by Lucas Heijn

Do you want to start an online business? Work from home? You are not alone in your quest. You have probably already looked at many things and some of these have cost you money. I want you to imagine you’re looking through your newspaper in the classified ads columns, and you come across an ad that reads something like this “Profitable Business Ready To Go” it’s an ice cream franchise.

This sounds a really good business. I could really enjoy this. This is for me. You find that it comes with a brand-new ice cream van, plenty of ice cream and chocolate topping. The area that your franchise is assigned to is a new suburb, so new in fact; there are no houses, no people, no customers. This means you really have no business.

Products you may have bought on the Internet may have ended up exactly the same. Beautiful website, great product, no customers. You would have spent time editing the site and making sure the payment buttons worked. After checking that everything worked just as it should, you sat back and waited for the sales to come in. And then what happened? Nothing. Very disappointing.

Just like the ice cream van your website is beautiful, well stocked, but there are no customers.

You were told this product is selling like hotcakes. You will have your money back and more within 24 hours. That was just hype. Hot air.

So is there a difference between hype and being scammed? Well, there really is some difference. Hype is often not total untruth. It often stretches the truth to make something appear better than it really is. The thing that makes hype similar to scamming is the fact that both are after your money. Hype is used to convince you to buy.

There is a difference, though. In a scam the scammer uses totally dis-honest means to get your money. The scam is much like a con in that it poses to be something it is not. Like me you have probably received e-mails from people claiming to be PayPal who want you to fill in your details. They want this information so that they can use your PayPal account, fraudulently. You end up out of pocket with nothing to show for it.

Hype, on the other hand offers you a legitimate product, but it over states the truth. Any product on the Internet that promises you instant success is hype. If you want to start a business on the Internet there is no such thing as instant profits. Anyone that promises you other wise is stretching the truth.

Whether you run a business online or off-line, it takes time to build it. You need to build a customer base. You need to convince your customers that you are there for the long haul, that you’re not a fly-by-night operator.

Remember our ice cream van? Great new van. Plenty of products. No customers. Your new website is exactly the same. Nobody knows you’re there. You need to draw traffic to your new site. This doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process that takes a lot of time and hard work.

In another article I will explain what you need to do to get people browsing your site.

About the Author:
LinksParadise is a free membership site that uses videos and articles to teach such things as how to make a web site, create unique professional headers for your site, how to install scripts and much more. The membership area is filled with downloads and resources.

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