Passion - the great asset online

If I look at my sites, the most successful are those where I’ve had a real passion. Not simply for the subject matter, but also in promoting them.

The least successful are those where I feel little enthusiasm and make only token promotional efforts.

The best websites I think communicate that passion from the start - in how the website is built, presented, what sort of content is offered and how that is leveraged.

Ultimately, the passion - and the blood, sweat and tears behind it - helps in developing a great user experience - a user experience that inevitably invites Word of Mouth recommendations and an incentive to visit and stay.

I run a number of websites, and some are successful according to different indicators - traffic, revenue, community, and other pointers.

But because I run a number of websites I end up getting spread thin, and because of this have little passion available for every site. The ones I’m unable to develop and project this into are languishing with low traffic, low revenues, and low community experience.

Commercial aspects don’t need to be tied with passion - any site built on passion will develop monetisation potential in different ways simply because it attracts people to visit, and keeps them coming back. Wherever there is traffic, there is a means to support at least the basic costs of the project.

Commercial interests placed before passion can leave any site developed under that ethos looking like a poor clone experience of a multitude of other sites.

I only have limited energy - I can only put so much energy into my online projects - but I’m fast realising that I need to focus more not simply in trying to do more in more areas with that energy, but also sustain it.

I have a number of sites where I still make little effort with. My lack of interest can only reflect to visitors of these sites.

But the one aspect of passion that you can leverage is commitment. If I commit to producing a number of sites, I have to discipline that commitment, in order to ensure that I provide time to each and every one of them.

Even if I’m unable to invest a huge amount of energy, effort and time at any one time, doing a little lots soon adds up over time, and the original passion behind the website can slowly allow it to bloom.