BART van Olphen wants to teach you to cook fish, in 15 seconds or less.

Now that’s how you do internet marketing.

I’m going to tell you a secret.

It’s the secret of successful internet marketing.

Perhaps I should put that in quotes – “internet marketing” – like that, because it’s a profession of sorts.

People pay other people vast sums of money to do marketing and promotion and PR for their websites and web services, and in most cases the result is more of what we’ve seen before: press releases, or Twitter and Facebook accounts that push you to visit a particular web page.

In truth, successful internet marketing means simply being good at internet stuff. If you can internet well, people will come to you without needing to be persuaded and cajoled.

Let’s look at Bart van Olphen’s Instagram account as an example.

Bart (bartvanolphen.com) is a chef, specialising in fish dishes. And Instagram is a site, now owned by Facebook, that lets people share photos and short videos.

Bart’s Instagrams (at instagram.com/bartsfishtales) are delightful, super-quick seafood recipes. Grab some plain white fish, or some razorshells, or some cockles and follow Bart’s simple instructions.

Each stage of the recipe might only last two seconds on your screen, and you might have to watch it a few times to memorise it, but each one is very simple.

The point here isn’t so much the recipes or Bart’s cheerful grin, it’s his grasp of what makes the internet tick.

Make great things, and the internet will respond, and people will find you.

That’s it, that’s the simple secret of successful internet marketing: just make great things.