Hot internet topics in 2008

This is the time of year to look ahead to 2008. This is especially true for anyone starting, thinking of starting, or currently running an online business. I talk to a lot of people who call me asking to help market a product, or optimize a website that they either bought into or are trying to create. Many of these individuals starting off thinking they would read a few articles and buy some search engine software and that would lead to lots of customers with money to spend.

What usually follows after a few days of reading the tutorials is a realization that, “this is going to take some time and it is not as easy as 1-2-3″. Part of the learning curve is the new owner discovers that online marketing is a hole new world and before they even learn “what to do”, they have to learn a new vocabulary. Basically, they read an article, but they need an article to understand what they just read.

What I want to say is, “there is hope, but there is a right way to market and promote, and there is an expensive, time consuming way to market and promote …and the latter is filled with frustration and disappointment.” So before you jump into the world of online marketing think about, how much time do you want to commit to your new website, blog or affiliate program? And, when you are thinking about this time commitment put it in terms of:

How much time every week can I commit over the next 12 months.

To expand on this further, be more specific when you are figuring how much time can you devote every week; knowing that (typically) you will need to:

write articles
get involved in social bookmarking
get involved in social networking
website search engine optimization
develop a pay per click campaign (in some cases)
develop a print campaign (in some cases)
run a blog (in some cases)
develop an adsense campaign (in some cases)
develop a forum (in some cases)
understand how to interpret website analytics
etc…

Also know that there are a lot of committed people making a full time living promoting and marketing online. So many in fact, that you are not going to waltz in and out optimize or market these people, even if you are niche marketing -unless you have a check book and you can hire a: webmaster, search engine optimizer and search engine marketer. In that case it is more about money than time, and get ready to spend some real money.

My goal in this post is not to discourage you, but to make sure you don’t need to call me after you spend thousands of dollars without making a dime. If you don’t know how to write an effective article that is optimized, then yo will need to learn. If you don’t know the difference between social bookmarking and social networking, you need to learn. If you don’t know how to coordinate your social bookmarking campaign with a blog, you need to learn.

There is no black magic to being successful online. It just takes hard word and you have to be consistent. Join a website design and online marketing forum and keep reading those articles. Soon you will begin to notice many of them start to repeat the information —and that is when you know you are getting close the hang of things.

Have a great 2008.

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