The first mistake most people make before starting an internet marketing business is spending weeks or months online watching 'how to' videos and reading articles about everything to do with internet marketing. When someone is starting out all they should be looking for is what they need to do to get started. The more you read and learn before you start the more overwhelmed you're going to be and the more likely you will never actually get started or if you do the easier it will be to give up.
All you need to do is find out what you need to do to start a successful internet business, preferably from someone who already has a successful internet business, and find out what you need to do first and do it. That's it. Don't worry about adwords, soloads, analytics, traffic, etc. until you have the first things done and ready, there is always something else to learn and you will undoubtedly find contradictory information on the net too, which means you may never get started as everywhere you look there are different opinions.
2. Not Setting Clear Goals / Targets
It's a process to getting an internet business up and running, don't be thinking about growing your list when you haven't even got a website, squeeze page or an autoresponder set up.
Set daily goals for when you can work on your business and try to achieve those one at a time. Even if the daily goal is something small like deciding your domain name, or what affiliate product you want to promote, you can feel happy that you hit it and you have moved your business on even a baby step meaning you are that little bit closer to your goal.
Remind yourself of what you are looking to achieve and don't let yourself get distracted watching videos, reading articles etc. online as often you will be looking at things not related to what you need to do next.
If you need to create a squeeze page, you should only be looking to find out how to make a squeeze page and examples of good squeeze pages and bad ones. That's it! When you have your squeeze page done, then look at the next thing you need to do.
Be methodical and organised and get things done one at a time. You'll be surprised how quickly you start getting closer to having your online business up and running.
3. Expecting To Get Everything Free
A lot of people go online and want to make money when they hear you can make a free website on such sites as wix they expect everything to be free. Free hosting, free autoresponder, free advertising, a free logo, basically they want to have everything they need but don't want to pay for anything.
By all means don't just buy the first thing you see, do some research into a product before you buy it, but if you will need a website so do your research and get one, you will need an autoresponder, do your research and get one, etc.
You will need a domain name, autoresponder, website design software, e-cover maker (or someone to make you one) and in most instances, to start building your list quickly, traffic. Some of those you can get for free but in general you get what you pay for. So a little extra money now can save you a lot or make you a lot more money down the line.
There are costs to starting up any business and an starting up internet marketing business is no different.
4. Trying To Do Everything Yourself
This is a very common mistake people make when starting their internet marketing business. Most people want to get everything up and running as cheaply as possible so they want to do everything themselves, that means learning how to do everything! Creating squeeze pages, websites, images for those pages, links, setting up auto-responders, creating sales letters, creating logos, articles, videos etc.
Don't get me wrong, it's good to know how to do those things, but if you don't have any clue how to do something, it is often best to get someone who can do it quickly and easily and much better than you can, to do it for you. As Australian internet marketer Brett McFall says, 'Be the general of the army and not the soldier in the trenches.' Does Richard Branson know how to drive trains or fly a jumbo jet? Of course not!
The most important thing when starting a business is to get things done and move to the next stage, so if you don't know how to do something you can either spend hours 'researching' how to do it, spend many hours or days trying to do it, often not getting anywhere, or get someone to do it for you, or at least show you how to do it.
One of the biggest frustrations I had when I started was getting stuck for hours or days on something I didn't know how to do. When I eventually figured out how to do it, it only took seconds or minutes to do. Meaning I'd wasted hours if not days on that one small thing. Which leads me to my next point.
5. Not Getting A Mentor
If you are brand new to internet marketing, or indeed any business, there is a good chance that there are a lot of things you don't know and need to learn. Would you try to become a hotel manager without having studied hotel management? Would you try to become a lawyer without having studied law? Of course not, but a lot of people think they can start an internet marketing business without even learning the basics.
There is a lot of information out there about internet marketing on the internet, but if you don't know enough about it, how will you be able to tell the difference between good information and bad?
When you start in any field you almost always have someone that will train you and help you learn how to do it. Companies that don't have good training facilities either hire staff who don’t really know what they’re doing and struggle as a result or they pay higher amounts to poach staff from their rivals who do train their staff well.
If you have been struggling for months, especially if you haven't made any sales as yet, you are the sort of person I'm talking about. Get a mentor, until you know enough about everything you need to get you up and running, it is often the best investment you will make in your internet marketing business and you can get some good advise for a very reasonable amount. Usually the more you pay the closer to one-on-one attention you will get. Get as good a mentor package as you can afford, it will pay for itself in a matter of months and is often the difference between sticking at it and quitting.
6. Buying Products and Not Using Them
Most people will spend some time online and start seeing the same names and faces popping up or being mentioned and then go and Google them. They then find a book for $18 on amazon or at the airport and buy it.
They read the first 2 chapters, don't make notes or actually do any of the tasks set, put it down and don't read it for a couple of weeks and then forget about it. They go online a couple of weeks later, see a video from another 'guru' and then buy their book and do the exact same thing.
Most people see and hear people who are making good money and in some cases ridiculous money online and they see their videos or go to a free seminar and like what they hear, it sounds really easy, I could do that!
What you should do is buy 1 or 2 books or products max! Read one at a time and complete it as quickly as possible, if you get to the end and you liked what you read, go back to the start and do everything it says. If you start reading a book and doing what it says, but then you find most of it doesn't apply to you, you may have wasted days, weeks or even months on it.
For example, if you buy a book about making money online but then you find it's geared towards you having your own product, which you don't have, then there will be better books elsewhere to get started with, maybe one about affiliate marketing for example.
If you get a product, read it, absorb it, use it to its full extent and if it works great, if it doesn't then move on. Don't say a products doesn't work without utilising it properly and fully. There's no such thing as a 'magic pill' product out there.
7. Being a Perfectionist
Finally, the mistake a lot of people make is to want everything 'perfect' before releasing or publishing it. It is understandable that you want everything to be as good as possible, but wanting everything perfect before publishing or putting it live slows everything down and means you getting an income is further and further away.
Get something done, even if it's basic, like a website or squeeze page, get it live so it can start getting customers and therefore income. You can edit it and improve it later if need be. Perfect as you go not go after you perfect.
The worst website in the world that is live is still going to attract more customers than the best one that isn't live!
If you take an extra week to get your website live because you were perfecting it, that could mean that someone who would have signed up to your list signs up to someone else's and spends £100 with them to start, a month later £1000 with them on the same affiliate product you were going to promote, then $3497 on another 6 months later. so that 1 week delay could have cost you $4,597 from 1 customer! Ouch! The cost of delaying for a week can be costly, what could the cost be of spending several weeks and even months perfecting things?! It doesn't bear thinking about.
Gerry McGivney
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