Calvin Coolidge was the 30th President of the United States. Although he died in early January of 1933, he knew exactly what it takes to be successful online. Let’s hear it in his own words …

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

Few could argue with taking the advice of a person who became arguably the most powerful man in the world. Coolidge became President because of persistence, consistently showing up, slowly working his way up the ladder of politics in the state of Massachusetts. He eventually became Governor of that state, US Vice President under Warren G. Harding, and then President in his own right.

If he were alive today, there is no doubt that Coolidge would own a dominant and successful web presence. Why? Because he understood the power of consistent and persistent relentlessness.

Let’s approach owning a web business from another angle. Pretend there are 2 identical web small business owners. They both have blogs in the same niche or market. Their products are roughly the same, cost about the same amount, and their blogs look identical.

But there is one huge difference.

Blog owner A posts content to his site every now and then, whenever he has some free time. He has some traffic, but not what he would like. Accordingly, his sales and profits have not allowed him to quit his day job and live the laptop lifestyle.

Now let’s take a look at blog owner B. Again, identical site, basically same product and price. But this small online business owner has a physical daily planner where he lists all the online activities he needs to do each and every day. This planner is filled out a year in advance, and updated as needed.

He has also integrated Google Calendar with his e-mail account, so every day he gets alerts and reminders of the activities he needs to perform to keep his website relevant and fresh in the eyes of his followers, prospects and web search engines.

Because of this, he publishes at least one blog post per week. He also interacts with Facebook and Twitter on a scheduled and regular basis. He uploads one YouTube video relevant to his marketplace each month, and shares a business oriented blog post or other piece of information important to his niche on Linkedin and Google+ every other week.

Fast forward one year.

Blog owner A has traffic problems, like we mentioned earlier. He has 16 blog posts he created this past year. He also “fooled around” on Twitter, Facebook and a few other social networking outlets, but believes that time is wasted, since he has not seen a financial impact from those efforts. All in all, his web presence is about where it was exactly one year ago.

But blog owner B is a totally different story. Because he consistently “showed up” and persistently followed a set schedule of web engagement, he is able to start thinking about quitting his “real job”.

He has more than 3 times the blog posts as blog owner A, with 52 posted with last year. He never missed a week interacting with his followers and prospects on Facebook and Twitter. His 12 YouTube videos he posted last year are driving a lot of traffic to his website. And he can directly tie traffic and sales to the 26 Google+ posts and 26 LinkedIn status updates he has made over the last 12 months.

What is the difference between success and failure?

It is simply this. Consistency. Persistence. Creating and following a set schedule. To be successful online requires providing consistent, fresh original and relevant content to your particular marketplace. The search engines reward you by ranking you higher for important niche keywords and phrases, and your followers reward you with sales and profits because they recognize you as a dedicated authority they can turn to for consistent and timely information and advice. All for just showing up.