This post is in some ways a reply to a fantastic post that was on Gary Simpson´s blog.  His Friend Linda Carroll made an amazing mp3 recording after she had heard that one of our fellow students had decided to leave the coaching course to pursue a different a different path. The one thing above all else that this coaching course with Alex Jeffrey`s has taught me is the ability to focus my attention on the job in hand.

For too long I had wandered from one idea to next, never realizing at the time that I was breaking the cardinal rule of starting an online business, or come to that any form of business, and that was to remain focused.  The rest of this post is basically an overview of what I think are the most important factors of maintaining a strong presence on the web.

YOUR EXPECTATIONS

We are all prone to believe everything we read about huge successes and all the talk of huge amounts of money being made online.  It’s only natural that we should want to do the same.

Unfortunately, we are not all going to have the same level of success in our online businesses.  Some are going to make it big, others are not.

I believe though, that a substantial amount of people will be able to earn themselves a very good income from an online business – but not overnight!

What you need to make it in this area of business is patience and perseverance.  You have to realize that like all businesses it will take time to be established and to show some monetary return.

If you go into it believing all the ‘pie in the sky’ hype then you are due to be very disappointed with your results.

You will have your ups and your downs, but what you have to remember is that you must not let your first, or even your second hurdles put you off.   You must get up and try again.

KEEPING ON TOP OF YOUR SITE

If you have been led to believe that all you need to do is to get your site up and running then you just sit back and watch the money roll in – think again!!

Your commonsense must click in at some point and make you realize that this just isn’t feasible.

You must choose your topic carefully.  I know that mini niches do work, but don’t aim at such a small niche that you won’t get anybody coming looking for what you are offering.  If it is too obscure then you would be just wasting your time.

You can find out just what people are looking for.  Google and the other search engines give you that capability of finding out just what people want to know.

There are some categories which are huge, and you really would struggle to survive if you picked them, but if you pick a topic which doesn’t have too many other people writing about , but you know people are definitely looking for, then you would be going in the right direction.

Change and new interest is where you have to be looking.  If people visit your site and like what they see, enough to make them come back, imagine what they are going to think if there is still the same stuff there.

Nothing new!  What would you do?  You wouldn’t bother coming back, would you?  Neither would I.

Remember, people just adore information, I would hazard a guess that what most people seek from the internet, is information of some sort or another.

If you don’t provide it then someone else will.  You are one of millions of sites, you have to work to make yours constantly change and be able to keep your visitor’s interest.

I wouldn’t go so far as to think that you will come up with something which would make yours No.1 out of all those millions, but that is not strictly necessary to gain visitors, however, it must be fresh and informative.

GIVING GOOD VALUE

What is good value you might ask?  Well, you have to be seen to be considering your customers wants and needs.

If you have a specific topic for your site, be it website or blog, then you have to constantly update it.  This takes work, you need to be constantly researching, doing what I call ‘your homework’.

With so many people using the internet these days they have become so much more discerning.  I know I talked in the beginning about believing all the hype about being able to become dot.com millionaires, but this is different.

Your visitors have been exposed to so much information every time they come onto the net that they have, in a way, become blasé.  They have great expectations about what they are due in the way of information.

So, you must make sure that you don’t give them anything which is untrue or questionable.  They will see right through you and you will lose them.

When you are searching for information yourself in order to post it on your site, try to find reputable sites to garner this information so that you can be sure it’s not pure supposition, but the truth.

Under the banner of value, also comes what you are offering in the nature of giveaways.

Apart from information, the one thing you can be sure will attract your visit is ‘something for nothing’.  Nobody is immune to a freebie, as long as it comes within their area of interest and is complementary to your site topic.

You wouldn’t offer an e-book on wine making if your topic of interest was politics for instance.   Do you see where I am going with this?

ORIGINALITY

There will be many who won’t bother to look beyond what is the hot topic of the moment.  They will simply jump on that particular bandwagon and hope for the best.

This will attract visitors, I have no doubt, but whether they come back again is another story.   Remember that there will be a huge number of other people doing just what you are doing – cashing in on the No.1 topic of the day.  You may just disappear into the crowd, so to speak.

Also, fads are just that – fads.  They come and go almost with the speed of light.  You can never tell just how long people will remain interested in them.  If your site is based around one of these fads then you could have a very short shelf life.

GOOD SOLID INFORMATION

One of the major points you need to take on board is never to try to write about something you do not understand.  This would be fatal because anyone who knows the topic would immediately realize that you didn’t know fully what you were talking about.

Nobody wants to be made to look like a fool, so to avoid this, choose a topic you know something about.  You need to appear knowledgeable.

If you are not as knowledgeable as you would like about your chosen topic then again – ‘do your homework’.  There is all the information you could ever want somewhere on the net.

Basically by running your site devoted to a certain topic, you are saving the reader’s time by doing the research for him.  He could just as easily trawl the net and find the information himself, which you will be serving up, but if he can be saved the trouble and time by finding it all in one place, why would he bother?

