Starting a small online business? Are you prepared to be a Guerrilla Entrepreneur? By

Making money on the Internet and making profits from the Internet are two different things entirely. You can make money with a website.

But you can also spend as much or more money than you make promoting your new online business. Of course when that happens you can tell yourself that it's an investment that will pay off in the future.

Sadly the fact is for most new online businesses that "pay off" never arrives. Why do you think it is so cheap to host a website?

The reason it's so cheap to purchase web hosting and to get a website up and running is because making money on the Internet is basically a "pipe dream." An unattainable goal for anyone who is not well informed and completely willing to take all of the necessary steps to be successful as a small online business. Web hosting companies make their profits on volume of customers.

Most people are not well informed before they get started online, (including myself especially!) and to be blunt about it, most people are probably not inclined to be "Guerrilla Entrepreneurs."

Most have given up and moved on before their domain name has expired.

People are in and out of the "make money online business" fast! And in the end the only websites that made any profits were the websites that initially pulled them in.Typical.It happened to me.

The only reason I'm still here is because I have a "Guerrilla" mentality that goes beyond any "entrepreneurial" spirit. I'm a soldier period. That mentality helped me to survive and "battle" back from all of the lies, and misinformation that are floating around cyberspace like "turds" in a toilet.

You'll see a lot of ads telling you how you can "make money online" but when you finally get to the "fine print" or the "fast talking" part of the ads they will always tell you that the "Profits" part of the glowing poolside, testimonials are uncommon and are not to be expected. Here's the truth.

There are only two ways to economically profit from going into business online and you have to utilize both principles to have a chance to succeed. First of all you must sell a product and or service.

I repeat, you must sell a product and or service. If you are a new small Internet business that is not getting thousands or millions of unique individual visitors per month, you will have to find items or services to sell.

No "ifs ands, or buts." You will be sadly disappointed if you presently believe that you will make any significant money, other than pennies and dimes from people clicking on your ads. It's not going to happen.

The clicks you'll get from ads as a new mostly unknown online business will probably be either zero or none. maybe two or three per month if you got friends!

If you're showing Google ads on your e commerce website that will add up to a few cents, maybe a couple of dollars per month. That won't even cover your web hosting bill.

Hey, I hate to be the one to give you the sad news. But I wish someone had told me before I wasted hundreds. Wasting anything or any amount is a bad practice. It's like losing.

The second task that you must do (and you must do it well) to have any chance of success at making an online business profitable monetarily speaking is to advertise. Now here's the truth about online advertising.

If you are planning to advertise and get the most visibility available on the Internet you'll eventually open an account with Google Adwords.

If you are a new small online business, that's what they will write on your Headstone. "Opened a Google Adwords account." Rest in peace, my friend.

Google Adwords works but it will become increasingly expensive and time consuming. Google Adwords is likely to be back there where the "Good Lord split you" in world record time.

Adwords will start you off for a reasonable price, but at about the same moment your ego gets comfortable seeing your very own creative ads right up there next to Walmart's ads, your cost per click price may increase astronomically.

And if you want to continue to advertise and see your "name up there in lights" you're going to have to pay or possibly even have to change your entire website and domain name.

The problem with depending on pay per click advertising for the majority of your business is the moment you stop paying for clicks you lose your potential customers. It's like taking on an addiction.

Your P.P.C. account could literally become a "fatal" attraction. Your online business will be completely at their mercy. If your ads get deactivated for any reason your business will be on hold.

Plus think about it. You are actually bidding against each other to find out who is going to pay the most amount of money to own the position on a search results page that is least likely to be clicked on or even noticed by the majority of people who perform searches.

That's like going to an auction and bidding to find out who can pay the most for the item with the least amount of value. That's right. It's common knowledge that the sponsored search engine results are the last option for most "surfers."

Now look, I don't have anything against P.P.C.'s, I just don't believe that you should depend on them for more than maybe 20% of your online business. That way if your pay per click account gets deactivated for some reason beyond your control, you won't lose any more than 20% of your income. Make sense?

There are less expensive search engines where you can purchase pay per click campaigns.

Trust me no matter what you may read elsewhere these less expensive search engines are 99% useless. Other than to accept your money and patronize your dreams.

Google has the search engine industry completely monopolized. You will waste your money with any of the other search engines. Everybody on the planet that performs Internet searches uses Google.

What do you do? If you advertise on Google they are going to drive you out of business within one year most likely. The money you pay Google (until you go out of business) will be a drop in the bucket that supports their major account commission payouts.

If you use the less expensive search engines and directories you'll get zero visitors to your website and again you'll see your name and words "up in lights" on the world wide web, but you won't be making any money. You'll be spending money. More money!

The only affordable way for you to get quality advertising on the Internet for your new online business is to either write or have written articles to be distributed on the Internet like the one that you're reading now.

This is how I and thousands of other online business people advertise our e commerce websites everyday. It's either free or inexpensive.

I am not wealthy by any means and I can tell you that the most I pay for when writing an article like this is a few dollars to have an article distribution company send the article around for me. Most of the time I just do it myself for free.

So the "bottom line"is this, Number one if you're going to be in business online you must have a product or service to sell. A website with "tons" of content is not going to get you paid.

People will read your website content, finish and then go shopping on a website that sells widgets. While you are gathering content like a squirrel collecting nuts, your top competitors in the search engine rankings have web pages dominated by product images and prices.

Visit Nike or JC Penney and see how much rich and edifying content you find on their website pages. Ha! (Rich price tags maybe.)

So if as a new small online business person you don't have a product or service to sell other than "information" you may as well save your time and money. The Internet is the home of free information. Just like what you're reading.

You'll just be bringing sand to the beach. Secondly you must be willing to write or have written your own articles in order to advertise cost efficiently for a small new online business.

Or you must be prepared to blaze new trails in off line advertising for your Internet business. Make having business cards printed your first priority! Think billboards and transparent bumper or window stickers. How many people will see your car in traffic today?

In the future I believe that creative off line advertising will take the place of the already overpriced, congested and politically polluted search engine industry. At least for the new small online businesses.

Have you developed the mentality of a "Guerrilla Entrepreneur?" Do it now. Go rogue!

Copyright © 2007,2008,2009 Nicholas Busbee All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Nicholas Busbee started his first online business in 2004, and has written several articles on the Internet teaching others how to start their very own online business. "Live in Concert" Series DVD's, MP3 Downloads, and CD's powered by Amazon.Com