Record keeping tracks money -- where it goes, when it comes in. Internet record keeping is also required for success. Yet statistics show that only one out of a hundred people who own web sites do any type of record keeping on how much it cost them to be there A system that works hard for you when you don't still requires monitoring and periodic reviews. If you can't measure it, you can't manage it, then it manages you.

The top keys to making money on Internet are working smart, planning, testing, immediately stopping when something isn't working, reinvest in new techniques and approaches that improve and then keep testing. For every success there are usually 10 to 15 try, sometimes more, that weren't successful. Even prolific writers create a number of drafts to get to end result that works.

Here are nine terms you want to become very familiar with and that you want to use to measure your success. As a past CPA, these terms aren't just for an Internet site, they too are usable in other services or brick and mortar operations.

1. Cost per action, sometimes also called, cost per acquisition. How much does it cost you to get a visitor to take a specific action beyond just clicking around in your web site? How many click-throughs does it take for visitors to make a purchase? Another way to apply this to ezines subscribers -- how many clicks were made before subscriber registered for your eNewsletter? You take total expenses for running your web site and divide by number of clicks measured.

Example: If cost per click is $0.50 and it takes 30 click-throughs to get one person to register for your eNewsletter, cost per action is $15. If you write articles, how many registrations do you get for each article? If your measurement is 10 for each article and it takes you about two hours to produce and deliver article over Internet. If your estimated hour rate is $100 per hour, then each registration is costing you $10 plus your web expenses.

2. Cost per sale. To measure, divide marketing expenses by total number of transactions to come up with cost per sale in a dollar amount.

I have seen people do some strange things and call it marketing during my years on Internet. There seems to be some idea that making money on net belongs to a selective few who have discovered secret formula or science?

I for one disagree with this notion and I will layout several reasons why my assertion is that marketing is not a science, but yet a system is key to success online.

While I am on subject of a system let me say not all systems are created equal and many are very unequal in their premise. There are also some myths I will try to debunk while I have you here if you don’t mind. :)

I did it all wrong!....and still made money!

When I started my first website only reason I got it was to produce forwarding links to affiliate pages so if you would have ever visited my home page you would say, wow this guy didn’t even finish his homepage.

But, I was making money!

I have just recently started really paying attention to starting a newsletter type mailing. I did very little if any follow-up yet I was giving away a ton of valuable info at no cos*t. My list was swelling from giving always, but due to my disorganized habits I rarely emailed them on a consistent basis.

But, I was making money!

Ok I think you get point I was doing it all wrong and still made money so how was it happening. I had a system not a good one but I had one.

My unorganized system did have a downfall though it was rarely duplicated and without duplication in network marketing your profits have a short life span.

I found it! I found it!

One day I stumbled across a very successful network marketer and really started to soak in information he was putting out. He was just as disorganized and excitable as I was, but what he had that I did not was a system that could easily be duplicated by all who worked with him.

Now I was not interested in products he sold and amount of money it would take to work with him in his system but I loved system.