If youre like me, youve invested considerable time trying to figure out the Internet, to make it pay off as a business proposition.

Conventional wisdom says: get a great web address, design your site attractively, employ a clever search strategy, and the world will click a path to your doorstep.

This thinking is very flawed, I can tell you from experience. An associate of mine has a spectacular URL and everything else and all he gets are misdirected inquiries, and very few leads for what he does, which is training.

So, he pays for bandwidth, site maintenance, and the like, and he gets zip, in return.

He's thinking of selling his site to a firm that can benefit from the confused traffic he receives.

Another conventional belief is clicks are good. Certainly, we want attention, but it needs to be the right kind.

I sell consulting and coaching, primarily to businesses and to professionals.

Do I really want or need a retired consumer or a teenager surfing my site?

Also clicks arent money unless you can get advertisers, and who will want to advertise on your site? Your competitors, just as they do at the ezine sites where some of my articles run.

Do I want people focused on MY MESSAGE or someone elses?

Also, ask yourself if you really want to be where all of your competitors are, or somewhere else, where they arent.

If I reach out to sell a prospect by phone or with a mailer, whose name I dug up, Ill occupy the high ground in his consciousness, for at least a time, because Ill be the only person in my field that is pitching him.

How can I occupy the high ground on the Internet?

Is there any?

These are just a few of the problems associated with Internet marketing. Well examine more in future articles.