I've enjoyed a pretty steep learning curve in the last few months regarding programming and website marketing.

I just purchased Rosalind Gardner's ebook - Titled Super Affiliate Handbook.

I loved the 260 page ebook because it's really hard to argue with somebody who is successful and who's been successful for the last many years. Her systems are tried and true.

One of the things Rosalind talks about is staying focussed while you're growing your business. Laser precision focus.

I understand focus all too well but at times have been out of focus while trying to grow the business.

Personal Example: For the last many years my sites were highly ranked in their respective keywords and they were all I really needed to make a good living. I worked hard at keeping my sites ranked well for these keywords.

Then in September, with Google's Jagger update, all of my sites were introduced to ranks that were so low, they would be considered Arctic Rankings. Cold and nowhere.

I went from focussed to out of focus very quickly. With my main sites out of the game, I had to figure out if I was going to do SEO, PPC or a combination of the two.

The skill that I was really good at was writing high quality, well keyworded pages that got good ranks. All of a sudden this skill went out the door. My high quality 50 page sites were no longer visible.

So... what do I do now?
Since September, I've bitten the bullet and taken the plunge into programming, so as to learn how to easily build large scale sites. l 've also built my first high quality PPC campaign that tweaks all of my geo-targeting and keywords to death. It's really beautiful!!

I've decided that I'm going to do a bit of all types of marketing so as not to get into the same 'one skill' rut as before.

To be honest, I plan on trying black hat and white hat techniques as I learn them. Black hat is harder to learn for newbies :)

I want to see which techniques give me more control over traffic. I want to see which techniques make me less reliant on search engines or any one internet entity.

LONG STORY SHORT:
I've felt like I've had to learn a huge amount about programming, PPCs, SEO, website development to get back into focus, and to get back some control of my traffic. In grabbing this education, I feel like I can tackle several types of marketing and be fairly competent with them. I'm getting my focus back.

I COULDN'T FOCUS ON / OR SEE WHAT I NEEDED TO DO, BECAUSE THERE WERE TOO MANY FRAGMENTED THINGS TO LEARN FIRST!

Finally... while I had been very successful in internet marketing for years, in September 2005 I was forced to open myself up to a whole bunch of new learning experiences.

Website marketing is like ice fishing
I compare the website marketing process to going fishing in a lake in Northern Canada during the cold of winter.
You know there's fish in the lake, and you know you're going to catch some. You just have to dig a few holes to figure out where they are. You have to dig the holes while not being able to see where the fish are. And you have to be consistent enough to dig the holes until you get the fish.

Website marketing at the beginning is a work of faith and you have to be willing to do it blind for the first while. That's what I'm learning!!

Articles from February 2006
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