Whether you're online or offline the statistic remains the same. Over 90% of all businesses will fail within 5 years of opening their doors. But there is some good news. Years of research of online businesses has revealed three things successful website businesses have in common.

1. They're original. 

You may be enticed to use a template to create your website. Templates make the creation process easy but like most things in life easy doesn't equal success. That's why it's extremely important you choose a website building platform that gives you the power to create something original that truly conveys the value of your products and services. It's fine if you want to use a template as a general guideline but be ready to do a lot of customization.

2. The ability to make  your own changes.

Unless you can afford to pay for a full time web designer you're not going to be successful without having the ability to maintain your website yourself. So when you choose a website building platform you need it to be something you can use. If you try and pay a web designer you're going to be waiting to have that person publish changes to your site. The online world moves fast and you're going to need to tweak your site in realtime. This can only be done if you're able to do it yourself.

3. They track results. 

The last thing you must have to be successful online is the ability to track results. Relying on strictly intuition is like flying blind. You need to be gathering data on what people are doing on your website. That data is valuable information you can use to make decisions about everything from layout, to color schemes.