I have read a lot of blog posts, opinions and teachings online, even from a previous mentor, saying that to be successful online, you have to brand yourself high profile, develop your own product, make it go “viral” and be the “buzz” on all the social networking sites.  And that unless you are adding thousands of new followers on Twitter each week, you don’t “get” the importance of it for developing your online brand.

Maybe.

And some act as if there is no place for you online unless you make yourself highly visible and position yourself as the “go to” guy.  So if you are don't want to be in the spotlight, and are uncomfortable aligning yourself with the mega-star gurus, then you had better quit the internet now or focus on an online support role such as a forum moderator.

I totally disagree.

I think there is a place online for everyone who wants to be online.  If you play to your strengths, understand your core competencies and talk in “your own voice”, then you will find your own market.  And there are still very good businesses to be hard through automation – which doesn’t require you to have a “name” online.

I agree that if you thrust yourself into the spotlight, it’s highly likely that you’ll develop a wide customer base and more quickly, than people who don’t, simply because more people will gain “fast exposure” to you. 

But you will also have customers even if you prefer to fly “under the radar”.  After all, there are lots of people who have made very good money by doing just that, like Michael Green and Chris Freville.  And if you just said "who?", doesn't that prove my point?

So, which way do you go?  Follow the pack to guru status or fly under the radar?

Actually, the choice is not consciously yours.  How you become successful online depends totally on your personal style and preferred method of working. 

If you are independent, free-thinking and largely self-reliant, someone who doesn’t need a great deal of social interaction, you will probably be more successful playing to these traits and staying "low visibility".  But remember that this strategy takes time and effort to build business momentum.  If your work is high quality, you will get more loyal customers.  In time you will be the big fish in your small niche market.  Having “cracked” one niche market, you will find moving into another easy because your name will not be highly identified as a niche specialist, outside your niche. 

On the flip side, if you are a party animal, someone who thrives on not just “playing hard” but being seen to be playing hard, someone who desires to be “known” as a guru, then you will get more out of being "high profile" online.  Becoming widely known and highly visible will certainly catapult a fledgling business into a cash cow far quicker than the “under the radar” approach.  However, there is a risk that a high profile “guru” cannot enter other niche markets without losing credibility as an expert.  (Hence the common use of “niche names”).

So when you start your online business, decide what kind of person you are (ask your friends and family if they agree!)  Follow the business development profile that suits YOU.  If you aim for “high profile”, when you're really a “stealth flier”, you will be uncomfortable in your role and less successful than you would have been if you were “true” to yourself.  Likewise, trying to be a "best kept secret", when you want to shout “look at me” is similarly doomed. 

Be yourself online.  Stay true to you when branding and marketing yourself online.  That’s what the true “gurus” do. 

Everyone knows that niche marketing is the way to go these days.  I’ve blogged about what niche marketing is before on this site. 

Niches allow you to focus your efforts for maximum effect – you're not wasting time trying to cover a huge area - rather, you're spending your resources pinpointing a target market.  The best way to build a niche following (of targeted potential customers) is by building a blog.

People love blogs.  Blogs are great places to find an ongoing flow of information that is relevant to a certain topic or subject area.  Some people think blogs are only for the internet marketing niche or personal blogs for people wanting to talk about their holidays.  Not so – they work brilliantly with all niche markets. 

All you have to do is choose your niche and start your blog.

Yes, I'm being a bit over simplistic by saying that – but really, blogs aren't difficult to create and maintain and a blog is a great way to publish your content – the content that marks you as an expert in your field.

To build a niche following with a blog, you'll want to first choose your niche keywords carefully.  Once you've done that, you can create content – your blog posts, even podcasts and videos that you embed in your blog, that center on those keywords.

Keep your blog fresh and updated on a very regular basis, and make sure you've search engine optimized your blog.  You'll find that the search engines are more than happy to give it a good page rank.  This leads to more traffic and more traffic leads to a growing following.  

Create a blog to support your niche.  You'll brand yourself as an expert quickly and it is just one more way for people to find you.  And with lots of good quality content presented in one place, they will keep coming back.  It's true it can take a lot of effort – but it will reap rewards for you!

