Online Business And Web Hosting Outages

What failover measures does your hosting provider offer? Although I have only a few sites drawing a small amount of dollars a day I was still worried the other day when my websites were unreachable and Google noticed right away and removed all stats associated to my web sites.

Although I will start to become less dependent on search engine traffic and diversify to social markets I don't want any red flags going off for any reason with the search engines. Keeping consitant and growing my online business portfolio is hard enough without having to worry about website downtime. Visitors who get a "page cannot be displayed" error from one of your URL's may be turned off by what you have to offer; heck, they won't get to see it.

Difficult Online Business Decisions

If you have a tendency to make most things more difficult than they have to be, you’re not alone. What I've found is that when you do not follow the steps of those who have had success before you it widens your learning curve. Granted, certain successful strategies do not work as well as they use to but in most cases the foundation remains the same.

If you have several ideas to diversify your online marketing that will satisfy the core goals of your business implementation can be overwhelming. Internet marketing strategies that cover multiple websites with different subject matter need to promote professionalism, dedication and contain content worth reading. Furthermore, to leverage multiple arenas such as

1. social,
2. network,
3. article marketing,
4. give away products,
5. forums,
6. membership sites,
7. email lists,
8. search engine marketing,
9. affiliate marketing

…you need help. Having a forward thinking mindset is a positive starting point to achieving online business success. The next challenge can be making a working business plan out of the ideas you have written down. Your business plan should always contain achievable milestones. The most discouraging part (besides small failures) of an online business is the time it takes to generate a substantial profit.

Generating a substantial profit online is directly related to the type of business and the market for that business (not because, "there is no money to be made online"). Some of you are passionate about something that has a very small market therefore; your profits will come slowly.

A "small market" should not to be confused with a Niche; a Niche is a small part of a larger market that the big companies or suppliers have neglected to supply. There are plenty of "one hit wonder" type of websites that generate good advertising revenue for a while then start to taper off as its market becomes saturated and/or the website fails to add new original content and offers. Don't be a one hit wonder unless that is in your plan. You can:

1. find a Niche,
2. make a low cost report(15-25 pages),
3. create a smashing landing/squeeze page,
4. sign up for search engine marketing accounts
5. ensure your ads are directly related to your landing page.

You can also apply this to large broader websites that also take advantage small segments within a broader market.

Of course if you do this and still can not generate a profit you may have to:

1. do more research on your market,
2. change your content,
3. change your headings
4. test up to 3 different landing pages and ads.

In fact most successful Internet Marketers start off split testing to ensure they achieve the highest conversions possible.

As I am finishing up my "give away report", building my email list, and starting to create a paid ebook with audio and video instructions I intend to get involved in Joint Ventures with my peers in the same or similar market. You too should partake in Joint Ventures after you have determined who your target market is, if they purchase and have good things to say about your product. When offering a joint venture it is best to have some prewritten content for your affiliates to use for their email lists and websites.

Although failure is an unavoidable occurrence, success is planned and much sweeter after you have failed a few times. Your achievable milestones become part of your success. It would be nice to have every success be exclusive to making a profit but it is not. Success can be in the form of finishing your first report, ebook, eCommerce training, getting your site up and running, your first few visitors, blog comments, conversiones, etc. Having numerous small successes will build your confidence to move ahead with your difficult online business decisions.

Stay Focused, Diversify And Grow Your Business

I suggest netrepreneurs expand/diversify with more sites and unique angles of content to complement their key business and activities.(Nelson Tan)

How do we diversify, stay focused on our market, find a unique angle, test and implement profitable strategies then repeat these steps over and over again? First off, having multiple websites can be an administrative nightmare. Not only do you have to:

1. check email
2. reply to email
3. keyword research
4. create content
5. add new content for your website
6. create content for your email campaign
7. send out emails to your email list
8. upload ad placement code to new pages on your website and blog
9. affiliate product
10. optimize ads
11. update site maps
12. update rss feeds
13. back link strategy (posts to forums, blogs, etc)
14. article directory submission
15. search engine directory submission

At some point you will have to test different page elements, ads, layouts, content, etc to see which performs better, then change your other campaigns to match it.

All of this will need to be done at least once a week. But, you need to check and respond to email every two days.

Whew....

Once you have done this for a while one of five things will happen (or all five):

1. your websites updates will slowly start to "fall by the wayside”
2. email questions don’t get answered in a timely fashion
3. email lists start to opt-out
4. you will go mad
5. you will outsource

Number 5 isn't bad; actually, outsourcing can be your way to effectively grow your business. Lets face it, it takes time to be successful online (far less time than it does in most other industries).

Having “too much on your plate” can overshadow your creativity.

So turn off the TV, turn the Jazz and start researching keywords as a foundation for your next killer web site and/or Blog.

Some people don't feel that Internet Businesses are worth the time and the mental workout you get from analyzing enormous amounts of data. That being said, what most don't realize is that even with all of the above responsibilities you still work far less and have the potential to make more money than you would have ever seen if you'd been going from job to job and waiting on a pay raise.

Until next time

Will

p.s. Sometimes you can find an excellent niche, write a how-to ebook, create an awesome landing/sales page, start an Adwords campaign and drive targeted traffic to your sales page. This method can draw you an amazing amount of daily income. This is slightly harder than it sounds.

p.s.s. Life deals us a great deal of responsibility but you have to realize when to ask for help (and that all help is not free but still worth paying for).

:-)

Can You Start An Internet Business With No Money?

Many people are enticed by businesses they can start with little or no money. Is it possible to start an Internet Business with no money?

Yes.

I did it, but I'll be the first but not the last to tell you that I would have saved a bunch of time and heartache if I'd had some cash to hire someone who knows how to achieve and launch successful marketing/sales campaigns.

In other words, If I could have paid someone to do all the tedious/grunt work I'd be further along in my Internet Marketing than I am now. Oh, well.

Don't get me wrong, I've learned a lot about marketing strategy, some of what it takes to be successful at Google Adwords, Email marketing, list building, keyword research and article marketing.

There are some other tid bits I've picked up along my year and two month Internet marketing experience but it's late and I can't remember everything at the moment.

One important fact that I've learned is that optimizing your website is a compilation of factors that work together to build website popularity in your market. Some people think if they generate tons of backlinks they will start receiving enormous amounts of traffic.

Quality Backlinks are great to have but are not the overall determining factor in website optimization. The most important skills for an aspiring Internet entrepreneur to have would be:

1. determination
2. perseverance
3. drive
4. pride
5. organization
6. analytical skills

With these 6 skills the rest will fall into place like devoting a substantial amount of time to your business. Learning from and moving past failure. Taking challenges head on. Ensuring you are offering your market something of value. Keeping everything related to your business organized such as files, folders, etc. Last but not least knowing how to determine where there are opportunities for improvement and capital gain in the long and short run.

Let this marinate and I'll talk to you soon,
Will C.