Internet Marketing Blog

This can be something of an obsession with internet marketers of all shapes and sizes. It’s easy to understand why, because the search engine ranking of your site will strongly influence how well you do in the results whenever someone looks up a keyword or phrase which links to your website.While it is important to keep an eye on it to see how well your site is performing, it shouldn’t turn into something you end up checking twice a day every day. Your search engine ranking changes over time (hopefully for the better) and it does so as a result of what you do to change and develop your site – not as a result of you watching it like you would watch a plant that is starting to grow.

It’s good to develop routines when you start any new internet business, as routines help you to develop good habits and ensure that nothing important gets missed as part of your day to day progress. You can check various parts of your business and see how they are doing, and where some extra effort is required you can then look into how best to do that.

Keywords and finding your site

As you develop your business and learn more about keywords and how to make sure that people (and the robots and spiders that Google, Yahoo and others use) find your site, you should find that your website naturally starts to perform better. It takes time for any website to start figuring in the search engine rankings at all, let alone to perform well. No website gets to the coveted number one spot overnight, so be sure you don’t ask for too much when it comes to monitoring the progress of your site.

They say the best things in life are worth waiting for, and I think a higher search engine ranking definitely falls into that category.

Sean Rasmussen
Internet Marketing Blog
WealthCreationAffiliate.com © 2007 - 2008

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Too many or none at all? While there is no magic number it is a good idea to find two or three internet marketing blogs that you really enjoy, because they can help you on a day to day basis when you are developing your online business.

Why is this?

Why should you pay attention to what anyone else is saying when it comes to doing your own thing?

While you shouldn’t let any internet marketing blogs run the way you do things, they can be of enormous help when you are building your own knowledge of online business and how things work.

It could be said that they are of more use when you are a newbie, but that’s not necessarily the case. The internet marketing blogs you choose to read on a regular basis may change over time however, as your own needs and tastes change.

As a newbie you will probably be grateful for a certain level of more basic information and advice. As you progress in your own online career and your knowledge develops these initial sources of information may become too basic for you to get any more real enjoyment and knowledge from. So you will probably progress onto more advanced internet marketing blogs that will help you to negotiate the next stage of your career.

But how many should you be reading?

This is really a matter of personal choice, but as a general rule if keeping up to date with them all means you aren’t getting your own work done, then you’re probably reading too many. Two or three is about my limit – and if one ceases to become useful I replace it with something that appeals more to my level of knowledge at that stage.

There are plenty of internet marketing blogs out there – all you need to do is find the ones that will help you the most.

Sean Rasmussen
Internet Marketing Blog
WealthCreationAffiliate.com © 2007 - 2008

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Too many or none at all? While there is no magic number it is a good idea to find two or three internet marketing blogs that you really enjoy, because they can help you on a day to day basis when you are developing your online business.

Why is this?

Why should you pay attention to what anyone else is saying when it comes to doing your own thing? While you shouldn’t let any internet marketing blogs run the way you do things, they can be of enormous help when you are building your own knowledge of online business and how things work.

It could be said that they are of more use when you are a newbie, but that’s not necessarily the case. The internet marketing blogs you choose to read on a regular basis may change over time however, as your own needs and tastes change.

As a newbie you will probably be grateful for a certain level of more basic information and advice. As you progress in your own online career and your knowledge develops these initial sources of information may become too basic for you to get any more real enjoyment and knowledge from. So you will probably progress onto more advanced internet marketing blogs that will help you to negotiate the next stage of your career.

But how many should you be reading?

This is really a matter of personal choice, but as a general rule if keeping up to date with them all means you aren’t getting your own work done, then you’re probably reading too many. Two or three is about my limit – and if one ceases to become useful I replace it with something that appeals more to my level of knowledge at that stage.

There are plenty of internet marketing blogs out there – all you need to do is find the ones that will help you the most.

Sean Rasmussen
Internet Marketing Blog
WealthCreationAffiliate.com © 2007 - 2008

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I’m not talking about online, I’m talking about offline. Networking is an essential part of building a worthwhile internet business, because it leads you to all kinds of interesting people. But just as you don’t spend all the time sitting in your computer chair staring at your computer screen (you don’t, do you?) neither do a lot of other people. Actually getting out and meeting with other internet entrepreneurs at seminars, get togethers and all manner of other meetings can be a great learning experience, and a golden opportunity to get networking.

