A Newbie Guide to Your Online Business.By Jan Sepstrup
Hi there, Sorry my answer is a little late - but your question is not an easy one to answer. I'm constantly on the lookout for good answers to that question because I get it all the time - but I haven't found THE answer yet. I'm not an Internet guru - I'm still learning and struggling. Last year I made something like $5,000 on Internet marketing for the whole year - still a long way to my goal: $10,000 a month. My main income is from doing webdesign, but I'm trying to do less webdesign and more Internet marketing. OK - back to your question - "Information overload" and "Where do I start?" I have a couple of short articles on my website in the Marketing for Newbies section: * Why You Should Only Follow One "Guru" At A Time! Here's another excellent article by Ewen Chia about information overload and Internet business for newbies: How
To Break Out Of The Information Overload And Start Making Money
On The Internet! They pretty much explains my own experience - and my way of dealing with "Information overload".
I might add one more item to the list - LEARN COPYWRITING! You can use this skill no matter what business model you choose. Some say it's THE most important skill you can ever learn. So go ahead and learn copywriting and direct marketing - these are really the basic skills for succeeding with an Internet business - or off-line business. Building
a real Internet business requires work - lots of work! Here's a post from a forum at www.warriorforum.com - an excellent place to learn!
Are you an opportunity seeker or an entrepreneur? If you're planning on making a full time income on the Internet you can only succeed if you have a plan. You will never make any serious money jumping from opportunity to opportunity. You must know where you want to go or you'll be vulnerable to all those fantastic offers you'll receive in your mailbox - and waste a lot of money on products or opportunities that is not helping you reach your goal. If you want to get a birds-eye view of your Internet business, I highly recommend you read this free report - Internet Business Manifesto. OK - back to the list:
1.
FOCUS - Your
own products But choose ONE and stick to that model for 3-6 months! Many newbies try many different models for a short time - a few weeks. - "This is not working for me - I'll move on to the next opportunity". I did that - jumped from opportunity to opportunity - and nothing worked. I decided to focus on one model and tried and tried for months, reading and experimenting - failed many times, but finally the results started slowly coming in. My next step is to include one more business model in order to have more than one income stream - learning and expanding slowly! If you want some great inspiration on how to focus and build your online business one step at a time - you should read the "5 Bucks A Day" ebook. ... and one last thing - EMAIL IS A KILLER! Do NOT subscribe to a dozen different email lists from Internet Marketers! You really don't need all that information. Select only a few valuable newsletters. Email is a real "killer" when it comes to focusing, and receiving all these "recommandations" from Internet marketers will not help you focus on your project. If you're in the habit of having your email client open all the time and read email the minute they arrive, you're in trouble. Studies have shown that it takes the brain 15-20 minutes to get "back on track" after an interruption. Some other studies have shown that your IQ drops 10 points if you're constantly beeing interrupted when working on a task. So ..... subscribe only to a few newsletters and close your email program, when you're working on a project. Your brain needs large chunks of time to reach peak performance! 2.
THINK NICHE How do you find a niche? Write down 10 ideas for a nichemarket on a piece of paper. Look around your office, your home, take a walk, read a paper or magazine, go shopping - and write down what comes to your mind. Research the niches on the Internet:
Narrow it down to 1-3 niches that looks promising. Tools: Not an expert on the niche? - Then become an expert! Start reading and studying the subject and soon you know more about the niche than most people. Find free forums for your niche. Go to Google and search for "my-niche forum". Join a couple of forums. See what people are talking about, ask a few questions or try to answer some of the questions. 3.
TAKE ACTION It really doesn't matter because you will learn something even if you start walking in the wrong direction! When you read those "Success" books they always claim "Success is based on failure - and the ability to get up at try once more" - Fail fast and be successful! You can't make it perfect the first time you try! Want to make money on Ebay? - Start your first Ebay auction. Want to have a website? Build one or get a free niche blog at www.blogger.com Want to make money as an affiliate? Go to www.clickbank.com or www.paydotcom.com, register as an affiliate and find some ebooks in your niche. You can use CB Engine (online) or Affiliates Alert (download software) as your research tools. Want to have your own product? Start selling small reports like described in the "7 Dollar Secrets" or "Big Profit With Small Reports" ebook (free) or find some Private Label Rights ebooks. Want to have a list? Get a free or paid autoresponder and start slowly building your niche list of names and email addresses. Need traffic? - start posting in forums, write articles, announce on eBay, use Squidoo.com etc. Make an action plan - what am I going to do with my Internet business today, this week, this month? 4.
DEVELOP SALES RESISTANCE
A quote from one of the articles I referred you to in the beginning of this email: "The way to develop sales resistance, and keep more of your money in your pocket where it belongs, is to ask questions. Here are three that I ask before buying anything. *
Do I really need this now? Let's take an example. You chosen to make money with Google AdSense as your business model. Suddenly you receive an email with a fantastic offer for an Ebay course. Don't buy it - stick to your chosen business model until you've done everything in your power - and a little more - to explore that business model. I'm an "information junkie" myself and I really have a hard time turning down all those great offers - but I don't really need them. I know I have all the information I need right now - I just need to focus, take action and do something based on all that information. Remember - the top 'gurus' in Internet marketing are experts in writing a good sales letter. They'll have you pull out your credit car in no time hypnotizing you with their words. So whenever you're pulling out your credit card - STOP - put it back in your wallet. Instead you should print out the sales letter for the product and start studying it. - How did this Internet marketer manage to make me want the product? - What triggered my decision? In short, use the opportunity to learn some copywriting and direct marketing techniques, and save your money for something that would really solve a problem or boost your Internet business. Don't
buy: Believe me, I've been there and it doesn't work.
