As you go about reading up on ways to build your business, you probably have found there are a lot of theories about how to get a good audience. Many tactics naturally value the search engines, without which you’re hard to find in the first place.

Over time you become more established, and hopefully start to build a good audience. If you’re writing a blog, tracking your audience can be pretty easy with tools such as Feedburner. You can find out just how many people are subscribed to your blog, and even share that information on a chicklet if you like.

The trouble comes in if you start to get too obsessed with search engine traffic, and forget about the audience you’ve been building for. Or you start aiming for the Digg front page or wanting a huge number of Stumbles to your site.

You forget your audience and write for someone or something else instead.

All these sources of traffic can be very nice, but trying too hard for them can alienate the readers you really want. Digg and Stumble traffic may not convert well. Search engine traffic is better, but it only helps if you’re writing for the people reading your site rather than the bots.

Truth be told, success is not to be had strictly in a large number of visitors or subscribers. Both are nice, but what are they doing to help you earn a living? If you’re trying to earn money and they aren’t interested in buying, you aren’t doing yourself any good just going for the numbers.

Show your audience that you value it by providing good value to them. Write interesting, relevant content. Point out solid products and services that they may enjoy using. Build trust. Be responsive.

If you’re open to what your visitors and subscribers have to say, they may well tell you what they’d like to see on your site. You can get some idea of this just by tracking where people go the most on your site (aside from the home page!), or you can ask. Start a poll or write a post asking people what they would like to see more of from you.

Providing good value is not the only step you’ll have to take if you want to succeed online. No matter how good your site is, if no one can find it no one will care about it. But it is a major portion of what it takes to maintain your success.

According to this article in Business Week, eBay is eying the fixed price model more than the auction model now. They’re trying to make it easier to use the “Buy It Now” option rather than use auctions. Sellers will pay less upfront, and more when a sale occurs. They’ll still have auctions, of course.

I can see good and bad to this. Certainly it’s nice to be able to find something I like, and just buy it rather than hope I win the auction. Snipers are a pain. But at the same time, that’s not what people come to eBay for, and I can’t help but wonder if they’re risking their business model on this.

Then again, they say the auction model has been slipping for them, so they might just have it right.

But if you look at the comments on the article, the general feeling is that it is the sniper that has made the auction model work so poorly. eBay has never managed to fix that problem, which is a challenging one indeed. Combine that with the insane shipping charges some sellers had, and it’s no wonder buyers became disillusioned with them.

This is the kind of thing you need to address in your own business. You need to know what people dislike about your business as well as what they truly loathe about it. It’s rarely easy to solve business problems, but if you know what they are you can at least make the effort.

Or if you’re trying to get into a business, see what mistakes your competition is making. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see other auction sites trying to make a move on this. If a site can establish itself as a better auction experience for both buyers and sellers than what eBay offers, they might have a shot.

I’m not expecting that too soon, or anything; it’s just that I can see the opening.

I’m pretty excited to finally be able to go to such an event. I’ve been trying for ages to get into one industry event or another, but my plans have always fallen through.

I finally got everything to go smoothly for attending BlogWorld.

The one thing slowing me down was waiting to find out if my husband could get the weekend off work. Wouldn’t you know, his 6 weeks training at the new job ends a full week before BlogWorld. For various reasons, we want him to normally work weekends. Yet you obviously don’t want to be making too many scheduling requests on a new job.

Fortunately, his boss thoroughly approves of our taking a trip. Helps that the new job is in the travel industry.

So I have my pass reserved as well as hotel room. Don’t need to rent a car because I’m bringing my husband, and we’re close enough that driving makes more sense than flying, especially with the ticket prices I found online.

I know time’s going to fly, but September 20 seems far away now!

Making mistakes as you start out with a home business is easy. You should make mistakes, in fact. But some mistakes you are better off taking the time to learn about before you make them, rather than after someone catches you making them.

Mistake #1: Faking it until you make it to excess.

Lots of people suggest that you “fake it until you make it,” that is, do your best to sound like an expert even when you aren’t. The trouble with this kind of advice is that it’s very easy to get caught with this kind of a philosophy.

There are the people posting faked Clickbank stats. The ones posting on forums asking for beginning advice on the very topic they’re claiming expert status on elsewhere.

I personally don’t believe in faking it, but if you must, at least do it on a topic where you can keep up the facade. When you get caught faking it the reputation can follow you for years, especially online where people can accidentally or on purpose find out things that happened years ago. And be prepared to take the consequences if you blow it.

Mistake #2: Trying to do everything on just one site.

If you’re a beginner, don’t try to take on the big sites that cover thousands of topics. Pick a niche. Sure, you can start a blog about your life, your take on finances, your favorite new electronics, what your pet did yesterday, funny pictures you’ve found online, books and movies you recommend, career advice, camping tips and more, but unless you have a serious gift you aren’t going to get a very interested audience.

