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What I wish I had known when I first started in Internet Marketing…
At the core of making money online is 2 things: traffic & conversions.
Without traffic to your sites you’ll never make money.
And all the traffic in the world will do no good if it never converts.
Learn all you can about these 2 things. Become a jedi master at these.
Build an email list and you’ll be able to dramatically increase your traffic and conversions. My email list is a great source of traffic for me. I also use it to increase conversions for things I am selling/promoting.
Partnering with others can help you build your list quickly, which leads to more traffic and conversions.
Partnering with others can help you get more traffic.
Partnering with others can help you increase your conversions, build your credibility, and build your brand.
Build a network of people who are good at things you are not.
Build a brand.
Every web page you build should have a purpose. It may be to get people to opt in to your list, sell a product or whatever. Before you build a page define its purpose and that will define how you should be build/layout the page.
Test, test, test! Think your squeeze page converts as well as it can? You’ll never know until you test.
Be remarkable. Do something that gets people talking about you. Seth Godin explains this well in an 18 minute video:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com/seth-godin-sliced-bread-and-other-marketing-delights/
Presentation is everything. The best prooduct doesn’t always win, but the best presented product frequently wins.
Read the Warrior Forum frequently. Everyday people post gems that will help you be more successful.
Ask questions. Ask lots of them. Just remember specific questions get specific answers. If you ask something like “How do I make money?” you’ll get answers like Sell stuff or Make a product and build a list. These are not very helpful to a newbie.
Play nice. Sounds cheesy but a little kindness goes a long way. Be nice to people who are jerks too.
Take the time to learn a few basics on the topics: HTML, CSS, SEO, copy writing, buying a domain, how to host your domain, FTP.
Treat others the way you wanted to be treated. If you want to be paid for your hard work then don’t look for ways to cheat others so you can save a buck.
There are lots of people making money online. Read what they are saying but more importantly watch very carefully what they DO. It’s their actions that are lining their pockets with gold.
There is a ton of money to made connecting people with other people or products.
Sites like myspace, facebook, classmates, etc connect people with other people.
Sites like ebay, craigslist, amazon, half, froogle, etc connect people with products.
Sites like Warrior Forum, google, wikipedia, digg, cnn, etc connect people with the information they’re looking for.
Read More about connecting people with people/products/information
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/11/how-to-make-mon.html
Don’t re-invent the wheel!
The idea is simple: Don’t work really hard figuring something out when you could look at someone who is really successful at this thing and do what they do.
If you want to have a top ten rank on Google for the search term Poodle Manicures then search Google for Poodle Manicures and take a close look at the sites that come up in the top ten. These are your competition. What kinds of things did they do to get ranked so high. (i.e. How many pages do they have? How often do they update their content? How many incoming links do they have? How long do they have their domain registered for?)
Continue learning online and offline. I just finished the book “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert B. Cialdini. This incredible book changed the way I see marketing. I read it because it was recommended by several people on the Warrior Forum. If you don’t what to read, ask for suggestions.
Take action. Reading more books/forums/etc won’t do any good if you never take action.
Focus on thing and do it well. (One of my biggest failings! I am easily distracted.)
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What do YOU wish you had known when you first start in Internet Marketing?
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
I find that getting traffic is easier when you are a member of the community online.
seo services recently posted..Domain Anaylsis
Your spot on. Wish we could find a magic formula for converting traffic. I have several niche sites where the traffic is doing well, but fleeting.
Sam recently posted..Bread Coupons
Thanks Sam. Let me know how I can help.
Lots of good advice, thank you.
The best part was near the end of your post, the paragraph about Google and SEO.
And to add to that slightly, how once that analysis has been done of the current top 10 in "poodle manicures", what might be the prospects for realistically entering that group with a new site, how long might that take, and what would be the best way to go about that if it is thought to be achievable.
> what might be the prospects for realistically entering that group with a new site, how long might that take, and what would be the best way to go about that if it is thought to be achievable.
The best way to go about it and the length of time required really depends on the niche, your experience, and your time commitment.
Yes those are probably the three most important factors. Established, very competitive keywords would likely require much more time that only some people could devote.
The beauty is the potential for equality for phrases that are not yet popular keywords because those will only originate when an event happens, such as the winner of an online talent show, whose name could get millions of internet search requests. Whoever is the first to purchase the best domain names and then set up sites that buyers visit will be ahead.
I wish I could of known to start earlier… but otherwise, I would say work ethic is the biggest thing I wish I could of had from Day 1.
-Jean
That's a really good point Jean.
The most important thing that I learned much later than I should have was the proper use of mailing lists. As soon as I implemented lists, I started a two-way dialog with my readers.
Find A Language Teac recently posted..Is Sign Language a Real Language
Ahh yes. Email lists are powerful.
A lot of those points are things that I also learned much later on and am still in the process of learning. I wish I'd been smarter and figured some things sooner. I think I would have been more successful by now. But like they say, it's never too late to start learning.