At first glance, creating your own product seems like a big hassle when you could just sell other people’s products and take an – often hefty – commission. Or you could go across to a resale rights site, buy a product for $10 or so and – if you believe the sales pitch – resell it to people for triple that amount or more. Of course, that second scenario doesn’t actually pan out in real life, but you live in hope!
Traffic is the lifeblood of websites. Without traffic, your website isn’t serving its purpose in life. Of course, the traffic you get should be focused – so it’s often more a case of quality over quantity – but you still need it to show some sign of life!
There are lots of myths that have built up over the years in internet marketing. Here are some of the more popular ones.
If you build it, they will come
Internet marketing is a big subject but it seems to have an even bigger share of problems. I’ve homed in on three of the biggest problems that most people seem to suffer from and given you some ideas to overcome them.
1. Not knowing whether your internet marketing is working
If you’ve ever looked into the ever changing world of SEO (search engine optimisation), you’ll know that it is a topic that is forever changing and is subject to the whims of computers. But with the ever increasing cost of paying Google every time someone clicks a link back to your website, SEO is something you probably know you need to learn more about.
There are various different approaches you can take to fill in your knowledge gap:
You’ve probably come across sales pages before that promise instant success. These magic bullets are constantly on sale in all sorts of areas but especially so in internet marketing. Partly because so much of internet marketing is repetitive and fairly boring – if you’ve ever tried to write 10 or 20 or 100 articles on near enough the same topic, you’ll know exactly what I mean there. But partly because we’re human and always looking for short cuts.
One magic bullet that people are attracted to is “spinning” content. The idea is that you use a piece of software that will examine the words and phrases and will then use a supposedly intelligent thesaurus function to rewrite the article, making it unique and therefore able to act as fresh content.
Directories have been around near enough as long as the internet. Yahoo originally started as a directory and the name is short for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle” which is a fancy way of saying that it organised websites (the hierarchical bit) and was by no means the first (“yet another”). Unless they are completely automated, which is unusual, directories have their own rules and regulations. Sticking to these will give you a better chance of getting a link back from them.
My personal favourite Web 2.0 site used to be Squidoo until Seth Godin got fed up with it and sole out to HubPages.
Another site that crops up on a regular basis in the search results is HubPages.
This is a lot twitchier about self-promotion than Squidoo used to be, which is why I don’t use it. But if you can work round their computer-based editorial control, it can work quite well.
If you’re looking to grow your internet marketing business then, aside from the tons of reports and how-to products that you’ve doubtless bought, you may well have considered investing in coaching or mentoring to help take your business to a new level. Which is a great idea but brings with it the question of who to choose? And whether you should use an internet business coaching service or a mentor. But what’s really the difference between the two? Aren’t they almost interchangeable?
Business coaching – whether in the internet marketing field or not – can take on many different forms. As with any business, it comes with a variety of levels of experience.
Using a mentor in your business often makes the difference between getting (at best) mediocre results and actually achieving the potential that’s often hidden in your internet marketing business. This is especially true when you’re just starting out but it’s equally true when you need to take your business to the next level. So if it feels like you can’t see the wood for the trees or that you’ve been stuck on a plateau for longer than you’d care to remember, it could well be time to get an internet marketing mentor.