We all have ambitions about our business ventures and these often materialize at the start of a New Year when everything is fresh and we have 12 months of trading to look forward to. We all know that it is only businesses which have plans, have ideas and have focus which will succeed. Moving from one area and one venture to the next will work for some people, but very often you will end up with a number of unfinished businesses – all of which may have had potential, but you just did not finish off.

Why not try something different for next year?

As the New Year approaches why not sit down and write down your hopes and dreams for the coming year, where you want your business to be and where you think it will be month by month. A 1 year plan is difficult to visualize but a month by month planner is easier to track and easier to amend and adjust to take into account current circumstances.

If you can achieve only 50% of your goals for the year you will be doing very well, and if you do this in your business life then you will probably be a lot wealthier than at the start of the year!

While there are many different things to consider such as, the effectiveness of promoting in certain areas, actual profit per sale and the age of your business, many people like to retain a certain percentage of their profit each month (if in profit) to reinvest into the business. However, you should only reinvest into the business when you can see a tangible return on investment. There is no point promoting your site purely so that you can have you name in the public eye – you need to see an increase in sales and a return on your investment.

There are no set rules as to how much you should retain to promote your site, or whether you should actually retain a specific amount of cash for promotion – it is up to you as you are the one who should know where to promote and what kind of return you can expect.

In the early days you may actually need to reinvest all of your profits back into the business, where you can, in order to build for the future. There is no point in bleeding your business dry while it is still young and stunting the potential growth for the future. A company needs to breath, to grow and above all to be fed – the food in this instance is your promotional budget.

As more and more areas of business become hard to break into, because of massive saturation on the internet, many webmasters are turning to advisory, information based sites where free advice is given. This can attract a whole host of traffic, but it can be difficult to actually make it pay – well actually impossible unless you have some kind of advertising program.

Many people look at Adsense, some use Amazons advertising program or even Adbrite – again there are so many to choose from. While Adsense is by far the more popular, is does not always pay the best prices per click, and if you are too successful they can actually reduce your income by reducing your payments per click – strange but actually true, and known as “Smart Pricing”.

Whatever advertising service you do decide to use you need to ensure that it suits your site, blends in with the overall look and feel of the pages and also advertises what you are talking about – there is no point talking about football only for our adverts to promote mobile phones, it just will not work. Keep you’re advertising programs lean, mean and to the point – they really need to compliment your content and blend into the site so as not to come over as too aggressive.

Whatever commercial website you are operating, if you are successful then at some stage you will be faced with a very difficult decision – do you move up to another level, or do you stop growing and trade at a level you can currently cope with? Unfortunately it is not as easy as that because any company which is not growing, not moving with the times, is a company that has started the decent into oblivion – a site which is in effect dying.

This can pose a very difficult decision for any webmasters, the need to start buying products in bulk or entertaining more clients, but needing to find a way to service them all, on time and to the highest quality. In essence, this is the time when you might decide whether to take someone else on to help you with the business, but you do need to be very careful.

There are many people out there who will join up with you, check out how you run your business and copy it. This can lead to another difficult decision, do you employ someone you already know or do you void mixing business and pleasure at all costs?

This is just a small selection of the potential hazards of growing and growing, and while they can be managed easily if you plan ahead, it can be daunting when you need to take on extra risks, while increasing your over heads at the same time. Then again, there could be worse positions to be in – like no customers

We are not saying that Adsense does not have a place in the online business world, because it does and will have for some time yet, but the impact it can have on your site has reduced substantially. We are now seeing more and more people looking towards affiliate programs which can be discreetly hidden within the text of your site for the soft sell approach – not bold and brass like the Adsense blocks which are so popular today.

Interestingly, we have also seen a reduction in the click values for many Adsense ads over the last few months, with many reporting to have been hit by what has become known as “smart pricing”. While never really acknowledged by Google, many believe that the owners of Adsense have incorporated some kind of pull back system in their Adsense model to reign in the income of those who are racing ahead. Quite how, or even whether it is really happening remains to be seen, but many webmasters are experiencing sudden drops in their income for short periods and then a return to “normal” levels.

As the old saying goes “Do not put all of your eggs into one basket” – i.e. spread your risk!

Even though it is possible to create a network of MFA sites which can potentially bring in substantial amounts of money, it can be risky. It just takes Adsense to suspend your account or someone to report you, and your income could disappear overnight. While there are actions which you can take to minimise the chances of this happening to you, there are occasions when it can be out of your control.

