15 things you absolutely must do to succeed online

Millions are now turning to the Internet to make them rich, but only a »lucky« few ever make it past the first year and of those even fewer really succeed. I put lucky in quotation marks because as you should probably know by now -- luck has nothing to do with it.

Those who succeeded simply follow or devise a system that works and helps them fill their checking accounts every month. Along the way they must have done at least these 15 essential things discussed below; and it doesn’t matter if they sell their own product or are affiliates selling other people’s products.

Too many people just set something up and hope for the best. Well, wishful thinking doesn’t make millions -- ACTION does.

In order to succeed online, you must do these things:

1.) Actually start doing it now.
So many people are daydreaming on how they succeed online; imagine all the money they earn each and every week, wish they could actually do it… Well you can! Just stop thinking of doing it and do it… now! The longer you wait the greater the chances are you’ll never start.

It really helps if you write down a plan of what steps you intend to take every day and stick to it. Don't worry about it being perfect - you'll re-write it while you go along. No plan was EVER created perfect the first time! Being a perfectionist is a trap in many aspects of Internet marketing! However in some cases, you'll want to perfect certain aspects of your business (for example sales letters, advertisements and so on). But without testing you'll never be able to perfect anything, so with this in mind make yourself start taking action immediately.

2.) Find a product or service you want to sell online.
You must do some research on the topic that interests you. The key is to find a certain niche you can prosper in. If you are just starting out, I would strongly suggest staying away from marketing or “making money online” products or services. This is a very competitive market and unless you are a genius and have superior persuasive abilities, you won’t succeed as well as you would wish.

Get on Google, Yahoo!, Ebay, ClickBank and Amazon and see what others are selling in your niche. See if there are actually people willing to purchase what you intend to sell or promote. Go to niche forums and see what people want.

3.) Register a domain and create your own web site.
This is essential for the next step and is one of the biggest mistakes people do. Without your website you can only do so much. The exception is if you want to sell things on eBay, but still, even in this case, creating your own web site will make you many more sales if you stick to these 15 rules. You can get a domain name and up to five page web site for as little as $8,00-$12,00! Where’s the risk in that? It’s very easy to create a web site nowadays. There is much web creation software out there. Even Word for Windows is capable of creating web sites.

Hostgator is an awesome place to host your web site as you can host unlimited domains you can cheaply purchase with them or with Godaddy. The hosting itself is very cheap and reliable.

4.) Capture names and email addresses.
After you’ve created a good looking, great content web site, you must capture your prospect’s names and email addresses. You HAVE to build a database, because these people are the ones you can sell to on and on. Don’t reinvent the wheel – don’t try getting new prospects to your new products. Simply email the existing ones. How to get people to enter their name and email address into a form? Try giving them a gift if they do. You can very easily get no cost ebooks or other things you could give away. Be innovative. Maybe offer a short course on something.

Most Internet marketers (me included) use Aweber for everything related to list building. It's reliable, has the highest email deliverability in the industry, is easy to operate and comes with a great deal of information on how to get the most out of it. I highly recommend it.

5.) Create a relationship with your subscribers.
This is very easy to do. By that I don’t mean that the subscribers are gullible, but that you can only do the work once (write your newsletter or “mini course”) and have software deliver it to any new subscribers automatically. This software is called ”auto responder software” (included with your Aweber account).

6.) Present yourself as an authority.
You want to come across as an authority to your subscribers. If you fail to do that, you won’t be able to sell them what you want. You can do this easily by saying things like: “I’ve read all the books on the subject out there…” or “After years of trial and error I finally got it…” etc. But don’t ever lie. Try finding a thing you really did that elevates you above others. You can easily do that simply by subscribing to various newsletters and ezines in your field. Also never brag directly! Only subtly indicate that you’ve been doing your homework so to speak.

7.) Start promoting products only after you’ve established a connection with your subscribers.
This one is tough for most people to do. You see, the temptation to send an endorsing email for an affiliate product you promote is enormous. However, never ever do it before sending at least 7 high quality newsletters or ezine issues. It’s in human psychology that we feel like we know someone and feel connected to them after we’ve seen them or read their article 7 times. This is of course a bit different if you’re promoting your own product. In this case have at least 7 newsletters ready and just put a simple line at the end of each referring them to your product. Something in the lines of “To really get good at this, visit [my web site] and get [my product]…”

8.) Create a great sales letter for anything you promote.
Your job as an affiliate is to pre-sell the product you are promoting. A great way of doing it is through a story or a how-to article. Just show your people exactly what you do to succeed at something and point them at the “essential tools” they should use. The links are your affiliate links, of course. What works great for me is writing ebook reviews and recommending the really good ones. Key here is to actually buy the ebook and read it. Test its usefulness and then write about it. Sometimes the ideas presented in them sound great and logical, but in reality they rarely work! Be careful not to suggest such a book. Your readers will be disappointed. Also never suggest an ebook showing how to do something and demanding of the readers to purchase additional “tools” to do it, especially if the cost of the tools exceeds the cost if the ebook.

9.) Get known.
You must get known in order to do the next step right. Join forums and discussion boards for your topic and help people there. Really help them with all your wisdom. Pretty soon you will make a name for yourself and get known amongst others in your field. Also brand yourself, not just your company. Your name is very important. Put it out for everyone to see. And make sure you associate it with great, valuable things – don’t sell worthless things! Make as much friends online as possible.

Create a blog and regularly post helpful information. Submit articles to article directories, write press releases and so on.

10.) Do joint ventures.
This is a great one. Once you get known a bit, you can start contacting the gurus with long, long lists of people to help you promote your product. They will gladly do it as they will have a lot to gain and they will know you. You can also try this if you are not so well known, but make sure you sell an outstanding product at a very fair price.

11.) Never cheat.
I don’t think I have to go into too much detail here. Always have your prospect’s interests in mind, never your own! Of course, you want to sell things, but do it in a way that it helps your customers rather than riping them off. Besides if you get known for cheating - and you will if you do it - you will rarely if ever get people to help you.

12.) Educate yourself.
Always educate yourself on the subject you’re interested in and in the subject of Internet marketing. Don’t ever let yourself get rusty.

13.) Always create new opportunities.
Notice how this "thing to do" suggests being active rather than waiting for opportunities to happen. HINT: Every Newsletter you get is an opportunity for you to contact the (probably) super affiliate sending it and get to know him or her!

14.) Have a success oriented mindset and never quit!
Work on your mindset every day. Never allow negative thoughts and feelings overwhelm you. If you don’t make immediately don’t quit. The most successful people made many mistakes before they got to the top. In fact on average an adult person makes 53 mistakes before he or she really succeeds in something.

15.) Know this: People don’t buy FROM you, but they buy YOU.
This one is something every successful marketer will tell you. The majority of these “15 things you have to do in order to succeed” is making a better connection with your prospects. Think about this. Although technically this last thing isn’t something you do, but is also very important that you become aware of it.

That’s it. These are the 15 things you absolutely must do in order to succeed online. This post will grow bigger and some new links will be added soon so come back.

Don't underestimate the power this article holds in for you. Re-read it in a few days. You'll find new stuff in you didn't notice now. I also strongly recommend you also go see this site: http://bestmarketingresource.com/.

Take care.