So you’ve decided to go the fully-digital, independent-contractor online marketing route. Congrats! That’s a fantastic decision, and it takes some serious courage to go against the grain and opt out of the system, but you’re clearly driven by a desire to succeed in the right way.

But now you’re faced with a daunting question: Just how do I market my products online without ruining my entire business model?

The answer is a simple one: You don’t. Not entirely. There are ways to get your product in front of the right audience without resorting to bad practice. You just need to know where to look. And in order to help you achieve success as quickly and easily as possible, we’ve put together a few best practices to follow.

Find The Perfect Niche

When you first decided to go the independent contractor route, you probably didn’t have much money to spend on expensive ads and flashy websites. So you took a scrimp-and-survive approach, focusing on establishing a small, but solid audience for your website by consistently posting high-quality content on a regular basis.

While this strategy might have worked for content creators like Matt Cutts or Owen Goode, who focus on inbound marketing and attract highly-trafficked, long-lasting blogs, it’s not the best approach for everyone. If your ultimate goal is to attract paying customers, then broadening your reach through aggressive advertising strategies isn’t the way to go.

Instead, you need to find a niche. A small, focused group of people who are highly likely to become fans or customers of your brand. This is far more effective than trying to appeal to the masses, because while some people might enjoy your product, the majority won’t. You can’t afford to waste your time and energy trying to appeal to people who might not even care about your product.

Make Money With Affiliate Marketing

Many creators opt for the fast and easy route to online revenue, choosing to piggyback on already existing marketing platforms, like WordPress.com. These providers take care of all the heavy lifting when it comes to building your audience and getting paid what you’re owed when someone clicks a monetized link or buys a product that’s promoted on your blog.

But affiliate marketing isn’t for everyone. If your ultimate goal is to build a sustainable business that can support your lifestyle, then this isn’t the route you want to go down. Instead, you need to become an independent contractor, build your own sites, and begin to earn revenue from the content you’re creating.

Use Video Tutorials

If you’re new to online marketing, then it might be a little overwhelming trying to figure out where to start. We’re constantly bombarded with information online, and video tutorials can be a great way to learn the basics of marketing productively and efficiently. 

In a nutshell, video tutorials help to solve three major problems at once: First, they make information easily accessible to those who have limited time to learn. Second, they allow you to demonstrate your expertise in a visual format, clearly demonstrating your value as a professional in your field. Third, video tutorials provide you with case studies of other businesses that you can learn from and emulate, driving your own business forward.

While everyone needs time to learn, not everyone has the same amount of time to learn. For that reason, video tutorials are a great way to both educate and entertain your audience at the same time. Moreover, the combination of video, written content, and social media make this a powerful tool for attracting, engaging, and retaining customers.

Keep Your Ethics In Mind

You might be an experienced marketer who’s had success driving traffic to affiliate offers and product reviews, earning you a six-figure salary and supporting your lifestyle. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be ethically scrupulous, as experienced marketers sometimes are when presented with the opportunity of making money quickly and easily. Remember, integrity is the foundation of any ethical business.

The temptation of pursuing easy money might lead you to take some shortcuts that could potentially hurt your business in the long run. For example, if you’ve ever bought cheap, junk-laden products that haven’t worked as advertised, you might be tempted to do the same for customers. This could easily turn into a slippery slope, leading you to exploit customers or take advantage of them in some way. This strategy might work for a short period of time, but in the long run, it could destroy your business.

What you need to do is set some ground rules for yourself, like being upfront about any discounts or offers that you might put on your site. Moreover, you need to make sure that any affiliate marketing you do supports a financially viable business model. Review your affiliate partner’s terms and conditions before you get started, making sure that you’re aware of how your participation in the program will affect your bottom line. Finally, be sure that you’re complying with all licensing and legal requirements.

Focus On User Experience

No one factors UX into their design process before launching a product. However, creating a good user experience is essential if you want your product to perform well and be sustained over time. Moreover, a poor experience on one of your sites could potentially damage your credibility with existing or potential customers, who might assume that your other sites are also poorly designed or lack content.

To put it simply, if your product isn’t useful or doesn’t solve a problem for the user, then it won’t be sustainable over time. Moreover, a study from HubSpot shows that users have a 73% chance of becoming repeat visitors, while users who have a poor experience on one of your sites have a 44% chance of becoming a regular visitor. So it’s important to remember: A poor user experience can put a dent in your business, especially if you’re not accustomed to relying on paid advertising for revenue.

To create a good UI, you must follow a few tried and tested methods. First, make sure that all of your site’s pages are relevant to the user. This means that each page should answer a question, solve a problem, or offer some kind of value.

For example, if you’re creating a product review site, make sure that your pages contain enough information about the product and its various features, as well as reviews, to help your readers make an informed decision. Moreover, don’t just list features and compare them to the competition. Use numbers to illustrate your point, giving your readers a clear idea of what they’re looking at.

A good website has a minimalistic design, with simple language used throughout the copy and simple, effective images to support the text.

To create a good user experience, ensure that all of your site’s content is relevant, well-written, and formatted correctly. Moreover, you must keep your focus on the user throughout the creation process: What does the user want? What are they looking for? How can you satisfy their needs?

Get A Back-Office Person On Board

Your average Joe Six-pack might not have the time to check out your site on a daily basis, which is why you need to get a back-office person on board, who’s responsible for maintaining the site and growing your business. This doesn’t mean that you should skimp out on hiring a VA (virtual assistant), but rather that you should consider getting someone who can take care of all the little things that need to be done to keep your site running smoothly.

An effective VA will take care of everything from setting up automated email responses to handling media queries to keeping track of all your social media platforms and creating engaging content for your blog and other websites. They’ll even set up automated email campaigns to send out when new content is published, all without you having to lift a finger!

So, what does this all mean for you as an online marketer? Just remember that there are legitimate opportunities out there, and it’s important to be sure that you’re taking the right steps to ensure your success.