Internet Marketing Advice From Benjamin Franklin

What does Benjamin Franklin have to do with Internet marketing? Even though the famous philosopher, writer, inventor and statesman lived centuries before computers were even theorized about, his sage advice about living and doing business can apply even to the most modern of situations. When we look back on Ben Franklin's writings, we can find a lot of advice that applies to today's Internet marketing world.

For example, one of his statements could set a lot of online marketers on the correct path:

"Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest."

Although Franklin was likely referring to verbal treachery and social tricks, this statement can apply in virtually any online situation. In some Internet marketing circles, tricks and treachery seem to be the name of the game. Because of the anonymity of the Internet, people can get away with business practices that wouldn't fly in real life business.

For example, there are websites out there that have false links. Instead of linking toward real and helpful information, they go to an advertisement and the website owner gets paid for these clicks. In addition, there are also false testimonials about products on websites. These testimonials lead website visitors to believe that a product or service is reputable when in fact the website owner just wants to make money off of the sale. Another common trick online is to use special programs or code to make a website appear higher up in the search engine rankings than they actually should. This leaves a lot of junk websites out there that serve no purpose but stealing money from consumers.

Why do people resort to these tricks online? Although starting an Internet marketing business is one of the simplest forms of business to start, it sometimes takes time to see a large profit. Websites need to age and build backlinks before they get a lot of traffic. It may take time for a website to become popular and draw in a lot of buyers. For some people, this isn't soon enough. They start marketing online because they need a quick influx of money and don't understand that they are doing themselves more harm than good.

When you build your business on lies, it won't be long before your business starts to crumble. All the energy you put toward building fake testimonials, false backlinks and spam filled sites will be wasted when the search engines and your website visitors begin to penalize you. This is why tricks are the work of fools - how foolish is it to waste all of that time and energy?

You can avoid being a fool in your online business by starting your business right. You need to build quality websites that have helpful information and honest links to products that you recommend. If you are a product creator, you should make sure that your product delivers on the promises set forth in the sales letter. Basically, be honest in your dealings online and you'll never have to worry about your business crumbling.