As your business continues to grow, there will come a point when you maybe need to move from part time to fulltime and formulate a structured long term sales program which will allow you to build the business into the future. This may be the point when you consider taking on more full time staff or introducing an affiliate program.

Which one should you choose?

It is difficult to say for sure whether you should look at taking on more staff or incentivising people with commission on sales. The final decision will depend upon a number of factors including the size of your business, the sector you trade in and the profit margin on your products / services.

Many people find that affiliate programs are very useful in the early days of creating a business empire, because there is no initial cost and you only pay out when the money comes in. An affiliate program can also assist in reducing any direct costs associated with this sales channel, because once the system is set-up the rest should be fairly straight forward and automatic in many cases.

The one major downside of affiliate programs is the possibility that affiliates may get bored or move on to another affiliate program which may give more sales, or larger commissions. Keeping your affiliates active after the initial wave of optimism can be difficult, and is something which needs to be addressed as soon as possible. Direct contact with your affiliates on a regular basis is a necessity.

While at first glance the introduction of a new member of staff may seem the more expensive of the options available, it can often prove to be a life saver. By taking someone on at an early stage, you not only have someone working fulltime for the good of you business, you also have someone who you can train to take on and look after the business if you need a break, or something unexpected were to happen. Many people forget that they are not invincible, they will fall ill, they will need to take breaks and they will need help - whether they want it or not.

In truth, the answer to the question about Affiliates or Full Time Staff probably lies between a mixture of the two. An army of affiliates who are working on your behalf, and paid on a commission basis, to full time staff who will be working on all areas of the business. Any successful business will have all areas covered, and have plans in place for any possible eventualities. Do not leave it all too late!

The internet is a grave yard for sites which were successful once, but due to a number of factors they have fallen out of favour. Thankfully there are some very simple ways in which you can give your business the best chance of survival, long tern, and be just a “one hit wonder”.

While some of these ideas may sound very simple and straight forward, that is because they are! The amount of people who look for complicated issues when the bigger picture is simple, is massive. Keep it basic, keep it focused and keep on top of it.

Here are some serious ideas for you to consider :-

Always, always , always listen to your customers - they are your life blood. There is no need to have fancy marketing campaigns to see what the public think, just add a comments function onto your site, advertise this and offer them the chance to have their say - then learn!

Always be open to change, embrace it and use it for your advantage. Never believe that what you have now will be the same shape in 2 years 5 years or 10 years, it should evolve over time and any business needs space to do this.

These are just a few simple yet effective suggestions for staying one step ahead of the rest, and giving yourself the best chance of success.

While there is not doubt that the internet has created more than its fair share of millionaires and very wealthy people, we seem to be getting more of these “I made $1 million in one day, let me show you how” stories. Do you really buy into them?

I for one am very sceptical as to why anyone who has made so much money would want to reveal their secrets and methods to anyone - surely you would just continue making your $1 million a day and the retire? Or is there something a little more sinister about these stories?

As well as introducing many webmasters to massive wealth, the internet has also given fraudsters and con artists a fast track to your door step, a means to get themselves in front of you, and what better way than to promise big bucks? Anyone who promises to tell you there secrets in exchange for a smallish fee is either not telling the whole story, or trying to con you out of your money. Why on earth would you tell the competition how to wreck your market? Do you see Bill Gates or any other industry leaders selling a direct path to riches, no you don’t.

If you are at all doubtful about some of the boasts on the internet, sit back, chill out and put yourself in their shoes. Why sell your ideas? Maybe because you are desperate for money, and your niche has now been targeted by thousands of more webmasters, or it is only an idea you are selling, and you have never actually used it?

There is no such thing as a free lunch on the internet, there is always a pay back time at some stage. Keep your eyes open, stay alert, and imagine you were in their shoes - would you do the same?

Once you have created that mega website and looked at all of the different advertising mediums you can use, you may feel that you are ready to bring in those big bucks, to crack the market, to hit the big time - not quite. Where are you going to put those adverts, where will your viewers actually notice them, will they work? These are all questions which you need to investigate……………

Do not worry, help it as hand these days in the shape of what are known as site “heat maps”, which effectively show you which areas of your site your readers are looking at, where they are clicking, and ultimately where you should put your adverts. By finding the so called “hot spots” you will then be able to give your adverts prime positioning, and actually give yourself a chance of making some money.

So where are the hot spots?

While hot spots will differ form site to site because of the theme of the site, the layout and the options available, research has shown that :-

· in general people read from top left to bottom right, so any adverts in that diagonal line in between have a good chance of being noticed.
· the menu bars at the top of your screen are also very popular with readers, because they are generally across your initial eyesight when viewing a site.
· too many adverts will scare people off - be gentle and be subtle.
· footer adverts are general ignored because not many people actually make it to the bottom of a site.

These are just a few of the general habits of the average internet viewer, your future custom, your next income stream. It is vital that you do not over crowd your site with adverts because either it will turn the user off, or they will get so confused as to what they are supposed to be looking at, that no area of the site will actually benefit.

In today’s internet world hard sell is out, soft sell is in…..and the subtler the better.

While Google continue to power ahead in the search engine stakes, they seem to be encountering some turbulence in the advertising market with a number of high profile defections in the shape of Digg and eBay (USA). There is also talk in some quarters about “Adsense Blindness”, and the problems which this may bring to Google.

So are we really becoming immune to Adsense? Ask yourself this question - When did you last click on an Adsense Advert? Unless you are particularly new to the internet, there is a good chance that it was some time ago. Subconsciously you see the adverts and in many cases expect them, but clicking on them is another matter, although there have been no figures to support this theory - yet.

This growing mention of “Adsense Blindness” may well be part of the reason why Google have attempted to change the look and feel of their ads over the last few months. More rounded edges, slightly different shapes, these all alter the look of the advert and subconsciously they look different and may well catch your eye a little more. But is it enough?

The jury is out as to whether Adsense can continue to command such a dominant position in the online advertising market, with many advertisers looking at alternative arrangements, which on their own are not as successful as Adsense, but collectively they are starting to have an impact.

Few will remember, but Google acquired a radio advertising agency last year and while nothing has been done with this acquisition as yet, it seems that they may have alternative ideas to bring forward. Even if Adsense is losing its impact, do not write off Google - a company who constantly surprise with their new services and never seem to stand still.

While a couple of months ago we saw the war of words between Google and eBay, which resulted in eBay pulling all Google Ads from their US site, it now appears that the popular social site Digg are also looking to move away from Google. A flash in the pan, or the start of a revolt against Google’s rough tactics?

Many observers of the internet have been waiting for this moment for some time, the moment when Google finally push their customers too far, and pay the price. While the spat with eBay was in connection with eBay not integrating Google’s new checkout system into their business, Google’s petty response has back fired in a big way.

It appears that Google went out of their way to organise a corporate event at the same time, and in the same city as a prominent eBay presentation, in the hope of enticing some eBay customers away. After realising that this was a bad move, Google apparently back tracked and cancelled their event, hoping to heal their rift with eBay - this has not happened.

It has also been announced this week that Digg will be stripping all Google Ads from their site and replacing them with the Microsoft advertising system. It seems that someone is finally making in roads into the dominance of Google, which until recently had gone unchecked. So what next for Google?

While Google still have a massive impact on many areas of the internet, the recent events may offer a useful wake up call and show that they may not have it their own way forever. While this may mark a turning point in the increasingly strong market position of the company, it may shift some of the emphasis back to customer satisfaction. It appears that MSN have finally woken up, and while the recent Digg move was a good start, there is still a long long way to go.