Myth #1 - No one makes money on Internet There are many Web sites making money. ActivMedia's most recent study showed that 31% of all commercial Web sites state that their site is "profitable from sales now". Of course, that also means that 69% of them aren't making money. I'm not surprised though. When you consider that 95% of all Web sites are terrible because they were designed by programmers, graphic artists and hobbyists that do not understand marketing, it's amazing that 31% are making money.
Myth #2 - You'll "get rich quick" on Internet
This, of course, is opposite of Myth #1, but it is also a myth. Nobody gets rich quick, on Internet or anywhere else. How often have you seen Web site promotions that tell you that, once your Web page is up, you'll have to rent a truck to haul all your checks to bank? These promoters always talk about a Web site as a single "home page", yet there are almost NO Web sites with only one page that are doing well. Successful Web sites are content rich and have many pages. This doesn't mean you cannot make serious money on Internet. Of course you can...after all, 31% of commercial Web sites are making a profit on Internet. You just have to do right things, right way.
Myth #3 - You can spend $200 on a Web site and make millions of dollars.
This may have been true back in "Wild, Wild West" days of Internet (way back in 1995), when competition was far less than it is today.
Two of top sites in those days were "Hot! Hot! Hot!" and a company called Virtual Vineyards. Hot! Hot! Hot! was a husband and wife that made hot sauce in kitchen and sold it on Internet. Virtual Vineyards only existed on Internet and sold wine. For about a year, these were top sucess stories. They started with nothing and make a couple of million dollars. A real Horatio Alger story. Anyone can do it.
Wrong! Today there are probably 10,000 sites selling hot sauce. When was last time you heard about Hot! Hot! Hot!? More than likely, they were creamed by sites that were loaded with content, offered almost an infinite range of products and made ordering from site very simple. In "good old days", none of that mattered. Just being on Web was enough. The novelty of it would bring you a lot of business.
Think about it. If you're not going to invest in your Internet presence, why should anyone else? There are plenty of 12 year old kids and Third World Country businesses that will slap a Web site together for you for $29.95, but quality always wins and your Web success will pass you by.