I think I can, I think I can...

This week I have realized how helpful it is to have a course or a mentor to guide a person through setting up an online business. There are so many areas to spend time and energy and not all of them are important for every business. Through this course I have learned the steps to set up the business. From domain purchasing and payment processing to optimization and backlinking. The sites I built before I always played with them until they looked good and then tried to drive traffic to them with ads. I did not know that by optimizing my site I could get cheaper ads and that those visitors were more likely to stay. I didn't know that keywords in Google ads even mattered. I'm realizing more and more that the best tactic is to seek advice from those in your same business type, set a schedule that ensures you work on all the parts of your business and that you do not get stuck in some rabbit hole forever.
Several times I made changes to my site that actually hurt my performance.
Oh, and I have also learned how to measure the success of my site and my improvement efforts. That was a big one. I didn't know about tracking conversions and setting up a conversion funnel. This information is extremely helpful in determining which efforts are making the most improvement.