This is for any struggling web marketers out there,

Making money online really isn't hard when you follow 7 very basic rules.

I first discovered these rules in '99. I used them. I made money. Others used them. They made money. The rules have not changed since, and won't. Use them. Make money.

Rule 1/Step 1: Hard To Sell Products Are A No No

You may think it's obvious and people don't need to be told not to try to market hard to move products. You'd be wrong. At least 50% of the products being marketed online are hard to sell products. Why? Simple. The product owners usually have to work round the clock trying to get their site visitors to pay them for those products or services.

It's like I told an associate of mine recently,  "If you could just come up with one service or product idea that didn't require you to market it past the initial awareness creation stage -- which is usually between 1 month to 10 months after a product is released -- you'd have hit on your own little rainbow road to hidden pots of gold".

You see, what most people (and you may be one of them, I know I once was), try to do is figure out what their passion is and then try to look for a market interested in the same thing. That's fine -- as far as hobbies go.

But, if you want to really be making money hand over fist, or on auto-pilot, or if you want to enjoy the finer things in life (just to mention a few cliches), then you can not afford to look for markets that are created around your desires, whims or caprices.

What you want to do is look for a market that will chase after something you create for them to chase after,  whether it is your passion or not.

Listen, it helps to be "tres" passionate about what you're selling, but if you're "tres" passionate about something few people or nobody wants to pay for, you will remain "tres" poor for a long long long time. It's a simple fact of life.

Examples of Hard To Sell Products

I had thought to list a ton of products and services that are hard to move but then I might offend someone's sensitive feelings So, rather than do that, I thought I would give you a general but holistic picture of what not to sell online or offline for that matter.

Here goes,  You know you most likely have a dud in the making if you have to,

1. Dig for hours and/or days through search engines looking for sites that already have a congregation of potential buyers.

2. Search for more than 30 seconds (at least) for people selling similar products you're planning to sell. There is an exception to this rule as with most rules. The exception is, if you happen to be the first to come out with a truly valuable and/or revolutionary concept, then you still can have a winner even when no one else is selling something like what you want to get started selling,  truth though is, revolutionary concepts are NOT that common. So, rather than spend all your life looking for one, get started with something people already want to pay for but have no one interested in or capable of providing for them. You can spend your spare time thinking up that one great revolutionary idea once you have money in the bank, food in the stomach and bills all paid up -- it's smarter that way anyways, though the choice is yours in the end.

OK. Moving on,  You know you most likely have a dud in the making if you have to,

3. Convince YOURSELF that people are going to want what you got to give. Again there may be some exceptions here,  for instance, if you are a risk taker by nature, you will probably ignore my advice here,  and that's fine,  just be sure you're not taking miscalculated risks based on selfish desires simply to see a pet project come to life. It is usually not worth the risk to blindly create things people won't want in the end just because you've got that super stubborn, "I'm really a genius" streak in you,

Ah, what the heck,  many more lessons left to share, here we go,

You know you most likely have a dud in the making if you have to,

4. Spend far more time and money creating something than you can make from selling it within at least 3 months of releasing it. In short, if you have to wait too long to see profits online, you will get discouraged and chances are you will pack up long before the results do come in. And even if that doesn't happen, you know you have to explain to your spouse and/or family what the heck you think you're doing spending money and not making a dime,  most people don't last under that kind of pressure. So, avoid it if you can.

You know you most likely have a dud in the making if you have to,

5. Ask a ton of expert solutions for finding ways to market that product online or offline. Seriously, marketing is the easiest thing to do when you have the RIGHT product and have already located the RIGHT market. Most people create a product and start asking for magic pills to drive "traffic" to their site. If you do it right from the beginning, you won't have that problem in the first place. First find a market. Second find a product the market wants to, is willing to, and is able to pay for. Third make it brain dead easy for them to know you're the guy or gal who's made it ready for them. And finally, tell them how, when and where they can get their hands on it. All of this stuff is really simple if you would just do them in the right order. Bottom line: Marketing should be a no-brainer. And is when done the right way.

OK. Moving on,  You know you most likely have a dud in the making if you,

6. Can't easily write a convincing business plan and marketing strategy for that product/service out on paper in under 2 hours give or take a few minutes. Seriously, if you can't explain what you want to do to even yourself (talk much less of a 3rd party) on paper, you have a serious problem lurking in the shadows waiting to kill your business.

You know you most likely have a dud in the making if you,

7. Can't make your calculations (sales, profit forecasts etc) work on paper in the first place.

You know you most likely have a dud in the making if you,

8. Need more than a couple thousand dollars to get started and be seeing a profit within months. Most web business ideas can be launched on far less to almost nothing. So, if you get hung up on an idea that will cost you over $2K to launch, you'd better have the back up funds to make it worth your while in case things back fire. In the end though, my advice is unless you're setting up a fancy big shot web 2.0 site, don't go spending too much on new ideas at least until you have some test results to go on. Just be careful here.

You know you most likely have a dud in the making if you,

9. Find it hard building an affiliate force or a willing "followership" (i.e. people who don't care about getting paid to promote you) that will market your product WHILE you sleep. This one is self explanatory --

And finally,

10. The most obvious point would have to be this one --- If there are already a ton of people selling EXACTLY what you want to sell or a very similar product or service, you're only setting yourself up to spend a ton more of your time and/or money to get the attention of your prospects. Which is fine if you have that time and money to spare.

That's all for now,  I will continue with Rule 2/Step 2 - "Start Making Friends & Influencing People" same spot tomorrow -- Look out for it.

Cheers,

Kunle Olomofe

.Copyright 2008.