questions about making a website? ive already failed once! help?

[FarmQueensss]

like two years ago i was so syched about starting an online boutique. so i bought a domain..etc etc. but i never had anyone visit my site, much less buy anything! i lost tons of money with the stuff i had bought for my store. i had seen several sites that had the same inventory as me and sold out new items each day. and they were on the first page of google search results always!
how did they do that?!
im wanting to make a new website but this time im only wanting to put info on a diesease my dad who is a dr. is researching
what steps do i have to take to make it a high traffic site. ? all info will help. im not too smart when it comes to any of this stuff.

if you can provide info from the very first thing i have to do, to the last ill be so grateful. thanks

[Jake]

Most people trying online ventures fail, at least you aren't paying $80,000 to start some franchise store.

Just sticking a site on te internet is like building a store in the middle of nowhere, people are not going to just stumble onto it.
Having a top quality site in your field with useful original articles as well as aggressive SEO are needed to get a search ranked site. SEO takes time, it takes a couple of months.

Here's a Search Engine Optimization primer by an SEO authority, too much of the stuff taught by others is out of date or simply inaccurate.
http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

Profitable products on a high converting sales page can be sold with paid advertising, conversion rates tend to be .5% to 2%, so expect to have to but 100 clicks or so to make one sale.

A lot of the hassle can be eliminated by selling through a marketplace like Ebay and Amazon who can deliver ready made prospects.