Is planning really essential?

You should always have a plan of action, then take action. It's important to have a plan/strategy at the ready.

When people say that, they don't mean not to plan for a week or two like you are doing. They mean don't procrastinate for weeks and months or even years without doing anything. Your timeline is more than reasonable - perhaps even too fast.

Think about it, would you rather dive in head first not knowing the outcome, or look at your options and dive in with your feet first?

You need to have a plan, but don't spend all your time just on planning.

You also have to execute your plans.

Planning is really so essential thing. Good plan good result.

This is online marketing, and just like traditional marketing, you need to have a plan. However, since this is an ever evolving field, you cannot expect to put off getting started until the time when you have gathered ALL of the information. Hopefully, this will never happen. Most of us are still learning and there are new techniques and methods coming out more often than you can imagine. Choose the proper start up information and then start doing something or else you will miss your entrance. Best of luck!

I look at it this way. If your only risking a small amount of money, then if you loose that money, and you get a really good lesson out of it, then maybe its worth it.

This is what i did when i first got started. Studied a guy named Terry Dean and his articles made me a convert. This was the foundation of the business that i have now. I do have a daily marketing plan that i do follow now everyday.

It's essential to have a plan, but it had better be a good plan.

That said...don't make the mistake I've often made, and get so caught up in the semantics that you're afraid to fail so you don't launch it until it's "perfect".

One of my favorite quotes is by General George S. Patton:
A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.

Also, the plan can change. You can start out doing one thing. If you've followed the course of it's not working (and I do mean after several months, not hours), it's time to change your course. So you develop a new game plan accordingly.

You should try to do the research and plan as much as you can first. With that in mind, you should know that along the way, there are might be unexpected situations which you should be ready for. The right thing to do is learn lessons from those situations. Thats the way you will get one step closer to your goals. Also, careful planning is a good thing, but, as long as it is done in a timely fashion.

Good luck!

Anyone have good idea what types of planning is essential for amazon affiliates?
for example, niche market, keywords, design layout etc...

Taking action is a problem that so many people have, and I think that is caused by the culture of Internet Marketing, we get conditioned to believe "it's a one click wonder" and then we discover the reality that it can involve much longer hours than a day job.

Now with the gmail "promo email" changes our conversions are right down, in my case by 10% and I'm getting at best, 6% opens. Now maybe that is because I will only mail things I believe in, but it's no easy ride, nomatter what anyone tells you. I hate to say it but I don't think it's something anyone can do, you need money to scale it...or if not you need to be a master of all trades. The market is so competitive now, don't mean to put a downer on it but it ain't 2005.

Like you, I have a tendency to acquire information and study it in detail before actually starting work. It can be a useful trait, up to a point - I hate working blind - but, if left to my own devices, I can easily overdo it. There's always that nagging feeling that you're overlooking something critical, that might change your whole plan, isn't there?

But I've come to realise that too much planning and analysis gets me nowhere. If anything is to be achieved beyond a detailed theoretical knowledge of the subject, I need to take action at some point. Besides, as the expression goes, "no plan survives contact with the enemy" - no matter how detailed your plan, or how much information you have, you WILL need to adapt it to changing circumstances.

You've identified a niche, sorted out some categories and keywords and have a domain name in mind. Sure, there might be one or two things you haven't considered, but there always will be. I'd say it's time to start building, then gather information on what works and what doesn't, analyse as appropriate, and modify the plan accordingly. That test, analyse and amend cycle should, in fact, be part of the plan from the start - the internet is a dynamic, ever-changing environment, and all you can really do is change with it.

Go for it!

Sounds like you're well on your way, which is great. Choosing a niche is a big part of the process.

Given your keyword research, sounds like you're going for search engine traffic?

If so, I'd probably also research ways to generate traffic from at least one other source. Is your niche something that will work on social media?

Do you plan on buying traffic?

Is article syndication something you plan on doing?

Is there an active forum that permits links in the signature that you can participate on?

SEO is great when it works, but it's volatile.

Once you have traffic, you can test your monetization strategy. Amazon can be great, buy you never know if something else will be better.

Without planning you do things by chance, and you make many mistakes. Then, you have to waste your time and spend your money correcting your mistakes, until you will manage to do everything the best way.

You may also make costly mistakes that cannot be corrected later, besides many other mistakes that you can correct.

Planning is much better, but even in this case you will make mistakes. However, if you are organized you can correct a few mistakes and go ahead.

If you are totally disorganized and you make mistakes that cannot be corrected, you will have to begin everything from the beginning after failing.

Sure, planning is really essential.
You need to have a plan,
and prepared for everything.
But don't spend too much time on it.
You also have to execute your plans.

"Have you ever noticed that a person who becomes successful tends to continue to become more successful?
On the other hand, have you noticed how someone who is a failure tends to continue to fail?
The difference is goals.
Some of us have goals, some don't.
People with goals succeed because they know where they are going.
It's that simple.
Think of a ship leaving a harbour.
Think of it with the complete voyage mapped out and planned. The captain and crew know exactly where the ship is going and how long it will take - it has a definite goal. And 9,999 times out of 10,000, it will get to where it started out to get."


-Earl Nightingale (The Strangest Secret in the World)

Sometimes results are inversely proportional to the amount of effort you put into it. Just because you spend a lot of time on a site and are very careful with the details doesn't guarantee it will be a hit. And you'll be surprised that some quickly done sites can be your easy winners. It all depends... Planning is good up to a point.

Frankly your question is quite incomplete. E.g. planning for what purpose?
Also, what experience do you have or other resources have you looked at, other than doing research for 3 days?
Unless you are working with a specific blueprint for the specific purpose of using a blog to get affiliate commissions from Amazon, there is much more you need to learn/plan.

Jim

I think it matters less how long it takes to do your research and planning. Do you feel confident about the research you did on what you want to promote with your blog? If yes, then you don't have to worry too much about how you plan the rest - keywords, category titles etc - as long as you do have a plan.

Personally, I like a flexible plan (though not overly flexible...) when it comes to the appearance, layout and approach of a blog, but the market research always has to come before anything else.

Planning is likely part of the stuff you should "just do" as opposed to something separate.

However, if you are planning for more than a couple of weeks without creating sites, adding content, gaining traffic... you've probably spent too long procrastinating.

The sense of achievement you get when you start to create, again when your first visitors come, again when your first sale is made - again when your first $1000 month clicks up.

You don't get any of those by just planning. As Tony Robbins says "To succeed normally requires massive action"

Paul Rone-Clarke

Whatever you do, planning is absolutely essential. However, you must be prepared to reconsider your plans every step of the way.