I have always been a helper personality. I remember being like this for many years. It started when I joined the military and had to learn to work with customer's military pay and travel reimbursements. It was a tough job. I worked 6 and 7 days 10 to 12 hours or more per day. In learning how to take care of other people's problems, I forgot how to take care of my own. I decided to get out of the military and finish my Degree in Computer Science, thinking that this would fix the problem. It did not. I ended up with different kinds of problems and the customers were still there. It seemed that I still had not found the solution I was seeking. Not that I do not like customers. I like people. I just don't like the kinds of people and problems that corporate America has to offer in a typical job. That and it does not matter how much your gross pay is, it always seems like there is someone else with their hand in your wallet. In April 2006, I chose one of the many internet home business opportunities available and started helping myself.

This internet business has reached a point where I think it is time to share some of my experiences, successes, and failures. I may be giving away some of my secrets, but feel that my home based business is so far ahead of the game that the reader may have quite a lot of catching up to do. With some of the hints and helps in this series, they may find it a little easier to start and maintain a successful internet home based business of their own. Only time will tell. I would not call mine entirely successful yet, but it is showing the signs, especially in the way of traffic.

The key to a successful online home based business is internet traffic. It is the lifeblood. Without it you do not stand a chance. I remember when I first started and everyone asked "when does the money start rolling in"? It doesn't. It trickles in at best unless you are lucky. It builds over time. I realized this early and started planning. I purchased some article submission software and joined an article writing club. I researched and found a number of hi PR article directories to submit my articles to and started submitting weekly. My main theme was internet home based business opportunities.

I knew that this was going to be a chore. When I ran the keywords "home based business" through the search engines, I saw a lot of competition like Entrepeneur.com, Boconline.com, AlbertaRose.org, and others. It was daunting. I chose a lesser theme "home based business opportunity" and started working on it. It took almost a year before my web pages showed up on page one of the search engines for this keyword phrase. Again, before it did, I saw the signs. I was getting keyword hits for variations of "home based business" including internet home based business opportunities. I was starting to make some money with Adsense and had the satisfaction of at least breaking even. This gave me the freedom to experiment with my articles and write about all of the various sub-topics around the theme "home based business".

My motivation continues to increase with time. I see many who struggle and try to force "the truth" out of other forum members and experienced internet marketers. They may not be willing to give up their secrets because to do so would create competition for their own websites.

The truth is, internet marketing is a lot of hard work, no one is going to help you if you are not willing to work at it. and it will take time no matter what you find on the internet. That means that yes, many of the internet home based business opportunities out there are scams. It is up to you to determine which ones are and which ones are not. Call the rest what you want, but the only one you are really certain of is your own.