Online Business or Hobby Blog?
On a scale of 1 – 10… one being click bait spammy and over-optimized keyword-stuffed SEO content... and ten being your inspired insight of the day that'll never be found on search… where would you rate your content?
As bloggers, most of us would love to just write on a whim. Wake up, see where the keyboard takes us, and drive tons of traffic to our site because people just love it.
But unless you're already an online "influencer", it doesn't work that way.
It's not always fun to write about things you don't want to write about... but are you building an online business, or a hobby blog?
If you owned a restaurant or an auto shop, you couldn’t spend your days painting pink elephants just because that’s what made you happy.
Well… you could, but you wouldn’t be in business very long.
I think most of us are torn between writing keyword rich content that ranks versus passionate posts we hope people will love and share.
Unfortunately though… most of us are not Seth Godin, Pat Flynn or Tim Ferris. Our blogs won't be read by millions because people love our ideas, our personalities, or the way we write.
Some of you might… (WA certainly has some big influencers in the making)... but none of us are going to start out that way.
Chef Ramsay and Jamie Oliver can experiment with new ideas, write books, share their ideas, and make money by just showing up… but the independent restaurant owner can't.
They only make money when they show up AND do restaurant things (not to be confused with cooking).
Cooking might be their passion and the reason they got started... but their business is people.
No people = no business = no money.
They spend their days managing staff and inventory, taking care of customers, handling the books, cleaning the ovens and dusting the window sills… whatever it takes to ensure that customers come and go with as little frictions as possible and love the experience so much that they return, and bring their friends.
Our job as online business owners is no different. No people = no business = no money.
You can write about whatever you want… but if it’s not optimized for search (if search is your strategy), or it’s not ground breaking content that gets thousands of shares (if social is your strategy)… then people are not going to come.
Keyword research isn't always fun, and who wants to write another tutorial or review?
But even paid traffic depends on content that people are looking for...
There’s nothing wrong with building a hobby blog… if money is not your goal.
It would be nice to strike a perfect balance between writing whatever your heart desires while ALSO making money, but that’s not how businesses are built.
You can still follow your passion, you can still have fun, and you can still write content that you love... but like any business or money-making endeavor, success comes from showing up consistently and doing the work that needs to be done.
Recent Comments
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Thank you. You have said a mouthful.