Online business brain dump!

Copyright 2005 Richard Grady

This week I have several points that I want to mention and
because of the fact that they are not directly linked
(other than being related to running an Internet business),
this newsletter is going to be a bit of a 'brain dump'. 
Bear with me..... :-)

Ok, first things first. I think it is fair to say that the
main reason that the majority of people are not successful
with their online (or offline) business is because they
fail to take action. 

Taking action is THE most important thing you can do to get your business off the ground and to continue to grow it. 
You can buy all the eBooks/videos and other info-products
you like but if you don't take note of what they tell you
do to AND actually DO IT, then you will fail. 

I get a lot of emails from people that tell me they have
purchased every single eBook there is about Internet
marketing but they are still no closer to finding the
'secret' and starting their own business. Truth is that
there is no secret and the reason that so many eBooks and
other products repeat the same thing over and over again is because this is what works. You don't need to be searching for the latest 'best thing' because the vast majority of the old 'best things' still work and this is what you
should be doing.

If you are not prepared to take action, then stop buying
products - save your money! Info-products will only help
you if you actually do what they recommend.

Of course, there are also plenty of places that you can
learn completely free of charge!

One example is my forum: http://www.traderonlineforum.com 
There are over 20,000 posts on the forum and it really is a
goldmine of information. In fact, I am sure I could create
several saleable eBooks from the content of the forum
alone. Don't ignore it - it is a valuable resource.

Ok, the next thing I want to cover relates to traffic. I
was doing a bit of checking on some of my competitors this
week and I noticed something which may well apply to a lot
of online businesses. I noticed that several of my
competitors appear to rely solely on paid advertising to
drive traffic to their websites. Now this is fine when you
first launch a site and it is usually the quickest way to
build up a few visitors but as a long-term solution, it is
not ideal.

I am not saying that you shouldn't use paid advertising but
it should only be a part of your overall traffic generation
strategy. The cost of advertising (for example pay per
click etc) online has increased considerably over the past
few years and this will continue as the Internet gets more
and more competitive. Therefore, all webmasters should be using other methods to bring traffic to their sites.

A few options (all of which I use myself and have done for
several years) include optimizing your website so that you
gain free search engine listings, writing articles that are
published on other sites and that have your link at the
bottom, exchanging links with websites that have relevant
content to your own, using an affiliate program to get
other people to send you traffic and arranging joint
ventures with other website owners.

Some of these options will take many months before they are generating any worthwhile traffic but once they are, the
traffic is regular, relevant and free. Any good business
person always has the 'long-term' in mind....

And while I am on the subject of longer-term planning
here's another point that I have mentioned before but I
think is worth bringing up again. As with so many things,
it is important not to put all your eggs in one basket with
your online business. By this I mean, don't rely on one
single website to generate all of your income.....

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a website owner that I have known for some time. He has one website which
generates his entire income and it has brought in a very
good income for two or three years now. However, over the
past six months or so he has noticed a dramatic drop in
sales. Of course he is doing everything he can to turn
this situation around and I am sure he will succeed but it
has been a worrying time for him.

Now imagine if instead of having one website that generated 100% of his income, he had ten websites that each generated 10% of his total income. Even if two of the sites stopped earning altogether he would still be bringing in 80% of his original income. 

Spread the risk - don't rely on one business website -
build ten or even more! 

Think about this for a moment: 

If you can build one small website that generates an income of $300 a month (which is actually not that hard), then why can't you build ten small websites each making $300 a month? And if you can build ten, why not twenty.....?


About the Author:

Richard Grady has been helping ordinary people earn online since 1998. He writes a free newsletter which is published every two weeks. To subscribe (and claim your free gifts), visit: http://www.thetraderonline.com/newsletter.html