Do you want to start an online business? Work from home? You are not alone in your quest. You have probably already looked at many things and some of these have cost you money. I want you to imagine you’re looking through your newspaper in the classified ads columns, and you come across an ad that reads something like this “Profitable Business Ready To Go” it’s an ice cream franchise.

You decide that this is just the business for you. You find out later on, that it is an almost new Ice cream van, it comes very well stocked, and is in a very warm climate. But now you find that the area that you are restricted to is the Sahara Desert. It certainly is a warm climate, but no one lives there. So now you have a very well stocked business, but not customers. So really, you have no business.

Many products on the Internet just the same. You can buy ready-made websites, loaded with products ready to go. You are told, you can start making money within 24 hours. So you buy the product and set up the site on your new web hosting account. You make sure all the payment buttons are working. And then you sit back and wait, and wait, and wait. Nothing happens.

This website, you just put up is just like that ice cream van. It looks great. It even works great. Youve tested those payment buttons and they all work. But you make no sales. You have no customers.

You thought you would be making money within 24 hours. That’s what the ad that said. Well that was just hype.

Is there a difference between hype and being scammed? There is a similarity in that both hype and scams are designed to get money off you. But there is a difference. Hype is not a total untruth. Hype is stretching the truth to make something appear better than it really is.

The difference is a scammer is much like a con man. The scammer uses totally dishonest means, total untruth to get you to part with your money. They often pose as something they’re not. I’m sure you have received e-mails from people posing as PayPal asking you go to the site and fill in your login details. With this information, they can fraudulently use your account your money.

On the other hand, Hype offers you a legitimate product, but over states the truth. It is good to keep in mind that any product that offers you instant success, over night wealth are using hype to get you to buy. Running any business takes work to succeed.

Whether you run a business online or off-line, it takes time to build it. You need to build a customer base. You need to convince your customers that you are there for the long haul, that you’re not a fly-by-night operator.

The new website, you have set up is very similar to the ice cream van mentioned earlier. You have a beautiful website, some really good products, but you really need some customers. Another name for customers is traffic. This is the most challenging part of your Internet business. It can be a long slow process that takes a lot of work.

How to go about getting traffic to your site is a subject I will discuss in another article.