Internet marketing, or any marketing for that matter, is about building trust and relationships. If people trust that you know what you are talking about in any given niche, they are more willing to buy from you when they want or need what it is you are selling. This is where so many beginning Internet marketers fail; they rush in with the hard sale and give up in frustration when their business doesn’t take off overnight. For the serious entrepreneur, though, a business is something that has to be built from the ground up and this takes time, even in the Internet age.
This is just another reason that it is so important that you choose your niche wisely in the first place. That doesn’t mean that you have to be an expert from day one, but if you choose a marketing niche that you have some interest in or knowledge about to begin with, that expertise will come. Make no mistake, your expertise, or lack of it will show through. By the same token, if you market affiliate products, take care about which products you promote or it could cost you your reputation – and future sales. While there are thousands and thousands of affiliate products to promote and sell, choosing inferior products that have no real value will not brand you as an expert at anything nor will it build trust in your prospective customers. A good rule of thumb to follow when choosing affiliate products to promote is to think about whether you would buy the product yourself or at least ask yourself if you see any real value in the product. While you may not buy it because you don’t need it at the moment, if you can see the value I the product, chances are your customers will be able to also.
Pay attention to the questions others ask in forums and message boards. Answer those questions and concerns whenever you can and you will be seen as an expert after a while. If you’re viewed as a helper rather than a slick marketer, it will go a long way toward establishing your credibility and you will be viewed as already being successful instead of as someone who is just trying to get the sale. You may offer advice or assistance many times over before you actually make the sale but you will be the first one in the minds of those you have bothered to assist when they are ready to buy.
One of the best ways you can build your Internet marketing empire is to plan for the long haul with well laid out plans. Build trust and relationships and you will build your business!
Now there will be times when you will likely pay others to do either what you can’t do yourself or what you don’t want to do or don’t have time to do and that’s ok but a little discernment is in order here.
What Will You Outsource?
Give some serious thought to the tasks that you outsource. That’s because you can pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for things you can do yourself and probably even better than the company or person you are paying. For example, at one time, SEO companies were all the rage. For a hefty fee, they would optimize your site for the search engines. While there are still plenty of SEO companies around, you can do this yourself and save your outsourcing budget for actual content like articles or graphic design work.
The truth is that if you build a site that offers value to your visitors and customers, then you’ve already built a site that the search engines will like. While not a day goes by that I don’t click on some keyword stuffed site that ranks high in Google for what I am searching for at that particular moment, I know that site won’t be there for long. In fact, it could be banned altogether, which is something you don’t want to happen. Still, you don’t need to pay someone to make your site search engine friendly. If you add relevant and useful content that is built around your keywords and keyword phrases, your site will be indexed in the search engines. When you add a few more promotional techniques, your site will climb even higher in the search engines. Anyone can make a site SEO friendly. If you’re not sure how to go about that, type SEO into Google or another major search engine and you’ll be presented with enough articles and tutorials to teach you how to be an SEO expert.
Pay for Services NOT Information
Unless you need some especially exclusive information, don’t pay for information related to being an Internet marketer or affiliate marketer. Also, don’t pay for someone else to promote your sites unless you have far more money than you have time. You can promote your sites for free in many ways and when your budget allows, there are ways to promote your site that will cost you. If you’re just starting out as an Internet marketer, the web is full of useful information about how to go about it. Don’t get bogged down buying useless ebooks or courses that will teach you how to be one. Use your Internet marketing budget instead to pay to have articles written or other content, such as videos, generated. Then you can use this content to promote your sites for free and you will own the content and be able to use it over and over again. On the other hand, if you pay someone to do something for you, such as provide a service that you can do yourself, you have essentially bought yourself some time. If you can afford to do that, that’s great. If not, save your Internet marketing budget for other things.