A large percentage of people that started online businesses before 1998 have become very successful. Many are in the top ten on search engines for their respective keywords, they have a large amount of links pointing to their website, and a high page rank on Google. Many receive millions of visitors each month and make millions of dollars each year.

Some people that started businesses in the years 2001 or 2002 have also been able to achieve success, even some companies like Adbrite in 2004 have done it, but is it to late for e-commerce success? Can an e-commerce website compete in 2006?

I believe that an e-commerce website can compete in 2006. The key to a successful website is offline and online advertising, search engine optimization, publicity, an affiliate program, and good customer service. In essence, things are more technical now than they were before. In the nineties if you were first to market you were bound to make a lot of money, search engine optimization and things like that did not matter that much then, but now they are the most important things to a successful website.

Any new e-commerce website that focuses on those things can achieve success, it may take a little while, especially the search engine optimization but it will be worth it once the sales start to roll in.