Have you thought about sharing your internet marketing knowledge as a way to not only help others, but to make a bit of extra money yourself?

Mentoring can be a great way to give back to the online community while at the same time establishing yourself as an expert, and providing a way to get paid for that expertise.

Can You Mentor?

You might not even realise just how much knowledge you have picked up by becoming an online entrepreneur. Think about all the things you’ve learned along the way.

Did you design your own website? Do you have extensive experience setting up a pay per click campaign or practising good SEO? Have you become a successful affiliate marketer? Maybe your strength is in identifying strong keywords or developing social marketing techniques.

You should realise that there are many people interested in any or all of these areas. It takes time and effort to gain an internet marketing education. Most website owners just starting out don’t really have an inkling of where to begin to monetise their site or drive traffic. That is where mentoring comes into play.

Setting Yourself Up As a Mentor

Still feeling a bit overwhelmed by the thought of teaching someone else? You may want to start by offering your services to a friend or acquaintance and do it free of charge. Walk them through the same steps you went through. Have them assess your skills and how it helped them. This may be just what you need to give you the confidence to sell your services.

Now think about ways that you can monetise your mentoring. First things first, put the information on your website. On your “About Us” page be sure you mention your qualifications (i.e. number of websites created, how much money you have made from affiliate marketing, testimonials, etc.).

Now you can decide how you want to sell yourself. If you are comfortable writing, then an e-book about your chosen topic is a quick and easy way to make money. The e-book can easily be offered for sale on your website with payment via PayPal.

Another way to use mentoring to your advantage is to teach an online course. You can either set up an instructor’s account at an existing learning site or create your own. Another way you can teach is by sending out a PowerPoint presentation via e-mail.

Some people prefer to use a Yahoo group as the classroom. Decide in advance how many days you are going to offer the course (it should be at least a week) and how much you are going to charge. You can then have prospective students sign up and pay in advance and give them a ‘join’ link to the group. You might want to post a daily exercise, then meet online every night at a specific time when you will be available to offer scoring, advice, and answer questions.

If driving traffic to your site is more important than selling a product or service, then consider offering subscriptions. Induce visitors to sign up as a subscriber by offering them members only articles and resources.

Mentoring is a positive activity all the way around. By teaching others, you may just find that you learn something new in the process.