Mamas On The Web

3 Ways To Ensure Internet Marketing Failure

June 6th, 2007

Jimmy asked an interesting question over at the List and Traffic forum yesterday, “What does it take to succeed online?” in which he asked his members to explain in three steps what it takes to be a successful internet marketer.

I would have replied but he listed his own three steps and wrote them in a way that was way better than I could ever write them. However, this got me to thinking…if there are three steps you should take to succeed online, what are the three things that will help you plunge towards impending internet marketing doom?

I’ve got my own list of things of what I think are an internet marketers worst enemy. Feel free to add your own in the comments section.

1) Lack of Focus - I think a problem that the majority of online marketers have is that they try to be all things to all people. At the time of writing this, I got 191 MILLION results by typing in “How to make money online” into the Google search. That’s beyond information overload if you ask me.

If you want to try your hand at affiliate marketing, go for it. If you want to create and sell your own information products, go for it. If you want to be the next Google Adsense star, you can do that too. But if you’re just starting out (or if you’ve been online for years without any real success) then focus on just one thing first. Once you’ve mastered one area, then you can move on to the next.

This goes for your promotion tactics as well. There are plenty of ways to drive traffic to your site and make commissions and sales, but if you only do a half-assed job of each method, you’ll be wasting your time. Find a few things that work good and stick to that.

2) Crappy Information - Like I mentioned above, the internet is loaded with information on how to make money online. The problem is, a lot of that information is nothing but crap and doesn’t deserve the server space let alone for someone to actually read it.

I’m appalled at the amount of garbage that’s being distributed online and I’m thoroughly disgusted that some people actually PAY for it! A lot of this information will get your websites banned and will send customers running, not to mention your reputation will be destroyed.

It’s better to find a few good reliable mentors and try and emulate them rather than consuming the load of crap that the internet marketing wannabes serve you. If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you’ll know that one of my favorite mentors is Jimmy D. Brown. It’s people like him that you should be listening to, not Joe Blowhard who pretends to know what he’s talking about even though he hasn’t even reached his first Adsense payout yet.

3) No Sense of Direction - If you haven’t got a plan outlined for your online business, you might as well quit right now and go back to your day job. That may sound harsh, but in most cases it’s true.

Without plans and goals, how are you going to know what to work towards? How will you be able to measure your success? How will you know what works and what doesn’t?

Having an outline gives you a good overall business plan to follow and it also paves the way for smaller plans or to-do lists that will help you get to where you want to be. You have to start somewhere, and that should be with KNOWING WHERE TO START. Even if you’ve been working online for years, get out a pen and piece of paper and start writing down your short and long term goals, then write down how you plan to achieve them.

…

Of course these are just three things that can get in the way of your success, but I think they are the biggest roadblocks and sometimes the hardest ones to overcome. If you can rise above them, success will soon be yours.

If you liked this post, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed and stay up to date with future posts. Thanks so much for visiting MamasOnTheWeb!

Entry Filed under: General