Let's Talk - Where Are You With Your Online Business?

[ShariLee]

Good for you av8er1! I admire your courage, and I believe that having worked in a factory will really help you in this business because you are used to doing things systematically--which I am finding is definitely required if you are going to succeed. You find what works for you and repeat . . .

I look forward to hearing about your success. There is a lot to learn, but you are in the right place, and many of us are right there with you in our progress. Sincerely, Shari Lee

[GoodCooker]

Congrat av8er1! You have found the RIGHT resource right off the bat.......

I wish I had found this forum 2 year ago....would have been way farther down the road than I am...but....am enjoying the journey....and because I spent so much wasted time else where...I can appreciate the real value of being here.....

People here are very helpful

gretchen

[dbjbob]

My wife owns a florist that we started from scratch 10 years ago. We have a website that I built feeling my way along learning as I go. I am in the process ( it has been a LONNNNNNNNG process) of adding a shopping cart. That should be up by Monday night.

I have never done IM before but doing research for building the florist site and seeing what might be possible has gotten me totally psyched.

I have done everything pretty much backwards and then redone. We do get quite a few phone orders and I have managed to be usually within the top 5 or 6 for searches for local florist in the organic searches on google.
I would really like to get a blog up and some other ecommerce and affiliate sites to generate enough a good passive income.
It isn't really about being a super mega millionaire for me. It really is about being able to work full time with my wife in the florist and our own online affiliate business that would allow us more flexibility and freedom for travel.

Sorry about the long first post in here.

Bob

[angienewton]

Bob,
Welcome! Don't apologize for your post. We look forward to watching your business grow via the Internet. Don't hesitate to ask any questions on the forum. Looking forward to getting to know you.

[dbjbob]

Thanks for the welcome Angie

[championpicks]

I envy your business....
Keep it up//

[KathleenGageSpeaker]

It really is about being able to work full time with my wife in the florist and our own online affiliate business that would allow us more flexibility and freedom for travel.

Bob

Welcome Bob. There is so much a business can do in a region with the Internet. You're in the right place to learn lots of great information.

Kathleen

[KathleenGageSpeaker]

Doing. I won't lie, it took me years of frustration to reach where I am now.

I resemble that remark. Actually, it did take some frustration and many longgggggg days to finally start making money. Now the days are shorter and the money is great.

Here is what I learned in the years I have been doing this. Surround yourself with those who know it can be done and avoid those who are nay sayers. Find great mentors. Do your homework as not everyone is who they say they are nor do some have a track record of success.

Be willing to put in the time and be consistent. Even if you can only dedicate an hour a day, stick with the hour a day.

Be willing to invest in resources (time and money) that can help you to get to your goal faster. Sure, you can find virtually everything for free if you want to search it out but often we can get right to the heart of what we need by making a financial investment.

Have good hair color solution to cover the gray. But then again, after a certain age we tend to like our gray. LOL

Best of luck in your endeavors.

[KathleenGageSpeaker]

Having a real problem getting started as I do not know how to design and get a website up. Seems that I need technical help before I worry about the niche, monitizing, marketing, etc. Really need an A-Z plan that includes the details of EXECUTION of the steps.

Before designing a site you do need to know who it is for. Who are you going to target? Without knowing this you will likely have to go back and get a "do over".

[Engage]

Having a real problem getting started as I do not know how to design and get a website up. Seems that I need technical help before I worry about the niche, monitizing, marketing, etc. Really need an A-Z plan that includes the details of EXECUTION of the steps.

Ok, here goes, one possible basic step by step plan.

1) CREATE A TOPIC LIST: Give yourself a few days to make a list of three or four things that interest you enough that you would enjoy making a site on those topics, even if there was no way to make money on it. Don't choose any aspect of webmastering as your topic.

2) GET EXPERT ADVICE: Join Lynn's Elite Club, and give Lynn and the other members a few days to help you narrow your list down to one topic that is reasonably profitable.

3) SUBSCRIBE: Research your topic on the Net, and subscribe to everything you can find related to your topic. Get a giant stream of information on your topic flowing in to your inbox, and use this data to spark your own article ideas.

4) WRITE INCESSANTLY: Start writing, writing, writing. Day and night, night and day, on the weekends, on the bus, in the shower etc. Be honest with yourself, and be sure to write articles that are good enough that you would actually read them yourself, if they weren't your articles.

5) LEARN ABOUT LINKS: Ask Elite Club members about link building ideas. Start a notebook and write them down. When you have 50 good articles on your site, start spending about half your time creating links to your site.

6) ADSENSE: When you have 50 good articles on your site, sign up for Adsense, and install the Google ads on your site.

7) STATS: Sign up for a free Statcounter.com account, so you can see the traffic to your site.

8) FOCUS: Keep writing articles, and getting links, day after day after day. Content and links, content and links, content and links, content and links, content and links. Don't do or learn anything else until your site has 500 visitors a day, at which point you will be in a position to benefit from learning more.

9) AVOID DISTRACTIONS: Launch a holy war upon distractions. Stop reading forums, stop asking questions about webmastering, don't buy any software or ebooks, and don't take any classes. Push everything else aside except becoming an expert on your topic, and content, content, content, links, links, links.

10) FORGET TECHNOLOGY: Contact me, and I will make the technical challenges go away in one day, for free. Or listen to the group consensus, and spend the next few months wasting time wrestling with all kinds of puzzling things.

11) SET A DEADLINE: Give yourself about 2 weeks to get your site up and running with your first batch of articles. If you don't have the confidence, initiative or ability to meet this deadline, this might not be the business for you. There's not a thing in the world wrong with that, and it might save you tons of time and work to learn that now.

OR.....

12) Ignore all the steps above, and learn it all the hard way, like the rest of us did.

Best of luck!