I have worked with sniper teams from a few different countries throughout my time in the military. The sniper course is one of the toughest in the world, but can teach you a hell of a lot about yourself. Your weapon is an extension of your arm, as is your website or business. Everywhere you look, the weapon should point, everywhere you go your website should follow.

Anyone can pick up a weapon and pull the trigger, but it takes a marksman to reliably hit the target with a cross wind. This is my rifle, there are many like it, but this one is mine;

  • Scope

Are you looking at your visitors properly? Does your target match your scope optics or do they need adjusting? Most sites talk at their readers, or sell products they ‘think’ their visitors want. Make sure you are looking at your target square on and not at a odd angle. By mis-interpretating your scope picture you run the risk of missing the target, so spend time with your readers and understand what it is they want.

But how can you do this? Easy, talk to them in the comments of the posts, by email or in person. Get to know your followers, they are the reason why you are where you are so cherish them. Another way to do it is to look at your site from the perspective of a reader, so log out of the back end and visit the home page, what’s the first thing that hits you? How do you feel after a couple of seconds? Doing this will make sure your target lines up perfectly with your scope.

  • Safety Catch

I have fallen fowl of this sometimes, but if you take an early shot without being ready, you will miss and reveal your position. Keep your safety catch on when it comes to either over producing or waiting for a response from people. I work at a fast pace, I know I do, one of my first guest posts was sent to David Risley, he didn’t respond within 24hrs, because he’s a busy guy, I emailed him saying don’t worry I have sent the guest post to someone else, who I knew would publish it straight away.

David emailed me back not long after that, saying he wasn’t sat at his computer so I need to give him a bit more time. He was totally right (It was New Years Eve after all) Patience is needed when working with other people, especially on the internet, time zones, peoples working life balance, all factors which you need to think about. This relates to early product release or taking too much on to early. Be patient and do not release that safety catch until you know the time is right.

  • Stalking

Finding your target is integral to actually hitting the target. It’s really simple, if you have no visitors, there is no point in writing or selling a product. People won’t come to you if they don’t know you are there, so get out there and stalk them.

Important point to know about stalking is to do it without scaring the target away, so comment and add value to everything you feel you can, work on your SEO and use your mailing list, but don’t startle your prey by squeezing them for everything you can get without ever giving back.

  • Position and Hold

I could list the marksmanship principles, but only a few would be interested (hoo yaaa you know who you are!) so instead I will focus on one of them, position and hold. This relates, in basic terms to how you should hold the weapon in order to make sure the shot hits the target. If the stock of the rifle isn’t in the shoulder properly or you are holding it too tightly causing you to shake etc, you will miss every time.

Make sure your site is set up properly for it’s visitors, if you are selling a product make damn sure it’s easy as hell to pay, if you want readers to click on other pages whilst reading give them links to do so, if you want your content to go viral then add share buttons. You will not make a success of your site if your position is not firm enough to support the weapon or it’s readers. Get your theme, widgets and plugins all sorted out right now (after reading and commenting here)

  • Breathing

A sniper is one of the fittest soldiers in the world, they can stalk a target for days, they can also move into position a few miles a way extremely quickly and take a one shot deal in a matter of minutes without being out of breath. If you can’t control your breathing, you won’t be able to control the weapon properly.

Websites that are out of breath are easy to spot, constantly changing their views on certain topics and contradicting themselves or only ever talking about subjects which have been covered by everyone else. Going from updating their site or product reviews once a day to once a week then eventually running out of breath all together and choosing to start a new website or business.

I could have chosen the shotgun instead of referencing the sniper rifle, but anyone can ‘spray and pray’ and hit a barn door 90% of the time, a sniper is the elite sharp shooter and I think it’s important to aim to be the very best in everything you do.

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