Is online business what everyone says it is?

[Brendan]

It seems the trend to run an online business is really ramping up these days and there seems to be a new breed of Entrepreneur coming through the ranks.. one that works from wherever they want and make money while having fun and living life.. at least that's what we say we are doing..

Truth be told .. and I am coming from experience here, us Internet Marketers spend hours and hours building sites, marketing them, networking, researching fine tuning for that particular market.

If we are planning a launch of a new product or even trying to leverage an existing product, we could easily spend 12+ hours per day getting ready for that launch for a number of weeks.. and I know a number of other Internet Marketers that to do the same..

So why do you think it is that we say we don't do that much work and we make money by just putting a website up?

I think its because it doesn't feel like work in the traditional sense - we don't need to trade hours for money & what we do is fun, we meet new people all the time, we are constantly networking and discussing bleeding edge strategies and technologies and once we spend the 3-4 weeks on a launch, we can take 4 months off and the money still rolls in.

Sounds cool huh..? Do any of you run an internet business.. is it all its cracked up to be for you?

[gerryonline]

I am dabbling in internet marketing at the minute and I have to agree that it does take a lot of work to drive traffic to your websites and affilliate links, but I am hoping once these seeds are plantd, sites are established and indexed then the rewards will pay off?

[The Start Up Sage]

Sounds cool huh..? Do any of you run an internet business.. is it all its cracked up to be for you?

Hi Brendan,

We love the on-line business model and start lots of them for Australians.

Critically, the ability to sell product globally without significantly increasing CAPEX/operational costs is a big factor.

It does take work though. Big work upfront. And even when it is humming along earning income, energy is required to keep a site relevant and up to date.

For example, look at how Getty Images was the dominant global leader in on-line image sales a few years ago. It was an absolute cash cow. Then whacko ... along came istock and today Getty are yesterday's hero.

Complacency in business - including on-line business - can be murderous.

[Slade]

So true.. have a look at MySpace for instance, that was the place to be 2 years ago and now its almost been abolished as a 'Friends' social network altogether.

I guess they are smart though and trying to turn it into a music/artist type community instead.

I run a few niche online businesses and I too need to have my finger on the pulse and keep pushing them to make sure they are ticking along.. its a competitive game and not all set and forget as it used to be

[christo]

I don't know man, I don't see Internet Marketing and Internet Business to be interchangable terms like you.

The way I see it is that an internet business is just a business. The internet is a tool, but the tool doesn't do the work. I like Brad Burton's quote from a recent smallbizpod.co.uk podcast:

"I bought a tool last week and it hasn't dug a single hole"

Is internet business all it's cracked up to be? No, nothing is.

As for work, well spending hours on a site sounds like a very small amount of work to me. People work for years to build businesses. The internet doesn't change that.

[Brendan]

I suppose there is a misconception that everyone that runs a website, or some sort of online business becomes an instant millionaire with little effort.

This isn't true in any case, it takes time, dedication and effort as with any business, sure it can be a great vehicle, but as you say christo its not the tool that does the job, its how it is used.

[hammocksaustralia]

I find an internet business is just like any other business. You still need to do the same type of things to generate business/traffic. It's definitely not a get rich type thing. But one that to me provides much a greater return on my time, more free time, more flexibility, not having to be face to face with customers, or answer to any superiors.

For me this is way better than I ever imagined, especially compared to my other offline businesses that I ran. This suits my personality much better, so I'm gona keep running this line as long as I can.

But also like an offline business, you have to know where to draw the line, and not try and do everything yourself - something I am always guilty off - but I do have the time to do things myself.

[Just Love Gardening]

I see how leveraging my time by utilising the www as a very effective tool to help create residual income.
To be able to have a global market from your keyboard, wow , that's enormous. The challenge is working on your business and stay focused.

