The ultimate determinant of making money online

So many times we see a lot of guys asking how to make money online. Do they really not know how to make money? I doubt that seriously.

In my opinion, what they are really curious about is how to make quick money online. That's why so many guys would like to rush into affiliate programs with high commission rate, spend so many efforts to crash SEO technique, and perform other crazy activities that they might think of. Then. do they really find quick gold in the internet world? I bet 99 percent of them fail to achieve so, despite a lot of time and wisdom being wasted. I don't want to deny the 1 percent chance that there may exist some genius on our earth.

In my view, I don't think there is any quick money in the internet. The market is roughly efficient, which means it will only give any participant a normal return based on his/her investment of time, money or knowledge. Thus, don't make affiliating or SEO become an end in itself. Otherwise, it will only give you a normal return determined by the market, which is almost 0, since these markets are almost saturated after so many years of rapid development. Of course, here I don't deny that they are still among the effective means of serving your end goal in the e-business.

In fact, E-business is the same as any other sort of business. We should never forget the basics of doing business when you're exploring opportunities in the internet. So, what are the basics of doing business? There are many famous theories addressing this problem, for example, the value-chain framework, 4C, 4P, the porter's five forces and so on. Given the purpose of this blog, here I don't want to expand on these specific topics. If you want to get more, google is the right choice for you.

Knowing the basics of doing business well, does it mean that you can enter into the market place immediately? You definitely know the answer is NO. However, in the real life, many of us always make hasty decisions that we regret later.Take myself as an example. Once I thought I found a great idea and wanted to implement it immediately. I rent hosting space, registered a domain name, and spent a whole crazy week to develop the website, only to find that I don't have enough content to fill in the website.

Thus, make sure you think carefully before you move. Do you have a clear idea about what your business is? who are your customers and how to reach them? who are your competitors? how fierce is the competition and so on. What content or service are you going to provide? how do you get your content or service? How are you going to promote your business? The list of pertinent questions will go on. Make sure you could answer all of them before you make a start.

All of us want to make money. But don't be fooled by quick money myth. Otherwise, you'll most probably earn an almost zero return despite of a huge amount of time, money or other resources. No matter how big your online business is, never forget the basics of doing business.