Like any business which you may look to build up, it is sensible not to put all of your “eggs in one basket”, and you should consider using a number of different advertising mediums. While they may give greatly differing rates of return, it is still sensible to reduce your dependency on one particular advertiser, just in case something unforeseen where to happen.

Why not consider affiliate links? Selling advertising space? Paid posts? These are just a selection of the other income streams which you could consider, but it would obviously depend upon the type(s) of site you were creating.

If you are running an online business which is actually selling something or a service, then what you really need is focused traffic. Unless the traffic visiting your site is from the correct market then there is little chance of you increasing your income. There is a need for focused traffic in these situations, readers whom you know have an interest in your products, your services and your site. In the situation it is probably better to have less numbers, but more focused traffic.

However, if you site is for information only and you use the likes of Adsense for your income, then you can benefit in two ways from as much traffic as possible. If some of the people visiting your site end up not having an interest in what you have to offer, then there is a still a chance that they might click on one of your adverts – bringing income into your site.

On the other side of the coin, if they are interested in your site then assuming that your Adsense (or other online adverts) are focused onto your subject matter, there is also every chance that they will bring in advertising revenue.

Ideally you want traffic which is focused upon the subject of your site, but if you are buying a website based on traffic figures you should be aware that these can be doctored.

It is easy to pay a few dollars to one of these traffic sites, and receive thousands of visitors who will have no interest in your subject, or clicking on any of your adverts. This is often used by those looking to sell websites based on traffic. In this instance you should also base your decision to make an offer on the income which the site brings in – something which can often bear no relation to the traffic, and should ring alarms bells with you.

If recent research is anything to go by, it seems that banner adverts have lost their appeal, with click through rates as low as 05.% being recorded on some websites. But surely it will be different for each website, for each sector and different times of the year?

The truth us that while banner adverts may not be as popular as they once were, they do have a part to play in the online advertising industry. Would you be more likely to click on a Adsense advert than a Banner? Surely it would matter what the subject was? Would you really care if it was an Adsense advert or a banner as long as you got what you wanted?

Ultimately every webmaster would like to bring in as much money as possible, and while there is some mileage in actually embracing the latest trends, the advert placement, subject matter and the quality of your site all have a part to play, as does the quality of your cheap web hosting. Just because you change your banner adverts to Adsense does not mean you will be raking in the money, you need traffic, you need it everyday, and you need to be promoting yourself wherever you can.

Once you have decent traffic you can then try different placement methods, different advertising mediums and chop and change as much as you want. Do not get too tied up in the fine detail before you have traffic, because ultimately that is what will dictate your future income, and remember, what works for one site may not always work for another!

While obviously you need customers to stand any chance of making money, but making money and being successful are often two different things. To be successful you need to ensure that your customers visit you over and over again, thus increasing your income and reducing the cost of your advertising revenue compared to your income.

Imagine the scenario, your site is ready to go, you are chomping at the bit, everything is ready, then bang! You are live. You sell your first product, money in the bank, great, but then the customer comes back and asks for some help or advice, what do you do? Who can help? Is there a system in place?

Unless you are able to offer after sales care then there is every chance that customer will not return to your site, and they may pass on their concerns to others. That means that each new customer you bring, is potentially only going to buy from you once, before moving on – what a waste!

In order to be successful you need to ensure that all of your systems and procedures are in place before you go live. While you will need to adjust some elements as you go along, you need to be ready with the answers which your customers will ask, you need to be ready with some good old fashioned advice, something which will ensure that come back to you time and time again.

A non-repeat customer is a wasted customer, and very expensive to replace!

In a normal world you would not even consider taking an advert from a competitor, but the internet is different. You may be able to use a competitors interest to strike some kind of bargain, whether it be cross marketing, a joint venture or some kind of network to ensure that customers to both sites get what they are looking for. You would be surprised how many takeovers and mergers have been agreed as a result of a very innocuous initial contact.

The problem with the internet is that size is everything, if you are not well know your site will curl up and die, although if you are well know you are there for your competitors to shoot at. A joint venture, merger or partnership with a major competitor may be just the ticket to secure the future for both of you. Critical mass means more advertising, more income and hopefully a larger brand name, which should in turn allow you to bring in more business.

One of the main elements to success online is the skill at taking all opportunities when thy come your way. There is no point in sitting back and waiting for things to happen, it is up to you to get out there, ask questions and MAKE things happen for your business. It is not easy, but there are few successful businesses which have not had set backs and problems along the way. It is all a learning curve!