If You HAD to Start Over - What would you do Different???

[Linda Buquet]

This powerful question is for you. Yes, YOU! Whether you are an affiliate, merchant, affiliate manager, an SEO or a blogger we want to hear from you!

Knowing everything you know today,
if you had to start over in your business,
what would you do differently???

Share some tips - Learn some tips.

The answers you share could greatly help others and you can learn something from the answers that get posted as well. An affiliate for instance might share that knowing what they know now, they wish they had focused on a small niche instead of creating a mall site and why. An affiliate manager could share that if they had to start their program over from scratch they would have structured it differently and go into detail about how.

OK here is mine. I will probably add more ideas as I think about it. There are lots of things I would have done differently if I were to start my business over today. My business today is so successful and I feel so blessed to have all the great clients, wonderful affiliates, reputation and traffic I have today. However I can see lots of ways I could have gotten to this level much faster if I had done some things differently.

Knowing what I know today I would have launched my forum 2 years earlier. I wasted too many years posting to, answering questions on and building traffic for other people's forums. People in the 'biz' have told me I should have my own forum for years. Why didn't I launch sooner? To be honest, I just let fear of the set-up, tech issues and spam moderation just hold me back. I basically let myself be frozen by the fear of the unknown. Now that my forum is well established, it's turned into one of the best decisions I have ever made - even though I started the forum later than I should have. The tech and spam issues were not insurmountable either.

LESSON TO BE LEARNED: Don't let fear of the unknown hold you back from doing something you feel certain would help your business. Contract it out if you have to, but get moving if you are sure it's the right thing.

I hope that this will turn into a rich discussion filled with lessons-learned and tips for success. Share your lessons, false starts or suggestions for doing things better. If you give, you just may get back far more than you thought possible.

I told you mine...
Would you please think about the question and share yours???

[Rob_TID]

I would have concentrated less on ways to get free traffic and more on strategies for monetising paid traffic.

[Linda Buquet]

Oh that's a good one Rob!

So what's one of the "strategies for monetising paid traffic" that's worked well for you?

[Lisa76]

Linda, this is a fabulous thread and can produce tons of learning lessons.

I would have definitely stayed away from the saturated niches like Internet Marketing and Web Hosting and chosen a topic I have a passion for.

My first site was a site on "how to market your website" and it contained a summary of a lot of the advice from the affiliate gurus. I tried selling all the books that taught people "how to market online" and my site just got swallowed up by all the competition. I didn't have the money to promote it so it was hard to be "seen".

This niche is great if you're a savvy marketer like Linda, Stephen, Shawn, Allan, Ralph, Ken, etc. I admire those of you who have MADE it. But if you're a newbie like I was 7 years ago, it's so hard to get your site seen out here unless you build something that is so unique or you have the budget to promote it. It's funny that I had a site about how to make money online when I was barely earning much myself. I see lots of sites like that.

So I would have definitely built a site on my hobby instead of choosing such a highly competitive niche.

[Linda Buquet]

EXCELLENT point Lisa! I see so many affiliates doing the same thing you did. In fact I just remembered that the 1st affiliate programs I promoted about 8 years ago before I had a CLUE, were hosting and merchant accounts.

Another point besides getting lost in the sea of other Internet marketers is that webmasters can be a tough crowd to sell to.

I always recommend affiliate start with something they know about and are passionate about - hopefully in a niche. It can make generating content easier. Especially important, if you promote something you are passionate about it can keep you motivated in the early days when there is no money coming in.

Another great lesson learned! Who's next???

[Rugman.com]

Hmmmm. What would I do differently? I would have ferreted out the nearest local Affiliate Marketing Courses and enrolled. I'm also suspecting that it is best to live the roll of Affiliate and walk in those shoes before dawning the cloak of Affiliate Manager.

[webshack]

I would have concentrated on the keyword density on my pages more than the actual design itself, or in getting any type of traffic... I finally found that out after I had a very successful traffic-selling site about three years ago, (which I got disgusted with because of PP's policy of automatically honoring all refund requests for all "virtual" goods or services). Also, the text in "alt" tags for your images is MUCH more important than what you might think. You can also name all of your images with long hyphenated keywords and/or phrases.... I'll post more stuff when I think of it...

[Rugman.com]

Nice ones, WebShack!

[webshack]

Oh, I almost forgot.... when trying to think of a good domain, NEVER shy away from hyphenated domains... they actually work much better in search engine rankings than non-hyphenated ones, i.e., really-great-gadgets.com or something to that effect.... this is waaay more helpful than meta-tags, any day of the week...

Thanks, Rugman, I'm trying to help out with some of the basics... (and not-so-basics LOL)

[StephenR]

A. I would not have delved into marketing online/internet marketing products and services as a newb. As Lisa also stated I would have targeted a niche I was passionate about and would have devoted more time to....which would probably have led to developing an info product around that niche.

B. I would not have shelled out $$$$ on regurgitated eBooks by "gurus" when all the information you need is readily accessible on the web if you know where to look.

C. I would not have focused on ONE "golden egg" site for years. I think many marketers get wrapped up in one site too much instead of building their business. In the beginning I think I saw affiliate marketing more as a hobby. If you're going to get into this you need to look at it from a business perspective from the start and sit down and formulate a business plan on how you will make it grow.

D. I would have outsourced much of the work I did myself (i.e. scripting, articles, copywriting, graphic design, etc.) via www.elance.com and www.rentacoder.com from the start. You can't do everything yourself...that's why people have jobs If you do everything yourself you will never really do ONE thing exceptionally well. In addition, it will take you longer to bring your new products or services to market which can severly affect your initial ROI.

Umm...I'll probably add more to this but that's just off the top of my head.