Putting first things first

To achieve success faster, we must put the most important things first.

When building a new store, it is easy to get stuck on lots of small and generally unimportant tasks. This can kill our motivation and feel like "death by a thousand cuts".

To keep motivated, move fast, and get those first sales we must prioritise the tasks that bring one of two things:

• Traffic
• Sales

It is very simple in theory, but more difficult in practice.

Tasks that can be done later

Here are some examples of things you can leave until later when you are getting traffic and sales:

• Making lots of changes to your store design

  It is a good idea to start your store with the right colour scheme and a homepage image... but everything else can be tweaked later.

• Adding a Cookie Consent banner for data privacy

  While this is technically a legal requirement in some countries, it is extremely unlikely a small affiliate store will be punished for it.

• Fully Populating Your Store

  You don't need 100's of products before you start getting traffic to your store. Add a few good products and keep adding more slowly over time. See this guide for more info: Populating Your Store Slowly for Success

Tasks that should be prioritised

These kind of tasks should be put first:

• Find the best products

  Look for a handful of the best products in your store niche. Focus on getting traffic and sales to those.

• Setting up social accounts

  Create a Facebook Page and/or Group, and work on getting followers.

• Posting to social accounts

  Follow our traffic training guides and start consistently posting to your social accounts.

• Optimising Your Store Content

  Think quality and not quantity. Tweak the content for the main categories and products in your store. Improve the articles and embed products in them.

• Work on Search Engine Traffic

  Add your store to Google Search Console and other search engines. Follow the traffic guides and work on your SEO.

• Engage with your audience and niche

  Learn more about your niche and look for ideas on how you can help them. Ask questions where you can, get involved in forums/groups within your niche, talk to people and start positioning your store as an authority in that niche.