The above is the title of a book found at a cheap publisher's outlet in
town for about three quid and purchased out of interest.
So, we sat down with a cup of coffee and worked our way through the
index, see what these people thought was useful, and if there was
something new there.
|
Extraordinarily enough, in my past 10 years on the net, I've done EVERY
SINGLE ONE of those!
EVERY single one. And some of them, I could have added another 12 chapters
on top of what was in the book.
Question. If I actually really do know how to do that web thing so very
thoroughly (and it appears that I actually really and practically do!), then
why don't I have 9 billion visitors per second?
The answer is simple.
EVERY ONE of these 101 ways TAKES IMMENSE INVESTMENT IN TIME - IF you're
going to do it right and get it to a point where it actually works well
enough to really start generating that mysteriously elusive web traffic for
your site.
Let's just take a single one for example, the autoresponder, in all its
glory.
Even if we leave out the time spent learning the software, soliciting ads,
writing the content, if you really, REALLY did that thoroughly, with a
number of multiple chained autoresponders with thousands or tens of
thousands of subscribers on each one, the sign up pages, advertising the
sign up pages, keeping the whole thing up to date and dealing with the
correspondence this generates, the trouble shooting, unsubscriptions, and
everything else, you would end up doing NOTHING ELSE ALL DAY - and have a
full working week.
And that is just ONE item on a "101" item list.
The same holds true for EVERYTHING.
To really build, use, police, update, enlarge and maintain a top class
directory, a 40 hour working week by ONE SINGLE PERSON with their computer
is taken up, just with that and ONLY that.
To run, police, advertise and expand a popular forum is yet the same again.
To produce an exciting, content rich, constantly up to date blog that brings
in followers and sales, yup, it's a full time task.
To produce, maintain, advertise and run a really good ezine does exactly the
same again.
So does "article marketing" with its multiple submissions, updates, multiple
directory listings, authors bios, and so forth.
And so does "newsgroup marketing" once again.
Want to try your hand at running a good affiliate programme?
How about keyword optimising each and every page of your website with
content alignment, meta tags, robot instructions, and maintaining this with
feedback on your listings in various search engines to keep in the top ten
as the fashions change radically overnight?
Perhaps a multiple placement dedicated banner advertising campaign with
feedback statistic adjustments?
Really get into Google adwords and maintain, track, fine tune and keep it
perfectly up to date in response to your competitors and users?
Same story, all over ...
And so it goes on.
Here's the deal.
All these things, I only did in order to support the business I'm actually
SUPPOSED TO BE IN!
My 40 hour working week (well don't make me laugh! but anyway, just for
argument's sake and to have a figure there) SHOULD theoretically be taken up
by research and writing, as I'm a writer.
So what we have here is 101 ways to spend a full 40 hour week, plus your own
job's 40 hour week.
Shame we don't live on Pluto, isn't it. They have weeks that last centuries
...
So what is ONE SINGLE PERSON trying to do web marketing supposed to do?
Well, and after ten years of beating myself up for not doing all those
things "properly", I think the following is of the essence.
No.1 is to understand that unless you have dedicated staff, there is no way
on Earth you can do all of that yourself.
There simply isn't enough time, even if we leave the steep learning curves
and time spent trying to understand software and such quite out of it.
So what one has to do is to pick and choose from these 101 strategies the
ones that are:
a) the easiest and fastest;
b) the ones that last the longest on autopilot;
c) the most natural to what you're supposed to be doing in the first place
(yeah that's the original job/product/mission, remember that even still?)
If you like databases but abhor article writing, concentrate on building a
good directory and forget about article submissions, for example.
We need to prune, prioritise and perfect only a very few of these 101
options, and stick to those.
That's the only way to survive this.
It is to understand that you PHYSICALLY CANNOT do all that; that if you try,
you can't help but fail at everything (as then, NOTHING gets the attention
it needs to actually bring results eventually!); and that you have to PICK
AND CHOOSE which battles you're going to fight.
Lastly, all that 101 traffic stuff has to be subjugated to the real reason
we're here, whatever that is, and must NEVER be allowed to get to a point
where it is taking up more than 50% of your time.
So.
Go look at a list of these internet marketing devices.
Pick just those you are naturally attracted to, and just FORGET about all
the rest.
Try and make those as good as you can, and build up your business to a point
like that until you can hire staff and manpower to expand into some of the
other traffic generating devices.
And in the meantime, take a deep breath, relax, and know that NO-ONE, not
even someone with 8 tentacles instead of arms and who never sleeps, can
actually do that myth and successfully implement "101 Ways To Advertise Your
Website".
Wisdom is a fine thing ...
SFX :-)
Silvia Hartmann
http://SilviaHartmann.com
Back to previous page