Many people are attracted to the idea of running an internet business. Start up costs are very low, and almost anybody who can send an email and edit a simple document can get started! And we do hear about big winners, those who get to give up their commutes and bosses, and who get to enjoy running their own business.But the sad truth is that most of the people who attempt to prosper online do not make it that far. I have my own experiences and opinions about why this is so, but lets explore the current state of the internet.

I have been working on the net for about eight years, and I have to admit that the competition is stronger then ever. I base most of my business upon getting good search engine rankings on competitive and profitable search terms. It certainly takes more research to find gems that are not saturated with thousands of other websites. However, those gems still do exist. And just because a lot of other websites are competing for a search term does not mean that those websites are well optimized, and that I still cannot get my page listed far up in the results of the major search engines.

And now, to make up for the increased number of websites that are competing for surfers on the net, there are also a lot more surfers! Almost everybody, from kids to senior citizens, knows how to surf the net. This was not the case at the beginning of the decade when the internet was much less user friendly and reliable, and access was certainly a lot slower!

So many great tools have been published so that a novice can have a pretty good website running in a few minutes, even though I believe that becoming a great webmaster takes years of testing and experience. And just as it does not take any special high tech skills to build a website these days, it also does not take a bundle of money. In fact, the most popular blogging platforms, are free!

It is also easy for webmasters to find website sponsors, Affiliate programs usually have few requirements beyond a website and a quick registration. Thousands of affiliate programs cover almost every topic one could imagine. And all it takes to start making money is signing up and dropping a snip of code on a website!

So this brings us back to the first question. Why do so many internet marketers fail? I lay some of the blame on the hundreds of ebooks and so-called home business opportunities with names like Internet ATM or Easy Web Profits. While I love working online because it lets me run my own show, succeed according to my efforts, and express my creative side, the last thing I would call this business is easy.

I get to choose the projects I will work on, but I always research them before I start. Even so, I have to cut some very interesting websites loose because they did not return the results that I needed in order to keep the lights on around here. But I always have several projects in the works, and I can concentrate on the 30% of my websites that make me a good return. So, what I am saying here, is that I fail about 70% of the time.

I also expect to put in a full day of work. I do not expect to put up a website and have it magically make money. I spend my time promoting my websites, testing my pages, and then tweaking my results until my efforts either bear fruit or I decide to put them on the shelf for that some day when I have more time. I know lots of other internet marketers too, and the ones that really make their living on the net always laugh at the idea that this job does not require any work.