Welcome back to another exciting entry...

Ok so now I have my affiliate ads out there. No biggie. It's still slow going. I wonder if I will ever make any money. I'm signed up for a bunch of different programs out there in cyberspace, but as days go by I'm curious if my style is too bland. I need a hook. Something that will make people want to come by and check things out. I need a page out there that just POPS! I have one main problem though. The main search engines out there with not list affiliated websites. Meaning that if your website is hosted by another service and you share a domain name you more then likely won't get listed. Or at least not taken seriously. So now I need a domain name all of my own. Now I know what your thinking. I already own http://www.greatedeals.net right? Well if you have been to that site you will tend to notice it's kinda plain. Not much to it. Main problem is that I really don't have much control over the site as far as looks. I can change the colors and such, but as far as set-up is concerned I don't really control that.

So I decided to make another page. One that is tempting to the eye. Besides I'm affiliated with a bunch of other buisnesses so I need a place where I can put my ad links as well. So I looked though different hosting sites but wasn't terribly impressed with what they had to offer. So with a heavy heart I went to bed frustrated that I was still at square one. Maybe tomorrow would play out a bit different.

The next day after I got home from work I did a bit more searching, but ended up with very little as a result of my efforts. So getting tired of searching I decided to go to my advertising website to gain some credits for my ads. While surfing for credits I came across this really cool flash presentation. If your interested check it out here. So after watching the video and doing some research on the company I went ahead and signed up. I figured that if I was going to pay a monthly fee for web hosting I may as well have some way of making money back on it right? Why not have your personal domain name work for you. So after a few minutes I had a pretty nice web site up and running and now I had a way to get my businesses out there as well. Oh in case your wondering my new website is http://livingdreams.ws . Now keep in mind it's a new site and I was pretty tired from another long night of searching when I made it. I still have a lot of work to do on it but at least you can get an idea of what I have going on.

So now I got a nice looking page out there I'm back to the whole advertising problem. But I may be rapidly closing in on that solution. You all will have to either keep checking back to see if I have updated this or you could always just subscribe to my journal for all the up to date info on how things are going.

Anyways I need to get some rest I will post again soon!

As always thanks for stopping by and WISH ME LUCK!

Hi all...

Back from work and thought I would post more before doing more research and all that fun stuff...

First off I wanted to say something that I should have said in my first post. One of the main reasons I am keeping this journal is to show one mans attempt to make something off the internet. A road map of sorts. I figure depending on the response I get from here and the success I reach from my endevors, maybe I could help someone else by showing a route to take that's profitable. Maybe an ebook in the future? Who knows... LOL

Anyways feel free to leave your comments and even ideas. I will be sure to give you credit if I use a suggestion.

Ok well when I stopped writing last time I had just bought my first business.. It just crossed my mind that I forgot to link my business site. http://www.greatedeals.net (shameless plug I know but as you will see in the future that any advertising I can get is good advertising )

So now I have my first business. Did I make it big overnight? HA, I wish! Day after day I log on to my site to find that no one has been to my site. I need traffic! In other words time for me to ADVERTISE! (note shameless plug lol) Well time to do more of that ever so fun research. Again I was off into cyberland. This time though I figured I was one step ahead of the game. I had my buisness. I mean how hard could it possibly be to get some advertising right?

Oh what a surprise I had in store for me. Again I jumped head first into page after page of banner exchanges, traffic exchangers, credits, and conversion rates. Reading all of this stuff made me feel like I as trying to learn a new language by moving to a completely different country. I searched for different programs. I placed ads in forums, online classifieds, anything I could find to get my name out there I have probably tried at least twice. Yes I submitted my URL to the major search engines, yahoo, google, MSN, and such. But as I researched the search engines I found out a horrible truth that if your site has no traffic then your link will more then likely fall at the very end of an EXTREMELY long list of ever growing links. You had to have traffic to get the higher more coveted spots on the search engines. and with over 1,000,000,000 (that's right BILLION) websites on the net now days and more being published everyday it's getting harder and harder to compete. It's the old proverbial needle in the haystack.

I went out and made fllyers and placed them on car windows in department store parking lots. Now granted I started to see a few hits on my page but no one has bought anything from my site. So thinking like a business owner I thought maybe my prices are too high. Time for some comparison shopping. Going to some of the main sites for internet shopping I compared the prices of my products to that of my competitors. After doing so I found out that my prices were way too high. Now granted when I bought into the business I didn't bother to check the prices of my items. I just assumed that they were competitive. WRONG-O! Ok so with a few clicks my prices have now been lowered to a point that they are the same if not cheaper then my competition.

A couple weeks went by and still no sales.Ok these free sites just don't seem to be working. Looks like I am going to have to move to the next step. Now keep in mind that my advertising budget is very small if not nonexsistant at the moment. So pay-per-click ads for the moment are out of the question. So the question remains how do I get my name out there for as little money as possible? I'm willing to put in the time and effort to do it, but with lack of funds it's difficult. Oh I have tried ad submitters, and they seem to work a bit. I did notice a slight increase in my traffic, but nothing like what they promised. Luckily I didn't buy any of them, I just used them while they had the free trials then deleted them once I couldn't use them anymore. Still no buyers.

