The internet is filled with websites promising to make you a millionaire in less than 15 minutes. So think for a couple of minutes, if you could really invest $50 in an e-book that will make you a millionaire in 15 minutes, would the e-book really cost $50?
Even if the e-book did cost $50 don’t you think that by now you would have met someone who has actually made millions after buying a $50 e-book? Quickly, off the top of your head, think of 3 people you know or have met online who are millionaires, and have made their money after buying an e-book online.
Now I’m not disputing the fact that you can actually make money online, and no doubt you can make a lot of it, but the internet has been perceived as a get rich quick market that with very little effort and minimum investment will make you excessively rich and you never have to work again. Yeah right!
Think again, making a living on the internet is as hard if not harder that making a living in real life. Now while your financial investment on the internet may be substantially less that a traditional brick and mortar investment, it’s not free.
Your time investment in an online business will most likely far outweigh the time you would put into a brick and mortar business. Your customers never sleep, business does not close at 5, and there are no rules as to which geographical area you need to operate in.
Your success on the internet is relative to the time that you put into an online business. Your efforts don’t just one day come to an end. You don’t wake up one morning and think to yourself “I think I’ll stop working today?and your business continues to function.
While running an online business and working from home does allow you certain luxuries, you still have to work. Some of the most successful online entrepreneurs work every day, and often still post to their forums, and send out their news letters while on holiday.
The point I am trying to make is that having a successful online business requires you to work at it. For example, Google’s Ad Sense program is one of the most successful advertising programs on the internet, and if you get 1000 visitors on your site/s a day and have a 10% CTR the you are getting 100 clicks at an average of $1 you make $100 per day. That does work yes, but how do you get 1000 visitors a day? Do you really think it’s as easy as building a website over a weekend and retiring a month later?
Many people on the internet would have us believe that, and only once we have parted with our money and bought an entire library of e-book and have a great collection of software do we realise that we can’t give up our day jobs just yet.
I have bought every e-book out there, I’ve read them all, they have great sales copy and a very enticing sales pitch, but at the end of the day they simply tell you about a niche that can be used to generate revenue.
You still need to put in the time. The downside is that often we put in the time in the wrong place; we spend way too much time doing the wrong thing. So how do you know you are doing the right thing? Well, here are some guidelines?br />
There are only a few select areas that will make your online business work:
1. Make sure you have the right product: Do not try and go to market with a product that you a) don’t know backwards, and b) is a shot in the dark. Do your homework, make sure that there is a market for whatever product or service you are planning to offer, Google all you can, find every forum that relates to your product and read, read, read.
2. Build your business: Setup your website, using a developer, templates, Content management system etc, and make sure it is 100% BEFORE going live. There is nothing more off putting than a site that wants $97 for and e-book, but the site looks like a dog’s breakfast. Make sure you have a professional looking site, and test, test, test.
3. Optimize your site: This is the most time consuming process, either pay someone to do it for you properly if you don’t have the time, or make sure you do it right. The last thing you want or need is to be blacklisted from search engines. Get good links, research key words, do proper on page and off page optimization.
4. After sales selling: Once you have customer, make sure that you keep in contact with them. Setup a forum where you can discuss how to use your product, and answer any questions they might have, forums are great for interaction with all your clients at once.
Make sure that your time is mainly spent on these areas. They will have the highest return and help you to become a success on the internet, and remember, it won’t happen over night.
Shawn Jooste is an internet marketing consultant; his website http://www.jooste.org is filled with resources that will help you in your day to day internet marketing efforts.