It's hard to believe that my online candle store has been in business - and profitable - for five years. Much has changed since wicksworks.com first began occupying bandwidth on the Internet. The first visitors who stumbled upon my web site back in 2001 would hardly recognize it today. Not only is it radically different in appearance, few, if any, of the same products offered then are still available there now. About the only similarity between then and now is the name and the fact that candles are for sale.

The changes to wicksworks.com were driven largely by the need to find products that people wanted and to market them in an increasingly competitive and ever-evolving environment. With a little luck, trial and error, and lots of research I developed a fairly diversified menu of products. But having stuff people wanted was only half of the equation; I had to market it in such a way that the people who wanted it knew they could get it from me. That was no mean feat given the huge number of web sites vying for candle consumers' business.

About four years ago I learned of QFLEA and decided to join. And I'm glad that I did, because QFLEA has been instrumental in wicksworks.com's success. Foremost, fellow QFLEA members have provided camaraderie and moral support. Members offered critiques and advice about my site's appearance and navigability. Subjects addressed in member discussions helped solve problems and gave me ideas.

Through QFLEA I found vendors for marketing materials, web design, and search engine optimization. I also learned about an online SEO class through QFLEA. I have subsequently completed that SEO class, and implementing the information in it may well prove to be the key to taking my web site to the next level of success.

Visit Wicksworks at www.wicksworks.com.