Traps to avoid building your Online Business!

1. Information Overload
The Internet holds an abundance of information, which is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, you can pretty much access any bit of knowledge you want but on the other hand, you can literally spend your entire lifetime “researching” contradicting ideas and not accomplishing anything. Avoid this at all costs. Rather than spend a lot of time looking things up and making sure you’re an “expert” before getting started, take action and don’t look back. Of course careful planning is important, but there comes a point when you need to drop the books and the feeds and simply dive in with your venture. Action brings clarity and there’s no better teacher than experience.

Do your market research and learn the basics of your business, but don’t get carried away. Have a few role models you can emulate but learn to think creatively for yourself. After all, as an Internet entrepreneur, you need to be unique to stand out and be successful. Too much information is useless and won’t help you. Strive to learn by doing.

2. Procrastination and Inactivity
With the down economy, it’s easy to make excuses and wait until everything gets “better”. It’s easy to get comfortable and not stretch yourself to be successful with your business. No one said it was going to be a walk in the park. Don’t let procrastination keep you down. Set a weekly schedule for yourself and associate yourself with other positive-thinking entrepreneurs for moral support. It definitely makes a huge difference. I suggest getting in touch with others in your area through Meetup.

3. Business Opportunity Scams
With widespread layoffs, there are tons of scams out there for “business opportunities” promising Internet riches working at home with little effort. Beware of these scams. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Dishonest people are looking to take advantage of others who have just lost their jobs and are desperately looking for ways to make ends meet. Phony “business opportunities” run rampant these days, especially online where most people don’t know exactly how Internet marketing works. Develop a solid business foundation and learn to think for yourself rather than have to follow some “system” that will supposedly generate you millions with a click of a button (sound familiar?).

4. A Weak Business Foundation
Remember, the Internet is just a medium that is used for business, not some sort of a gold mine in and of itself. Your website can be extremely profitable, but it’s important to note that all business principles still apply. In other words, you need a good product or service idea that fulfills a market need and is sustainable with a solid business model. It’s easy to buy into the Internet marketing hype (which caused the dot com bust of 2000), but you need to treat your sites like businesses because that’s essentially what they are.

Are you falling prey to any of the four traps mentioned above? There’s a huge opportunity to make money online with an Internet business in the next few years, but it’s not easy to be successful in this industry. A few words of advice to get you on the right track - avoid information overload, procrastination and inactivity, business opportunity scams, and weak business foundations.