Meeting new people face to face can be difficult

When you think about it we’re used to getting to know people online – replying to emails, posting blog entries, replying to other peoples, and all manner of other things that don’t actually involve holding a conversation.

But there is one important thing to remember when it comes to networking face to face. We all have plenty of things in common as internet marketers. We’ve all surfed the same sites; we all rely on the same – or similar – methods of promoting our sites; we all experiment regularly with products, web pages, layouts and getting in touch with our customers, and we all know how we started out.

That is a lot of knowledge we can share through networking – and a lot of conversation starters as well.

Quite often the worst part of meeting anyone new is in trying to get a conversation started. That’s not exactly a problem if you visit an internet marketing convention because you know that everyone in the room has internet marketing in common. There is a huge array of subjects you can start talking about, and while you may not gel with everyone you will certainly be sure to click with some of the people you meet.

So get out and about more often and leave your computer at home for a change. Networking can help you in more ways than one.

Sean Rasmussen
Internet Marketing Blog
WealthCreationAffiliate.com © 2007 - 2008

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You could replace the word niches with challenges, because that also has a bearing on the subject of this blog entry. It’s sensible to start with what we know in internet marketing, but once we’ve been around the block a couple of times it’s also wise to start looking for fresh challenges.

You don’t have to dive into something you know nothing about, but think about exploring a topic you have an interest in yourself, but would like to know more about. Is there enough interest in it to warrant an internet marketing presence?

Try looking online to see if anyone else has built an internet marketing business around that topic already. What are they doing to earn money? Could you do the same? How would you vary your idea so you can tap into a previously ignored part of that market?

A subject for your internet marketing venture

Picking a subject you want to learn about yourself guarantees you’ll enjoy the research required to make this new internet marketing venture a success. You’ll be able to find out where like minded people tend to congregate online, and you’ll know how to find them as well. Incidentally, going to forums and participating in discussions can help you to identify new products and services that the market would be interested in buying.

Exploring new niches helps to keep you on your toes and enjoying all the benefits that internet marketing has to offer. It also makes you a more versatile marketer – able to meet the needs of more than one kind of customer. This will ultimately lead to more profits for you and an increased ability to recognise new markets and penetrate them with the right products for the right customers.

So think about finding yourself some new niches to explore. It’s the best route to making more money online.

Sean Rasmussen
Internet Marketing Blog
WealthCreationAffiliate.com © 2007 - 2008

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How many is too many? Can there ever be too many?

We’re talking about affiliate products here and whether there is any ‘right number’ that you should be promoting to get the best results for your business.

There is no perfect number

In truth there is no magic number; everyone is different, with different needs, aims and goals to shoot for. You may be happy with a dozen different items to promote, while others would shudder at the thought of having less than a hundred items at the very least. You’re probably worrying now if you’ve only got two or three items on the go, but you really shouldn’t. Affiliate products work differently for everyone and what one sees as overkill is just right for another. The key is in how well you are managing what you have.

It’s always good to have a range of affiliate products that complement each other, as this can give you an excellent opportunity to achieve add on sales that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to get. This is perhaps a key point to remember when you are considering whether your promotions are all earning their place in your overall strategy. Those that complement each other are usually somewhat easier to make sales from than the ones that stand out simply because they don’t really fit with the rest of your plan.

If you only have two or three affiliate products that you are currently promoting, you may be missing out on a trick in this respect. Try expanding your repertoire a little by looking for other complementary items that will round out what you are already having some success with. In short, if you are earning what you want to be earning from your marketing, then you have the right number of affiliate products. If you aren’t, you need to be looking for some more.

Sean Rasmussen
Internet Marketing Blog
WealthCreationAffiliate.com © 2007 - 2008

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Affiliate marketing offers a great way to make some money online. You can start off as small as you like and gradually build your range of products to suit the needs of the markets you are interested in. But there is a danger in affiliate marketing that you can get bogged down with maintaining one avenue of income and not get around to creating any others. That’s a shame, because income streams are the lifeblood of affiliate marketing, where you can literally have as many as you like to meet your needs.

It makes sense to perfect your first affiliate marketing income stream and ensure that it’s fairly self sufficient before turning your attention elsewhere, but once it is doing its job you should make a point of sitting down and creating a plan of what you did and how you achieved it.

You can then use this plan as a blueprint for building your second and subsequent income streams in your affiliate marketing career.

That’s not to say you cannot learn and develop of course

What works for one product or service may not work as well for another, in which case it’s a good idea to sit down and analyse what changes need to be made. As long as you recognise them and learn from each new experience, your affiliate marketing career can continue unabated.

