Website Name: Free TLD – Free domain names
Website Link: http://freetld.net

Please briefly describe your ebusiness.
I am giving away free domain names ( .com, .net, .info etc. ) and free web hosting on a credit base. The user has to post on my forum and bring other members in.

Why did you pick this particular idea?
I had 40 .info domains I wasn’t using and I wanted to monetize them somehow.

Did you have any previous experience in this area?
Yes. I have been monetizing and trading domain names for about one year.

How long did it take before you realized success or failure?
I realized success very fast. In about 6 or 7 weeks I reached the 4000 members milestone.

Why do you think you succeeded or failed?
I succeeded because my website got a lot of promotion and it still does. Also I started earning my first real money with adsense.

What things worked well?
The traffic to my website and the earnings.

What things didn’t work well?
The script and forum. I have had a few problems, but fixed them and everything worked ok then.

What did you learn the hard way?
The hardest part is the Internet marketing. If you find a good way to market your business, then everything else should be ok. You should try better or quit.

Did you find any particular person, book, or site helpful?
Yes. I have been helped by people from digitalpoint.com, seopedia.ro, and my friends.

What advice would you give to someone considering an ebiz today?
Even if you look around in the ebiz and see the market is taken by the big websites, don’t quit. With a good marketing idea and some skills you can get up soon. If you think you are not good enough, then try a niche.

Website Name: The Bull Trader
Founder/Editor: Johns Wu
Website Link:
http://www.thebulltrader.com

Please briefly describe your ebusiness.
My e-business is a stock market blog that has been monetized with Google Adsense. I post up daily stock charts that I’ve analyzed, so that I can share my trading ideas with traders around the country.

Why did you pick this particular idea?
I wanted to create a stock blog because I really enjoy reading blogs. I think blogs have potential to replace mainstream media, and I want to be apart of the blogosphere.

Did you have any previous experience in this area?
No. I’m a college student learning stocks for the first time, and I am trying to build a strong passive income asset on the Internet.

How long did it take before you realized success or failure?
When I first started out on The Bull Trader, I had no idea that it would lead to the site that it is today. Initially, I was hosted on a free blogspot.com account. However, after just 1 month of blogging on that site, I already had a handful of loyal daily readers.

I realized that this was a great opportunity to build something successful, so I invested a small amount of money in hosting and moved onto my own domain with a WordPress backend. I also advertised my blog aggressively. Ever since that move, traffic and revenue have been increasing consistently.

Why do you think you succeeded or failed?
I was in the right place at the right time. When thebulltrader.com launched, there were only 3 other major stock blogs. Today there are over 150. The Bull Trader became known as a trusted and established blog because it was one of the first.

What things worked well?
Just a few weeks ago, I ran a giveaway sweepstakes. I convinced a book publisher to contribute some free stock trading books to the giveaway. I also got some stock newsletter services to contribute a few prizes. I then gave away the prizes to my readers, which gave my sponsors good product placement advertising while providing my blog with good publicity.

What things didn’t work well?
I tried launching a forum for my site a few months ago. It didn’t work out that well since most of the readers were not interested in contributing their ideas. Oh well.

What did you learn the hard way?
I learned the hard way that SEO is critical to a website’s success. I didn’t learn about SEO until a few months ago, and I regret that I didn’t start optimizing my site for search engines earlier on.

Did you find any particular person, book, or site helpful?
Not really.

What advice would you give to someone considering an ebiz today?
The Internet is just like real estate… except on the Internet, the land is free. You just need to have a great idea and the drive to develop your stake of land to have a booming online presence.

Part of being successful is learning from others. Below is a first in a series of interviews with other ebiz entrepreneurs. Enjoy!

Website Name: WebmasterEarth
Website Link: http://webmasterEarth.com

Please briefly describe your ebusiness.
My ebusiness is a webmaster forum, great for webmasters that just started off and want to learn a lot about the field of webmastering.

Why did you pick this particular idea?
I choose this particular idea because I want to help out people who are starting off with webmastering to get a better impression of webmastering and to get some great tips on the field.

Did you have any previous experience in this area?
Yes, I am currently a member on many different kinds of webmaster forums such as Digital Point, Namepros, and Webmaster-talk.

How long did it take before you realized success or failure?
It took me about a year and a half to really start to be successful.

Why do you think you succeeded or failed?
I think I am heading towards the successful point. I have been in the failure side in the beginning but I bounced back.

What things worked well?
The things that worked well for me were directories, and sites with lots of content. The most important thing to have is content.

What things didn’t work well?
Small forums about pointless topics didn’t work for me. I have seen people have success with these kinds of sites but not me.

What did you learn the hard way?
I learned how to design websites the hard way. I still did not master it. I am still learning from tutorials on different websites.

Did you find any particular person, book, or site helpful?
Yes, many users are helpful along the way when you try to become a webmaster. I have to say, no ebooks helped me. I have read a few and none of them did me any good. I don’t think books about how someone had success help you have success. People on webmasters were most helpful, that is why I want to be the helpful person now and offer help on WebmasterEarth.com

What advice would you give to someone considering an ebiz today?
You need money from the beginning to start a good ebiz. You have to have money to earn money. If you do not have any money then you cannot advertise, buy links, and other things. Try to always have money before you start a business.