So you can see, you must make your information reputable so that you can be sure these visitors will come back to you over and over.  You must have them come back.

You absolutely must work at getting that trust in your information and get people to know you for someone who cares about his topic.

If you just serve up rubbish then you may as well shut up shop, people have too many other sites to choose from than to waste their time visiting yours only to be served up rehashed garbage.

TECHNICAL PROBLEMS

Make sure that your hosting service does not carry more than 10 other sites because this can make your service slow, especially at busy times.

These problems are quite common but nonetheless annoying for your readers if they have to wait too long for pages to be loaded.

They may be tempted to leave and go elsewhere – not what you want at all.

Be sure your site is ‘user friendly’, don’t make things too complicated.  It has to be easy to navigate and get around, there are tools to enable you to make sure that this is how it is set up.

Also, you may think that any number of adverts and banners make it look attractive, but it just may end up as confusing to the visitor.  This would be a definite negative effect, one which you would do well to avoid.

Make sure your internet connection does not suffer problems either. You could just be in the middle of making a sale and be interrupted, this would not be good for you or your potential customer.

WEEK END TRAFFIC

The success of your site is totally dependant on the number of people who come to visit and look.  Weekdays are usually not a problem, but when it comes to the week-end, a lot of folk are visiting different sites from during the week, or they are out with the family, taking a day away, going to park etc. etc.  You just don’t get the volume of traffic at the week-ends.

However, there is a hard core of internet nuts who will spend time there whatever the day and if you are able to determine which sites are visited day after day 24/7 you could get those site owners to put one of your articles on their sites with a backlink and this would probably help you to tempt people to visit your site and to get over the week-end slump.

You can view it another way, you could think of something which would entice visitors to come to your site, week-end or not.  If you give them something to look forward to.   Something which you are going to be showing only at the week-end, a product, a freebie, whatever.

I realize it sounds like there are nothing but problems to face when starting an online business.  Naturally there are problems, but there are solutions also.

You can do it, others have so why not you?  As I said before, patience and perseverance are what is needed. If you have a problem, face it, solve it and get back up.

This is a bit of a strange post, my own personality disasters. It is in response to a list that Gary Simpson posted on his own blog where he listed his own foibles
and hangups. I think this will be quite a liberating experience to  lay myself bare on “digital paper” for all to critique. As the accepted fact  goes  “you never
view yourself the way others do”

1, Being born under the astrological sign of Virgo I am rather prone to displaying strange compulsive behaviour, for example crooked pictures have to be straightened
to the millimetre.

I can also sit down in my lounge watching tv and subconsiously align the various remote controls I have beside me in order of most frequently used.Maybe I´m kidding myself with the Virgo tag, I think it could be a slight case of OCD.

2, I hate with an absolute passion any form of racism. Now this is a real biggy for me. As a few of you know I live on the island of Mallorca, and this place is a  real melting pot of different cultures and nationalities.  I have been away from England now for seven years and the place I lived was quite rural and Anglo Saxon through and through.

The thing I love about this place is that I have such a diverse range of friends ranging from Czechs, Chileans, Argentinians, Somalians,Germans, Dutch and obviously Spanish, and as is the case with any culture, you find good and bad.  What I despise is the way certain sections of society  allow themselves to view other cultures than their own with mistrust purely because of a lack of personal interaction.

3. Inanimate Objects whose only reason for manufacture is to p**s me off !!

4. Those days when my senses are heightened, usually my hearing to the point that I can hear a fly farting and it will aggravate the Hell out of me.

5. Being late.  Now this just tips me clean over the edge.  I would far rather be an hour early for anything than a minute late.  The strange thing is though, it doesn´t bother me in the slightest if other people are late turning up to meet me.

6. The way all Microsoft products inform me that I have spelt something wrong when I am, of course, writing in English, not Amglish!

7. I hate with a passion insincerity just for the sake of being nice.  It is just so transparent.  If ever I say something nice, it is because I mean it.

8. Bad manners.  Don´t get me started on this one.  My hands tremble just writing that.  There is absolutely excuse for bad manners.  Call me old fashioned, but a please and a thankyou are words that are so underused in this day and age.

9. One of my big failings when speaking is that I tend not to articulate myself as well as I could, or should. What I mean is, I mumble.

10. I am a bit of a grouch when I first wake up, I have been reliably informed by family to this one, sod em I say =O)

11. Physical Traits.  Left leg slightly shorter than the right leg and if I walked in a straight line for long enough, I would complete a full 360 degrees.
and whilst we are on the subject of left legs, I didn´t realise and it wasn´t until my ex-wife pointed out one day, that my toes on my left foot don´t actually
touch the floor.  This can lead to some rather bizarre footprints!!

12. Not a very good forgiver.

13. Shy – As I mentioned on Garry Parke´s blog, upon first meeting people I can be a little bit shy, but, once you get to know me you have to take the batteries out to shut me up!!

