First off let me say - there are genuine offers out there.
My idea of genuine is based on the following: 1.
The offer is easy to understand - what it costs, what it does 2.
It is complete - can be implemented (and you make reasonable money) without having to upgrade 3.
It is practical - and has clear step by step guidelines for setting up 4.
It comes with accessible support (some 'support' is hard to wade though) 5.
Will make you money - and this is demonstrated without hyperbole or BS 6.
It doesn't cost you the earth each month.
7.
It has valuable free stuff - not just being a free bonus made up of old reports that are outdated or incomplete.
As a newbie, my advice is obviously not based on expert marketing experience - just my experiences of exploring all the myriad offers out there.
I may be able to save you some time and effort.
So the following is based on that - and on the path I am implementing myself.
1.
Research a niche that you are interested in promoting.
There are many free tools for this.
2.
Set up a Google account - they have good research tools - e.
g.
for keyword research - and you need an account anyway for sitemap submission.
My opinion is that the best start up options are: 1.
affiliate marketing and ebooks - which can be combined and also fit your choice of a niche market.
Also: 2.
Join forums related to your chosen niche - observe for awhile and then participate 3.
Learn about Social marketing - also gets you known 4.
Join Twitter 5.
Add lots of content to your web site - content is king! The search engines love it - and it is better than SEO.
It will build traffic.
6.
You need lots of backlinks to your site.
There are good free Directories that you can submit your site to.
You need at least 30 pages or original material..
..
do it gradually - e.
g a couple of pages a week -after your initial upload of 10 pages to start off - that is how I am building my personal site about books.
Don't expect your site to be highly ranked straight away - it takes time for the search engines to find you and then keep on spidering you.
So be patient and allow for this.
Have an ACTION PLAN and stick to it - make adjustments as needed.
I must admit I have learned a lot more than this - but space is a constraint here.
These are some of the basic experiences of mine.
Because of the constraints of the articles guidelines I can't include here direct links but I have an e-book that now will help.