by Jeff Mulligan, 2004

Unless you are selling gifts or other Christmas-related items, December can be a deadly slow time of year. Marketing-related sales can fall off by 50% or more. On other hand, January often kicks off with a roar as thousands of new customers enter marketplace thanks to well-meaning New Year's Resolutions that involve working from home and making more money.

So what can you do about it? Here are some ideas.

1. Work on your site.

If you've got a To Do list, now is time to attack it with a vengeance. Fix those graphics. Rewrite that sales letter. Add those new products for which you purchased resell rights. Get your infrastructure ready for new customers.

2. Test

Now is also a great time to test new ideas. Create a new sales page and see how it pulls vs your old page. While it may take a bit longer to get a statistically significant sample, at least you will know what works better when hot-selling January rolls around.

3. Build your autoresponders

If you don't have an email list you are continually promoting to, now is time to start one. You can't find a guru that doesn't agree that list IS your business. So how do you start? There are gigabytes worth of products, eBooks and advice on eZines our there. Jimmy D. Brown's Ezine Profit Producer is one of most respected (http://www.cbmall.com/pvm/epp.asp)

The aforementioned article was also bestowed title of, "Worst SEO Article Ever" by someone on forum.

Why all animus? I have no idea. Perhaps they view me as a threat to their livelihood. Whatever reason, certain SEO's seem to be taking my articles personally. That's their problem!

My articles are not aimed directly at SEO's or search engines per se. My articles are aimed at people who utilize their services.

I'm trying to get these people to realize, they can't depend solely on search engines and search engine optimization. You have to have a multi-pronged attack.

I don't depend on search engines! I never have. I refuse to play that game. My traffic comes from dozens of articles I've written that have been picked up and published on popular web sites all over Internet. I also get traffic via word of mouth, newsletters and ezines that my articles are published in, and a few other secret methods that I use.

And you can do same thing. You just have to get out of that search engine mindset.

There are many other proven and effective ways to market your web site. Here are just a few: e-zines, newsletters, forums, online magazines, sponsor listings on other web sites, exchanging links.

Here are a few offline options: magazines, direct mail, shopper newspapers, cable television, radio, flyers, hospital newsletters, card decks, trade journals and directories, bulletin boards, tabloid newspapers.

Yes, I know Google and Yahoo! are biggest, most powerful search engine and directory on planet! Forget about them! Why? Because despite what certain corrupt SEO's may claim, they CANNOT guarantee you a top ten listing in either Google or Yahoo!