Lesson 2: An Online Business Is Not An Easy Business

When I realized that I was good with the tech stuff, it made it easy for me to decide making my first startup tech related. Especially when this was a time when social networking sites was just starting out and Friendster had just launched not long ago. Totally pushed me over the fence.

Plus, every blog, book and article I read about passive income ranted about how easy it was to earn money doing an online business. So hey.. when someone tells you that its easy to make money doing this.. wouldn't you be panting to get started?

Ladies and gentlemen.. That is a lie


Because running an online business is every bit as HARD (if not HARDER) than running a real business. The only difference between the 2 is that you pay cheaper rent for 1 of them.

"There is no such thing as a free lunch"

That's a phrase that my Econs professor liked to use during class when lecturing about the science of the economy. While I can't remember the context in which that phrase applies at this precise moment.. it was a lesson that always stuck.

There isn't any shortcut to running a successful business whether offline or online.

Those quick get rich schemes that the search results pump out when you google "making money", they aren't quick. They just make you think they are so you'll fork over your cash and make THEM get richer.

So how much DOES "lunch" actually cost?

People think that once you've created the website, and put it up on the web, you'll instantly get traffic. I've had ex-clients who accused me of not doing my job right when they had no visitors or hits on the website I built for them. (Their website urls never even got submitted to the search engines!)

Every business, online and offline and any other line for that matter requires dedication and tenacity to the work. You need to spend time to grow your business and the first step after launch is always marketing and promotion.

Whether you've opened a brick and motor store or an online store, making your presence known is vital to drawing potential customers to your shop. This is one of the biggest challenges when opening an online store and many store owners struggle with this in the beginning. SEO, SEM, social networking, link building, online ads, these are just some of the traffic growing mechanisms employed by every virtual store owner. And if you're clueless about how these mechanisms work, you could always hire a web consultant who would charge you exorbitant fees to grow your site traffic, but there might be a chance the crowd you're drawing aren't the target audience you're looking for. 

This important first step is usually what makes or breaks an online store. Its actually much easier to draw a crowd to a REAL store than it is to a virtual store.

Next lesson, let's talk about how some of these online marketing tactics work and how YOU can make it work for your store..