When you’re punching a time clock we all have days where we don’t feel like giving 110%, so you spend the day pushing papers around on your desk, trying to look like you’re actually working. But when you’re starting your own business you need to either go hard or go home, every single day, especially if you’re building a website.
If I had a nickel for every domain name I’ve purchased I could probably retire and go live on some secluded tropical beach. But when it comes to building websites it’s not about “starting” it’s all comes down to “execution.” And unfortunately, I haven’t found a way yet to stretch a day from 24 to 28 hours.
The business of actually building a website isn’t really that complicated, especially if you’ve built as many as I have. You just do the standard market research (or you SHOULD, anyway) buy your domain name and set up a blog. Easy-peasy, right?
But there are two problems with this scenario. One, I found myself rarely taking the time to do in-depth market research. I’d hit on a great idea for a website, check out one or two keywords to see what the competition looked like, spend 30 minutes choosing a domain name and – Click! – hit that Buy button. Within a couple of hours I’d have a blog set up and maybe even three or four articles and I’d be quite pleased with myself for finding this wonderful, profitable niche.
But then the second problem would rear its ugly head: There are only 24 hours in a day. And I already had other established blogs I had to attend to. Blogs that were already making money and wouldn’t be if I didn’t spend time working on traffic generation and backlinks and all the other little tasks that go along with blogging.
Within a matter of days, hours really, that new website would fall by the wayside, because, as we all know, you can’t just set up a blog and expect it to take off over night. It takes a lot of constant hard work to build a money-making site.
Would I do it again? Probably. But now I’ll take some time to look around more before I leap. Here’s what you need to think about before you decide to build a website:
- Do you have the time to focus on your new business? If you already have an established blog, think back and remember how much time you had to spend building that site up to the level it’s at today. Do you have that much time to spend on a new site?
- If you have other websites, how will they be affected? Obviously, starting a new website is going to take time away from your existing sites? Will they be harmed in the process?
- Can you afford to outsource? If it’s really a great business idea can you afford to outsource at least some of your content or other tasks?
When you look around the Web you’ll see that just about any website idea can be profitable, provided you have the time and desire to do all the hard work that’s involved in building up that site. If you don’t, if you’re not prepared to give it all you’ve got, then there’s no shame in admitting it. Save yourself from a guilt trip, focus on improving your existing business, and take a pass on that new domain.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!