14. Loyal to my friends and family as the day is long.

15. A bit of a ´dead eye dick´with a shotgun.  I have won a few competitions in my time.

16. Good water skiier.

17. Fearless at sea, probably stems from the number of my ancestors who were sailors.  My Great Uncle was awarded the DSM, for gallantry whilst clearing underwater ordnance during the D.Day landings.

18. My Mum is fanatical about Family History-Genealogy and has spent the last 25 years, on and off, studying our own lineage.  She discovered that my 2xGt.
Grandmother´s cousin Florence Ann Lemon Balcombe married Bram Stoker of Dracula fame and broke the heart of Oscar Wilde who had courted her for two years
previously.We have a copy of a picture of Florence drawn by Oscar, also the copy of a letter he wrote to her on hearing she had married Bram, asking for the
return of a locket that he had given her. Obviously this was all pre coming out of the closet in his pink feather boa !!  Also the singer Joss Stone, really named Joscelyn Eve Stoker is descended from Bram also, so she is on our family tree. I feel a bit of a poor relation, but it is interesting to know all these facts.

19. I am a confirmed gadget freak of the first order. If ever finances allow, I would spend a ridiculous amount on gadge.

20. An outdoors nut.  when I was in England I just loved to take off to Snowdonia and the Lake District and push myself to the limits climbing. Living on Mallorca is climbing Nirvirna as we have 7 peaks above 3000ft all on an island that measures 60km wide by 40km deep.

21. Music – I like a really eclectic mix.  My tastes run from Rachmaninoff through to the Foo Fighters and pretty much every in between.  Although I have a real distaste of folk music.

22. The need for more spontaneity in my life.  I tend to weigh up the pros and cons of everything all the time, to the nth degree, and frequently miss opportunities along the way by doing this.

23. I have a very caring nature, unless any member of my family is ill.  This is a very bizarre statement to make as my first profession was Nursing!

24. My humour ranges from the Three Stooges right through to Monty Python. The one thing that totally cracks me up are the Derek and Clive albums. For those of you who are not aware of these albums, they were Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in top form.  Very anarchic, ascerbic and downright irreverent, but Oh. so funny.

25. favourite TV programme, is an automotive programme on English TV by the name of Top Gear, a mixture of humour and petrol fumes.

Well this list of likes and dislikes pretty much sums up who and what I am. I would love to read your comments on the above and see if any of my traits align to your own..

If making videos is your ‘thing’ then you can do no better than to put them on YouTube.  Because YouTube is a Google property and you get the benefit of it being constantly spidered for new content.

You don’t even have to use your own videos, there are literally thousands for you to pick from, to use for yourself.  It is quite permissible to do this, you are not stealing nor is it considered plagiarizing in any way, you simply embed the url into your own site.

There is such an upsurge in the use of social media sites that it is imperative for anyone wanting to make contacts to use these sites.  You can even put in a link for a video on say Twitter, Facebook etc.

Video is definitely the way to go, people just love videos, for fun, for business, whatever, they flock to sites showing videos.  Obviously this means that you have massive exposure if you have videos showing on any of these sites.  It would be sheer lunacy not to take advantage of this as part of your marketing strategy.

Of course, the secret to creating a ‘viewer friendly’ video is to vary the content.  Don’t just sit or stand and talk for the whole length of the video.  People soon get bored with that.  Vary your backgrounds if you can and perhaps put other material in, graphs, instructional sections where you are showing a screen on your computer etc.  Anything which will make a natural break is good.

The theme of the video naturally must be reflected to some extent in the background you choose, what slides you show, graphics etc, must be slanted towards the subject.  If this is not possible then you can set the mood differently with the use of appropriate music, upbeat, soothing etc.  There is no end of effects you can achieve with video.

There are a huge amount of free music, graphics, backgrounds etc.available.  The sky is the limit for you to experiment with, by trying to find the style which would suit your purpose the best.  You may only want to place videos on sites for fun which is alright, but if you want them as part of your marketing strategy you would have to find which styles worked the best for your promotion.

If you are an internet marketer you really should be using video,  that is if you are not already.  It is the way forward and is proving one of the easiest ways to reach your public.  As an internet marketer your main object is to build trust between yourself and your prospective customers.  What could be a better way than for you to be seen and heard?  People will identify more readily to your image than to your written word.

This method of marketing is taking over, so don’t be left behind, get on the video marketing bandwagon now.

The video below is for those of you who want to have access to hundreds and thousands of free images, sound clips and video clips. I have spent quite a few hours hunting down a lot of these free to access sites, where in a lot of cases you don´t even need to register your details to gain entry. Just download to your hearts content and start to make really great videos.

The next video I will be showing you how you can use Animoto to produce a really great video without the headache of learning how to use a video edting programme. As ever if there is anything your not sure of with your own video editing, please feel free to ask me a question and I will be happy to help you.

I made a slight error towards the end of the video. The last site I visisted I forgot to give you the url so here it is, Stonewashed