Leveraging Forums and Blogs for Free Traffic

Your desire for free traffic comes at a cost where you have to put in the time and effort to make it happen. Very few people will send you traffic without anything in exchange, such as money.

However, if you share good information with an audience, you can see a spike in the number of visitors to your site. Forums are where people group as a community to discuss issues that are important to them and find help from others who are like-minded.

You can participate among these men and women and contribute to the conversation in order to generate traffic to your site. You may want to find forums that allow a signature file.

This is a block of text or image that is hyperlinked back to your site. Every time you make a helpful comment or post, this signature file is shown to the audience directly below your comment.

That way, if someone finds your contribution beneficial, they can follow the link to your site to learn more about you. You can also start your own forum to attract consumers in your niche.

This is time-consuming and requires moderation, but it does allow you to capture the name and email addresses and present your links to a wide audience. You can even assign members to moderate the forum for you if they want to.

Blogs are your own digital real estate. They assist you in branding your business, positioning you as a leader in your niche, and presenting offers to your visitors. The best thing about a blog is that because it’s your site, it’s your rules.

That means there are no restrictions on what you can say or present to your audience. Of course, you never want to spam your visitors with low quality content or hype. You want your blog to become known as the go to place to get information in your niche.

When you launch a blog, it will pull traffic into your site from search engines. It will also be linked to from outside sources such as competitors and consumers. But first, you have to create valuable content. If the content is thin, not only will consumers ignore it, but search engines will as well.

Always practice good search engine optimization, including research and utilization of strategic keywords that will help your blog get found in searches. When you pull traffic into your blog, make sure you are building a list of those visitors. Have an attractive opt in offer that will allow you to communicate with them time after time.

Fear Is the Biggest Single Deterrent to Your Success

If there’s one thing just about every online marketer understands, it’s that feeling of fear that can overwhelm you as you try to get your business off the ground. There are many things that frighten an entrepreneur, and most of it is in your own mind.

Fear can make you nervous about the niche that you chose. You’ll start to question your selections with everything. You’ll wonder if you know enough to even be guiding an online audience toward their goals.

You have to be confident about your choices and understand that as the owner and boss of your business, you have the right to change course anytime you like or need to. So nothing you choose to do now is set in stone permanently.

Fear can trick you into believing that there’s too much competition. You’ll wonder if there’s any way to earn a living in a niche when there are dozens of other people already in it.

This is a common concern for most newbie entrepreneurs online. The truth is, there’s no such thing as too much competition. Every leader in your niche brings a unique set of skills that include personality and style in the way they convey information and motivate their audience.

Besides, most people enjoy learning from more than one individual, so you may be one of several that they choose to follow. Fear can prevent you from using multimedia tools. Most people feel comfortable and safe using text, although there are a few who feel nervous about their writing skills.

But the use of audio and video tools is more daunting for most online marketers. You may worried that your voice sounds awkward if you try to do a podcast. Or, if you’re doing video, you may worry about your personal appearance.

When you’re leading a niche, the thing you want to remember is that people are coming to you to help solve their own problems. The sound of your voice and your looks are the least of their worries.

Fear can make you procrastinate on projects. You will always be filled with self-doubt. If something isn’t perfect, you’ll either abandon it completely or shove it to the backburner so that you don’t have to think about it anymore.

The great thing about online marketing is that everything you put out there is editable. If you make a mistake, you can fix it and re-publish the content. Again, most people are turning to you to solve their problems, so they’re not very concerned about little mistakes you make along the way.

To combat fear, you have to face it head on. Everyone is afraid to some degree. It gets easier over time as you put yourself out there. You have to learn to take action in spite of your fear so that you can deliver on promises to your niche audience.

Frustration Levels Are High in the Beginning, But Lessen with Time

When you’re starting a new business online, frustration might be the biggest emotion you feel on a regular basis. You need to understand that your days will be filled with frustration as you learn new concepts and skills, but they won’t always be like that.

Things do improve over time. Technical issues are one of the biggest and most frustrating obstacles you will encounter as a new marketer. For example, you may hear someone tell you to set up your own site, and you instantly feel flustered because you don’t know the steps it takes to make that happen.

Add to that any bloopers that happen along the way, such as an installation gone wrong for WordPress or a hacker getting ahold of your site and you’re calm and cool nature will disappear in an instant.

What’s worse is that sometimes there’s no one out there to help you figure it out. Occasionally you can find a video or a kind person to walk you through the process. Other times, you have to carefully try to do things on your own until the problem is resolved.

It helps to make friends in this industry so that you can reach out to them and ask for advice or tips whenever you encounter a technical issue. List building is another area of frustration for new marketers.

The minute they create a landing page or opt in box, they cross their fingers and hope subscribers will flood in overnight. But then they wake up the next morning and see that no one has joined their list.

