If you know how to make your website appear to be relevant to your topic and learn how the search engines think, you will naturally get traffic from people who could be qualified customers.

Beyond SEO, there are many other facets to internet marketing but learning how to optimize your business for the search engines is a major part of internet commerce.

Question: How do most internet marketers learn SEO?

Through trial and error.

Learning the SEO Ropes

Some new online entrepreneurs who try to learn through trial and error have difficulty attaining success and give up before they make any real money. Some of them pay a small fortune for insider information that often no longer applies. Because some of the most profitable online niches are extremely competitive, quick tips aren’t the best way to get ahead of the competition for long. While there is a lot of free information available to those interested in learning SEO, much of it quickly becomes outdated and search engine algorithms change regularly so you need to stay abreast of changes so that you can continue to compete in your niche market. Many agree that the most logical way to do that is to get a formal internet marketing education.

Do you need a Degree in Internet Marketing?

There are people who have achieved online success without a degree in internet marketing.  But the vast majority of those individuals have had to endure a long period of trial and error before becoming profitable.

By investing in an accredited education, you can make calculated and informed business decisions about how to market your online business. You can also become qualified to apply to work for others as a consultant who teaches them how to be successful online. Whatever your business or personal goals are, learning how to do it the right—from the start — will make your journey toward success a smoother one.

Whether you’re new to search engine optimization or have an intermediate level of knowledge, investing in an internet marketing education is the smartest way to reach success online.

If your career opportunities cause you to need to move, don’t forget to complete a USPS Change of Address.

Social SEM – Tips for Succeeding Online with Web 2.0

Post written by Dana Prince

Many online businesses do a number of different things to try to get traffic and increase their sales.  Tactics such as SEO (search engine optimization), SEM (search engine marketing) through pay per click campaigns, and working on getting high quality backlinks to your website will help you get found on search engines by potential customers. But web 2.0 is about collaboration and the social aspects of the internet and if you’re not using the free social tools that exist online to help your business, you are leaving potential profit on the table.

Businesses of all sizes can benefit from social SEM (social search engine marketing) and SMO (social media optimization). Large corporations use it, online businesses use it, local pizzerias and barbershops even use it. And guess who else is using it? Your potential customers and your competitor’s customers are using it, too.

If you’re a budding entrepreneur or are looking to enhance your marketing skills so that they’re applicable for the 21^st century, you need to learn about various aspects of SEM and you should also take full advantage of what social media optimization can do for you.

There are many facets of SEM, such as SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay per click campaigns) and the latest emerging type of marketing is social marketing. Using social marketing to is a great way to learn to unleash the power of the Internet in a viral way. People and search engines read social marketing sites and many will use the information in them to make indexing and buying decisions.   Here are some tips to help you use it to your advantage in internet marketing:

Social Bookmarking

Many sites exist that enable users to sign up and add links to them. Some of these sites are very social in nature and by sharing helpful links and socializing in those communities, you can get people visiting your links, get search engines indexing them for your desired keywords, and they can also go viral and be seen by a lot of people.

Tip:

Be a helpful community member and bookmark for others. They may bookmark for you in return. Write a great profile and be professional at all times.  Social bookmarking site examples include: Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Mixx, and Delicious. Don’t forget to use keyword phrases that relate to your business in your social bookmarking efforts.

Microblogging

Microblogging sites such as Twitter, Friendfeed, and others can be amazing for helping you to: build online popularity, get website traffic, and to help you make money online.  In a short update (usually 140 characters or fewer), you can share a link, share information, and get the attention of potential customers at their desks, at their homes, and while on the go with their handheld devices as well.  

Some internet marketers use Twitter to build a following and for their search engine optimization efforts. Businesses can communicate with their customers and prospects with these tools and they can also find out what’s being said about them, too. One hundred and forty characters isn’t a lot of room so learning to be succinct in your updates will maximize the potential of microblogging for you.

Data Mining

Managing your online reputation is an important part of social SEM or SMO. Just like pay per click campaigns require keyword research, social media optimization requires data mining as well. Luckily, there are many free tools that you can learn to use in order to help you gather business intelligence for your online optimization efforts.

