It's easy to buy a domain name, throw up a website, create a couple of backlinks and wait for the money to roll in. It's not so easy to work every day, overcome obstacles, and stay motivated when the results are not immediate. The number one reason people do not succeed with internet marketing is the failure to execute every single day, over a long period of time. That's where the Pareto principle comes in.

THE PARETO PRINCIPLE

The Pareto principle, also called the 80-20 rule, is a concept that suggests 80% of the results come from 20% of the causes. In other words, 20% of the work you do is responsible for 80% of the results. What that really means is that you may not be as efficient as you could be.

If you eliminate, or significantly reduce, the amount of time you spend on those tasks in the 80% category, you would be much more efficient and achieve nearly the same results. Let's take a look at how this would apply in internet marketing.

There are a lot of different tasks to complete when you are trying to build or maintain a successful internet marketing business, such as research keywords, build websites, create forms, create email marketing campaigns, create accounts, research markets, create content, write articles, create backlinks, generate traffic, create products and much more. But, what tasks actually generate traffic and revenue?

The primary tasks that will generate money for you online are creating superior content, generating traffic and monetizing that traffic. Based on the Pareto principle, the majority of your time should be spent on those activities. That is where 80% of your results will come from.

THE 80% CATEGORY

If you want to add the 80-20 rule to your daily routine, you need to significantly reduce the amount of time you spend on activities in the 80% category. Focus your energy on the 20% of activities that produce 80% of the results. So, what type of activities would fall into the 80% category?

Depending on the type of business you run, the important activities will vary. But, for the majority of marketers, there are some common activities that take up a lot of time and they shouldn't. Let's start with learning. When you're new to internet marketing, you want to learn everything. There are a lot of resources available and you could read, and read for months and months. And some people do.

You do need to learn the basics before you get started, but trying to learn everything in advance is not going to make you money. Putting what you learn into action will make you money. You will always need to learn new strategies, methods or techniques, but you need to read and learn after you've accomplished your important tasks.

If you're serious about making money online, you need your own website, probably more than one. But, you don't need to spend weeks or months designing and tweaking your website. You do need a website, but spending too much time on your website won't make you money. Yes, good design can make a difference, but work on your design after you've finished all of your money-generating tasks.

Analyze the time you have available for internet marketing activities and identify those activities that aren't directly related to creating content, building backlinks, generating traffic or making money. Ask yourself if you spend too much time checking emails, reading blogs, checking statistics, watching videos, reading eBooks, or procrastinating in general. If you do spend too much time on any of those activities, that could be keeping you from growing and succeeding.

THE 20% CATEGORY

Spending the majority of your time on activities responsible for making you money will dramatically improve your results. There are many activities that you have to do to succeed in internet marketing, but only some of those activities are directly responsible for generating revenue.

Without traffic, you won't get visitors. Without visitors, you won't make any sales. If you want to make money online, spend 80%-90% of your time on creating superior content, creating backlinks, generating traffic and monetizing that traffic. It doesn't matter what strategy you use to generate traffic, focus on what it is that will bring you traffic and make you money.

Spend the majority of your time on the tasks in the 20% category. If you only have an hour per day to work on your internet marketing business, then 48-54 minutes of that hour should be spent on tasks in the "20% category." Finish those tasks first, before you do the less important tasks.

After you spend 48-54 minutes on things that will generate traffic or money, then you can check your stats, tweak your website, read an eBook or blog. It might be a challenge to fit all the other activities into such a short amount of time, but until you achieve the results you want, it's necessary. The more time you spend on important activities, the better results you'll see.