Top Five Things I've Learned From The Challenge (Formerly the 30 Day Challenge) After Two Years

I've now been through the Challenge almost twice. I'm on my third blog and feel confident that I will make it work. I have a good grasp of the fundamentals of online marketing, all thanks to this free service from Ed Dale and company.

It's takes a lot of effort to go through the Challenge. There are a lot of new tools, and it takes time to familiarize yourself with them. The effort is in the time spent. The video's are great, but again it's hard to sit still and watch even for 15 minute stints. It's worth it. It's a very thorough introduction to starting an online business. Here are the five most valuable things I've learned from the Challenge:

1. Don't edit the same day. Write your content and sit on it a day. This is huge. You don't see your mistakes the same day you write them. I've made this mistake before, and still do, when I get excited to publish something. I almost always look at it later and regret not waiting. This is especially true when submitting your articles to Ezine or a similar service that you can't take back.

2. To increase traffic, and get your site ranked in Google, backlinks are the most important factor. Get backlinks to your site by consistently posting backlinks from your other sites, and forum posts. Use the keyword phrase in your anchor text linking back to your site.

3. Consistency in posting. Being consistent with your posts is good for your readers and good for Google. Stay on it daily, it takes time.

4. You don't have to spend a lot of money to start a business online. You do have to spend a lot of time. Ed says 30 minutes a day, ten minutes editing, ten minutes on an article, and ten minutes fueling up with content. I'd love to hear if anyone can actually stick with that. I find it impossible not to spend at least an hour doing just those few things. Never mind if I start thinking of other projects like Squidoo lenses.

5. Don't worry about design graphics too much. Keep it clean and simple. This is implied because they don't cover it much in the Challenge modules. Once you decide that the niche is worth pursuing, then worry about the design details.

If you want to learn the fundamentals of building a successful online business I highly recommend starting with The Challenge. Do yourself a favor and use the tools they offer, even the few that you have to pay for. How much is your education worth?