Keys to Success in Business on the Internet

Before you write this article off as hype or an attempt to sell you something, please consider the fact that I speak from experience.

Consider also that I make a comfortable living from internet sales. I don't own any of the products that I sell. I work on commissions.

Lose the FREE Mentality

I started out in 1997 with the FREE Mentality. I was going to make a million dollars on the internet without spending a dime.

I built my free website and even hosted it for free on Tripod Lycos. Remnants of my first website still exist as netsuccess2000plus.tripod.com

After 2 years of building tutorials to teach others how to do what I was doing, my website traffic consisted of 10 to 50 visitors a day and my income was a big fat ZERO.

It was then that it finally sunk in. The same principle that applies in everyday business offline, applies to everyday business online.
YOU HAVE TO SPEND MONEY TO MAKE MONEY!!

One of my first purchases was information. I began to study the biographies of some of the men and woman who had found success in building an income on the internet. I bought some of their ebooks and manuals.

I studied articles on traffic building and how to get people to my website.

Along the way I bought a web hosting package and a domain name, htmltutorials.net.

I reworked my entire site, applying some of the principles that I had learned and submitted it to the search engines.

There was no instant success. Things were a lot slower in those days. It could take 3 months to even get listed on some of the Search Engines.

I continued to make improvements and people began linking to the pages on my website. My traffic began to increase as my position improved.

I joined some free affiliate programs and began to advertise web hosting and web design tools. I began to make sales. Traffic had increased to about 1500 visitors a day. My website had grown to over 400 pages. Today it is over 850 web pages and most of what we offer is still free. (We do have to sell something to stay in business!!)

Patience is a Virtue

In 2001 the website experienced a serious set back when my web host refused to let me leave their failing service and confiscated my domain name. When the site was finally moved to a new web host under a new domain name I had lost over 2000 link partners and some top positions on the search engines.

Under the new domain name, createafreewebsite.net, I continued to make improvements and started a Link Exchange program.

The website began to climb in rankings until I had a top 5 ranking for most of my major keyword phrases.

With the increase of daily traffic to 6000 to 7500 visitors a day and over 30,000 link partners, my income has increased, to more than I made working a 40 hour a week job for 30 years.
( Google's latest Jagger update has cut us back to 4,000 vad ) Patience, patience, patience!!

My Advice

First and foremost, Lose the FREE Mentality!!
You'll never succeed in any business venture with this kind of thinking.

Second, Learn from Successful People.
If you think you have all of the answers, your destination is NOWHERE!!

Third, BE Patient!!!
Most people give up in the first year of their internet ventures. Very few people experience instant success in any business. Learn to enjoy the Good and accept the Bad Experiences.