How To Be Successful Online
Success
Greetings, my name is Jonathan Higgins. I’ve been involved with internet marketing since May 2006. It’s been a long and crazy ride with ups and downs and a lot of wasted money. For my opening post on my new internet marketing blog I would like to share with you the most important truth about internet marketing that I’ve learned to date. Allow me to share a Chinese Tale my wife says her school teachers often told the students. It will help to illustrate the truth. The name of the story is The Monkey Coming Down The Mountain. It’s always the monkey getting in trouble in Chinese stories. The monkey is my Chinese birth sign, wouldn’t you know.
One afternoon there was a monkey coming down from the mountain heading home, I guess. The monkey saw a delicious looking peach on a peach tree and picked it. The monkey continued walking and soon came upon some corn stalks. The corn looked delicious as well. So, he dropped the peach and pick an ear of corn. The little monkey walked on a bit further admiring his ear of corn when he soon came upon a watermelon patch. The watermelon looked too good to pass up so he dropped the ear of corn and picked up a watermelon. He continued on walking, struggling a little because the watermelon was heavy. As he was walking the monkey saw a rabbit hopping along. Rabit for dinner sounded good. He dropped the watermelon and ran after the rabbit. The rabbit ran and the monkey ran after it. The monkey got close enough to reach the rabbit. He extended his arms and was about to grab the rabbit when all of sudden it disappeared down a hole.
The monkey sat there exhausted and hungry. He had run to far to turn back to get the watermelon. Empty-handed and hungry, the monkey returned home.
I did the same thing for 30 months, only I wasn’t chasing watermelons and rabbits. Rather, I was chasing this and that internet marketing method. And it was no surprise that I wasn’t making any decent money.
Well, I have found a method that works for me, niche blogging. I also have an import quality control company. Most of my clients find me through my websites. I have multiple pages on the first page of Google for several keywords related to my import business.
Have you been struggling to make money online for months, or even years? Have you been jumping from this method and that? STOP! Listen closely:
Any method that has been proven by others and is capable of being repeated by you will work. Pick one and stick with it.
How did I land on niche blogging as my prefered method, you ask? Funny story. I had tried niche blogging and then gave it up because I thought it wasn’t working. A year later, while I was trying the “next new money-making method”, I noticed those niche blogs I built were still bringing in a decent Adsense income, and I hadn’t touched them for months. I was sold.
You can download my free eBook on creating a successful blog by joining my newsletter. Just fill out the form to the right.
To your success!
Funnily enough I just started around 2 months ago, and I was doing the same thing; from site flipping to attempting to use ppc for some cpa offers, etc, etc.
But during all of this I was still getting passive income from an affiliate site I had made promoting a online game guide. 3 sales already!
I guess it’s all about finding your groove and sticking to it.
Niche blogging is a good way to start an online business, once you start getting traffic you should definitely monetize that blog and add an opt-in list. Isn’t it weird how sites can suddenly start making money, I guess it takes time for your link building efforts to catch up with you, I’ve had this situation happen to me several times - it’s great!
@Matt
Yes, we all have a tendency to jump around because we don’t have faith that what we are doing will work. Congrats on the affiliate site.
Jonathan
@Jbode
Thanks for stopping by. I really like niche blogging and I’m glad I found it. It just really suits me. I can’t stand PPC, for example. It doesn’t work for me. But if it works for you, rinse and repeat and make some money.
Jonathan
Hey great to see you blogging… nice clean blog too.
I guess I a just coming to the end of the chase… not quite finished yet just settling into the methods that will shape my IM future.
Niche blogging has to be the way to go.
Great story, Jon. Having an interest in Chinese culture (philosophy and martial arts), of course I recognize Ta Sheng (as he is called in Cantonese- Great Sage. I particularly like his magic metal staff. Check out Paulie Zink on youtube to see some of his monkey kung fu and taoist yoga if you are interested in that sort of thing.
Buddy
I was only focusing on one website, and thought that this would be my “income”.
I then realised that one website wasn’t enough. You have to create several income streams, to secure Your future income.
The more, the better …
/Patrik Berggren
I think we all have different aspects that we like about internet marketing, and others that we don’t. What works for some won’t work for others.
I agree that the jumping around has to do with a lack of faith. I’ve done that a lot because with my im ghostwriting business and personal life I have very little time to “experiment” with what might work. But after about a year and a half of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, I figured that doing something is better than doing nothing. I’ve dedicated myself to just building one affiliate site and to see what happens. After that, I’ll rinse and repeat…getting through that first hurdle is going to be the hardest part.
Your story resonates with so many people who look to the internet for a solution during this economic challenge. When I started marketing on the internet about 5 years ago I too was jumping from one thing to the next and the only way I found a path was experience…
I had failed so many times but I did gain invaluable knowledge in marketing and the technical challenges so many people fret over.
So I guess I owe my success to my failures
Get through those failures as quickly as possible so you’ll uncover your own success.
Mike Hill