In an era where technology permits us to establish a fully functional website at the click of a few buttons, many webmasters are witnessing their projects hopelessly die out, often before they even get off the ground. A whopping nine out of ten or 90% websites will inevitably fail. What’s even more alarming is that a good majority of these websites could have quite easily prevented their downfall by employing some very simple strategies into their overall model. Here they are, in no particular order;

1. Lack of goals and direction.

Many webmasters often share a profound interest in a particular subject, which fuels their motivation to fork out money, and invest time into producing a website - and while this is nice, it’s simply not enough to keep you going. You need a sense of direction. Where do you want to go with your website.. Are you in this to pull in some extra money, or do you want to keep this as a hobby? If so, how will you sustain web hosting and other miscellaneous fees?

2. Lack of advertising and promotion.

While your passion and ambition may be overwhelmingly strong, a sense of marketing is required to survive in the online world. You need to take a step back, and determine how you plan to market your website. Check out my following blog post for some more information on this.

3. Lack of patience and commitment.

If you plan on doing this right, you need to have patience. In the past, especially when I was first starting out, I was quick to give up on a few concepts that could have been very profitable because I had a lack of patience. You need to have patience, as you would with an offline business (regardless of whether you intend to generate a profit with your website). You need commitment to get through the periods where it seems that the online world seems to ignore your property.

4. You have not submitted your website to Google.

Sure there’s other search engines, and as much as I dislike the idea of one corporation with such dominating control over the internet, I’m simply saying it as it is. Especially for the newer websites, Google can potentially make or break you. It’s best to make a submission to the big four (Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask), and get started with some SEO optimization.

5. You are unoriginal.

Content is absolutely everything on the internet, and when you find yourself in a position where you cannot generate unique content, then you’ve got a rather large problem. Why would people head on over to your website when they can pickup a lot more with your competitor?