A Basic Framework For Success in Your Internet Business

If you're new to online marketing, your biggest challenge is probably making internet marketing work for you. It might even be down right frustrating.

Here's a framework that I think may help some of the frustrated out there.

So how do you get out of that rut of constantly going nowhere with your online business? It's really all about focus. The first thing you have to do is decide on one thing. You can expand into new areas when you start making money, but first you must decide what you are going to do and then work it.

Don't waver your focus. Don't let yourself get distracted with another one of those 'amazing opportunities' that's going to make you instantly rich today. If all you do is chase one opportunity after another, you'll still be in this same boat on February 26, 2010.

It's all about building a long-term business and providing great value to your customers. Building for the long term doesn't mean that you can't get quick results, however.

Ok, back to our focus...

Do you want to do affiliate marketing? Create your own products? If you go the affiliate marketing route for example, you first want to make sure that you are in a good market. Don't waste your time on some micro-niche that nobody cares about. For now you also want to focus on one market, whether it's weight loss, fitness, make money, pet products, etc. Become an authority and get yourself known.

Choose products that are doing very well and have lots of competition. Yes, competition is a good thing. Are there lots of Adwords ads for your affiliate product when you type in a broad keyword? If it's a Clickbank product, does it also have a high gravity?

At this point, I wouldn't be wasting your time with low gravity, unknown products from small niches. So how are you going to promote these products with so many competitors? You want to use specific 'long tail' buying keywords related to your products. This is very important.

Someone searching with a broad phrase such as 'weight loss supplements' are generally looking for information and 'kicking tires'. If you're using PPC, for example, these are pretty much wasted clicks, and will get expensive fast. On the other hand, someone looking for 'HoodiaThin liquid extract' is a buyer! They've done their homework and kicked the tires already. You'll get less visitors, but they will convert! Make all your keyword phrases focused & very specific and they will add up fast.

Profitable long tail searches typically contain buying phrases such as a specific make & model of a product, the words 'review', 'best', etc.

If you don't have one already, you need to set up a blog (even a free one like blogger or wordpress.org) and use this as your main money site. A blog on your own domain is best in the long term. You also want to caputre leads as well, so get that aweber account, or at the very least a free GetResponse account.

I can't stress enough the importance of building that list and starting a relationship. You'll build a great relationship if you offer useful info with some mailings, and quality remmondations of your affiliate products with others. Strike a balance. Don't always be selling something, and never be 'sales pitchy' when your are recommending something.

Now create Squidoo lenses, submit articles, blog about it, use the social bookmarks. Again, never sound 'sales pitchy' though. Instead, educate your reader as to why this product will benefit them. You could also do comparisons to similar products & rate them.

Signup to all these different sites, and make the Web 2.0 thing a part of your business procedures. Sign up with www.SocialMarker.com as well.

Make sure you ping everything, your lenses, diggs, everything - using the rss link in those areas. Go out to pingomatic.com and submit your pings from there.

This will get you indexed quickly in Google so that you can start getting eyeballs to your main site. Start giving useful comments on forums & blogs. Find as many as you can and put them in an excel spreadsheet so that you can go down the list once a week and get yourself known.

If your list is too long, break it up over a couple of days.

Submit all your blog posts to blog carnivals at blogcarnival.com/bc/submit.php.

Make some simple powerpoint presentations and use them to make short videos for youtube, offering a tip on how to do something related to your market. Make sure your website is noted in the video on one of your slides or with a watermark. Submit your video via tubemogul.com.

The more you get yourself out there, the more people are going to get to know you, and the more traffic you will get.

The important thing is that you need to write down and make a schedule of everything that you do including lead generation, getting traffic, etc.

These will be the procedures to drive your business. Without these procedures in place, you'll never stay focused and you'll lose track of what you need to do next to keep the momentum going.

This needs to be a rinse & repeat machine that will keep generating leads, generating traffic, and managing the business. Remember, this IS a business. You must treat it that way.

The other benefit of having documented procedures is that when your business begins to grow, you are going to want to outsource the tedious stuff, so that you can 1. have more freedom to spend with your family and 2. you can build a true business that will keep growing, even when you're off traveling the world or something.

These procedures, since they would now already exist, can be handed to your people and used by them so that you can now scale up your business and leverage hundreds of hours in a week instead of killing yourself with trying to do it all yourself in 40-60+.

In this simple affiliate marketing example, if it were me, I would be gauging what types of affiliate products in your market are really doing the best. This can give you a framework for creating your own products.

Product creation should be the ultimate goal anyway.

Since you have learned what the 'money keywords' are and, if you are polling your list on what it is they look for, what they fear, their desires, etc, you can address their needs. Let your list define your next product. After all, they are real people who are looking to you to provide them with the solutions to their problem, or to improve their lives in some way.

This is just a basic framework, but if you follow this road map, you will make money. How much is up to you. Take action! Don't over analyze. Jump in and worry about the technicalities of 'how to' as you go. The important thing is that your are taking action, and that it's the type of action that's moving you forward.

Remember, that flying around in a holding pattern and jumping from opportunity to opportunity is also action. It will keep you very busy. Don't be fooled by this negative action. You need to be moving forward, not in a circle.

Taking action means acting on the things that are directly related to your focused vision that will build your business and your freedom. Achieving this is very realistic. You'll find that these steps are not hard at all. It's just a matter of putting together action steps to follow. Then following them!

If you don't have action steps in place now, then make this your first course of action. Write out your procedures now, and take your first step on the exciting journey to success.

-Jack Keifer