[Jamey]

Internet business is the beat option to make profits. Lot of strategic internet marketing is basically about having a promotion plan that employs effective and proven marketing devices to get high converting results for your internet marketing business. Thank you for sharing the information.
(http://www.keybusinesscoach.com)

[shoestringventure]

Every one of us should understand the simple fact that there is nothing like becoming a millionaire overnight. To be successful you have to really work hard. There is no substitute for hard work. No matter your business is online or offline, you have to work hard to achieve success.

[one]

I run a website called ApartmentReviews.com.au (http://www.apartmentreviews.com.au). It grew fairly quickly to start with, and I thought I was onto a real winner, but then reality hit that making money from a website isn't all that easy!

The site makes a bit of cash from Google and direct advertisers, but nowhere near enough to even consider doing it fulltime! It does pay for itself though, so that's good.

Last year the site placed 29th in Anthill Magazine's Smart 100 (http://anthillonline.com/anthill-magazines-smart-100-2009/) list. I thought that may help me get some more advertisers, but it didn't help in the slightest despite my many emails and phone calls to prospective advertisers!

So yeah, it's bloody hard to make decent money online, but plenty of people out there are still doing it though. Like the old saying goes, if it was that easy then everyone would be doing it...

[jBasket]

hi One,

I like the site, and it looks quite nice, you must have put a lot of effort into it and got a publication from the Anthill magazine. Thank you for sharing your real experience so I and other users here in this forum know what to expect from an online business. I hope that your site will get more popular. It might need more review entries.

Cheers
jBasket

[Brendan]

I run a website called ApartmentReviews.com.au (http://www.apartmentreviews.com.au). It grew fairly quickly to start with, and I thought I was onto a real winner, but then reality hit that making money from a website isn't all that easy!

Spot on.. the old 'build it and they will come' doesnt apply to the online world at all anymore..

Its more, build it and scream as loud as you can to make people notice you over everyone else!

On a separate note..

Interesting site you have there.. what sort of marketing are you doing for it?

Have you thought about making it a little more interactive.. having people upload photos of apartments for themselves? Share the reviews with others, maybe even have something where people can say that that's where they live.

I think the site does have some potential.. just need to be pushed in the right way.

[one]

I was doing marketing on two levels. On the one hand I was marketing to apartment residents for the purpose of growing the number of reviews, which consisted of letterbox drops, local paper advertising and Google. I spent some money on press releases, but that was a waste of time.

On the other hand I was marketing to real estate agents chasing advertising dollars, this was mainly done via a monthly email newsletter providing them with visitor stats on buildings in their area. I received plenty of great feedback on the newsletters, but it didn't make the agents any more keen to part with their cash! Phone calls and snail mail backed up the monthly emails.

Definitely some good ideas there Brendan. A few of those I thought I could achieve through Facebook, but after a while I kind of ran out of puff and haven't done anything on the site for around twelve months. Instead I've been concentrating on my real job, which, coincidentally, I'll be leaving next month! See my earlier post on restraints of trade... ;)

I'd like to get stuck into the site later in 2010, but we'll just see how it goes.

[cashurwheels]

Hi One,

Indeed a good concept and you have put in a lot of work already...Hang in there. Thanks for being honest and helping other realize it is not always easy. I am sailing in the same boat and know what you mean :) Brendan's suggestions are spot on, and worth exploring.

[one]

Yeah, there are plenty of people out there running websites telling everyone how successful they are, but there's a big different between being ambitious and having big plans, and just being plain delusional about things.

Hopefully once I get my new business up and running (which I'll say more about next month) I'll be able to put some more resources towards the website and get things moving again. The new business doesn't really have anything to do with the website, but the type of people I'll be dealing with some of the time (real estate agents) are common to both projects, so hopefully there will be some cross pollinisation going on!

[Barbaragabogrecan]

It’s really cool. Internet marketing is very fascinating idea of work and I am very happy doing work with this.

[seopiper]

I do the link building thing for other website but not really for my own website. I wish I could that one day, one day... when is that one day.

Need good motivation for that.