Passion is a Prerequisite to Profitability
Aaron likes to give his spiel about passion and that you need to be gunuinely interested in the topics you are promoting. I took that advice for granted and its importance finally hit me. One of the sites I'm promoting is very clean and I have very high respect for its merit. However, I was given the challenge to promote a seasonal yet very important topic for a specific audience. In addition, I was the one to write the content. That was a bit unfair due to my lack of experience in that field. It's convenient to dodge work so I outsourced the content. Besides, promotion is the real challenge. Ok, I was wrong. The final version of the outsourced material needed heavy changes and it didn't satisfy the person who originated the idea.
It Ain't 2005 Anymore
You see, with more webmasters using no-follow and the overall "stinginess" of people linking out, you really need to avoid promoting mediocre content. The stuff REALLY needs to be useful. It helps to put yourself in the shoes of the target audience. Another advantage of producing real content is passing a search engineer's hand edit. To sum it up, everyone wins when you promote good content. Content isn't enough if you have very little traffic. The PROMOTION of good content is where it's at, ladies and gentlemen with newer sites.
Ok, Back to Passion
I've been working on this project for almost a week and after a few minutes of working, my mind goes blank and wanders off. I love the site and I love the future promotional ideas in store because I TRULY BELIEVE that they are genuinely useful and will give a tremendous benefit to the site's visitors. But this current topic is something I just don't give a damn about. Promotion will be fun but writing the actual content, especially if it's about something you care less for can be EXCRUCIATING.
My case is a bit special because I didn't think of this promotional idea and it was almost forced to me.
Tips You Can Use That Worked Well for Me:
- You need to have an AUTHENTIC interest and be a genuine believer in what you are promoting. Ok, hypothetically you own a website about traveling to Spain and you are about to promote "The Top 10 Spanish Professors in the U.S." Be honest with yourself. Are you personally interested or care about who the best Spanish professors are? Also, think about the visitors. Will they care or apply the material in real life? In contrast, Aaron and I wrote the Bloggers Guide to SEO. Are we genuinely interested in blogging and SEO? He works 7 days a week and well, it's 3 am in Calfornia and guess what I'm doing? Yes I like blogging but I'll do anything to avoid working on that project that was assigned to me :)
- It is important that you manage and go over every word of the content.
- When promoting ideas, quality succeeds quantity. You get more success promoting 2-3 well written, high-touch material than 10 mediocre ones.
What do you guys think? Feel free to add your thoughts and ideas.
Comments
One fact that sticks in my mind is that David Ogilvy always used the products he advertised and if he wouldn't use it he wouldn't advertise it. Seems a simple core value for most agencies, but how many are doing it?
You don't have to love a subject to make it work, but there's no question it's a billion times easier when you do. It's the difference between doing something you WANT to do as opposed to something you HAVE to do.
"Go were your heart is and the money will follow"
This statment is important when creating your own business. For myself, I love the process of creating an idea and then inflencing people to consume it in diffrent ways. I therefore do not love all the content I create but I use editors that I train, influence and give a lot of energy to. By this I am actually creating something special with the help of others!
Passion will load to success in anything you do.
My simple philosophy is do more of what you like and less of what you don't like.
If you enjoy something you'll be passionate about it.
I have done a great deal of ghost writing and I always hope for subjects I am interested in. After 3 years of writing for others I decided I better write about subjects I love for myself.
As corny as it sound Do what you love and the money does follow. Subjects I don't dig usually I start with a history of a top ten list or top 5 reasons to use the product or service.
You will love the subject when it brings you money. Being passionate about something that can't be monetized is a waste a time from a "money making" perspective.
I agree 100% with the article. A few years ago I've discovered that a certain type of website can be profitable in a few of niches. The niche I liked was generating the less income but I decided to stick with it and pass the other niches to some friends that had no problem with likes and dislikes. Right now, my website is the online one alive and is generating a steady revenue.
On the other hand, I believe that an intelligent person can become educated in any profitable niche if time allows it.
I've met some ghost writers for music companies in the UK, and they can fake it pretty well. However, they're youngsters looking for a foot on the copywriting ladder.
And that's alright if you're salaried, but less so if you're an entrepreneur running your own show. I'm currently sitting on about three domains where I've had a great idea for a site/blog, but realised I don't have the committment or interest to do anything with them.
Does this mean I can get a discount on one of your non-passionate domain names I have an eye on?
Most people say that you need to have passion about your work if you want to be happy. I haven't found the profitability part yet but I do admit that writing about things that I truly care about is easier and that the finished product is much better.
I can't agree more with #2. It's difficult and time consuming but you really can't expect someone else to care about things as much as you do.
in establishing any network, social or professional, it will take passion to develop these connections into a more tangible ROI. even though it may be a social networking site, the passion you invest in forging other connections within this network will allow you to create a better long term monetary plan for your network. if you allow your profile to mature on it's own, others will inevitably identify your profile as a cheap ploy & no longer consider you as viable.
You can make money without being passionate about a subject. That's what 90% of the world does. They don't love what they do, they just do it to get a paycheck. Loving what you do just makes it more enjoyable, and tends to make you produce higher quality of work which helps too. However, I can make money on a website I don't really like much (e.g. client work), and I can be passionate about a topic that doesn't bring in much money.
Doesn't this idea just take you back to High School English class when you had that one teacher that would never let you pick the topic you wrote about? It turned unenjoyable very quickly
Well the problem here isn't my "real" job. I love what I do - marketing websites and helping Aaron. I was asked to literally write and promote the link bait. And it was political in nature. That was really tough because I am not into politics and I had to produce something remarkable, something link worthy.
But after 2 gruelling weeks, I guess the final result looked alright.
If it was about say, business, Internet marketing, ancient history, classical guitars or golf then it would take me less than an hour to write and the material would be genuine.
Yeah, I guess anyone can make money but the question is....will the business be sustainable? Will it be around in 5 years? Just look at all the businesses for sale. On top of that, all the businesses that go bankrupt.
More than passion..
I think a desire to help people will do.
Perhaps you are constantly switching between the wordprocessor and the browser window? Backspace your best friend? Or something of that nature?
Start with the end in mind - plan the article. That should help.
Part of what I enjoy about this job is getting to learn about new subjects. I have clients that are casket makers, sell art, and sell aircraft. I'm not sure what would happen if I didn't like the subject matter, but I hope my love of writing will compensate for this.
Add new comment