The number of times that I get asked about the most important ingredient for succeeding online is just countless. Since it is not a matter of one thing or two, instead, I have come up with four top keys to success and why they are so important. This does not mean that there are no other factors but these are the deal breakers in my opinion. They are placed in random order.

Being organized and disciplined is one of the keys to success. It is not a question of how much knowledge or skills you have. Let's just say that you are the smartest person in the whole world but if you cannot sit down and do a day's work, it would not really matter. There are many bright people in this world who cannot get anywhere in their lives all because they lack the discipline and the organizational skills to put anything together. My mum is the perfect example to highlight this; she was one of the most talented pianists and a great opera singer of her time. Because of poor organizational skills, she never managed to get her career on track. Yeah, that one really sucks!

Creating your own products and services is another key to success. As an marketer, you can always make money marketing other people's products but you would be in competition with other marketers selling the same product. Where as a creator of your own products or services, you need not compete with any marketer and what is more, you can actually have other marketers doing the promotion for you. I did that and within a year or so, I had managed to quadruple my income.

Advertising is what really counts when it comes to seeing any kind of success at all. You may well have the greatest site on the net but if no one knows that it exists, then you can forget about making even a dime. There is no point in getting into an explanation of how setting up a site online is meaningless without promotion. That is something that I will deal with in another

article. The point being that until and unless you actively promote your site by using the already proven methods of promotion, your chances of success are meager.

Finally, there's communication...more specifically, writing. Just think about the tasks that you will perform in your business, they all involve writing in one form or the other. There are the sales pages, then the actual content that you would have to create. You may have to set up an email auto responder and then there are those customer inquiries that you would have to respond to. If you are not able to communicate effectively to your niche market then you are not going to be able to capture their attention. Of course you can outsource this but that will surely put a crimp on your wallet..

These are my 4 keys to success. There may be many more but these are the ones that really matter as far as I'm concerned.