Everybody who is anybody is making a fortune these days with their own dot-com retail company. It's quick, easy, and guaranteed to leave you with 100 percent of the stock in a company that could make billions. Here are a few simple rules for designing a dynamite commercial Web site guaranteed to send potential buyers diving for cover:

Include plenty of pictures. If you want people to remember your site, fill each page with as many large, complex, and irrelevant images as possible.

Add animation. Above all other considerations, a site is judged by how many little twirly things it can cram onto a page.

Keep the music going. Many people listen to CDs or Internet radio while working at their computers-a clear sign that they want to hear music. So treat your visitors to The Keisterville Kazoo Orchestra's rendition of "Pop Goes the Weasel."

Control how you wrap your text. You may, unfortunately, have to include some text on your Web page. By default, such text wraps to the width of the browser window, giving visitors power over your text. To take back that power, put all of your text in fixed-width tables. To really show them who's boss, make that table 1,500 pixels wide. Or better yet, post a screen shot of your text.

Think carefully about color. Ever notice that almost every magazine uses black text? That's because black text is clear and easy to read. Why do all the really hot Web sites have black backgrounds? To tell the world that they're cool, hip, and unconventional. So if you want to be cool, hot, hip, unconventional, and easy to read, put that black text on a black background.

Make your navigation interesting. Why use the same old boring words-Home, Previous, Next, and so on-to take people around your site? Use images instead, and be creative about them. If people want to return to your Home page, let 'em click a photo of an armadillo.

Use add-ins liberally. Why settle for simple HTML when there are dozens of add-in programs that can give you pages that will look almost as good? Remember, people visit your site because they want to download and install new software before they can view it.

Preserve your links. Links to other sites will encourage visitors to leave your site. Therefore, if you must include such links, don't update them.

Write a good privacy statement. It is incumbent upon all parties involved with the production and maintenance of a commercial entity with a presence upon the portion of the Internet commonly known as the World Wide Web that they include a page on the aforementioned commercial entity for explaining, in as much detail as possible, how they intend to guarantee to their visitors and customers (the latter being defined as visitors who have taken an active role in giving the commercial entity money) that said visitors and customers will only be spied upon to the degree in which the commercial entity perceives such spying to be profitable, and that said page explaining said policy should be written in a manner that scrupulously avoids verbiage that is concise, brief, or to the point, but instead can accurately be described as being profuse, verbose, long-winded, and circumlocutory.

Have the lowest prices possible. Better yet, have the lowest prices impossible. For instance, if Koko Cayaca's Book of Cows lists for $29.95, and as a reseller you can acquire copies for $18 each, sell them for $5.95. It's all right; you're only doing this until you acquire market share. Just don't forget to bill them the $31 shipping fee.

Give your customers an unforgettable shopping experience. Provide customers with a clear path from decision to final sale: Clicking the Buy Now button should bring them to an extensive form asking for a great deal of information. When they have completed the form and clicked the Accept button, they should be brought back to the form to correct the fields they left blank. After five or six revisits to the form, bring them to the Final Sale page, where they can check the items they are buying, view the total price, and click the button that finalizes the sale and charges their credit card. Then display the $31 shipping fee.

Advertise your site. Web success requires you to do everything necessary to attract eyeballs-preferably those attached to brains, fingers, and wallets. To attract the people most likely to want your merchandise, advertise on your own site.

Let them eat cookies. Your customers should think of you not as a faceless Web site, but as the friendly neighborhood store with a genuine, human interest in them as people. The best way to achieve this image is to spy on them with cookies. That way, if you cannot sell them product, you can sell them to someone else.

Did you find our suggestions worthwhile? Would you like to know more about making your fortune on the Internet? Then e-mail your credit card number to xzyq4a68@trust-me-im-on-the-internet.com and we guarantee you'll never hear from us again.

Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector also operates thelinkinspector.com, where you can find more of his humorous and serious essays.