An eBook is a big deal and can mean big profits for you.  One of the ways to get your eBook off to an outstanding start is to get some good testimonials for it before you launch it.  You’re probably wondering how to get testimonials for your eBook before a launch, and you might be a little bit panicked, thinking it's an impossible task, but it's really rather easy.

Some people make up testimonials or buy them. That may be OK for them but not for me - and really, wouldn't you rather have true, authentic testimonials that you can feel good about?  If that's the case, you can get testimonials for your eBook in a couple of different ways.

First, once your eBook is finished, edited and ready to go, send complimentary copies of it to friends, people you know in the business, big names, and gurus.  You could even send a free copy to a couple of your best customers.  Be up front with them and ask them to read the eBook and offer a testimonial.

Another way is to visit online forums and offer to give a free copy of your ebook to anyone willing to give a testimonial.  The Warrior Forum is always a good place to start – but remember to check out forums in your niche area too!

People in the business, including the gurus and big names will write testimonials because it's good publicity for them.  Collect several good testimonials and post them on your eBook sales page and your website.

Make sure that your eBook testimonials are as authentic as possible and include the first and last name of the person submitting the testimonial, unless they've asked you not to use both.  This makes the person more real to the reader and the eBook testimonial more authentic.  Try including a photo of them as well.

Before you launch your eBook, be sure to collect at least a handful of solid testimonials so you can get your eBook off to a great start!  Expect to see the difference in your ebook sales!

Article Marketing is a term which you hear a lot about on the internet.  But if you’ve never done any article marketing, you may be wondering what the buzz is about.  It’s simple.  Article Marketing is a very valuable way of increasing your exposure online – but in more ways than you might think.

So let’s look at how article marketing can benefit your online business building.

•      Article Marketing builds one way links to your website.

Firstly to get a significant presence online and those all important top spots on Google, you need one way back links from quality sites. 

Every article you write should include a link to your website, contained within the final part of the article, called the resource box.  This is the part of the article where it’s acceptable to “sell yourself” by talking about your business and giving a back link to your website.  Assuming your article is interesting enough and you have written the resource box correctly, you will get interested “click through” traffic to your website.  And this will be interested traffic which the “gurus” call “pre-sold” ie people who are interested in knowing more about what your have to say.

And, as article directories are considered to be authority sites on the internet, search engines are thought to give higher weighting to inbound links from articles.  This improves your ranking in the search engines and ultimately will increase traffic to your website. 

•      Article Marketing does your advertising for free.

Everyone needs traffic to their website.  In fact lack of traffic is the number one problem newbies have online.  But how do you get it?  How can you get your name and your business “out there” to let people know you are online? 

If you had a “bricks and mortar” business, you would advertise and online is no different.  But advertising can be expensive – very expensive.  And at the best even top advertising agencies reckon that only 50% works (“trick is, knowing which 50%!).

Article marketing, however, is free.  And reaps long term rewards.  Article Marketing increases long term targeted traffic by creating widespread exposure across the internet. 

On the downside it can take time for the traffic to start reaching your website.  But when it comes, assuming you wrote the article on the same subject as your website, the traffic is completely targeted to your offer, so people are more likely to buy. 

•      Article Marketing establishes you as an expert.

It’s a known fact of human psychology.  People always go with the market leader, the biggest brand name or the most famous person.  It makes them feel “safe”.  Think about it.  When faced with the “real deal” or a “copy-cat”, which do you choose?  It’s the same online. 

Whenever someone wants the info-product or online service which you offer, they are likely start with a search engine search, such as Google.  If they find you, they might also want to know more about you and search for your name on Google too.  If they can’t find you, they may assume you are some sort of “fly-by-night” and move onto the next guy. 

But if you’ve been doing any amount of Article Marketing, they will find your name and be able to get a good idea of who you are and what you offer.  This builds their confidence in you, increasing their likelihood of following through with a sale!

So there you are; three sensational reasons why you should do Article Marketing.  And if you want a great Article Submission Service, please check out my review at http://www.susanowenthursfield.com/reviews/article_marketer