No Pressure then!

So what are you going to do this week? just do what you do every week or change it up a gear and make decisions that are laser targeted and will help advance your earning potential.

It was this time last year that I sat down and had a long hard look at my online business and decided to focus on a few areas. Those areas were the ones that earned me money, not potential money earners but actual money earners. Anything with potential or limited addiional income potential was relegated to secondary importance.

Next I did some simple maths and worked out my monthly expenses on a monthly , weekly and daily basis. This was the bare minimum I needed to earn. I then added 50% onto all of those figures.

So if my daily living expenses are $200 I added $100 to make my daily target $300. It doesn’t matter if you have no intention of being a full time marketer and making money online is just a way to earn a few extra dollars a day. Having a target helps you focus.

So for the sake of this exercise lets take $2500 as an avarage cost of living and when we divide it down and add 50% we get a figure of around $125 a day so we need to make $125 every day on average to meet our target. obviously everyones target will be different.

To reach this figure you should look at what is actually making you money, everything else can wait until you hit that target.

So the next bit is down to you what is actually making you money? For example suppose I have 2 blogs one earns $3 a day with adsense and the other sells 3 clickbank products a week that earn me $25 commission a time. Which of those two am I going to spend time promoting and generating traffic to? Obviously the one that is selling the clickbank products because If I can double the traffic to it I’ll have the opportunity to make almost $25 a day from that one blog.

If I have a 3 page blog that is earning $5 a day with 20 visitors and a 20 page blog earning $10 a day with 200 visitors I am going to be finding related keywords and phrases and trying to double, then treble the traffic to the 3 page blog (while adding new pages to it)

Now lets get a bit more complicated…

Suppose I have a network of 30 blogs that earn $100 a day and a product that sells for $67 on clickbank ($30 after affiliate commission). Which would I work on?

For me the answer would be clickbank product, why because generating a network of affiliates and also a list of people who are buyers has far more potential in the long run than churning out content day after day and trying to keep up to date with google’s ever changing algo. Spending 10 hours a week sending out emails to potential JV partners and Affiliates will have a much bigger effect on my income that spending 10 hours writing articles.

Last year the answer for me was that creating products was the most effective use of my time. Spending a week building a blog might create a site that earned me $10 a day or $300 a month. A week spent creating a product could create a product that would sell 400-500 products at the launch and then a residual income every month after that from ongoing sales. (no Million dollar launches for me unless I decide to charge $2000 instead of $27 to $67 )

I’ve documentated the whole process I use in Beyond Commission

This exercise isn’t going to be very effective if you are just starting out and don’t have much income. For you guys I still strongly recommend building a network of wordpress blogs, as you learn so much about internet marketing doing it. It’s not just about the money, you learn about driving traffic, seo, layout, ad positioning. You get technical skills and most important you learn what makes people buy.

If you are just starting out bookmark this post and come back in 6 months, then do the exercises.

To summerise this.

1. Work out how much you need/want to earn

2. Focus on what is making you you money, nothing else until you hit your target.

Would you be happy to pay 1 cent a word for a great quality native English speaker to write your content? Our members are!

Would you be happy to pay $5 for someone to build your site for you?

How about a Voice over or a salespage these are all offers that out members have access to within the forum.

Add that to the helpful members who are happy to share their successes and failures… you won’t believe what Paul did last week! and you have an Internet Marketing forum that I am convinced give the best value available.

Why not check out what we have to Offer you’ really won’t regret it.

Special Offer $1 Trial

Join through Clickbank

Oh and members get 50% affiliate commission so 2 sales and you’ve covered your $19.97 costs

I then went into the wordpress goldmine forum and checked the days posts.. The first I read was from one of our long term members and revealed how she had just had her first $100 day. The second was from a newer member who had made her $100 for the month target 2 days earlier this month than last month. Funny how my foul mood soon disapeared.

So what do these 2 members have in common, well apart from being women they both work at their businesses almost everyday. They set themselves a plan and targets and stick to them. They know that internet marketing is not a get rich quick business model, but they also know that the more you work at it the more money you earn.

What can you learn from them?…everything! You can read my book and watch my videos and you’ll know how to make money online but it’s members like these two and hundreds more that will keep you motivated and focussed on a daily basis.

You learn from them and the other successful members that if you focus and set realistic targets then you will achieve success. The simplest way is one we use a target we regularly in the forum, to try to earn $100 1 day earlier every month. If you stick to that simple target you’ll be suprised at how quickly the date comes down and before long you’ll be adjusting your target to $1000.

So congratulations to Heather and Rachel and also a special congratulations to Niurka who had a baby last week…and posted in the foum from the hospital (I did mention the members were dedicated didn’t I!). We have a few more forum babies due this month or next so it looks like we’ll be installing a creche.

As you can probably see from this post the WordPress goldmine forum is like a big family, we support and encourage each other. If you think this is the type of environment in which you’ll be able to build your online business then why not give us a try, you can still get in on a $1 trial.

Finally if you want to read a great blog with good common sense and no hype check out Heathers blog at http://myworkathomeblog.net/

If you really want to get to $100 a day and you are prepared to work and have realistic targets come and pay us a visit, I guarantee you a warm welcome and as much help and advice as you’ll need.

