The Slow And Steady Internet War of Attrition

The internet is filled with sites and making it in the ever competitive sea that is the world wide web takes two things. First, something to say or sell that others are willing to read or buy. Second, the patience of Job.

The reality of the internet is that many sites come and the vast majority of them go, abandoned to the far corners of the web. Those that survive mostly through the tenacity of their owners are those that stand at least a chance of success.

That's the reality.

If you don't want to stick with your site you will never succeed. And even if you do you might not every amount to much. But running a successful site on the internet is mostly about accepting attrition as a way of life.

Many sites start out with a flurry. Updates happen daily. Then they start to tail off. Perhaps the owner thought she was going to make enough off placing Google AdSense on her site to retire, only to realize that it is harder than you might think to take such an approach. Perhaps the owner of another site thought that he had all the answers only to realize that after two years only about 10 people a day visit his blog.

When they give up, those that are actually fighting the war of attrition win small battles. When they give up, those that continue to post opinions, commentary, new products and update their sites become a little more prevalent in the search engines and increase their chance of being found.

Some sites start out with a bang and register thousands of visitors a day within a couple weeks. When they start to falter because people lose interest, if you are a competing site that is keeping your site up to date, you will win another small battle.

Eventually you move up the rankings. Eventually more people find you. And if you have something that people are willing to read or buy, they will keep coming back for more each time you update. You slowly gain more and more readers and customers and after years of outlasting all those that gave up because the money didn't flow immediately or simply lost interest and moved on to something else, you win the war.

Like most wars, the war of attrition for sites on the internet is a long hard slog. Before you get involved, make sure you are prepared to fight it.

J.J. Jackson is the owner of several successful internet sites including the T-Shirt Entrepreneur and VacationCruiseTravel and is the owner of the successful Funny When Wet T-shirts

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