Thinking of making money online but want a shortcut to success? The easiest way to make money online from scratch, is to follow the steps of another successful entrepreneur who is already making money online. This means you can hire an Internet Marketing Coach to guide you step by step on creating your wealth on the Internet. Here are 8 ways you can choose a Coach.

1. The first factor to consider is to ask how much is the Internet marketing coach making money online, and if so, how much?

There is a huge difference for someone making a few thousands and another one making millions of dollars, each year. An internet coach that teaches you strategies learnt from a book is never as useful as one that shows you real experience of making lots of money online, so it's not a "textbook" coach that you need.

If you intend to make US$100,000 online, then find a Coach who makes at least US$1,000,000 from his or her internet business.

2. If an Internet coach claims that he has made a lot money online, can he prove it?

Did the Coach show you his or her online income statement? On the Internet, beware of a lot of bogus claims. It just takes some simple editing software to change the digits on a cheque or on a Clickbank statement.

How can you check the authenticity of this claim then? Visit the website and understand the nature of business this person is operating. If he sells a software for US$20 and gets 1,000 sales each month (totalling to US$20,000 in income), but spends over US$10,000 in Google Adwords advertising. Then his income derived will be just US$10,000 and then you need to minus the percentage of affiliate commissions he is paying (and for ebooks and digital softwares, it can be as high as 75%). Therefore, even if his affiliate commissions are 50%, the nett income this person earns is just about US$5,000 right?

3. Is the coach practising what he teaches?

Many self-proclaimed Internet marketing coaches are "overnight" gurus who have made some money by selling ebooks or making money information.

Even if an Internet coach can prove he is making money online, find out what is his main source of income. Most of the Internet marketing coaches' main income is by selling making money information, and then by teaching. And if if they claim you can make millions of dollars without selling anything, or even without doing any hard work, then you need to be ultra careful.

If you want to sell physical products, and if the coach cannot prove he has sold physical products successfully, how can he be qualified to teach you to do so?

4. Search for the keyword "Internet marketing coach" or "Internet marketing coaching" in Google or Yahoo.

These keywords represent this industry and their top rankings are eyed on by millions of Internet marketing coaches globally and are therefore extremely competitive.

If this coach's website cannot be found on page 1 of the search results, but he claims he can teach you how to be on top of search engines, how can he be qualified to do so?

I'm sure you have seen some websites claiming they can teach you SEO, when their sites can only be found in sponsored links (meaning they are probably teaching you search engine advertising and not free search engine optimization techniques).

But don't get me wrong. Being able to be on top of search engines for these keywords doesn't guarantee sales (if you target the wrong keywords), but it gives you the chance to get free advertising online to your target prospects if you locate the correct search keywords.

5. What kind of coaching support is the coach providing you?

Due to limited resources, most of them can offer you only email support, which is the most basic level of support. How will one Coach handle many students at the same time?

A better idea is to hire an Internet Marketing Coach with a backend support group, such as an Internet Marketing company that has a team of web designers, web programmers and Interne Marketing Coach. Check out the learning opportunies and online support mechanism such as online system to ask questions, members only resource centre, and technical assistance.

When and how soon will your Internet Business Coach reply to your questions? Who answers your questions? A junior support personnel will not be qualified and not having the experience to tell you how to get free search engine rankings.

6. Can the coach provide you support regionally?

For instance, if you want to target the Asian markets? Does the coach have regional physical offices in other countries? If you intend to sell to the Chinese, then you need to translate your website pages into Chinese, and target local search engines in China and Hong Kong. Does your Internet Coach have Chinese rankings in top China search engines such as Baidu and Yahoo.com.cn?

7. Has the coach groomed any successful Internet entrepreneurs, in selling different types of products, services and information?

If yes, how successful they are? Has any of their coaching participants made millions of dollars online? If the students that are coached, end up only reselling the Coach's ebooks or softwares, then something must be wrong!

8. Is this internet seminar or conference the only program you need to participate?

Is the coach teaching you most of the things you need to learn to make money online during the seminar or coaching? Or is he only interested in upselling you to other more expensive seminars, programs or websites? We have seen many cases of entrepreneurs signing for a simple US$1,000 internet conference and leaving the 3 days conference with additional ebooks and videos purchase of US$5,000. In the end, you would have spent US$6,000 and not just what you thought initially?

With the Coach selection tips you can increase your chances of hiring a real Internet Marketing Coach who can show you the real way to make money online.

Copyright (c) 2008 Fione Tan