For many of us starting an online business the first few months (or years) can be tough. Mine were, but now my business is starting to turn around.

Here are a couple of things that I've personally done that are starting to get me some traction. This is not to say that I'm hugely successful. I'm not. Yet. But things are beginning to go my way.

I hope these will provide some support to people who are in the down period with their online business - when you've discovered that you don't just put up a site and make millions.

Here we go:

1. Listen to your gut feel.

One of the things that attracted me to the business I joined was the promise of a pre-written email sequence to follow up with my opt-ins. In order to understand what people who opted in to my site were experiencing I opted in to my own site. And I was thoroughly dismayed.

The emails that came out were the epitome of 'interruption marketing' (hat tip to Seth Godin). They were full of SCREAMING and orders to DO THIS RIGHT NOW.

Most people who received those emails didn't much like them, so they hit the 'Spam' button pretty regularly. As a result, the delivery rate, which was low a year ago, became so low that by this year it was zero. And the pre-written emails were scrapped.

Luckily (and much to the disapproval of my sponsor at the time) I set up my own lead capture page, wrote or edited my own follow up emails, set up my own Aweber account and kept my optins well away from the 'official' email sequence. And my delivery rate has been consistently over 97%.

This is not meant as a brag. My point is this: there was a lot of pressure for me to use the 'company' system, and that would have been the easy option. But I was very uncomfortable at the thought of emails like that going out in my name, and using my email address as the 'reply to' address.

So, as much to protect my reputation as anything, I followed my gut feel and used my own system.

It's not easy to do your own thing when you're new in a business and your sponsor is encouraging you in the direction of the company system.

But listen to your gut feel - it's usually pretty much bang on the money. And, as long as you're not breaking any terms or conditions, following your gut feel is usually not going to take you too far wrong.

2. Give others the benefit of your experience so that they can find success more quickly.

When I first set up a blog I thought that it had to be a marketing channel for my business. I was still finding my feet in the business and most of the benefits that I wrote about were simply re-stated from the company conference calls, emails and website.

Nothing I wrote at that time described my own experience. And when I read those early posts now I am, frankly, embarrassed. I also had about 1 visitor a week.

Then I realised that I could use my blog to provide support to others who were at the same stage I was. That I could actually provide something of value. It's also a very efficient way to provide support to people in my downline.

So I started to write about my own struggles and the things I'd learned, rather than pushing the business. The difficulties and successes I'd had and how I'd dealt with them.

Since then, my readership has gone up steadily and I actually enjoy writing my weekly post now - whereas before it was one of those tasks that loomed over me.

If you write about your own personal experiences it's much easier to draw people into your circle because, strange as it may seem, people can 'hear' that what you're writing is real.

It's a lot easier to get sales from people with whom you already have a relationship!

Just be sure to make a clear connection between what you're writing about and the focus of your blog!

So - two things that have helped to get things going my way:

1. Listening to my gut feel.

2. Using my experiences to offer support to others.