I’ve been doing business on the Internet for six years. Many things have changed on the World Wide Web since I launched my very first website, but there’s one (negative) thing that apparently will never be gone: this tendency to waste great opportunities that is evident in so many webmasters.
If there’s one huge problem that a smart webmaster should fight as hard as s/he can, this is it. This can never be stressed enough: grab any and all good opportunities that you find on the web as soon as you can. And once you start, do not give up so easily.
I’m going to tell you a real-life story to illustrate my point:
K. started surfing the web because she wanted to have some fun and research her favourite subjects. As time went by, she naturally made friends with other Internet users, joined forums, mailing lists and became a loyal visitor to various sites in a specific niche.
One day she realised that there was a certain type of website missing in that niche. So, she decided to fill this gap with her own web project. It was totally amateurish… yet it soon became pretty successful, because of three major factors:
1. She was a sort of pioneer, because she detected a need in her niche and was the first one to do something about it.
2. She really knew what she was dealing with and even devoted part of her time to expanding her knowledge on the subject, so she could improve her website on an ongoing basis.
3. She had good networking skills, so it wasn’t hard to spread the word about her site.
However, she wasn’t able to make a single cent from that site and eventually took it down. Why did this happen?
* She stopped investing in networking and promotion.
* She believed that the niche was about to collapse, so she lost the motivation needed to keep her site up.
* She thought a site like that couldn’t be effectively monetised.
This is what happened afterwards:
- She eventually realised that the webmasters which persisted and kept their sites alive are now recognised as true authorities in that niche, because they’ve been around for a long time. Consequently, they don’t have to spend much — if any at all — time with promotion.
- The niche never collapsed. Much on the contrary: it’s still growing and there are no visible signs that it’ll be stopping any time soon.
- Several new monetization techniques have been made available to webmasters, even to those who deal with smaller sites and restricted niches.
Talk about missed opportunities!
Had she persevered, now she wouldn’t have to use her own story as an example and alert for other webmasters.
