I treat my online businesses pretty seriously. I have to. They feed and house my family and that's a pretty serious business. But sometimes I wonder if I'm not missing something.
Just surf at random around the blogs at Blogger.com and you'll come across a bunch of sites that have been put up for no other reason than to make the people who write them smile.
They might make the half-dozen or so regular readers of each of those blogs smile too, but I doubt if those sites are making enough even to cover the cost of the coffee drunk while typing the posts.
Those writers don't care. They're not in it for the money. They're in it for the pleasure of blogging.
Sometimes though, you will come across a site that's well-written, well-designed, well-optimized... and according to the About Me page, earning enough to let the writer give up the day job. And those sites are still fun too. They're fun to read, and you can bet they're fun to write.
The writer might be blogging about life as a stay-at-home mom or the commute to work or what they like about their local coffee shop, but they do it in a way that's enjoyable to read. That's all it takes to get enough users coming back, clicking the ads and generating revenue.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying I don't enjoy blogging and writing content. I certainly do. Heck, life's much too short to do something you don't like. I'm just saying that sometimes you can achieve real results by taking it easy and thinking less about the money and more about doing what you enjoy.
If you do that and get the ad optimization right, the money will take care of itself.
Just sitting at my laptop working on ideas for an update to my blog, and checked out Joel's latest. We're at the same Hotel for Yanik Silver's seminar. Maybe well run in to Joel later this evening for a refreshment!