People like knowing what to expect from a site to at least a degree. If you’re trying to cover everything, it comes down to the old saying about “Jack of all trades, master of none.”

Mistake #3: Spam of any kind.

Some people spam forums claiming that only email can be spam. Unfortunately for such “marketers,” just about everyone else disagrees.

Forums generally have very clear rules about advertising on them. If not, you can read them and quickly figure out the general etiquette that is accepted on that forum.

Odds are that flat out ads as posts will not be accepted, and will be deleted as soon as a moderator passes by. You may or may not be able to have business links in your signature. It’s your responsibility to figure out what’s allowed and to follow the rules. Otherwise you will never gain any respect for yourself or your business.

Similarly, skip buying an email list. If you can afford one early on, it’s probably not a legitimate list. You really don’t want to get shut down for spamming, and you certainly don’t want to deal with the fines if things get serious.

Mistake #4: Not worrying about credibility.

Many marketers don’t seem to care at all if they’re credible. I can’t tell you how many lists I’ve unsubscribed from because the list owner promoted obvious junk just for the money, with no care for what the people on his list really wanted.

Same for on websites. If you promote a product when you really don’t know anything about it, how credible do you really think you are? Who do you think you’re fooling?

Sure you can fool some people, as there are plenty of people out there who will believe anything they read. There’s a reason why spammers keep at it, after all. But for a sustainable business model building credibility will take you much, much farther.

Mistake #5: Sitting back and expecting results.

You hear all the time about earning passive income online. Passive income is a wonderful thing. But planning on it too early on is asking to fail.

It takes work to build a passive income. That’s not a contradiction. You do the work for however long it takes to get things going. From there you will still have to do some work, but the amount can be decreased. Stop completely and even passive income is likely to fade away.

Mistake #6: Buying every new product that you think might help your business.

Lots of people make this mistake over and over again. A hot new product hits all the big internet marketing lists. People are raving about it. So you abandon your progress with one product before you’ve seen any results, and hop to the next one.

You know, there’s a reason why I don’t like to buy hyped products. They’re a distraction to my business. I don’t find them to be worth my time or money.

The occasional product, sure. I have a copy of The Super Affiliate Handbook. I use Build a Niche Store. I’ve read other books and ebooks, and I use other products. But I keep it to a minimum; that is, how much I feel I can use effectively.

Pick an ebook to read or a program to use and really get to understanding it. Follow every step. Learn it in as much detail as you can. Do your best to make a profit from it.

Once you’ve done that you can consider buying something else. But if you constantly stop in the middle of the learning process, especially if you haven’t made any money yet, you’re going to end up wondering why nothing works.

Mistake #7: Giving up.

I was not an overnight success. Heck, sometimes I still struggle with what the search engines like to do to me and the rankings of my sites. But I keep going. And since I was able to earn enough money to keep my family going despite my husband’s job loss, I’d say I do pretty decently.

Too many people start a home business expecting instant success. Don’t expect it. If you’re one of the lucky few, congratulations, but if you’re like the rest of us it will take several months to a couple years to really get things going.

It can be hard to say when giving up is the right choice. It’s not after two months of throwing up ads and wondering where the money is. But if you’re failing at every business you ever try you do need to look at how quickly you’re giving up.

This is related to Mistake #5 above, as many of the people who finally give up on home business are the ones who hopped from concept to concept, product to product, company to company without every really focusing on anything at all.

Mistake #8: Taking on too much.

You have a life outside your home business right? Most of us do, whether we’re married or not, have children or not. You might even be running your business on the side as you work a regular job.

Running yourself into the ground is a great way to burn out on any home business. Make sure you give yourself time away as necessary.

For example, I find it amazingly refreshing to just go and play with my kids for a half hour. I can come back to whatever I was working on nicely refreshed. Yet it’s just as easy to tell myself that I don’t have the time, and keep on being stressed, working less efficiently because I’m so drained.

But beyond that is trying to run more sites or a more complex site than you’re really up for. Make your life simple, especially at first, and keep things simple. Focused. Pick a target and aim at it. Learn as much as you can about your chosen market to help your business succeed.

Mistake #9: Not knowing when to outsource.

Ah, my own greatest weakness! I rarely outsource. But if you can stand to do it, outsourcing will benefit your business tremendously.

Sometimes it can be as simple as finding a quality resource for private label articles. This can be difficult, as there are more junk PLR sources than good ones. But you can save a ton of time when the research is already done for you.

But you should also consider outsourcing things such as website design, bookkeeping and any repetitive work that really doesn’t require your personal attention. The more you can focus on the things that are directly earning money for you, they better you are likely to do with them. A virtual assistant can be a huge help.

Outsourcing the wrong things can add to your work, so it’s something to be careful of. But once you find someone who does high quality work for you, try to keep him or her. It’s much easier to work with one person over and over than to have to explain yourself to every new person you try. And you’ll also know better what to expect in terms of quality.