Ok at this point frustration is really starting to show. I sell great products. My prices are awesome. I'm getting a small flow of traffic. What part of this equation am I missing? Back to some research. As I search and search I come to the same conclusion. I just need more traffic. More traffic means more advertising. UGH! Ok, so these free sites just don't seem to work... or do they? Perhaps I'm just not putting enough ads out there to get a decent response. I found a statistic that for every 1,000 visitors that come to your site on the average only 10 or less buy something. GRRRRRR. Ok so back to the problem of getting more traffic. So after more searching and researching I stumble across an ad. "Place Billions Of Ads With 1 Click Of A Button!" Whoah! This sounds too good to be true!

So I check out the site. It came with the usual glitz and glamour. Free bonuses and such. I'm curious. What kind of software is this that can do such a feat. Then I see the price. $97.99..... ouch. So I figure well it's a one time purchase and if it can do all it's claiming to do it will put me back on track to do what I need to do. So as I hold my breath I purchase this program. I start reading all the material that I had bought. Much to my dismay there was no actual "program" that would submit all these ads. Now don't get me wrong it gave me a bunch of ideas that I hadn't thought of before that would be the same as placing billions of ads. Quite a few actually. Problem was that it came back to money. A lot of these ideas and supposedly tried and true methods had a fee that went with them. Now had I made a bad decision in purchasing this product? No. In doing so I had obtained the resale rights and had become an affiliate of this program. Meaning I basically just bought into another business! lol So now instead of needing traffic for one site I needed traffic for 2 different sites.

Now anyone looking into owning their own business will tell you the easiest way to make money on the internet is to have multiple income streams. Well now I have 2 possible income streams. So I'm back to sqaure one looking for the missing piece of the puzzle. So here I sit at my laptop night after night looking for the piece of the puzzle that is lost somewhere in cyberspace. I know it's out there. It has to be. And I'm DETERMINED to find it.

A couple nights ago an idea hit me. My store has it's own affiliate program. Meaning people can link my store to their website using banner or button. In doing so they can earn 50% commision off anything that is sold, and becoming my affiliate is free! So lately I have been posting ads yet again advertising my afilliate program. I figure hey something is better then nothing and if someone has a website out there that gets a decent amount of traffic it could easily suppliment their income as well as getting my companies name out there... Worth a shot right? We will see....

To be continued......

Hello all. Glad you stopped by.

Your probably wondering what the hell is going on with this website. Well let me tell you a little bit about myself.

My name is Jason and I live in Houston, TX.

I work your normal 8-10 hr days in a grocery store chain but about 6 months ago I came to the conclusion that I wanted to be my own boss. I was tired of punching a clock and working for someone else. I wanted to make my own hours and be paid what I thought I was worth not what someone else thought. Now I still work in the grocery store, but I'm on a quest to start making the internet work for me.

Now I know I should have started this blog back earlier, but it didn't hit me till today to do this. So if you will allow me to ramble for a quick minute I will bring you up to speed as far as to what I have done up to this point.

Enough about me, now on to my journey!

When I started looking to be my own buisness I was a bit stumped. You can go looking on line and see at any given time thousands if not millions of different buisness oppertunities out there. So where was I to start.

Feeling a bit lost I started my search for financial freedom fully knowing that the end of an epic journey begins with just one step.

Click, click, click. Page after page of web deals, and business oppertunities filled my laptop screen. Free this, bonus that, and the ever popular LIMITED TIME OFFER! I felt like I was at a Hollywood movie premier looking at the endless glizt and glamour that was the awesome world of endless oppertunities. Then my first bit of doubt crept up on me. While searching I came upon page after page of the same buisness being offered by different people.Being a nautral skeptic the thought crossed my mind, "How many people are doing the same business? And if so many people are doing the same business, how are they making any money at it with so much competition out there?" A flood of questions poured into my brain. I needed answers, but where was I going to find them?

Well I went to sleep that night feeling a bit frustrated. So many question, and yet so little answers out there. Oh I'm sure there were answers out there but everytime I thought I found a lead for an answer I found that they wanted to charge me to answer a question (ie. I had to buy their product to get answers). NO! I refuse to waste my hard earned money like that. Night after night I searched. It seemed that everyone was making money on line but me. I was getting very frustrated indeed.

Then one night by chance I clicked on a page for an interent shopping mall. This company claimed to have over 3,500 products in their inventory and all orders were shipped directly from the wherehouse. The benefit there being that I wouldn't have to worry about carrying any inventory or deal with the shipping. Sounded like a great oppertunity. Now I had seen other sites like this but when I emaild them for answers to questions I never got any resposes. So I mailed the same questions to this company. Questions like: Do I own this business for tax purposes? 2. Do I need a business license to run this business? and 3. What kind of security/encription software are you using to protect my customers from identity theft?. Now the usual waiting game started. A couple days later...

No respose. (Not like it was a shock to me.)

But there was something about this business that really appealed to me so I wrote them again and waited. The next days....

Success! I had a response to my email answering the questions I had asked!

So with a bit of caution I went ahead and invested. The buisness cost me $79.99 + $20.00 one time set up fee. So now I was $100 into my first buisness. But I was now a buisness owner!

More to come...