Being successful in internet marketing is, of course, relative.

What you define as being successful another person may think of as being a failure.

For instance, a large company like Google wouldn’t currently count Google+ as being a success because they haven’t really found their niche and haven’t toppled Facebook. But you or I would probably be over the moon with the quantity of users they’ve got.

But regardless of how you personally measure success in internet marketing, here are some ways that you can become more successful.

1. Create Regular Content

The web thrives on content – written, audio and visual.

It’s up to you which of those you use. Whether that’s one, two or all three of them. Your site visitors will react according to their own preferences and you’ll gradually build up visitors who get on with your preferred style.

Coming up with ideas for regular content can be a struggle occasionally. The trick is to have various sources that you use to get ideas from when your mind’s gone blank or you think you’ve exhausted every possible angle.

You can use some of these to get the creative juices flowing:

• Ideator
• Google alerts
• The suggestions that come up in Google as you start searching
• Hashtag searches on sites like this
• Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc
• Forums
• Sites like Quora and Yahoo! Answers

Then it’s a matter of sitting down and typing or recording until you’ve got enough content for that session.

2. Build a list

Lists are essential to successful internet marketing.

Sure, you can get away without them but you almost certainly won’t make as much money if you ignore lists.

If you don’t want to maintain your own list, sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc will maintain one for you and will notify your subscribers or followers when you add new content.

But that means you’re in the hands of someone else’s site and someone else’s computer program which is (like all computer programs) subject to change.

That means you’re not in control. So if Facebook (for instance) decide not to show your posts to your followers as often then it’s a case of “tough luck”.

Since it’s unlikely that your internet service provider will allow you to send lots of emails at once and since it’s a pain in the neck to manually manage email lists once they grow beyond a handful of people, you’ll need to use a service to handle your email list.

There are various autoresponder services around and they split into 3 reasonably distinct groups:

• Free/cheap services such as Mailchimp who currently allow you to have up to 2,000 subscribers and send out up to 12,000 emails a month for zero cost. They do have some restrictions and Mailchimp are generally not happy about being used by internet marketers so it’s worth investigating terms of service before you get too heavily involved.
• Medium priced services such as Aweber (the company I’ve used for what seems like forever). They handle your lists, sign up forms, confirmation emails if you decide to get your subscribers to go through the extra hoop of double opt-in which reduces the number of subscribers but is said to better protect you against spam complaints. They also allow you to build up a sequence of emails, send “broadcasts” to your list so they all get a topical announcement if you decide to send one and you can also automate moving people from one list to another. For instance when someone buys a product you can move them from your freebie seekers list to your buyers list and handle them differently.
• High priced services such as Infusionsoft. These almost need a degree in geek speak to be able to use but are highly customisable and allow you to set up all sorts of rules as to who gets which emails and when. It’s unlikely that you’ll need something as complicated as these when you’re first starting out – Aweber comfortably handles big lists and is more than powerful enough for at least 90% of anything you’re ever likely to want to do.

You then need to use your list to keep in touch with people.

There’s no point in building a list and keeping it for a rainy day. If you only send out emails once in a blue moon then you’re list won’t remember who you are and won’t react to your emails.

People vary in their recommendation as to how often you should email your list.

Personally, I aim to send an email most days and the majority of successful internet marketers do the same.

Some people email less frequently.

Other people email multiple times a day.

Your list will get used to your schedule. Those who don’t like it will unsubscribe or delete your emails if that seems like the easier option.

Figures like open rates can give you an approximation of how people are reacting to your emails but they usually rely on an image being loaded which most email programs don’t do by default (thanks to the spammers for that) so they’re not a totally reliable indicator.

The thing with emailing your list is to be yourself. Let your style and character show through rather than being bland and corporate.

3. Persevere

It’s way too easy to stop or get distracted or just generally “forget” about your internet marketing projects.

Hard drives provide lots of hiding places for things.

So do domain name registrars and hosting companies.

Unless you go out of your way to look for projects that have fallen by the wayside, chances are you won’t be reminded until the domain renewal comes in.

And even then it’s tempting to think that you’ll do something with a domain in the next year, so you renew it anyway because “it’s a good domain name” and is worth keeping.

You need to persevere and keep working away on your internet marketing business otherwise your chances of success will be lower.

It’s worth keeping a regular routine and sticking to it.

Keep working on your projects for long enough to figure out whether or not they are likely to work for you.

Not every scheme that’s promoted in internet marketing works for everyone.

Sometimes the various things that are promoted are untested, other times they worked in the past but are nowhere near as successful as they used to be, other times they may not suit your temperament.

Fail fast is often a good maxim to go by but because things take time to come to fruition on the internet you can’t just try something one day and give up on it the next. Otherwise you won’t be giving things a chance to happen.

How long to allow is always an awkward question.

One method I often employ with new projects is to work on them for around a month. Then I’ll take a step back and see whether there’s a glimmer of anything happening.

For a new website in a new niche, I’ll usually create a decent amount of content for the first month or so, then I’ll let the dust settle and give it two or three more months with little attention whilst Google decides whether or not it likes the site.

That timescale can vary according to the niche involved and the amount of competition but I’ve found it to be a good starting place.

If my area was advertising then the timescale would be based on the number of clicks and what happened when people clicked my adverts. So the timescale would likely be shorter but the cost would be higher because each click would be charged.

As you get more experience you’ll start to work out the timescales involved in the kind of projects you get involved in.

But if there are too many dead ends or abandoned projects it’s time to take stock of what you’re doing and why things aren’t working out as planned.

And if you still don’t get the results you’re looking for, don’t be afraid to get help.

If you’re the kind of person who can work well under their own guidance then check this out.

Or take a look at my various products if you know the direction you want to go in.

Or consider some personal coaching if you think that would be best for your personality.

But regardless of which route you decide to take, persevere!

Because by taking action on a regular basis you’ll be dramatically increasing the chance of being successful in your internet marketing career.