Don’t forget to analyze your competition! Competitive analysis is another area that can help you increase your market share if you’re an established company and help you start to build a business if you’re new to the world of e-commerce.  Mining social sites can help you figure out: what people are talking about (you can use this to appeal to your audience), what people say about you, and what strategies you can use to help you find more potential customers.  

How can you begin using social search engine marketing today?

• Add bookmarking tools to your website or blog. Then, your readers can help you with your marketing efforts.
• Bookmark your best articles.
• Start profiles on sites like Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and Google Wave.  Start getting involved in conversations and watching what experienced internet marketers do and then you can begin to create your own strategy.

Marketing for search engines is an essential way to increase your presence online. And due to the popularity of social media, social search engines are emerging and being used by people to make their buying decisions. Learning about various aspects of SEM and SMO will help you create strategies that can help make you knowledgeable and successful in all areas of internet marketing.

On Page SEO vs. Off Page SEO

Post written by Dana Prince

SEO, or search engine optimization, is something that most online entrepreneurs quickly become aware of. One of the first things you need to learn, in order to be successful online, is to optimize your website so search engines will be able to find it.  But what some new internet marketers don’t realize is that there are many aspects of search engine optimization.

SEO consists of on-page optimization tactics, that occur directly on your website and off-page optimization tactics that happen outside of the site. Both are important and both can help you get traffic to the site.

On Page SEO

Search engines index pages. Every page in your website has the ability to be indexed and contributes to the overall popularity and ranking of your website. For this reason, there are various aspects of the web pages that you need to optimize.

Some novice internet marketers believe you can optimize a home page and be done with it but traffic has the ability to enter your site on any public page and because of that, you should optimize each and every page.  Here are some examples of areas of the page to optimize:

The URL:

A domain name can help your ability to be found online. When search engines read your page, they’ll want to categorize it and the domain name is one of the areas they look at. For this reason, it’s a good idea to pick a domain name that relates to the niche you’re in. Beyond that, you should choose a link structure that also utilizes relevant keyword phrases. If you’re selling widgets, your url could get more traffic if the domain is something like: widgets.com/buywidgets.

The Tags:

When you search online for something, the search engine results pages will show you a description of websites it deems to be relevant. The meta tag is the 2-3 line description that tells people what your site is about. From an SEO and SEM perspective this is important.

In terms of SEO, keywords will help. In terms of SEM, or search engine marketing techniques, writing a descriptive and keyword dense meta description can tell search engines and people that your site’s link is worth clicking.  You can also enter keyword tags for each page which gives the search engine a quick answer on what the page is about. Image tags are another area of importance in SEO. Not only do pictures help you from aesthetics and selling perspectives but search engines can read the tags related to the photos so remember to use keywords in image tags so that you increase the relevancy of your page to your topic.

The Title / Header:

A formatted and relevant title will tell search engines what the webpage is about. This can help drive the right traffic to the page. If all pages on your website are labelled the same way, this doesn’t help search engines send people to the page on the site that’s most relevant to the topic so it’s important to label your pages optimally. Keyword optimization of subheadings is also helpful.

Keyword Density and Latent Semantic Indexing:

If your page is about widgets, the word widget should appear on the page. Words related to the sorts of widgets you sell should also appear so that search engines know exactly what the page is about. For example, if you’re selling Apple computers, you’ll want to also list other words related to computers so that the search engine doesn’t think that people looking for information on apple-picking farms should be sent to your page.

Linking and Navigation:

Having an easily navigable site is going to help visitors and search engines find what they’re looking for. People and search engine spiders (software programs that index web pages) can enter on any page and it’s a good idea to help them easily find their way around your site. A site map can be helpful for giving search engines a bird’s eye view of your website and linking within the site while using appropriate keywords as link anchors will also help your site get desired traffic.

Off Page SEO

While what exists on the pages of your site is a very important part of internet marketing, what exists outside of the website can also be quite helpful in bringing you traffic and favorable search engine rankings.

