I needed to have a website to be able to capture opt-in names for my primary (offline) business Xango. I tried three times to build my own website, but not being technically literate I was unable to do that. I wouldnt discourage my readers from building their own website if they have the skills but it does take skill.
I started reading things on the Internet that might help me. I read the sales page for a website that a man would build me FREE. (Beware of the word FREE. There is nothing free in this world but conversation.) I had a desire to put my personally written newsletter on my website so when I read that after the website was built I could make any changes that I wanted, I jumped in with both feet. (First mistake).
A condition of this FREE website was to join the affiliate programs the webmaster recommended, which I did after reading the individual sales pages, but there I got into more trouble.
I went along with the suggestions for buying traffic, but when I checked my traffic (11,000 hits) there were no names, just IP numbers. I realized the person receiving the stats knew exactly who made the hit by the IP number, the IP number didnt do a thing...