You will never achieve success online if you do not systematize what you do. You must organize and understand every step you take, so that you can duplicate it in the future. You must know why you succeed or fail, at every step of the way. If you do not know why this month was not profitable, you cannot fix it. If you are blindly trying 10 new things each month online, not only are you not giving any of them a fair shake, you are too spread out to know what is working and why. 1) You must decide on a product, method, or innovation as your way to succeed online, and then give that one thing all you have got inside. Focus, focus, focus. Become great at one thing online, become an expert, rather than learning a little about everything. Too many people try something new every month and at the end of a year, they have nothing to show for it. Much better to start with one idea, one product, and improve on it every month. Conversion rate too low? Fix it, dont just find another product. Not getting enough subscribers? Learn to list build, dont just jump ship. You must become the expert. 2) Learn everything you can about your chosen product and marketing plan. Then do it. It is far too easy online to spend hours a day learning new ways of doing things, without trying anything. Reading wont make you successful, action will. 3) Commit a specific amount of time per day to your online work. If it is 3 hours a day after work, do it everyday. If it is 3 hours before work, go to bed early enough to make it happen. One of the dangers of the internet is the propensity to just do nothing, or take a day off. With your day job, you know you have to be there. Treat this the same way. That is the only way it will ever replace your day job. 4) Build a web site. This might be a learning opportunity for you. If it is, start small. Get web hosting that comes with a site builder. Note: this is NOT a long-term solution. Frontpage or Dreaweaver is. But they are harder to learn, so do not let that stand in your way. Start with a site builder, then start learning the real thing. 5) Send traffic to your site. Write articles, participate in forums, write a small ebook and give it away free, do some pay-per-click advertising. Note: although pay-per-click may be expensive, it is a great way to test sales pages or landing pages quickly. You can get targeted traffic quickly, so you can make web page adjustments. 6) Track everything you do. Know where every visitor comes from. Know where every subscriber comes from. Know which pages convert and which dont. 7) Get an auto responder and add an opt-in form to your web site. It is crucial that you build a list so you can contact those who dont buy the first time they visit your site. 8) Stick to it. You will not become successful overnight. Very few successful online entrepreneurs became overnight successes, and most of those probably had a few failures under their belt first. A quick note on failure: it teaches you what not to do: learn from it, dont cry about it. |
