Hungry for Some New Year’s Resolutions for Your Online Business?

Ah yes, the new year is almost here and this means time for some new year’s resolutions. Besides some obvious stuff like losing weight and spending more time with your kids I want to interest you with some online business related resolutions. And I promise these are not things you’ll just abandon by the end of January.

1. Don’t create any crap products

This is something I talked about just recently. Crap products are things like 15 page e-books that are sold to your audience as “the best thing ever” when in fact they are just meant to make you some quick buck.

An odd thing for a new year’s resolutions list because it’s something I ask you not to do. And it’s probably even more strange as every marketer online tells you to indeed go out and create such simple products.

If you want to get my complete point of view on this, feel free to visit my other post titled so-called quality product creation. In short, simple products like that don’t help anyone, and they are often very poorly produced (yes, the workmanship matters too, not only the raw content).

2. Make your newsletter content driven

First of all, if you don’t have a newsletter yet, launch one this week (you can use the free plan at MailChimp). And if you do, make sure that it’s content driven, as opposed to promotion driven.

In a nutshell, send not more than one promotional message for every nine pure content messages.

I’m sure you realize this, but your readers really don’t care about promotions. They’re being hit left and right with promotions so they most certainly don’t need you to do the same. And if they’re still subscribed, it only means that you haven’t crossed the line yet. But if you do, they will leave.

3. Build a network of 10 people

The word network is not my favorite one so let me elaborate. What I actually mean is building relationships with 10 people, either inside your niche or in some related niches.

The point of such relationships is to gain valuable connections, which you can then use for joint ventures or some other projects.

They key to successful communication is to start on a personal level and don’t ask for any favors upfront. I’m sure you already have some people on your mind you’d like to connect with. Therefore I encourage you to start as soon as today.

4. Write at least 10 guest posts per month

Guest posting is one of the best promotion methods for any website, not only blogs or online magazines. The power of guest blogging lies in user engagement and link building on quality domains.

Quite simply, if you write an interesting enough guest post, some of the readers will click the link in your bio and visit your site. The more targeted the blogs where you guest post are, the better results you’ll have.

5. Take action on one of your IM products

I’m sure you bought some of those in the past… However, chances are you didn’t take action all the way through. Now is a good time to finally do it.

(That is, of course, if you still consider the product being a quality one.)

6. Try getting a freelance contract

Because why the hell not…? Freelancing is one of the best direct methods to make money. You have the expertise and you have the knowledge … quite frankly, you don’t need anything more.

To make this happen, you can either look within your niche and try to come up with some offerings of your own, or browse some of the popular online job boards and look for interesting opportunities there.

Getting some freelancing experience will give you a way better insight into people’s needs, as compared to offering random products based on your own judgment.

7. Buy new assets

Things like new domains, new licenses, and anything else that can help you make money directly.

To give you a more accurate definition, let’s have a look at Wikipedia:

[…] assets are economic resources. Anything tangible or intangible that is capable of being owned or controlled to produce value and that is held to have positive economic value is considered an asset.

Now, be careful not to buy a liability. Focus only on things that have a strong potential to make you money directly.

8. Build a social media presence

Finally, the most favorite thing for anyone online – social media. What I actually advise here is pretty basic. Pick just one social media network where you want to build your presence in the next 12 months. Not all at the same time.

Also, it’s best to pick the one that’s already producing some good results for you. Remember, it’s always easier to improve what’s already working than to build something from the ground up.

The exact way how you’re going to do that is up to you. There are more than enough social media blogs on the internet to help you.

9. Start a series on your blog

A series is a simple sequence of posts talking about one complex topic. Instead of explaining all the whys and hows here, let me send you over to some other resources.

First, some examples:

And finally, a post explaining how to build a series and publish it on a WordPress site: How to Publish a Series of Posts in WordPress.

I guess that summarizes my list of new year’s resolutions for online business owners. Are you planning to take action on any of the things mentioned here? Or maybe you have something else in plan?