1. A Product

2. A Web Site

3. A Web Host

4. A Marketing Plan

Each of these items needs your individual attention and it is precisely here at this point where many new Internet marketers drop the ball. Not because of a lack of will but because either they try to do all things at once thereby neglecting each one individually or they can do one or two things but not all four. If you are planning to build a direct sales web site (and that's the only type of web site you should be building) there are certain rules and conditions that must exist if you are to be successful. Here is one way on how to get to market.

1. Your Product

Any product you choose to market has to solve a problem. If it doesn't solve a problem then all you got is a solution looking for a problem. Wrong way. First find a problem then find the solution. How? One very good way is to visit the forums that serve your target market. Get a feel for what it is that pains them then join and offer your opinions as to what could be a solution. Another way to find a "problem" is to use your tools: Yahoo has a very good "problem finder" in the business. Search for keywords using the problem as the keyword. Then build your business around that keyword.

2. A Web Site

Your web site should be designed to do one thing only: sell. I do not understand why so many web sites I visit are full of banners and links and other stuff all designed to lead a buyer away when that very same web site is in fact trying to sell something. I know everyone would say it's the links and I agree but, the links should be coming to the site not leading away! Do you see the difference? In web site marketing design there are certain rules and conditions that must be followed and to not use those rules and conditions is simply not the way to do it. It would take much more room to explain it all here so suffice it to say again, to not apply those rules and conditions is not a good idea.

3. Web Hosts

In a perfect world you would sign up with a web host that offered to support your web business marketing efforts. There are very few hosts that offer true support. I don't mean the "24/7, toll-free" stuff either. This type of support is good for a very short period of time -once you learn how to manage your control panel you are essentially good to go. No, what I mean by support is marketing support: autoresponders and email list management, ad tracking, affiliate program management and even membership management. These are the things every web business must have and they would be the real support to look out for.

4. A marketing plan

Entire books have been written about marketing. And make no mistake, if you are looking into setting up a direct sales web site you are (or are planning to be) an Internet Marketer. Notice it says "Marketer" meaning marketing. That is why you must implement a marketing plan. Ask a thousand web masters how to do web marketing and you'll get a thousand different answers. Some work, some don't and others are just plain useless. There are specific vehicles you must use to drive traffic to your site and in this context, nothing else matters, moreover, if you are not engaged in using these specific vehicles then you are actually wasting your time and money. What are these vehicles? Articles (like this one), email, blogs, SEO and classifieds to name a few. All (and a bunch more) should be worked into a plan that will work for you.

So there you are. The four items needed for Internet success. All take time to build, all take expertise to develop and all need you to decide to do something. Fortunately, there are many places you can go to find the information. They are spread all over the Internet. But what if there was one place you could go to find three of the four...