Like everyone I’m prone to procrastinating at the best of times. For me that was pretty much the story of my teenage years. Always wanting to do something, planning it and never really following through.

Blame the advent of online games and YouTube or whatever you like but the crux of the issue was that I just didn’t do things.

I always knew I loved the internet. My parents owned a computer store when I was very young and I was always around computers. I had access to things like Photoshop and Dreamweaver and by the time I was in my mid-teens I was already an excellent designer and proficient coder.

Now at 23 I know I already had everything I needed then to make a living online. All I would of had to have done is hustle, a bit. Okay, a lot!

Almost a year ago I decided I was bored of always saying I could do this and I should do that and I started freelancing. What an insane world that is!

I quite quickly found out I had a skill gap that I could fill to make some more money, and that was marketing. I took to it like a duck to water and haven’t looked back.

In that last year I’ve learned a lot and I’ve seen the dark side of marketing and the good ‘white hat’ side. I don’t want to turn this into an essay so I will tell you exactly what it is that I have learned this last year.

There’s a lot of piss poor marketers out there!

I’ve seen people endlessly attempting get rich quick schemes and throwing up landing pages, terrible websites and promoting products. There are a lot of great affiliate marketers out there, but the vast majority don’t know what they’re doing and expect results for the least amount of effort.

Not only this but there are people claiming to be SEOs who don’t see the need to keep up with their field. In an everchanging industry if you don’t do this then you’re going to do more bad than good for your clients. The difference between the best SEOs and the worst is simply the best ones keep learning.

In almost every facet of internet marketing you’re going to be piss poor at it if you don’t see the need to always be learning. If you don’t love learning it’s probably not the field for you.

I hate the way people copywrite!

I’m not Gary Halbert or someone from Mad Men but I’d like to think that I get copywriting in advertising. I understand what an imperative verb is and how to use that in a call-to-action. I know that a fundamental understanding of psychology and a flair for writing is important…

What I don’t like though is how most copywriters and marketers trying it themselves seem to believe there is a need for trickery and ostentatious language. Ernest Hemingway even said that writing is best when it’s using the fewest words and easiest language possible.

That’s my belief and I stick by it, and you know what... I get pretty good conversion rates!

Being a jack of all trades isn’t a bad thing!

Flying in the face of conventional wisdom, in internet marketing being a jack of all trades isn’t a bad thing. I’ve taken the time to learn as much as possible about multiple areas of marketing.

I’ve been able to offer my clients much more, make more money and deliver better results. It’s ensured I can always go above and beyond and exceed their expectations.

In my own projects it’s allowed me to think laterally and be more creative with my strategies and get better results than I could have done if I didn’t know all that I do.

I think we could all benefit from knowing a little more about our related subjects even if it’s just so we can know when we’re being bullshitted to by people we’re looking to outsource the work to.

If you don’t have a strategy you’re flying blind!

I recently started a blog that’s not 100% ready to launch called SEO Saves.

While most marketers have a strategy for this and for that, not all of us think about the really important things.

We know a website is useless without traffic so we devise traffic generation strategies to bring more visitors. A lot of us now do this through content marketing but do you have an actual strategy for your entire site?

What’s the purpose of it? How do you want it to serve you?

In my case I’m interested in working with bloggers and small businesses. I want to eventually launch a product and also get consulting work.

So I go further than just devising a strategy for marketing my content… I actually know that each piece of content needs to serve my purpose.

• If I convert visitors to my mailing list it will help me build a relationship with my audience and I can use this to leverage when I launch my product for some early sales.
• More shares means more people view my content which comes back to my main product launch goal of building my mailing list.

So my content is highly focused on being content that can be shared. But it’s also got to be informative and build authority/trust.

The lesson is don’t create content just for the sake of it. Don’t create it just for the sake of getting more visitors. Know exactly how you want that content to serve the bigger picture as well or you’re just not utilizing it to it’s full potential.

Outreach is so much more important than you think!

SEO, SMM, Content Marketing. They all have something in common…

Relationships make them tick.

With SEO, if you’re interested in building metrics you know the importance of Link Building. With SMM you can have as many followers as you like but if you have 25 true fans it’s better than 250 strangers. With Content Marketing people aren’t going to care if they don’t like you or your brand isn’t in alignment with their values.

All in all you have to think about your outreach. How are you building relationships? What value do you add to these relationships? You want to actually make these people your friends and spend at least half your time working on this as well as creating your content.

A few of the best ways I’ve seen this done are just talking to people. Forums, commenting on peoples blogs and getting involved on social media.

Shoot them an e-mail when you mention them in a post. Offer them your opinion on their site, products etc.

See if they’d be interested in an informative guest post. All of this stuff completely ties in together and I’ve learned you can’t treat any of it as separate if you want truly great results.

Conclusion:

My ultimate conclusion in my first year as an internet marketer is that you’ve got to be willing to learn and do so by accepting you’re own limitations and failures.

You have to cut through the crap and when you think you can use a shortcut or trick people then be honest with yourself and know you’re going to fail.

Focus on building relationships even if it’s not always reciprocal and it doesn’t pay off immediately. Work like hell to do this and spend the majority of your time on outreach.

Don’t lose sight of your real goals and if you don’t know why you’re doing something take a step back and ask yourself some important questions such as what’s the purpose of this? Define it and figure out a strategy to make it work.

Because that’s what an internet marketer really is. You’re a strategist and someone who figures out the problems, and comes up with ways to overcome them.