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| 1.
FOCUS 2. THINK NICHE 3. TAKE ACTION 4. DEVELOP SALES RESISTANCE |
*** 2. GET ACCESS TO THIS MEMBERSITE
I HIGHLY recommend the SureFireWealth membersite at:
www.jasmedia.com/surefirewealth
It's free to join and you'll get access to high quality resources.
*Do
it today* - Join www.jasmedia.com/surefirewealth
- I promise you'll be more than happy joining this site. It will
save you tons of money now and in the future.
***
3. GO NICHING
Start thinking about what niches you would like to spend your time
developing and what business model you'll be using - you can always
expand later.
There's plenty of ebooks out there about how to pick a profitable niche, so I won't go into any details here. Make sure to pick a niche where people are already selling products. A niche with no products already selling is probably not a profitable niche!
***
4. GET A WEBSITE
The easiest way to get your own website is using www.blogger.com
or similar free or paid services.
If
you're willing to learn how to build a website you might find this
free resource useful:
-
Free
Website Builder
Other options:
- Make a "lens" on Squidoo for your niche
- Niche blogging & AdSense/affiliate products - www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.com
- Article
marketing of ClickBank or PayDotCom ebooks (Bum
marketing)
or
- Ebay auctions
***
5. INSTALL THE GOOGLE SMART TOOLBAR
Sorry, couldn't help it ;-) This is my own product. A collection
of powerful Internet marketing tools and a newsletter.
www.go-smart-tool.com
***
6. GET AN AUTORESPONDER AND START BUILDING YOUR LIST
When you've spend some time getting content for your niche blog/website,
you should start collecting peoples names and email addresses. Search
for "Free autoresponder" on Google or use this one:
sendfree.com
If you're really serious about building your list, you should consider getting a paid autoresponder like Aweber or GetResponse - $20 per month. Is a paid autoresponder better than a free one? Yes - your emails wont have ads at the bottom and you'll have a much better chance of getting your emails through the spamfilters.
***
7. LEARN COPYWRITING
Subscribe to newsletters about copywriting and join some free e-courses.
Here's a starting point:
- michelfortin.com
- Copywriting
And Copy Critiques By A Top Copywriter
- 3 Hours Of Free Videos
- The Netwriting Masters Course - free ebook
***
8. LEARN HOW TO GENERATE TRAFFIC
One of the main problems for any newbie is "How do I get traffic
to my website?"
There are thousands of ebooks claiming to teach you how to get traffic to your site, and you can buy expensive software promising you thousand of visitors to your site. Not all of them can deliver what they promise. Actually it's not that hard to get some traffic, it just requires some work on a regularly basis.
Here's a list of traffic sources, you can use for your website:
- Article marketing - write articles, submit to article directories like Ezinearticles.com
- Press releases - write a press release and submit to Press release sites.
- Blogging & social bookmarking of your blog at places like Tecnorati.com, del.icio.us
- Web 2.0 sites - YouTube.com, Squidoo.com , FreeIQ.com etc.
- Your own email list - your most important source of traffic!
- Other peoples email list - Joint Ventures, other people promoting your product
- Affiliates - use affiliates to generate traffic to your site.
- Viral reports - free reports you give away with links back to your site
- Pay Per Click like Google AdWords - expensive, but easy and fast traffic
- Ezine advertising - advertising in other people's newsletters. It's a jungle, but can be profitable. Try Ezines-R--Us
- Traffic exchange - like Instant Buzz and Traffic Swarm
- Forum posting - find forums in your niche and start posting and answering questions using a small link to your product. Read Forum Supertips - free ebook
... Well, that should keep you busy for a while :-)
My experience is that it's hard work to promote your website all by your self, so start using other people's traffic. Get affiliates to promote your product and find people with an email list, that you can do a joint venture with - it's much easier to get traffic this way.
=====================================================
Recommended Newbie Resources:
- 7
Dollar offers - get affordable quality information.
- Bum
Marketing - free ecourse about article marketing.
- Porcupine
marketing - sell small reports to desperate people.
- Forum
Marketing Super Tips
- get free traffic from forums - free ebook
- 7
Dollar Secrets - How to make money with small reports + shopping
script .
- Big
Profit With Small Reports - free ebook.
- Surefirewealth.com
- Software, scripts, ebooks (free to join).
- 5
Bucks A Day Jr. - Build your Internet business one small step
at a time.
- Copywriting
And Copy Critiques By A Top Copywriter
- 3 Hours Of Free Videos.
- The
Netwriting Masters Course - free ebook.
- Internet Business Manifesto - free reports.
======================================================
.... and my last advice: Don't Give Up! You CAN succeed!
Remember the saying "“A Winner Never Quits And A Quitter Never Wins”
======================================================
WOW - I had no intention of writing you an email this big, but one word seemed to grab the next, and I just kept on rambling :-)
But now I've written it and I might turn it into a couple of articles or maybe even a "Newbie Special Report" to give away for free.
Was my ramblings useful or just a waste of your time? Enter your comments below.
Sincerely
Jan Sepstrup
JasMedia.com
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