Building a Site With Passion... Without Doing Any Research!

by The Mad Webmaster
(Biloxi, Ms.)

I know most "gurus" say "find what you love to do and the money will follow".

I'm not so sure about that. Out of the 15 websites that I own, I've had 3 major failures to produce income.

I'm not saying it's not important to have passion with your business, I'm saying "Passion is not enough to be successful".

Let me give you an example. I once had a website about the Civil War. I love history. I thought "I'm going to create a site that will knock the socks off any other civil war site".

Up jumped challenge #1: No product.

In my haste to create a great site I had forgotten a very important rule of business. What will I market. Who cares? I'll create thousands of great pages with my passion and use Adsense to earn income.

Up jumped challenge #2: Low income possibilities.

In my haste to create a great site with passion, I didn't check to see what Adsense paid me for "Civil War" related clicks. Three to four cents per click isn't very exciting. No problem, I'll just create more pages and get more traffic.

Up jumped challenge #3: Competition for search engine listings.

In my haste to create a great site with passion, I didn't check to find out the millions of pages already created by other webmasters with passion. Sites with far more time on the web, far more back links, far more pages, and a major competitor happened to be the History Channel which had far more money and products to offer.

I could go on and on but I think you might get the drift. It's important to have passion and love what you do. But being successful in building a web business requires a bit more than just passion.

What do you think?

Paul Ellis
"The Mad Webmaster"