When it comes to making money online, or offline, it’s not how much you make that matters; it’s how much you keep.
Today, everyone is busy. Moving fast. For some, a typical day includes:
- Posting to social media to get more leads.
- Trying to keep up with the crazy 24-hour news cycle.
- Trying to avoid clicking too many clickbait headlines
- Struggling to keep up with email.
- Worrying about how to make money online.
And that does not even include your personal life!
Sound familiar?
There is no doubt that this level of busyness is bad for us. Psychologists have proven it and our societies show the wear.
But did you know that being too busy can have a dramatic negative impact on your budget?
It’s true! Trying to do too much, too fast, can be fatal to keeping a balanced budget.
Especially if you are new to trying to make money online and not following a proven plan you trust.
Here are seven areas where moving too fast can cost you serious money.
1 – Broken Affiliate Links
I put this first because it’s the most damaging and I see it the most often.
Here’s how this problem develops.
You see a product you want to promote. You believe in the product (hopefully) and believe you can do well promoting it.
So you sign up for the affiliate program and get your link.
So far, so good.
Next, you choose a traffic source and get your ad copy ready, remembering to include your affiliate link in the copy.
Well done.
But, and here is the big problem, you do not TEST your affiliate link to make sure you are credited.
And that is when bad things happen.
If you want to stop losing affiliate commissions you should have received, always check your affiliate link BEFORE using it in an ad or anywhere else.
HINT: For most affiliate networks, like Clickbank and JV Zoo, you will be able to see your affiliate ID on the order page.
2 – Having Links On Your Squeeze Page
This is a common mistake. One that can cost you thousands over time.
A squeeze page has one purpose only … to get the lead. That means getting a visitor to fill in the opt-in form and join your list.
Yet we see squeeze pages galore that have links offering the visitor the chance to click away.
These links most commonly point to …
- A person’s blog.
- A products page.
- Social media accounts like Facebook or Twitter.
- An About page.
- A YouTube channel.
- A sales letter for a different product!
All of these are mistakes that cost you money. Why is that true?
Because these links are a distraction. An excuse for the visitor to not fill in the opt-in form but instead check out what is happening on these other pages.
This is unscientific, but I would say that 99.9% of the time they simply will never come back to the squeeze page.
They are gone, lost to you forever and not going to join your list.
ACTION STEP: Review your squeeze pages today for links that might distract. If they are there, remove them.
If you feel the need to have disclaimer-type links on the page put them on the bottom of the page, not the top.
3 – No Links Inside Your Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is a specific piece of content you give visitors in exchange for joining your list.
The most common type of content is still a PDF report. That makes sense as PDFs are easy to read, easy to create and can contain great content.
But a review of many PDFs shows that many of them do not contain links to the product being promoted or to the site of the person providing the lead magnet.
This is a mistake because the PDF is a part of the sales process just like a sales letter, order form or solo ad.
If you use PDFs as lead magnets, be sure to include the following links.
You want a link to …
- The order form of the product being promoted.
- The sales letter of the product being promoted.
- YOUR blog.
- YOUR products page.
- Other squeeze pages you offer.
- Testimonials for the product being promoted.
While you don’t want to overwhelm your report with links, you do want to make sales.
And that means having a page where the links are super-obvious (I like using the second page) and linking in the text as well.
Some people put a “recommended resources” page at the end of their lead magnet. This works very well too.
4 – No Links In Personal Emails
How many emails a day do you send? And yes, I mean personal emails AND business emails too.
For many people that number is 20 or more.
We don’t often stop to think about it, but 20 emails a day is over 7000 emails a year!
And while you might not want to invite your Mom to join your mailing list, there are people who will read your email who will join your list.
What if only 10% of the emails you sent resulted in a new subscriber?
That would mean over 700 people on YOUR mailing list for no cost and almost no effort.
And given that every person on your list is worth between $1 and $2 per month in sales (when your email follow up system is right) that’s up to $1400 per month to you!
ACTION STEP: Write a signature for your email that reads something like this. “The most exciting discovery I ever made on line is at this link” click here.
Now put your affiliate link in there (hopefully, for a product you love) and watch what happens over time.
5 – No Ads Inside Your Blog Posts
One of the most wasted pieces of real estate online is the area INSIDE a blog post.
The great thing about blogging is that you can post articles that help people. But did you know YOU can be helped too?
Just put a small ad for a product appropriate to the blog post in the MIDDLE of the post.
It’s sort of like ads on the radio. No one stops listening to their favorite talk radio show because of an ad. It’s just expected.
So find the right spot in your post and put a small ad.
ACTION STEP: The best choice for this is a 300X200 pixel banner ad. It catches the eye without overwhelming the words.
It looks like this …
Learn to write blog posts that convert into sales!
6 – Paying For Multiple Services That Do The Same Thing
I once met a well-meaning man who had five? autoresponder accounts.
No judgment here, I have made the same mistake.
- You see that a person you admire is using Aweber so you use them too.
- Then you sign up with someone like JVZoo who is pushing GetRepsonse so you get that.
- Then you see that LeadPages owns Drip and think that’s the way to go!
Here is the problem … you will never know your real marketing statistics unless you take the time to compile open and click rates from each autoresponder so you can compare them.
That is too much work!
ACTION STEP: If you have more than one autoresponder account take some time to choose the one you like best. Then begin moving your lists to the one you chose. It will take time but be worth the effort.
7 – Not Using What You Buy
We finish with what might well be the Grandaddy of all money wasters … not using the things you buy.
If you have ever heard yourself say “I can always get a refund” I can practically guarantee you have made this mistake.
Please know that I am not throwing stones. At one point I owned over 600 domain names. FOR FOUR YEARS!
They just all sounded SO good. I knew I would use them someday.
I cringe to think of the waste.
Happily, this one is easy to fix. In fact, how to fix it is in the action step!
ACTION STEP: Never buy anything until you have a plan on how you will use it and until you have scheduled the time to use it in your calendar.
Sounds radical, right? But it works.
Take time today to examine yourself in these seven areas. While this is not a “how to sell more” article, it just might add more to your bottom line than you think.
Remember this – it’s not how much you make that matters, its how ‘much you keep.
And keeping more is a beautiful thing indeed!
