How Do You Know
When Youre Ready?

Knowing when youre ready in your internet marketing is a perennial problem.

After all, with whats essentially a moving target, how do you know when youre ready?

The quick answer is that you dont know until you actually launch or maybe even later than that.

How Do You Know
When Youre Ready?

To a fair extent, ready on the internet means ready enough not to get too many people complaining

That means relevant web pages should exist, downloadable files should be available for download, videos & audios should play, that kind of thing.

How Do You Know
When Youre Ready?

Its acceptable if there are some things that are coming soon you could possibly mention that in your sales letter or email so long as you remember to change things, unlike my doctors surgery which is still telling me that they were closed for staff training a month ago. Or my local pub which is displaying times for football games that are all a month ago. Even a local branch of a big supermarket had shelf edge labels referring to Christmas well into the following year.

Which goes to show that its not just internet marketers who forget to change things or keep them up to date.

How Do You Know
When Youre Ready?

Thats a different form of being ready but is equally relevant. That kind of glaringly obvious to everyone else detail is often overlooked.

Being ready is often just a matter of going through a check-list and making sure that things have happened.

How Do You Know
When Youre Ready?

If youre launching a new product then the check-list will be longer than if youre simply testing a new squeeze page or just creating a new piece of content for your website.

For instance, when I create a new piece of content, the check-list is along these lines:

How Do You Know
When Youre Ready?

* Create a title that may be keyword researched or it could just be one that I think is relevant enough. Interestingly (or frustratingly) Google will change the title it displays if it thinks it knows better than you do.* Create the content preferably on topic! But if I drift too far as things crop up while Im writing, Ill change the title accordingly. That happens about once in every 4 or 5 pieces of content on a just because basis.* Add in any relevant links I normally do this as Im typing away in WordPress otherwise theres an excellent chance I wont remember to do it later.

How Do You Know
When Youre Ready?

* Press the publish button, view the post and read it through in case Ive got any glaringly bad typos or errors. Early on, Id copy and paste it into my word processor and run a spell check but nowadays its rare for me to do that and the occasional typo does creep in. That gets found if I copy the content into a slideshow and start reading it for a video. And it doesnt get found if I dont do that part of the process.* Tweet and notify one or two of my social media accounts that theres a new piece of content.

How Do You Know
When Youre Ready?

For me, all that happens without a physical check-list because Ive done it so often. With almost 400 posts on my main site, numerous articles on EzineArticles and countless posts on other sites I own, its habit.

But when I was starting out, I had a written check-list and followed it.

When everything was ticked as completed, it was ready.

How Do You Know
When Youre Ready?

If youre starting something new, its good to do the same kind of check-list and to include as many relevant points as you can think of.

Some things may still slip through the net but hopefully theyll be relatively minor things and you can always adjust your check-list for next time.

But you can only do that if youve finished the whole process and actually got something live.

How Do You Know
When Youre Ready?

Otherwise you wont know what you dont know.

The thing is not to use being ready (or not ready) as an excuse to procrastinate and not actually finish a project.

There are way too many things that get started but not finished.

Some for good reason they werent such a good idea as they initially seemed or youve moved away from them.

How Do You Know
When Youre Ready?

Others for no good reason you just didnt get round to completing them.

Over the next few days (or at most a week), pick something that youd like to finish in your internet marketing.

Since thats a relatively short timescale, dont pick anything too large. But, equally, dont pick something too trivial.

How Do You Know
When Youre Ready?

Then set aside maybe 20 or 30 minutes to decide on a check-list that, once everything is ticked off, means the project will be ready.

Then, over the next few days, work away at the items on the check-list and get them ticked off.

Once theyre all ticked off, youre ready!

How Do You Know
When Youre Ready?

It really is that simple even though it may appear incredibly complicated at the moment, especially if you havent chunked down the big picture into small steps.

And if youd like more help from me, click this link.