I’ve been reading a lot of stuff from some very successful internet marketers, such as Yanik Silver. There’s a lot of interesting ideas and good wisdom about marketing a business through the internet within these things. I’ve noticed one common theme throughout all of them, one that I have a hard time doing, and that is to have only one project on the go at a time. What they mean by this is to start one of your products/sites and build it to a point where it is viable and starting to produce. Once it has reached that point, then you can start on the next one. It doesn’t mean that you abandon the first one!

One Project at a Time

Once your initial project is to the point where you can spend a couple of hours a week maintaining it and updating any content you need to, then you start on the next project. This makes sense, because if you do as I have been doing and have several projects on the go at a time, then you will find that it takes much longer to reach a point where you are able to monetize and actually profit from whatever your product is. And that’s not good for you.

I know that it’s easy to have a few good ideas and want to act on each of them, at least so that you can get your ideas down and be able to get a jump start on it before someone else does or before you really forget what it is that you wanted to do. I know this, because I have ideas for at least a dozen different products and sites, probably more. And I’ve actually started working on a few of them. I currently have six projects on the go. This is too many. One of the projects, granted, is actually a completed eBook. But my site went down a couple of weeks ago and I haven’t been able to find the time to fix it, because I have too many other things on the go. That’s really bad! I have to fix that right away - top priority. Then I’ll have five projects on the go.

Setting Your Marketing Priorities

Prioritizing the projects is a necessity, as I will never reach my timeline goal if I keep diverting my time and resources across too many projects. I have to get one site and project working to the point where it is actually bringing me an income. And I know which one that is. There are several things that I need to do with each site/project to get it to the point where it is generating money. And the time commitment to get to that point is enormous! How long does it really take to get one site profitable?

How Long Does It Take to Get the Site Up?

Let’s figure it out. First there’s product development. If I’m doing an affiliate site, then the product is the site and the reviews. There has to be a lot of content in order to have a site that people will even consider worth visiting. This typically means at least 25-30 articles within your own site. If each article takes 30 minutes to write and post to the site (on average), then that is 15 hours alone. Setting up the site itself is likely to take at least a few hours. Let’s be tough and say six hours. We’re already up to 21 hours of work, and we haven’t even done any marketing for the site. We have to register the site with search engines. You can get programs that do this for you automatically, but really there are only about half a dozen that are really worth your time and effort. So let’s say that takes another two or three hours, max. Now we’re up to 24 hours of work. And that’s being generous, because we haven’t included any research for the articles or obtaining a domain, or any of that initial work, which can easily double or triple those hours.

I’m going to say that it easily takes twice those hours to get to that point in a site. So we’re looking at 48 hours of actual work. Already that’s more than a week of full time work, if you’re working a regular job. And this isn’t that, thank goodness! But we still have a lot of marketing to do. And we haven’t monetized the site, yet.

What Other Things Are Necessary?

Putting on the items like Google Adwords or affiliate links within the articles or at the end of your articles is going to really add to the time it takes to complete your site. That can take more time than writing the articles themselves. Thankfully it’s only one-time work. Once the article is set and has the monetization within it, there really isn’t any more work you have to do on that article. But you still have to do the advertising and marketing to get people to your site. And that’s where the real work comes in. And we also have to make sure that our autoresponders are working.

Setting up your autoresponder messages takes quite a bit of time, too. How many hours do you spend setting up those initial messages and making sure that they look timely, even if the new subscriber comes on board six months down the road? I would say that you have to spend at least 30 minutes on each message, making sure it’s done properly, reads well, and doesn’t look like blatant commercials. You want to identify with the reader and make it worth his/her while to read each message. So the messages must be crafted properly. And if you send out one message every two weeks, that’s another 30 minutes every two weeks. At least that you can craft over the course of the year.

How About Initial Marketing Efforts?

But what about your marketing efforts? You want to do no less than ten articles for your article marketing. I would allow at least 60 minutes per article to get decent articles. And more time to post them to four or five good article sites. More if you are sending to more article sites. Yes, you can article blast through software. But not everybody has the money to buy that software, if you do, then it’s a great way to save your time.

So far we’ve taken at least 60 hours of time just to get one affiliate site going. Assume you are able to get a good six hours a week in to this side business; it will take you ten weeks just to get it operational. That’s realistic. Ten weeks isn’t bad at all! Now the money isn’t going to start rolling in right away, and you’ll have to spend at least another hour or two every week just to keep up your marketing efforts, however you decide to do those. Ten weeks is a very short time to get something rolling in business. That’s not even three months.

 The Quickest Way for Most People

And affiliate sites are probably the quickest way to start making money on the internet. Forget the pie-in-the-sky junk that you read about people making a million dollars in two years. It’s not realistic. Most of those are very lucky or outright lying. If you have a great product, you can make six figures a year, if you put in the effort. And most people don’t realise how much work really is involved in making it on the internet. I recently read an interview with one of Yanik Silver’s students and associates. It took that guy three years to make any profit. But now he is one of those who have made over a million in sales. So, it takes perseverance, a good product, and a lot of effort! And I will too! Anyone can, if they are willing to stick with it.

The Most Profitable Way in the Long Run

If you are willing to put in the time and effort that is really required to be a huge success, and you have the wherewithal and some basic knowledge, you can make your own products. These can be marketed in a number of ways, whether through eBooks or membership sites, or whatever, it doesn’t matter. The long term highest returns are in your won products. You will have to find ways to get others to sell your product and do a huge amount of marketing. That’s just natural, since if people don’t know about your product, you’ll never sell it. But at least you will have the confidence that in the long term you will be a success.

Now I’m off to get working on my project!