According to many market forecasts, 2004 is likely to be a buoyant year online. These are my top tips for making the most of it, and ensuring a happy, healthy and prosperous 2004.

1. Seek out new markets and niches, and make them work for you.

This is a simple technique to find profitable niches for your business. Download the free Good Keywords software from goodkeywords.com - this is a virtual crystal ball into what you should be selling online. Find keywords that have a high number of searches, and a low number of pages for those keywords on the most popular search engine, Google. The ratio between the number of searches, and the number of results found for that keyword or phrase, determines the potential profitability of the keyword.

Another method is to use the free trial service at wordtracker.com.

Create a product or service around the profitable keyword, and you'll be onto a potential goldmine online.

2. Automate, automate, automate

If you find you are doing something repetitively, is it something you can automate? Automating a repetitive task is something that could save you hours, if not days or weeks of time, in 2004, all of which you could be spending doing something more worthwhile and profitable.

Automate almost everything you can, wherever possible. An Internet business allows for a great deal of automation, from list management to product fulfillment, so take advantage of it wherever you can.

3. Seek out non-email-reliant profit avenues

With spam filters, overloaded email folders, and increasing legislation proving ever-more troublesome to legitimate opt-in email marketers, it's wise to develop branches of your business that do not solely rely on email for profitability.

That's not to say email marketing is no longer relevant or important, it quite clearly is both of these when used effectively - but my tip for 2004 is to try to find other supplementary routes to profitability.

For example, a niche area in the search engines (as outlined in tip 1 above) will bring you a lot of traffic, without over-relying on email as a traffic and sales generation tool - and even if you don't have a specific product, if you combine great content with effective use of Google Adsense, that's another great income stream for your business.

Success online is all about not putting all your eggs into one basket, and developing 'multiple streams of income'. If you lost your email list(s) overnight, would you still be profitable?

4. Take more exercise

What? What's that got to do with doing business online?

Well, more than you think. For one, sitting in front of a computer for 12 hours a day can be detrimental to your health - and if you don't have your health, you won't have much of a business.

Getting some regular fresh air and exercise will not only help to keep you healthy, it will also:

• Increase your energy levels, so you can get a lot more done in less time.

• Clear your head, so you can concentrate more effectively.

• Help you to relax and come up with some great ideas for your business (my best and most profitable ideas come to me when I'm on vacation, or otherwise relaxed and 'switched off').

• Boost your confidence and self-esteem, the absence of which is often at the route of many business failures. When you're confident, you take more risks, and risk-taking is closely linked to profitability. If you stay the same, and take no risks, you're unlikely to move forward in your business.

And don't forget, while you are exercising, you can listen to educational tapes and CDs that will help you grow and learn, all of which can boost your business long-term.

5. Set goals

Close your eyes, and picture yourself at the end of 2004. Where would you like to be?

If you continue doing what you are doing now, where will you be, realistically?

Set some goals that will get you from where you are currently heading, to where you would like to be. Break those goals down into specific steps that know you can achieve, and will ensure you reach your goals by the end of 2004.

Refer to your goals regularly, don't be afraid to adjust them if necessary during the year, and take one step at a time.