Don’t believe what all the Guru’s tell you it’s not easy to make money online. Via my Blog and forum I get to chat to lots of people who all have one thing in common they want to make money online. Often this is to supplement a poorly paying full time job, to bring in some extra money to help out with bills or just so that can get away from a mundane 9-5 job. Unfortunately about 95% of these people won’t get to realise their dreams and be able to make a significant online income.
There are 5 basic mistakes that people make when they set out on an online career. The sad thing is that most of these can be easily avoided with a bit of planning and preparation. Let’s look at the mistakes and how you can avoid them.
1. Failing to Plan.
Working online is like any business you need a business plan. You also need to know your strengths and weaknesses. If you don’t feel you can write articles and you don’t have the funds to pay for a writer then you should avoid anything that needs a steady flow of unique content or articles. Find a source of income that will allow you to use your abilities. Don’t be afraid to treat the first 6 months of your online career as an apprenticeship and learn new skills which will help in the long term.
2. Believing the hype
Successful internet marketers make their money by persuading you that you need their products to be successful. You don’t. You just need to be prepared to work and often work hard. When I first started it took me less than 5 months to get my online earnings up to over $4000 per month. To earn that I spent less than $100. But I worked a lot of hours to get there.
3. You don’t control your spending
I lost count of the number of people I know who have spent thousands of dollars on tools and e-books and still have not made more than $100 online. If you spend $100 on tools then you need to make $101 before you make a profit. Start out by joining a forum and see what people are doing to make money. Test their methods and if they work and you make a profit then buy tools that will help speed up the process.
4. Lack of Focus
People seem intent on jumping from one method of earning money online to another without giving each method time to work. This week they’ll try adsense, next week affiliate marketing after that buying and selling domains. When I speak to people who do this they all say the same thing, Adsense doesn’t work anymore, article marketing doesn’t work anymore etc. It does, it‘s just that it doesn’t work overnight and you need to spend time learning how to do things properl.
5. You think you know all you need to know.
Technology and the internet are changing at an ever increasing pace. 18 months ago Blog and Ping was the best way to get your site indexed and ranking in the search engines then almost overnight social bookmarking and RSS feeds took over. You need to keep an eye on upcoming trends and ways of marketing. I’ve had well known marketers email me recently telling me that Hubpages or Twitter was the next big think in marketing…sorry guys I’ve been using them and writing about them for the last 9 months.
If you feel that you are making a few of these mistakes then take time out to look at what you are doing wrong and what you can do to change things. A few hours spend on analysing your plans or you current business now can result in a much larger income later on.
Mark, I’m one of those people who is constantly looking at “shiny objects”! The problem I have is I just can’t commit myself to a consistent course of action. I can’t seem to find a niche that I can get excited about enough to take that next step. So I’m stuck before I get started. Even if I had a niche I’m not sure anymore the direction I should take because it seems the focus now is not sales but creating a list and doing a lot of plr giveaways with the idea of creating potential future customers and then eventually turn them into customers. Unfortunately I have Internet Marketing ADD and cant seem to focus on a direction and proceed. Your advice is good(for me), it is just getting past the first step for me in finding a niche that I can be interested enough to really try to take off with it.
Try a niche that you have no interest in… then find a solution and promote that… maybe the separation will work for you
Hi Mark, Thanks for the article and the reply to Areaman.I am facing a similar situation. I desperately want to succeed in IM but although now I no longer believe hypes, I still am finding it difficult to find a niche that I feel will help me succeed in IM.I have even been subscribed to a site where there is so much material but i was so overwhelmed it didn’t work for me. A friend on that site suggested i subscribe to this forum. I am glad I did.
On findiing a niche I might find works for me, I am going to take your advice above.I have Micro Niche Finder and Market Samurai,I have been trying to find a niche that I have no interest in and then will try find a solution for it before I promote it. Wish me luck.
Thanks,
Iona.
What could I do if Unemployed and have save 5000 to start a business
Jazz,
put $4500 away and save it, $500 is more than enough to get started, in fact you can get started with less than $100. Find good keyword based domains, write content and get backliinks . Find something you like to do and offer that as a service to others…
Good luck
Hi Mark,
You said that when you started, it took you less than 5 months to make over $4000. a month. Do you think that is still possible? I know you can’t offer any guarantees on income. But, if I am willing and able to put in the necessary work, will I find the information within WPG to get me there. I really need step-by-step instructions.
Thanks,
Terry
Terry,
Everything you need is laid out in wpgoldmine, plus you have the help and support of the existing members who are an amazingly giving group of people. Yes it is possible to make $4000 within 5 or 6 months but it’s a lot of work and you need to get everything right from day one. It is possible but unlikely, I prefer to tell people to set achievable targets. target your first $100, then next month try to get there 3 or 4 days quicker. Only this week one of our members who was earning $200 a month a year ago had a $200 day, he did it through testing and hard work.
It doesn’t matter if you have 5 hours a day or 1 hour a day you just need to make sure you work everyday. Thats the secret.
I really, really have a difficult time staying on one thing long enough to produce anything other than personal blogs. I have several of those. They have either adsense or a commission junction product on them but they are not producing income.Also I am not driving traffic properly. These were not set up to really be money sites but rather practicing and learning (for me)sites. They don’t follow the keyword rules well. On he other hand, I have a video creation mastery affiliate site that keeps getting hits and there is nothing there but a domain name…go figure
I am rambling but my main problem is time management. I have a disabled husband and a disabled dog who require assistance from me it seems every 5 minutes. Can’t sit down long enough to focus. I really think that I should leave these sites alone and work on building up a niche site properly until it is produced. If you can make any sense out of this I would appreciate some guidance.
Glenda,
I would say pick one nice and that you’ve done proper keyword research on and start by focussing on that one. As you are short of time then aim to maybe create 1 article a day or get 5 back links every day. Just work on getting that 1 site earning. You’ll find that way you’ll be making best use of the time you have and not diluting it between different projects
I think the key is not to give up the day job until you are successful at IM. My sister- inlaw has no college degree, neither does my brother- inlay. They put all of their energies into couponing, day trading, accepting and asking for handouts from friends and family members, who have put in the hard work in college, careers, etc., while not even trying to further their educations or skills. Oh, and they have 4 kids. Can we say dreamer is just another term for lazy?