My online business has experienced several ups and downs over the past couple of years and as we wind down to the end of 2010 I thought it would be a good idea to analyze the main errors I made in efforts to ensure you don’t make the same mistakes as well as to gauge if I truly did learn anything.
I have managed to narrow down these errors into the following six “Don’ts“:
- Don’t quit your job until you have made high-end four figures or more consistently for at least 3-6 months
- Don’t hand out business cards until you have made high-end four figures or more consistently for at least 3-6 months
- Don’t switch to WP self hosting unless your site can consistently pay its own rent
- Don’t review products for a fee unless the product owner gives you a free copy for reviewing regardless of how much they are willing to pay for the review
- Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
- PERHAPS THE BIGGEST DON’T – Don’t start out in the internet marketing niche!
Trust me, you will forever regret the day you quit your job just because you had your first thousand dollar day thinking you’ve finally found the Holy Grail of online profits only to go the next several weeks without making a single dime! So please make sure you truly have a winning strategy..
Similar to the first error with added damage to your reputation as people will definitely see you as scamming hoax. “How dare he hand out business cards for a business he knows nothing about and even worse doesn’t even exist!”
What if you managed to get lots of readers only for them to visit one day and find nothing there? It’s like throwing a party when right in the middle of it your lights get disconnected by the electric company which is not a good look so make sure your site can at least pay its main bill which is the hosting and just use Blogger until profits are earned consistently as they now have some seriously awesome looking blog designs enabling you to have a professional look and feel..
If that owner trusts you enough to do an honest review, then why would they not be willing to give you a copy? In fact, they should feel obliged to do so or at the very least give you a free trial period depending on the type of product/service..
I was once making a decent salary from Ebay’s early affiliate program (when they were still on Commission Junction) so much that I didn’t bother promoting anything else until they canned me out of nowhere citing some lame reason of me not driving the type of traffic they were seeking although I was making them and me higher earnings which I thought was my duty as an affiliate! Needless to say I was S.O.L. for a while. So always remember to promote several different programs as well as utilize several different traffic sources so you don’t get stuck in a sinking ship without a life jacket..
There’s too many doing it, but mainly because you need to have a proven track record of decent consistent earnings for credibility. I stuck with it because others have benefited from some of the tips I have passed along and I have built up too much content to quit. It’s like the old saying of “being in too deep already” plus my internet marketing site strongly reflects a sharing while learning theme, but still I had enough sense to start other projects that have nothing to do with the internet marketing niche as this only further adds to credibility showing a successfully diverse online money making portfolio..
For some of you these things may be no-brainers, but it is funny how when you are first starting out the eagerness and extreme desire for success can sometimes cause one to overlook the obvious. Plus all the hype associated with so-called “one click solution” programs can easily cause you to seek the nearest shortcut when having patience is the only way you will see your online business succeed. And the one operative word you probably noticed repeating throughout this list is “consistently” which only comes about through patient hard work.
Now I would be very remiss if I did not at least give a strong “Do” to focus on in the oncoming year. The biggest thing I see that needs attention is learning as much as you can on utilizing FaceBook pages for the fact that there is no other advertising source that has such an extreme targeting abilities. Not many other mediums can match the type of consumer engagement you can achieve with facebook.
Think about it: FaceBook is the one sure place where people voluntarily provide their true personal info with their likes, dislikes, and other life intricacies. And although FaceBook does not give out info on specific users, it does provide a breakdown of the total statistical demographic data compiled from what their users have shared allowing companies to zero in on the exact clientele for their products and services. Add this to the fact that users on FaceBook spend more time there than on any other site and you get the biggest potential for mega sales known in marketing history so make sure you set up a FaceBook fanpage for your business today!
Now tell me what are your thoughts about these 6 errors as well as any you might have made along with what you learned from them ❓