On paper Internet marketing/blogging is one of the most attractive careers out there: you work for yourself, have unlimited income potential, and are free of all the shackles of traditional employment. At least that is how a novice views this industry, when the reality is that this form of making a living is as if not more challenging than anything out there, provides equal if not more amounts of stress, and demands more from you than any job ever could.
Be Prepared for Disaster…
Anyone working online can attest to the fact that there is absolutely no doubt that you’ll have one of these, world is ending days. You wake up and anyone of a hundred things has gone wrong…Your server is down, your steady commissions are now at zero, your site’s no longer ranking, visitor traffic is at zero, your site is now considered harmful and red flagged, Google unleashed a new zoo animal update, etc.
This is a reality that you will face and the best way to deal with it is to be prepared. The first thing you have to do is take a deep breath and allow yourself to freak out for all of 5 minutes, and then get to work.
Start by isolating the problem based on your recent activity, figure out if the root of the problem can be attributed to something you did. This is crucial because many times undoing your last update/action/change can fix the issues.
If you can confidently determine that the disasters is not of your own doing then repeat the process of isolating the issues from a 3rd party perspective. By remaining calm and diligently working through scenarios and possible causes you will eventually get to the culprit and begin working on a solution, the worst thing you can do is freak out and start deleting things or making drastic changes out of panic.
Choose the Right Partnerships…
The reality is that unless you have your own product you can’t make money online without partnering with advertisers or affiliate networks.
If you get your blog to a high enough level of traffic where you’re able to generate good money from affiliate offers, brace yourself for what’s to come. Your affiliate manager will become your best friend, as long as your traffic is flowing, it’ll be as if they’re working for you. Custom landing pages, first dibs on new products, new creative’s, whatever you want.
The part about choosing trustworthy partners comes into play the minute you decide you no longer want to play ball. If you’re not working with good people your BFF affiliate manager can turn on you in an instant once you’ve turned off your traffic tap.
If you’ve actually been sending them a considerable amount of traffic/sales, they’ll begin the process of reverse engineering your success and within months you may be facing a new competitor in your niche.
Now this is a worst case scenario but understand that this industry is full of young, smart, ambitious individuals who haven’t exactly majored in business ethics. Bottom-line, partner with companies that are in line with your core values and with people that you can see having a long term relationship with.
Learn to let go
When you take a fledgling site and raise it to a level of commercial success it can be very hard to let go. This is your baby and you know the ins and outs of your site on an intimate level which can make outsourcing tasks, from everyday minutia to bigger projects, a difficult proposition.
The sooner you learn to let go the better off you will be. Understand that you can’t expect to grow a site, let alone a business with yourself handing every detail. At some point you will reach a level of diminishing returns for your work, and it will be financially viable for you to relinquish control of the smaller things in exchange for big picture tasks.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Internet business tips, this list can go on forever but hopefully this will give you a better understanding of what lies ahead as an online entrepreneur.
Steve Albright is the editor of www.Reviewopedia.com, a product review site that provides a platform for shoppers to research and review online products/services.