In general though you should know what works and what doesn’t after a while. The best rule is to build one new stream at a time, so that you can ensure it is set up properly and will perform well right from the start. Once you get used to doing that you’ll be able to avoid the problem of setting up several new ventures all at once and not doing what’s necessary to make any of them succeed.

Sean Rasmussen
Internet Marketing Blog
WealthCreationAffiliate.com © 2007 - 2008

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If there is one thing that’s true about internet marketing, it’s the fact that there are more opportunities out there than you could shake a stick at. It’s probably not surprising then that after a while you can feel a bit jaded and start to become a little doubting of all the new opportunities that come along. They say there’s nothing new under the sun – but is there really anything new in internet marketing?

It can certainly be tricky to sort the wheat from the chaff, but it’s worth keeping an open mind because if you don’t you could miss out on something that might change your own internet marketing business for the better. You should particularly sit up and take notice when you see any e-book, product, software item or anything else that concerns a subject with which you are interested (assuming your business is based around a specific theme or topic that is). It could become a worthwhile addition to your internet marketing venture.

The point is that it’s very easy to become complacent

What we should all be doing is taking the time to carefully evaluate anything which seems to fit well with our own business objectives, to see whether it could be something our current customers may be interested in as well.

It’s understandable to become very critical of anything new – hardly even giving it a second glance on occasion – but if we let ourselves become too cynical we risk missing out on some of the biggest and best internet marketing products we might ever be able to lay our hands on.

So ask yourself, how open minded are you really?

Not quite enough perhaps? Even if you are successful at the moment, that doesn’t exclude you from the topic. After all, if you’re successful you either stay that way, or you don’t.

Sean Rasmussen
Internet Marketing Blog
WealthCreationAffiliate.com © 2007 - 2008

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Free articles are a great way to promote your business. Not only do they drive traffic towards your website or affiliate products, they also help to raise your own profile in the internet community. If you write and distribute free articles over a period of time, faithfully and continually, you’ll even become known as something of an expert.

What could be better?

Of course you are not guaranteed to get such a rousing response to your writing; it is up to you to make sure people view it in a positive light. To that end you need to be certain that your free articles contain useful, insightful or revealing information – and ideally all three.

The best way to do this is to start with a plan in mind. Instead of just writing the first thing that comes into your head, try asking yourself this question, ‘How will this piece help the reader, encourage them to maybe read some more of my stuff, and hopefully click through to my website as well?’

A little time spent planning is worth it when you get better results. Ideally everything you write should have a purpose, a reason for being written in the first place. Of course you will want to generate traffic and attract the attention of new customers, but you need to ensure that you have something worthwhile to offer them when they come.

In this sense you are better off writing half a dozen free articles of excellent quality than you are writing a dozen, where the only thing you are really worried about is how many keywords you have put in them. Why not give real value and show people that you know what you’re talking about as well?

If you manage to do this you’ll enjoy far more visits to your website as a result.

Sean Rasmussen
Internet Marketing Blog
WealthCreationAffiliate.com © 2007 - 2008

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Do you ever get so wrapped up in your own business and online marketing efforts that you forget to look around you to see what’s going on elsewhere? It’s easily done, but it can harm your business if you don’t stay in touch with what everyone else is doing. That’s why it pays to stop and smell the roses once in a while.

Take time out from planning your next marketing campaign and have a look round the internet for a while. Let one click lead to another, one site lead to another and one source of information to yet another. You’ll learn from what you are reading and digesting; different ways of doing things might occur to you that are working for other people already.

The internet is never the same two days running

It’s great to stake out your own corner of cyberspace, but don’t ignore what everyone else’s little corner is like in the process. You might just be missing a trick somewhere.

Look out for what other people are recommending, whether it’s a product, a service or a way of doing something. It all goes towards building your knowledge and your experience of doing business online, and it can build your sales and visitors to a more healthy level as well.

You’ll also find you’ll be more aware of new developments in various different areas, and you can easily come across a new ezine that might be worth subscribing to. All the new knowledge you’re gaining will come in handy at some point, whether it’s to help you create a new product or website, or decide which affiliate scheme to sign up for.

So allocate some time to checking out what your competition is doing, and make notes of any good sites you come across. You’ll be surprised how much you can find out when you’re sitting back with a cup of coffee doing ‘nothing’.

Sean Rasmussen
Internet Marketing Blog
WealthCreationAffiliate.com © 2007 - 2008

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