Or, people simply trickle in a little at a time. List building is one of those online tasks that takes time and effort. You have to attract or send visitors to your landing page. You have to have an offer that is irresistible.

And you have to build an earned a reputation as someone whose list people feel is worth being on. You may feel frustrated about not being able to get any affiliates onboard for your launch or only seeing a few sales during your launch.

The key to easing your frustration about these issues is to plan ahead and not try to rush a launch at the last minute. What often happens with newbies is that they create a product quickly out of desperation and ask a few people to promote the day before or the morning that it goes live.

Good affiliates will need time to review your product and create a bonus for it. You might even get some sales and get frustrated about getting refund requests. If you get refunds, don’t automatically assume that the person simply wanted a freebie.

Instead, analyze their reason for their request and work on improving your product to prevent future refunds. You want to keep a level head when you’re in this business. If you feel frustration coming on, walk away and do a different task. Understand that this is a career where, over time, these types of problems fade.

Regret Is What You’ll Suffer from If You Quit on Yourself

When it comes to online marketing, more people have quit the business than have followed through to success. Follow through is essential. There are a million reasons why people give up.

You have to accept the fact that success doesn’t happen overnight. It can take months and years to build a formidable business online. This is not the business you want to get into if you are desperate for cash and need financial help immediately.

You need to make a decision as to whether or not you’ll keep a full or part-time job while you’re building this business. Some people have quit their job and launched an online career successfully.

However, it usually takes time, so unless you have the savings to keep you afloat financially, it’s not recommended. It’s hard to work two jobs at once, so you have to be patient with yourself as you find time to build this business from a side hustle into a fulltime career.

You want to go about this the smart way. It’s not a race, and even though you may have a lot of drive and determination, it will still take time. Before you make the decision to quit, revisit the reasons why you wanted to work online in the first place.

Did you think it would be fun and rewarding? Did you always have a desire to be your own boss? Do you love the fact that you have unlimited earning potential? Sometimes it helps to look back on why you started to pursue this career initially and reignite your motivation.

Ask yourself what you could do differently to ease your frustration. For example, maybe you’re frustrated at the money you’ve spent trying to get your business off the ground. Instead of simply beating yourself up about it, see what you could do differently.

For example, what free tools or bartering could you do to get the same results? Whenever you feel frustrated in this business, give yourself a break. Entrepreneurs work harder and work longer hours than most employees.

You need to come back fresh with a new pace so that you don’t get burned out with your efforts. The one thing you don’t want to do is continually stop and start this career. You will lose all of your momentum, branding, and loyalty from customers if you keep popping in and out of their lives. It’s better to work slowly and see progress than to quit periodically. It’s not the sign of a true leader.

Pessimism Serves as a Boulder Blocking Your Path to Success

When you first launch your career as an online marketer, you’re probably brimming with optimism. You’ve seen what can be accomplished through hard work and determination and what others have achieved in terms of personal satisfaction and monetary gain.

You have no doubt you can enjoy the same. But some people quickly allow negativity to take root and their once optimistic outlook turns dark and hopeless. Negativity can hurt your progress because you will always be down on yourself and others.

That doesn’t help you succeed or help you guide your audience to success with their goals. You have to change the wording you’re using during moments of pessimism. For example, you probably talk about what you can’t do or what you should have done.

Turn that wording into positive verbiage. Be honest about what you can and can’t do and don’t over dramatize the situation. Maybe the truth is you could do it, but you feel intimidated by it or the process is overwhelming.

If you should have done something, ask yourself if it’s too late and if it’s not, get it done. If you don’t believe in yourself, how can your audience believe in you as a niche leader? The customers will sense your hesitation and pessimism and turn to someone else who exudes an optimistic and positive point of view.

You may want to enlist the use of positive affirmations or the law of attraction. Or, choose another type of motivation to help keep you inspired. You may have a favorite mentor who can help power you through to success during times when your outlook has gone dark.

There is no one in this business who will boost your morale for you. You may be inspired by a few people, but it’s different than a company that provides you with a team to help support you.

You have to learn to do this for yourself. That’s probably one of the hardest things to do in a career where there are many ups and downs. But if you can learn to push through these moments, you’ll be pleased with what you can accomplish in life.

Not only will your pessimism hurt your own level of success, but it will impact those around you. You will worry your family and friends, dampen the spirits of your target audience, and cause your colleagues in this industry to avoid you as they try to keep their own positive mindset intact.

Jealousy Puts Your Focus on the Wrong Place

Whenever you’re just starting out online, it’s natural for you to envy others who are already succeeding. Newbies in particular are green with envy when it comes to seeing statistics and earnings that are splashed all over sales pages and bragged about in social media posts.

