This diary will account my attempt to make a buisness online. Keep comming back to see my progress!
and have a wonderful weekend!
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......
Hi Jason,
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