While there is no doubt that many customers would like sites to take on board fashionable changes where applicable, the need to constantly chase the next trend is a little flawed. The chances are that the people who are following these trends, your potential customers, will have moved on to something else in a few weeks time and left you high and dry.

In reality, if you are looking at a long term business, you are not chasing the next passing customer, you are actually setting up a business which will attract customers TO you. You want to give them what they want, when they want it and in a fashion which makes it very easy to access and understand. Many internet users get used to the look of a site, they know what to expect and more importantly they know their way around. A customer that does not know their way around a site, or cannot easily see where to go, will not spend money. Make it as easy as you can, and you have more chance of bringing in some income.

In the online world of the internet, we are seeing new trends emerging in different areas of business every week, whether it is the use of web 2.0, information sites, switching to the latest affiliate product or direct sales. It is vital that you stay in your comfort zone as much as possible and ensure that you understand what you are offering. If you don’t understand what you are doing, or what you are offering then you have NO chance of any decent income as you will soon be found out.

While there is much to consider, you may like to think about the following before making any decision :-

Affiliate Sales

Pros

- There is no packaging and posting for you to carry out.

- You will not be called upon to sort out any after sales problems.

- There are literally thousands of different programs available.

- A big brand affiliate program can sometimes “sell itself”.

Cons

- You only receive a commission, rather than the full profit per item.

- You will likely only receive commission for a set period per customer. There is a great possibility of missing out on any repeat sales commission.

- Sometimes difficult to track the sales you have referred to the affiliate program. The major affiliate sites are very reliable, although others are some what less reliable.

Direct Sales

Pros

- You will receive the full profit per item, rather than paying a commission to a third party.

- You have full control of what is sold, new product launches, price, etc.

- Repeat orders are very much a part of this income stream.

Cons

- It can be hard work, and potentially expensive packaging and posting items.

- There are lots of costs including storage, insurance, etc.

- It can be expensive to advertise and promote your business / products.

All in all it really does depend what you are looking for, what kind of business you have and how much control you want to keep on sales. There are pros and cons to each of affiliate sales and direct sales, and you will need to balance all of these against what you want and what you have time to do.

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.

It has never been more vital that your site contains content about the latest products, the latest trends and the latest news. Yesterdays must have mobile phone is history tomorrow, it is as brutal as that in the high speed world of the internet. Unless you actually move with the times, the trends and your customers you could see your traffic collapse overnight and quickly see those regular visitors finding somewhere else to go.

So what can you do?

Rather than letting customers find somewhere else to go for tomorrows big seller, make sure that you check the news every day, check you competitors sites and actually see what is selling, what it looking good. There are a selection of blogs available for the latest must have products, and while they may only last a short time, if you are one of the first to market there is the potential to earn some decent income.

Never sit back and think how well you have done because tomorrow is another chapter, another challenge and another day in the life of a webmaster. While the majority of us trading on the net love the thrill and the chase, it can be hard work keeping up with everything – a 24/7 job!

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

While there is no doubt that those webmasters who are able to keep their traffic within a network, and circulate amongst their businesses can and do make better returns than stand alone sites, there are some factors to consider, including :-

· Connecting websites on the same IP address will impact upon your Page Rank status with Google – ensure they are all on different IPs.

· Ultimately, is the network actually working?

If you structure your network correctly and ensure that the subject matter is complimentary there is no doubt that it could, and should work for you. However, it still boils down to the same old factor – traffic. Before you make big plans for a massive network, you should structure the increase in your network so that new sites are staggered, rather than hitting your visitors with a choice of numerous sites.

Let each site grow itself and attract traffic on a stand alone basis, because when you link them together the results could be startling if they all have a firm grounding in their own right.

It has to be said that the vast majority of competitions go unnoticed on the internet, and those that are noticed will only attract a very short term crowd to your site. There are very few competitions which actually attract new long term customers to your site, and in reality they are probably more of a tool to retain users than actually bring new ones in.

There are a number of factors to consider when even thinking about posting a competition to your site :-

1. How the winner is chosen. You need to define clearly how the winner of the competition will be chosen – this is vital.

6. Have regular competitions. One competition will not make a big difference, but if you have regular competitions then you will get repeat visitors.

All in all it is not as easy to make an impact on your site with just one competition, you need to give your readers a reason to come back time and time again. Once you have them on your site, and they have entered your competition you need to direct them back to your site, to get them actually checking out what you are offering.

Whether you offer freebies to those who enter your competition or join you mailing list, or you offer them a discount, you need to find a way to convert them fro competition entrants to readers of your site. That is the tricky bit!

Web 2.0 is the new form of online advertising which is interactive with the user, without them actually knowing it! It is a very complicated system which basically tracks your movements on the internet, which sites you visit at which times of the day and what you look for. It is being used by the main search engines such as Google, MSN and Yahoo! in order to get the best return out of their customers. So how does it interact with the user?

After building up sufficient information about your surfing habits, Web 2.0 can then control to the smallest detail the style, type and number of online adverts which you will see on relevant sites. By changing the colour of the ads at a certain time, or realising that a certain style has passed its sell by day, the system will move to the next most successful and formulate a new plan of “attack”. The systems have become so thorough and precise that they may actually know where you are going online before your do!

So what are the benefits of Web 2.0 adverts?

By calculating where you will be at a certain time, the application can deliver an advert which is about a subject which will interest you, and in a style which has shown to be popular to a certain social class or country. By making the adverts as easy on the eye as possible, it has been shown that resulting advert income can be increased dramatically.

We are not talking about just a few percentage points, we are talking about a whole new level of income! Web 2.0 is here and it is here to stay, although it will attract some controversy due to the “tracking” nature of the process.

So what are the benefits of making mistakes?

While it may seem a little strange to think making mistakes may benefit you, it really can help in the long run. Here are a few things to consider when pondering why you do not want to make the same mistake again :-

· Pride! We all have pride in our work, and we all want to succeed in the best way possible, but it is not always that easy. While you should not take mistakes personally, you should learn for them and ensure there is less chance of the same mistake happening time and time again.

· Competition. The competition to succeed online has never been more intense and it will only get harder. Being able to push your site to the top of the tree can make you feel very proud – a feeling that you will remember for the rest of your life.

Contrary to what many people tell you, the best way to learn is by your mistakes (so long as you don’t make too many!), because there is no better feeling than being in the same situation again and managing to turn it around to your benefit. You can read all of the books in the world,, talk to the best people in the business, but until you actually get out there you will not know what it feels like.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, because as long as you learn from them, the process will be worthwhile in the end.

Life is really difficult for even the best of businesses on the internet and it is a constant battle to stay one step ahead of your competitors. We are dealing in markets where it is better to be seen, than actually have the most competitive prices – if they don’t see your value, they cant buy from you!

So the quick answer to the question about advertising is , yes. The life blood of any site on the internet is traffic, and the quickest way to get traffic (and targeted traffic at that) is to advertise in all of the right places. You will need to invest money, but if your business is competitive compared to the market place then you should have no problem recouping your advertising investment and more.

We have all seen sites which are not overly impressive but sit at the top of the search engine rankings for some of the more popular terms. These are people who have perhaps spent more money on advertising than they have on their site – these sites will find it more difficult to recoup their advertising budget because they may not be as competitive as others, but they will receive traffic.

The trick to success on the internet is finding that balance between how much you spend on developing your site and how much you spend advertising it. If you spend too much on advertising it will take longer to recoup this, and if you spend too much on your site it will take longer to build up the business (if it ever arrives!).

There is more to launching a site on the internet than you may have thought.