I am starting up my first site, largely inspired by your example. And I’ll be going by SBI’s principles and your reemphasis of them here, even though it’s not really a “passion” site. I’ll do my utmost to provide damn good content and have a site I’ll be proud to show others and admit I have made. I expect having high standards will pay off financially, but ultimately provide me with more than just money.

It’s so easy to get distracted.

It’s explained in the article. In short; set high standards for your writers, tell them exactly what you want and how many words you want for typical sections.

YOU set the standards, not the writers…

I can understand your point if you are writing about your expertise/passion. But what about your websites which are not really about your expertise, for instance your vacuum site (especially since you hired writers) ?

When I first started my site over eight months ago I was in the early learning stage with SBI and worked hard on my articles researching them well. I made mistakes too, not intentionally, but I was proud of my work at the time.

As time has passed I’ve learned more and this time deliberately went against the SBI action guide and tweaked many of my pages because my point of view changed and I wanted to maintain my pride for those pages. So I am saying our level of pride and standards of suitable work changes over time.

You article is also about sincerity in our work. I get the feeling most people reading this site are sincere in their work and desire to maximize their profit and productivity while maintaining pride.

Maximizing profits is this blind veil that has been put on your mind and you mistakenly believe that making more money will make you happy. There are millions of people making lots of money that feel miserable right now.

It is the “maximizing profits” strategy that brought the world into financial crisis – people getting greedy and selfish and looking to make more and more and more without asking themselves what’s the point.

Can you explain to me what’s the point of earning for example 3 (how about 100) times more money than you need? If the money will not be spent then what’s the point? Helping the banks?

What I am saying also is that once you put so much effort into a page / website / business that it’s not just about maximizing profits, but also over-delivering and doing the extra mile, your will be extremely successful financially and feel fulfilled at the same time.

Someone wiser than me said:”It’s never crowded along the extra mile.”

Your focus should be on doing THE BEST YOU CAN (do the extra mile) to solve the problems of other people, and then the financial success is the consequence of that. In this process you earn money and become fulfilled.

It’s not the other way around where you look to earn as much money as possible doing the least amount of good towards other people (you have to sell something and do something useful to earn money) so that you selfishly gain as much as possible.

This path is followed by millions of people and yet they are still stressed, missing something and mistakenly believing that having 5 million dollars instead of 3 will make them happier…

It’s very likely though that you will not “get it” by me telling you this, but by experiencing the unhappiness while having more than enough money. It’s at that moment that you need to wake up and realize that just maximizing profits won’t solve the “happiness problem”.

I was thinking today how to build a site that is remarkable. You summed it up well…you always do.

If I got your last point right, are you saying the ARE ways to make money being lazy and building crappy sites?

Mike

I usually agree with a lot of what you write, but I have to take exception this time. You say:

“People often ask me; how many words should I write? Is 300 words enough? Do I need to add pictures too? How about videos? And so on…

All these questions are based on the wrong type of thinking when it comes to success. That’s because in the back of your mind is this thinking: what is the least amount of work that I need to do to earn money?

Read that sentence a few times and think logically whether this type of thinking will get you successful (in any field).

I don’t think so.”

I would say that’s exactly the type of question that anyone planning to make a living from the Internet should be asking. Business principals are exactly the same online as offline, and there comes a point offline where you have to look at productivity and the returns you are getting.

Someone much wiser than me wrote similar words to the following, and I feel they are far more appropriate in the situation you describe:

“A good niche website is built, marketed and managed according to one principle and one principle alone……

That principle is: “Nothing More Than Is Necessary Nothing Less Than Is Required”

Remember that the “aim” of a niche website is to fill a space on the internet inside a particular market segment.

True success as a niche website builder depends upon you scaling up your production of these sites. Consequently, you don’t want to put any more energy (time) or finance (money) into a particular niche site than is required to fill the particular space your site is targeting.

On the flip side you don’t want to put less into your site than is required to fill that space as that will result in your site not positioning properly and the inevitable result of that is that it won’t be getting the amount of relevant people through to it that it should.

Do too much and you’re wasting your time…….
Do too little and you’re wasting your time.”

Regards
Ray