There are many ways to succeed in this business. However, when you don't know what you're doing, chances are you'll fail. If you are new to this business, the first principal you must learn, is know your market. That's right. When you don't know your market, you'll never make any money, and be out of business rather quickly. Too many people fall in love with what they're selling. That's the first mistake. And what happens when no one buys your product or service? Do you continue investing huge amounts of money, in something you can't sell? No, you find another product to sell. You must learn to become a student of markets.
How do you become a student of markets? On the Internet, you must find out what people are interested in. For example, what are the most popular web sites? What are the words are used most in search engines? This is easy to discover, it takes a little research. You can also visit the large online book stores. Enter a subject, and search. When you see a large number of books on that subject, you'll know that's a hot topic of interest to people. It's very important to know what people want, and give it to them. If you want to do offline research. Go to your public library. Search the SRDS book for direct marketing. Make sure you search the consumer list book.
You'll find around 30,000 mailing lists. There you'll find what people are buying. So now you'll know what products to sell. If there's a market for the product, people will buy it. Listen, if there's no market for what you are selling online, you can spend thousands of dollars and get no where. You'll have a bad taste in your mouth, and you're opinion will be, making money on the Internet is one big myth. No so. The next principle you need to learn is testing. You should test everything, to see what works for your website. Does you website have a benefit headline? You should test different headlines. Do you give away free bonuses? Testing is critical to your success. If you have a website do you change the content often. Or do you leave it as is? It takes work, but it pays off in money. Do you constantly market your website? If not, how do you expect to make any money? Also do you market your website to your target market? You should run small ads in target publications.
If you sell golf clubs, why would you run an ad in a magazine for runners? Of course you would run the ad in a golf magazine. Look, you can make money on the Internet. And you can do it from your home. It takes a lot of work but you can do it successfully, by following principles, and techniques that work. Going into it blind, with an attitude you'll be rich overnight, it's not gonna happen. You can make a lot of money by knowing what works, and what doesn't.
Steven Gower is a direct response and web copywriter. http://www.copywritersinc.com