Have I made these mistakes? Hmm… some of them. Definitely not all. #8 and #9 probably give me the most trouble still. I love what I do and I keep coming up with more ideas. Makes taking on too much really easy to do. But to let anyone else touch MY work? MINE! Except when I manage to let go just a little bit.

There are plenty of other mistakes you can make, of course. Feel free to share the ones you find to be challenging.

Looks like the list will include me, although I haven’t made my reservations quite yet. Waiting to hear if my husband can come along. He’ll probably just play in Vegas while I’m busy, but he still wants to be there.

Can’t say I blame him. Vegas is fun.

So today I wait to see what his new job says. Can he get time off and join me? It’s not precisely time off since it would just mean he’d work the whole week instead of the two weekend days plus 3 days of the week, but that difference may matter.

But whether I go with him or alone, it’s a trip I am much looking forward to. A chance to meet other bloggers. A chance to learn new things. And quite likely a whole lot of fun.

Anyone else going?

There’s a good article on Cath Lawson’s site on the importance of linking out. This is something I know I don’t do as much as I could, and need to work on.

Some people don’t link out because they like to hog their PageRank. I’ve never worried about that… PR comes or it doesn’t, Google giveth and Google taketh away. Matter of fact, they took away on this site a long time ago and still haven’t given back, and I don’t care.

Linking out isn’t about PageRank. It’s about referring to good resources and backing up what you say. Not to mention Cath’s point about advertisers.

Marketing your business on forums is a common piece of advice. A good forum can provide access to a number of people who are interested in the products you’re trying to sell.

So why does it fail so miserably for so many people?

1. Trying too hard to sell.

Many people who try to market affiliate products on forums go about it all wrong. Marketing their product is all they do, and they aren’t the least bit discreet about it. They may post all over the forum telling people to check their product out. They may try to squeeze a mention into every conversation, whether relevant or not.

They think of their efforts there as entirely to market a product. Not to become a trusted resource.

2 . Ignoring forum rules.

Working too hard to sell is just one way people can ignore forum rules. It’s the big one, though.

However many forums won’t allow you to advertise a business in your signature, or may require that you pay for the privilege. They may not allow affiliate links within posts, even when the product is perfectly relevant.

3. Signature line isn’t compelling.

Some people do better at participating in the forum, but still fail to do well as marketers on forums. Some will put just their affiliate URL in their signature. Sure, that gives a link to click, but what is it?

Or, if the link is followed or preceded by a description, the words aren’t the least bit compelling. Most forums allow you to use BB Code, which allows you to link to your site through your words, which looks much better.

4. Too irrelevant.

You’re not going to do that well marketing pet supplies on a crime forum. Sure there will be some pet owners, but that’s not what people there are looking for. Try to have some relevance in your signature to what people are talking about. It doesn’t have to be perfect, though.

5. Too relevant.

Too close a match can be a problem as well, although perhaps not as often. You don’t want to be offering something that pretty much everyone in the forum already has. Try to come up with a product that will intrigue the people who read your signature.

6. Too many links.

Most forums have limits on the number of characters you have in your signature. Some limit the number of links you may include.

Both of these things are good for you.

People aren’t generally going to read a really long signature line. They also may ignore excessive links within your signature. Keep the number of links down and be sure your signature is easy to read.

7. Never, ever changing your signature.

Remember, even if a forum has thousands of active members, after a time just about everyone interested in your current signature has seen it. Changing things up, even if you’re still offering the same product, can bring in fresh customers.

8. Fail to test your signature links.

Test. That’s right, test, test, test. And test again. Then change things up regularly.

Forum marketing is just like any other kind of marketing. An ad may be pulling well and then suddenly quit working.

But beyond that, make sure your links actually work. It’s amazing how often forum signature links just don’t work because you didn’t get it quite right. Strange things sometimes happen between typing your signature and hitting the Submit button.

But What About Successfully Marketing on Forums?

There are a few keys to successfully marketing affiliate products, or indeed any business on a forum.

1. Be a contributing member.

Don’t just focus on yourself, your business, and your products. Give advice anytime you have something well thought out to say. Make friends.

2. Participate regularly.

Try to not vanish for months on forums. It’s much harder to build up a reputation if you aren’t a regular participant.

For many forums, daily visits may be best, but you can often get away with every other day or so. The busier the forum, the quicker posts disappear off the first page, and the fewer people will read them. The more you participate, the more often people will read what you have to say.

3. Do not overdo the time you spend on forums.

The biggest catch to forum marketing is that they can be huge time wasters. Limit the amount of time you allow yourself to be on forums. They should be a part of your marketing mix, not your sole focus.

Sure, being social and making friends is an important part of forum marketing, but that doesn’t mean you need to check back several times a day. Schedule your forum time so that you get plenty of other work done on your business.