Firstly I have to admit that there aren’t just 7 rules of Internet marketing, Internet marketing is relatively new and as such you should discard all the rules and find what works for you. When I say discard the rules obviously stay within the law! So this is 7 guidelines that will help you succeed at Internet marketing but that title sucked!

Many of these guidelines are closely linked, for example building a business and controlling costs could be included in the same guideline but wheres the fun in that, this article would end up being a business manual with more content than an MBA.
If you are bored already and would like the next 450 words condensed into 1 word it is… Commonsense  (or is that actually 2 words?)

Right assuming you are still reading this let’s get started with rule 1.

1. Build a Business

Internet marketing shouldn’t be a hobby or a pastime it should be treated as a business. That means having a business plan and a long term objective. Build income streams, adsense, Amazon and eBay are great but you can’t build a stable business on them.

2. Focus on the task in hand.

Set aside a time for work and stick with it. Turn off all distractions such as e-mail, messaging software and twitter and concentrate on what you are working on. I find I can build a site in about 2 hours with no distractions or 2 days if I don’t focus on it.

3. Control Your Spending

Every cent you spend on new tools and software is a cent more you need to earn before you are in profit. Before you buy the latest product being promoted ask yourself do you really need it and how much extra will you need to earn to cover the cost.

4. Know your topic.

I’ve known internet marketers who bring out products on PPC one week, fish care the next and then a few weeks later launch a new product on selling via eBay. It’s obvious that they can’t be experts in all these areas so why would anyone want to buy the products. Learn everything you can about your niche and become an expert.

5.  Residual Income is the key.

One of the keys to being a successful Internet marketer is to generate residual income. Knowing that you are going to be having a regular income coming in from various sites or affiliate programs each month frees you up to try more speculative and potentially more financially rewarding ventures.

6. Provide Value.

No matter what you do try to provide value to your clients and customers if you produce an eBook don’t release a version 2 after 6 months update the current version and send it to all you existing customers. The more value you provide them the more they’ll be inclined to buy from you later on.

7. Be a Leader not a Follower

Don’t just follow the herd seek out the untapped markets and design your own unique products. Aim to have people copying what you are doing after all imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Keeping only a few of those rules in mind when you are working in the internet marketing field should help you to become more successful.

I’ve been recommending Micro Niche Finder to my members and subscribers for several years now. yesterday there was an update that makes it a complete and total no brainer. If you want to make money online micro Niche Finder will now make the job so much easier. In the video below it takes me less than 10 minutes to find a Niche i can rank at #1 for with very little work.

The key things you need to make money quickly are:

A niche with searches and very little competition.

A keyword based domain name

An indication of how much work you need to do to rank well.

MNF now delivers this with a few clicks of a button. Watch the video below where I find a good niche in a few minutes.

Once you find your niche there are several things you can do , expand it into a site with 5 to 10 related pages and work on getting all of them ranking well or why not try the simple and easy option. Create Micro Micro niches.

Micro Micro Niches are small sites that start out with just 1 or 2 pages. You create them then leverage your content until you rank #1 in google. You can then either leave them or add to them using the keywords that have been used to find your site. They are quick and simple sites that are designed to make you money , base them on the keyword phrase you are targetting and use good on page seo and they will rank well in a short time.

If you’d like to know how to leverage your content then grab my free report from this post Article Leverage Report

If you have ever used Google Chrome you’ll know that it is fast and stable, exactly what we want from a browser. I predict that the OS will be the same. This is also not a bad thing to do with your sites.

Look at your sites and review exactly what do you need to make money..If it’s essential use it if not get rid of it. Your site should be “lean and mean”. I constantly try to refine my sites removing items that are surplus to requirements this is why you’ll rarely see sign up boxes, or rss feeds displaying news etc.

What I consider essential is good unique content, affiliate links , and product reviews. One benefit of removing non essential items is that the sites will load quicker ensuring more visitors get to see them.

Find it Hard To Concentrate on Your Sites?

I have yet to meet anyone who hasn’t had times when the last thing they want to do is to work on their sites it happens to me quite often and I need to force myself to focus on the job I need to do. I’ve written many times in the past about creating a working environment that is conducive to working effectively without interruptions. If you would like some more helpful advice please feel free to download the book I wrote a while ago on the Focussed Achievemnet Called “I Can ” there is no sign up required or no up sell… enjoy

http://mjthompson.net/giveaway/I_Can.pdf

One of the best ways to stay focused and productive is to surround yourself with people who are actually making things happen. One such place is to join forums where people are helpful and positive (avoid the ones where people are negative and have nothing positive to say, they can sap your will to live!!)

Finally today a big shout out to two guys who are active members of the WordPress Goldmine Forum (A very very positive forum!!). These guys have taken action and are actually building themselves long-term businesses.

First up we have Jeff who followed the Product creation course we created a few months back and has released his first product on clickbank, this is in a great niche so please consider promoting it. You can check out his great work at http://www.learnguitarquick.com/

Also a big shout out for Marl who has set up an excellent social bookmarking service, which starts at $5 superb value!! you can read more at. http://wraptnotes.com/sitepromotion/

That’s it…. stay Focused!