My real life quest for becoming a success

I'd first like to start off by saying I've been working with websites and webhosting for just under 10 years, so when I'm discussing things that I am doing to increase my revenues, marketshare, etc. I don't have the time to go in depth into every step I'm doing when its something related to a color palette or how to upload files.

To start off I'd like to state that my personal goal for 2008 is $30,000 which is a modest figure compared to other users saying "I make millions". I'll be honest, I do not. I can also say that I am starting off the new year like many of you, with next to no traffic coming in to my websites at all. So its certainly going to be a journey and I'm glad to have you all along for the ride...

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If you're interested in working on the internet than I'm sure you've read all the 'hype' sale pages about some ebook or course that promises you riches, well they're wrong and most if not all of the information they give out can be found freely on the internet with a little searching around.

However I'd like to compile a quick list of 'things that work' for generating any amount of income on the computer.

-Starting your own website(s)
- Yes, not someone elses site, not you forwarding all your traffic to another place. Your own website with your own ideas, passions, like, dislikes, etc. A domain name runs anywhere for $1.99 - $9.95 this is worth the investment in yourself and your business.

-Organic Traffic
-Pay-Per-Click seems to be everyones 'easy way out' to getting traffic. Organic traffic, meaning traffic that comes naturally from Search engines and Link exchanges is by all means, not only the least expensive but can prove to be the best converting traffic as well.

-Originality
-Stop copying ideas from others. Come up with something innovating to an industry and you are almost bound to be successful.

-Automate
-Now this I'm sure you've heard 1000 times. Internet businesses are built to be automated, even if you're looking to sell physical trinkets that you make in your garage you can automate your online store to only require you to work maybe 1 hour a week all while pull in sales. This kind of stuff is easy, shopping cart software is freely available online. Replies to emails should take no more than a few minutes and payment processors take care of the rest. All you have to do is get an email saying "You have an order" then go to the post office and ship it out.

Even better if you are selling digital products you'll get the "You have an order" email and do nothing because you automated everything. This gives you the time to collect money on work you've already done as well as work on the next website you want to start.

Further down the page, I'm going to discuss actual tips and tricks that can, will, or have worked for me personally within the past few months.

Sometimes in attempting to build a new business on the internet you may run into "siteblock", our own version of writers block. A proverbial 'what the heck am I going to do next?' Luckily for us this answer is directly in front of you everytime you're on the internet.

If you're like most internet users, you use Google daily, hourly, by the minute out of habit or because you love its no frills home page. This year Google released an amazing feature called 'Google Trends'.

Google Trends is a self updating, updates every hour, of the Top 100 Keywords that its users are searching for. Again this updates EVERY HOUR, so every hour you have a Top 100 list of things people need to know more about.

Sure, not every keyword is something worth selling you can't sell a product on Britneys latest encounter with the paprazzi, however you can publish content about it and use Google adsense to bring in some income that way. Heck you could make a lens here on squidoo all about it and pull in revenue like that as well.

Google Trends allows you to click each term, and view its popularity - Mild - Hot - Spicy - Volcanic, when its search peaked (ie 1 hour ago, 6 hours ago, etc.), if the keyword is only popular in certain cities (ie Tampa, Florida) and related news stories, blog posts, and keywords about this term.

Google Trends is virtually a heaven for users looking to make quick sites with quality informational content and deliver it quickly to the internet.

I'm going to go into this process further but HURRY on over to http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends to see what I mean now and use it to your advantage NOW!

I told this same idea to several internet marketers and they have been non-stop generating traffic from that list.

Tomorrow I'll go more in depth on how to get people to your site quickly using this list for free and next to nothing.