The problem is, they see what appears to be push button profits. They think all of these earnings were fast money and the way they’re talked about, it sounds easy, too. They wonder why they aren’t able to make quick and easy money like everyone else.

What they don’t see is what led up to that point. It’s never fast or easy in the beginning. Making a good living online requires continual education of concepts and strategies as well as technical tools.

It requires an entrepreneur to test the boundaries of their comfort zone. Most successful entrepreneurs online have failed more times than you can count. But eventually, all of that practice and persistence results in sales.

And as you learn your craft, you’ll be able to scale those profits into something significant. It’s easy to get jealous when it seems like everyone around you has what they need to succeed.

They may have money to spend on the best tools, such as Camtasia. What you have to do is seek out something cheaper or free that works in a similar nature, such as Camstudio.

New entrepreneurs may be jealous of the fact that some people have money to hire a coach or mentor. Or, maybe they lucked into one without having to pay a penny. Everyone’s journey is different.

You may have a certain personality or skillset that others struggle with, but it comes naturally to you. The key to success is to fight your natural tendency to be jealous and recognize that every second you waste comparing yourself to others takes time away from the development of your own success.

It’s easy to fall prey to jealousy when you’re working on your own business. You may be strapped for money, short on time, and dealing with the battle of constant disruptions around the house.

You log online and see someone else sitting by a pool with their laptop bragging about how easy their life is. The more you focus on the differences between your life and that of someone else’s, the less work you’ll get done and the more time you’ll put between now and the future, when your profits will eventually start soaring.

Deciding to create a YouTube channel for your business is an excellent idea because it can provide you with a broader audience to build brand awareness.

With YouTube, it doesn't matter if you're an experienced business person or a new entrepreneur; you all have the same chance of success. A YouTube business channel provides an equal opportunity for everyone who has something to share with others and who are looking to make money online.

However, there are some things that you must consider before you can set up your account and start creating your first video. You'll need to ask yourself some questions that will help you to examine your overall goals so that you can tailor your approach. You need to start off on the right track if you want your YouTube channel to be a success.

As you consider these questions, take the time to write down the answers you come up with. This can help you see things from a different perspective and can be especially helpful if you find yourself facing challenges down the road. Writing down your thoughts will also show you how far you’ve come when your YouTube channel is up and running. …

Now that you’ve established a YouTube channel for your business, you will likely find a ton of advice on how to make a quick buck. Since you want to become successful quickly, you may be tempted to take shortcuts. There are some mistakes that a majority of new YouTubers commit just because they don't know any better.

If you want to avoid crashing and burning, then you need to make sure you don't make these mistakes. If you can avoid the following pitfalls, you'll significantly increase your chances of successfully growing your YouTube channel for your business...

If you want your YouTube channel to be successful, then you need to develop a content strategy that includes how often you are going to post, as well as what kind of content you’re going to post. It's a good idea to have set days where you post new material because it creates a sense of anticipation for your subscribers. It can also help to keep you on track by providing you with a deadline for filming, editing, and posting new content...

The Best Ways to Grow Your YouTube Channel

When it comes to growing your YouTube channel one crucial thing that you need to remember is not to waste your time trying to get someone to watch your videos which never watches YouTube. Instead, you need to focus your time and energy on those viewers who are already on YouTube. Here are some of the best ways to grow your YouTube channel and find success for your business.

Comment on Other Channels

Changes are incredibly slim that someone will just happen to stumble on your freshly-created YouTube channel. If you want to get your name out and gain interest in your channel, then you have to do some leg work. Search through YouTube and find channels that are similar to yours. Take some time to watch their videos and provide thoughtful comments on their channels. Other viewers and subscribers are more likely to click on your username to find out more about you.

Collaborate with Other YouTubers

If you want to grow your YouTube audience, one of the best ways is to collaborate with other YouTubers. Luckily you don’t have to live near each other to accomplish this. You can both create clips and send them into WeTransfer to be combined into a virtual collaboration video. Collaborating with other YouTube channels is the best way to get your video in front of a massive number of subscribers.

Utilize the Description Box

The first two lines of your video description will appear in the search results for your video. This makes it extremely important to make sure that you are utilizing the description box and including relevant keywords and data about your video. The first line of the description needs to be about your video because this is how YouTube decides if your video is relevant to the searched terms. However, make sure to include a link to your business website in the first couple of lines so that viewers can check out your business further.

Stick with a Thumbnail Theme

Avoid merely picking one of the three thumbnails that YouTube provides. Most of the time they are incredibly blurry and incredibly unflattering. Your thumbnails are where you can get a little creative with your YouTube channel. So take some time to really think about how to make your thumbnail pictures stand out.

If you want to grow your YouTube channel you have to put in some effort and time. These four tips can help you get your YouTube up and running and ahead of the competition.