{"id":3216,"date":"2015-05-07T21:29:54","date_gmt":"2015-05-07T21:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johnthornhill.com\/blog\/?p=3216"},"modified":"2015-05-07T21:30:53","modified_gmt":"2015-05-07T21:30:53","slug":"ten-internet-marketing-essentials-you-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnthornhill.com\/blog\/ten-internet-marketing-essentials-you-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten Internet Marketing Essentials You Need To Know"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Get<\/a>My first foray into internet marketing came around four years ago after I read a book outlining the basics of building simple websites to be populated with affiliate offers. After that, all I\u2019d need to do was sprinkle a bit of SEO gold dust over everything, sit back and watch the money roll in.<\/p>\n

No sooner had I finished reading it than I assumed it would be no more than a matter of months (if that) before I\u2019d be striding confidently into my boss’s office and flinging my resignation letter on his desk before spending the rest of the day contemplating which paradise island I\u2019d like to grow my laptop empire from.<\/p>\n

The reality, I’m sure you’ll have guessed, was quite different, and while the model talked of in the book did bring in a bit of money, it proved to be nowhere near the cash explosion I’d anticipated, but maybe things would have been a little different if I’d known a few more key things from the start that I know now. I\u2019ve narrowed them down to the following ten…<\/p>\n

1. Choose Your Route.<\/strong>
\nAre you going down the affiliate marketing route? Or how about digital product creation? Perhaps you favour email marketing, or selling and shipping physical products. Maybe you simply want to start by earning money providing services to others (think article writing via elance.com, or designing ebook covers on fiverr.com). Whatever you consider, work out what best fits your lifestyle and personality then take things from there.<\/p>\n

2. Understand Your Target.\u00a0<\/strong>
\nMarket\u2028Say you\u2019re in the particular niche, but you\u2019re not yet an expert in the subject. If that\u2019s the case, learn about your potential customers by reading the forums and becoming a positive contributor to them. Buy some magazines. Get an idea of the demographic of your market. What\u2019s the typical age range? Are they male or female? Oh, and learn the vernacular. If certain terms or slang words are in vogue, use them in your blog posts (or emails, or Facebook page comments, or forum posts) and gain the trust of the people you\u2019d like to turn into customers.<\/p>\n

3. Set A Budget\u2028.<\/strong>
\nDoing this will help in a number of ways. Here are two:
\nFirst, setting a strict monthly budget will help you see your internet marketing as a business that requires accountability.
\nSecondly, it\u2019ll help you stick to a path you\u2019ve chosen. One of the things I found difficult at the start was choosing a model and sticking with it. If building small websites using WordPress and then driving traffic via SEO is your strength, using a percentage of your budget in achieving that aim will help you grow your business in the long term. Without a budget, it\u2019s all too easy to become distracted and flit from one model to another, never settling on \u2013 or seeing through \u2013 one thing before moving onto the next.<\/p>\n

4. Find Your Own Voice\u2028.<\/strong>
\nHaving a coach \u2013 or one or two trusted voices you rely on – is a wonderful thing in any pursuit \u2013 but don\u2019t simply mimic everything they do.\u00a0Say you\u2019re a bass player and you\u2019re forming a band. You\u2019re a massive fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and you love Flea. You wouldn\u2019t just try to become Flea Mk 2, because there\u2019s only one Flea. You\u2019d take elements of Flea, add a hefty dollop of your own personality and style to come up with something new.
\nIt\u2019s the same in internet marketing. Find a voice that\u2019s both unique to you and that you\u2019re comfortable with. If you do this, honestly, you\u2019ll naturally gravitate towards the path of best fit more often than not, and your customers will love you for it.<\/p>\n

5. Set Time Aside Each Week.
\n<\/strong>We have 168 hours in our week. Take a look at where you can find just 6, 7, or 8 of those to work on your business, designate a set time to do that, and stick to it. Do whatever it takes \u2013 tear yourself away from Candy Crush Saga; have an extra night in a week; take an evening where you don\u2019t sit channel-hopping. Get that time back each week and very soon what might start off as a chore will become a way of life, and your business will benefit hugely.<\/p>\n

6.Harness Your Strengths.<\/strong>
\nThere is so much to internet marketing that it would be virtually impossible to become an expert at every element of it. If your strength is in writing, write. If it\u2019s in product creation, create. If it\u2019s in coding, code. You get the idea.
\nUse a proportion of your budget to either outsource or buy the elements that you\u2019re not so good at so you don\u2019t get weighed down and give up.<\/p>\n

7. Take Action.<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s a bit of a clich\u00e9, but it really is essential to actually do something to move your business forward. There\u2019s little point simply buying product after product, reading them all and then letting them collect digital dust on your hard drive for the next few months. At some point, make a decision on the road you\u2019re going down, stick to it and get to work.<\/p>\n

8. Stop Tweaking.<\/strong>
\nIf you\u2019re writing a free product for a squeeze page to entice people on to your email list, say, get it out there as soon as you can. The time to polish your prose or ensure the pictures are perfect is later. No matter how long you spend working on something, it\u2019ll count for nothing until you get it in front of some eyeballs. Make that a priority. You can tweak it later on.<\/p>\n

9. Build An Email\u00a0List.<\/strong>
\nThe internet is a vast old place, but if there\u2019s one thing I learned from my first foray into internet marketing (a long-defunct affiliate marketing and Adsense site) it\u2019s that once you\u2019ve got some traffic, you\u2019d do well to keep it. Get signed up with an autoresponder such as Getresponse or Aweber (or Mailchimp if you want to go down the freebie route) and start to build a list. That way you can get offers in front of those people rather than risk losing them forever. Oh, and don\u2019t just sell, sell, sell to them, either \u2013 offer valuable content as well as offers and people will actually look forward to what you have to say rather than resent you for clogging up their inbox.<\/p>\n

10. Test Everything\u2028.<\/strong>
\nIf you have a website, put some Google Analytics code on it and see which parts of your site are working and which aren\u2019t. If you have a squeeze page, put a tracking pixel on it and see how well it converts (I\u2019d aim for 50% or over if you can). If you have an email list, work out the types of title that work and those that leave readers cold. Do this and over time you\u2019ll get it down to a fine art and, most importantly, you really will turn your business into something that replaces your salary.<\/p>\n

This is a guest post written by Michael Hall, creator of free product 30 Wonderful Web Tools<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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