There is a great post over on Alice Seba’s blog about Information product  pitfalls. I found Alice’s post through the Blogrush network so this network is paying off for me in more ways than one. While Alice’s blog is mostly selling to me( what else would you expect from an Internet Marketing blog, well except this one as I very rarely try to sell here), there are some good gems of information. One is this post. I’ve seen so many marketers or wanta be marketers perform these same mistakes. So many people get into marketing expecting to make  a lot of money overnight. This rarely happens. I have a theory on why most people cannot make a decent living online and that is attitude and failure to plan. This is exactly what Alice is talking about in her post. You need a plan. Its also very easy to get caught up in the hype that is out there on the web.  I never purchase internet marketing eBooks anymore. It’s a waste of money and the truth is the people who make their money selling you books on how to make money, do not want you to succeed. If everyone who read a book made a lot of money with the techniques, then who would buy the next ebook next month. Save your money, I’m going to tell you that chances are you already have all the necessary skills to make money on the internet. Since Alice gave three areas for selling an internet marketing product and the pitfalls to avoid, I’m going to give you three areas for succeeding with any web  venture.

1. You need a domain name and website. You should already have one or two or ten of those. But you need a website that people want to visit. You either need to offer some great content or a feature that people are just dying to interact with. Take a look at sites such as MySpace or Digg. Why are these sites so popular? They give their users something to do. Provide something for your visitors and they will provide you with something in return. If you monetize a site correctly then that will be money.
2. You need content. I’m sure you have heard that content is king. It always has been and always will be. You need content and lots of it. Once you have the content, then you need traffic. This is the secret to internet marketing and the only thing that really counts. You need content that people want to read or more importantly interact with. If you need to spend money on something that is not hosting, then spend it on content. Content is the most time consuming item you need for a successful website. You either need to write it your self, get your visitors to write it for you, or buy it. If you buy content in the form of PLR articles, then don’t be lazy take the time to rewrite it. While you need content, what I really should say is you need unique content. If you can’t take the time to rewrite PLR articles then hire someone to write your content for you. This all takes money. Writing it yourself is cheaper but it takes a lot of time.
3. Traffic – The final thing you need to be successful is traffic to your site. A lot of people say this is the hardest thing to get as you can’t control placement in the search engines. This is true in a sense, but you can do some things to help. The first and most important is to follow step two and have your unique content in place. If you have the right content then traffic will come. You won’t be able to stop it.

Failure to follow these steps will result in failure. Marketing on the internet is not for lazy people. If you don’t want to do the work, don’t expect to gain the benefits. But if you do want to work then you can’t help but to be successful. Develop your plan and then stick to it. Don’t let the fancy marketing tactics and copy side track you from achieving your goals.  

[tags]myspace, digg, seo, traffic generation, marketing, plr articles[/tags]