If you are building an online empire, you would want to focus your attention to these 3 key areas that I’m about to share. I have been to a couple of Internet seminars and realized that a lot of Gurus teach a couple of things and start selling their products. These products I have found to be usually “automated”, do not work unless you develop certain skills. A beginner would then find themselves spending a few thousand dollars getting products which would not monetize and earn profits for them.

So my list starting from the number 3… *drum rolls* (This comes in order of importance from my point of view.)

#3 Personal Branding

Donald Trump has it… Robert Kiyosaki has it… The greatest Internet marketers have it too. These people built their empires around their name. If you’re in network or Internet marketing and you’re trying to build your business with your company, you are not going to succeed. You need to build it around yourself.

The reason is simple, building your online presence builds your credibility and this is turn helps people to trust you. Upon building that trust, would you find people wanting to either work with you or purchase your products. Therefore, your personal branding is important in building your customer base.

Next on the list…

It’s an essential for anyone who uses Google Adwords to know this. Yup! That’s right… It’s your conversions!

#2 Conversions

Conversions are not only about knowing what words work better and what buttons get a higher rate of purchases. You would also want to know where your traffic is coming from and concentrate your efforts on these areas. If you are spending your time and effort on areas; which bring you minimal results, you are not maximizing your efforts.

If you wish to track your efforts, you might want to consider using Google Analytics. You would also want to be aware of how you are attracting visitors to your site.

Most importantly, your call to action needs to be firm. Many people forget to ask their visitors to take action at the end of their articles or videos. For example, if you post a video on youtube, TELL your visitors at the end of your video to RATE and COMMENT on it. People are looking for leaders and in this I mean, they are looking for people to tell them what to do. Without telling them what to do next, they would not know what to.

And so… Conversions are number 2 on my list… Now moving on the final and most important area you should focus on in building your online empire.

This is also the number 1 thing I have realized that many Gurus fail to teach during the seminars while they promoting their “automated” products. You can have the best looking website, you can have adsense set up on your websiite. However, if you do not have any visitors going to your website, it is like setting up a grocery store on the moon! Therefore,  the most important skill and area you should focus on in your Internet Marketing efforts are…

#1 Traffic / List Building

This is also one of the most fundamental steps that any marketer should know if they wish to market online. As Mike Dillard says it, choose an area to learn in and become a phD in it. Most new marketers who come in get overwhelmed by the amount of information that is available out there that they either (1) quit or (2) get stuck in a state of information paralysis.

Therefore, pick up the knowledge on how to draw traffic from one area such as Social Media, pay-per click, article writing and the other forms of which you can obtain traffic. Until you have become an expert in that area, should you then move on to the next area.

Simple as it sounds, some people may tend to complicate it. Therefore, just start learning and taking action on driving traffic to your site.

To end off, I would like to mention that these areas have to be used together for you to succeed online. In addition, do comment on my article on your personal thoughts and feelings (get your readers/visitors to take action remember?)

Regards,

Darren Spruyt

P.S If you would like to learn how to drive traffic to your website, you might be interested in THIS.

In the recent MLSP webinar, Tracey Walker shared on how to create and find content for your blog.

I have personally asked myself where do I get content from and what do I write about when I started out on this blog. Perhaps, the easiest thing to say is to “Just Do It!” After my initial post, I have realised that ideas come flowing into my mind every couple of days with which I can share with the community of marketers out there. In my opinion, always have a notepad near you, so you could just grab it and write down the topics you may wish to blog about.

To all my friends out there who may not have the time to attend the weekly webinars, I plan to give a summary on the learning points that I have gathered from the webinars when I attend them. This week… *drum roll*… I’m going to share with you where you can find materials for your blogs!

So firstly, what can you blog about?

1. How To’s: In this blog post.. for example, it will be a “How to search for content for your blogs?” Most people out there are always searching on more information and wish to know “How-To”

2. Stories: Share your personal experiences and what lessons you have learnt from them. “Smart people learn from their mistakes, smarter people learn from the mistakes of others.” Well, the smarter ones also learn from the success of others and model them.

3. Interviews: This is one of the great ways to get content on your blog. Interview the leading experts or uprising stars in your target market. This places you as an expert too as your visitors would relate them to you, knowing that you know the “big guys” in the industry. So start recording interviews with the experts! Technology has enabled us to make it so much easier these days.

I’m sure some of you may wonder how you can get on a call with an industry leader if you do not know them. Well, there’s always Facebook! Connect with them, and just send them a message asking if you could do an interview with them and share the information. These guys will gladly help you… remember ask and you shall receive.

4. Reviews: Monitor new product launches or programs in your industry. Should you purchase them, you could always do a review such as a youtube video sharing the internal system and how it may help someone. People wish to make an informed decision before making a purchase, so get them as much information(well.. just leave a tiny bit out so it sparks their curiousity!) that they may require to make that decision.

5. Audience polls: Using free survey services such as surveymonkey.com can help you gather more information on what people are looking for and this would provide you with a platform on what to blog about.

6. Tutorials: Similar to “How-To’s”, you could record a video on your computer screen using Camtasia or Screenflow guiding your readers on how to perform a certain task. For example, on teaching them how to track their google analytic statistics or how to create an attractive Facebook profile page.

7. Observations / Thoughts: Last but not least, sharing your observations and thoughts on certain topics. This would spark off an interest in people who have similar perspectives and you, thus attracting them to connect with you and following you.

In addition, you may wish to look at the following sources to find content for your blog:

1. Other bloggers in your market: check out the blogs of your market leaders and expert and share your personal opinions with respect to their posts.

2. News stories: Google has got to be one of the greatest search engines if you want information on any topic. Go to Google and click “News” on the top left hand corner and key in your search terms in the search toolbar to find current news on topics you wish to blog about.

3. Youtube: check out the videos that others are posting about and you could share them by embedding it onto your blog.

4. Article directories: Check out what many people are posting on article directories such as Ezinearticles.

5. Blog directores: These sites have links to tons of other blog sites you may wish to draw inspiration from such as Technorati.

6. Blog carnivals: Carnivals are where people find great blog posts and collate them onto one blog post of their own. Check it out at Blogcarnival.

Before I end my post, I would like to share 2 great take-aways I got from the recent webinar. If there is nothing else you gained from it, these 2 would be essential.

Firstly, you need to have your own voice. It means being true to yourself and not try to be somebody else you are not. People follow and trust genuine people, so be true to yourself and those around you. Secondly, if you want to start blogging, stay committed. If you are going to blog once a week, make sure you do it consistently, you determine the frequency with which you wish to blog – However, stick with that commitment so that your readers can expect to come back to your blog as often as you post.

If you wish to watch the recorded webinar conducted by Tracey Walker, click HERE!

Till my next post, I wish you great success!

Darren Spruyt