Search engines look at popularity when indexing web pages and various things that you can do outside of the site can impact that popularity and perceived relevancy to your topic:
What’s the best off page SEO strategy? Get backlinks. Links pointing to your site from authority blogs and sites will help you tremendously with your search engine optimization efforts. If other sites link to your site, this is considered a popularity vote.  If that site links with a keyword anchor, this can help you even further to rank for the keyword or keyword phrase in that anchor. Article directories, website directories, press releases, guest posts on blogs, and social bookmarking links can all help. Social bookmarking creates links to your site that can be seen by people and indexed by search engines so the more high quality links that point to your site — the better. If the site linking to you is relevant to your topic and is well optimized, this is the ideal scenario.

There are many facets of SEO that can help a business or an entrepreneur gain online exposure. Learn all you can about how to optimize your site(s) and you’ll increase your chances of online success.

The Fastest Way to Learn the Secrets of SEM Success

Post written by Dana Prince

How can you learn the secrets of search engine marketing so that you can drive traffic in droves to your website? It’s easy, take a course. Now you can get your Bachelor of Science or your Master’s Degree in Internet Marketing. Have some objections and think you’d rather just learn on your own? Read on to find out why investing in a course that teaches you SEM, or search engine marketing, is a better idea.

Objection #1:  But there’s a lot of info for free!

Why pay to learn search engine marketing when the internet is filled with articles, blogs, and free e-books that promise to tell you (for free) how to make money on the internet with internet marketing, affiliate marketing, or an online store? 

Many of those so-called ‘free’ resources are actually waiting to up sell you something. Many will obtain your opt-in to receive communication from them with the promise of a free report or e-book. Once your name is on their list, you’ll get inundated with e-mail offers that promise to teach you search engine marketing for a fee.  So much for those ‘free’ articles, huh?  Many only give you enough information to hook you into buying something. Those resources are using internet marketing tactics to their full advantage. They’re using permission marketing to get permission to market to you.  An accredited education course can teach you effective permission marketing techniques as well as search engine marketing: SEO, and Pay-Per-Click.

And, many of the free resources out there only provide information that’s opinion and commentary, that’s outdated, or that tells you something but doesn’t really show you how to do it. Accredited internet marketing courses are broken down into bite-sized bits of information and created by instructors who do more than tell — they also teach.

A lot of people who choose to learn about SEM and other aspects of internet marketing on their own spend a lot of time trying to sift through information to find useable strategies and current advice. While some info can be found for free, and you should take advantage of free resources that are credible, making the investment in learning in a step-by-step fashion is going to make more sense and give you an internet marketing education that you can easily apply to your job or entrepreneurial venture.

Objection #2:  But an internet marketing course costs money

The best investments you’ll ever make are investments in your future.  Investments in your internet marketing and SEM education tend to have the best ROI (return on investment) because of the ability to better your own life and your financial situation after you graduate. Not only can an internet marketing education’s costs be tax deductible but this small investment can also help you create income, financial freedom, and happiness because you’re going to be doing something that you enjoy.

Internet marketing degree programs and courses are often available with tuition assistance programs that enable you to get partial or even full scholarships. Some accredited courses may also be paid for by your employer through an employee education fund, and some programs can be paid for through employment insurance and other government programs as well. It’s worth investigating, don’t you think? Don’t let a little bit of money now prevent you from making a lot of money in the future.

Objection #3:  I don’t have time for school

Those who say that they don’t have time for school probably don’t realize that many courses today are available via flexible schedules and distance education. You can choose between online classes, correspondence classes, and traditional bricks and mortar learning. Many classes are available via self-paced training and no, you’re not going to be struggling on your own with concepts that are foreign to you.

Instructors are typically available for one-on-one training if that’s what you need to help you learn.  Online classes can be filled with interactive-media as well. You don’t have to simply read a text book and be expected to learn.  Today’s student can be any age, be juggling work and / or family, and still be able to succeed.

Whether you want to learn search engine marketing for the purposes of furthering your career or starting your own profitable online business, doing so in a formal setting and earning your Bachelors Degree in Internet Marketing or even your Masters Degree in Internet Marketing can make a dramatic and positive impact on your life.