It’s a weird question. But if you’re flailing around, not knowing what direction to take your internet marketing, you’re not alone.
You’re probably in the majority.
But if you’ve got the courage to admit that you’re flailing around, thrashing about, hoping you’ll find a way that works, let’s take a closer look at why that might be the case and what you can do about it.
Running in too many directions
That’s a problem faced by a lot of internet marketers.
After all, there are so many directions to go forward in and it often seems that they’re of equal importance.
Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, your own website, forums, Skype groups.
To name but a few directions you could choose.
Of those, your own website is probably the most important for most internet marketers.
It’s the hub of your operation and all those other options (if you use them at all) should be helping it rather than hindering it or stealing time and attention from it.
It’s like the advice to the Karate Kid: focus.
That works well in internet marketing.
Because suddenly, instead of spreading yourself too thinly, you spend your internet marketing hours working reasonably productively.
And that shows through – your site fills out, the search engines find more ways to find you and feature you in their results, you discover more about your niche as you create your website content, you start to become more of an expert.
But that only happens if you do the same with your internet marketing as you do with your target market: niche down to the areas you’re fairly good at (or could become fairly good at) and let the rest of the tens or hundreds of other possible methods fall by the wayside as if they never existed.
Find a target!
It’s no good aiming for a target that’s too big.
Because unless you’ve got the spending power of someone like Microsoft (and even they narrow things down most of the time) there’s no way you’ll cover the entire sky or wherever else it is you’re claiming to aim at.
It just can’t happen.
And even if it did, chances are lots of other people are aiming at the same “target”.
Especially when the “target” is really just a general area of indeterminate size and shape somewhere that’s in a hundred-ish mile radius of where you’re currently standing but you’re not particularly sure which direction it’s in or whether or not you’ll know when you’ve hit it. Or even if the hundred-ish miles means that or could mean a few hundred or maybe even a thousand miles.
That’s an odd paragraph.
If it doesn’t make sense to you – and I’m not totally sure it makes sense to me, so don’t worry if that’s the case – then it’s time to see whether something equally confusing applies to your internet marketing.
Because that’s so often the case in the emails I get that ask why “it” isn’t working but neither of us can really place a finger on what or where “it” is.
One of the best ways to change from that foggy state to one where you’re starting to focus is to start focusing.
Which sounds simple but isn’t always.
Ask yourself who you’re targeting.
If you don’t know or if the answer is “everyone” then you’re not targeting anyone.
If you do know but can’t quite pinpoint them, you’re getting closer.
Some people like to create an avatar for their ideal site visitor. Which is great if you’ve got the patience and expertise to do it.
But even if you can just drill down to a demographic that will help.
Chances are you’re not aiming for the whole age spectrum from toddler through to nonagenarians and older.
Chances are you’re not aiming for the whole spectrum of intellects from illiterate through to PHDs and beyond.
Drill down.
Because that will help you focus and will help you to create the content for your website because you’ll know who you’re talking to when you’re creating that content.
Try it.
In fact, do better than try it.
Actually do the exercise rather than reading this page, thinking “that’s a good idea” (because it is a good idea!) and doing nothing about it.
If you need more help, I’d strongly suggest that affiliate marketing is one of the best directions to go in and – I’m biased – this is one of the best ways to learn how to do it.