Many are the dreamers who want to make money online. This online dream is very seductive and this is why most people fail to put their minds to work on it. Plus, there are many scammers out there promising overnight success, tens of thousands of dollars per month in auto-pilot, single-button solutions to build online empires, and many other ways to make money online effortlessly. Nothing is farther from the truth, and if you really want to make money online, lots of it, you are going to have to put some brain and sweat into it in order to make it happen. ONLINE SUCCESS IS ONLY FOR THOSE WHO DARE TO KNOW WHAT IT TRULY TAKES TO ACHIEVE IT. Sharp online marketing skills are required if you truly want to earn a very healthy income from websites, affiliate programs, and digital products. ONLINE SUCCESS = TARGETED TRAFFIC + CONVERSION The first thing we need is targeted traffic, without it there is no one to convert. The most profitable targeted traffic always comes from search engines, and in order to effectively speak with a search engine we must start with professional and effective keyword research. Keyword research is online market research. It tells us what our potential customers are looking for, the specific words they use, and how many times per month they use these search terms. Knowing this is very profitable because now we know how to speak to our customers by using the terms they are interested in. ONLINE COMPETITION – THE APPROPRIATE WAY TO ANALYZE IT Online competition can be pretty heavy and failing to pay attention to it will lead to frustration and disappointment. A comprehensive and practical competitor analysis of the top 10 pages ranking on Google for each term will tell us this. A competitor analysis will give us detailed data in order to determine the strengths and weaknesses of each competitor. This information is priceless and a must have in order to assemble a successful online marketing campaign. There are a number of things that we can look at in order to do a good analysis and really determine how competitive a keyword is. In short we want to know how good a page is targeting a search term and how authoritative that page is. Doing the analysis for each competitor and interpreting the data is a little bit technical. Outsourcing keyword research is a good idea only if you can find an affordable and professional keyword research service. Competition is the toughest part of keyword research. It takes lots of time, thorough analysis, sharp data interpretation skills, and experience with online marketing. Not to mention that all of this must be done in a keyword-by-keyword basis. Making money with internet marketing may not be as easy as those online scammers have told you, but I can promise you that if you follow the right path to do this you will have some fun and you will be rewarded before you think. To Your Success!