A Quick Guide to Sex, Love and Profit on the Web

If you’re looking to build a business on the web, then it’s time to put your efforts into context.

Do this: think of publishing (or content) as love, marketing as sex, and your work to profit from them as marriage.

By themselves, sex and love are very powerful, but they have their limitations:

• Sex sells, but it’s a quick-fix, and too much of it can turn sleazy—as in web marketing. There are millions of web marketing “sexperts” with nothing of value to market, so they pimp their bad content for quick sales. This is a doomed business model, by the way.
• Love is truth, and great publishing requires it. The shortage of love (quality publishing) on the web is putting some of the most talented and experienced writers and editors out of work. Like they say—love don’t pay the bills.

Now, imagine publishing and marketing joined in marriage. They will need to work as a team for the marriage to work (just like sex and love…or, yeah, something like that). This means an equality of high editorial standards and savvy marketing strategy. Not one, not the other, but both.

Profit happens when you can creatively monetize excellent content.

So, to sum it up: don’t be a marketing slut or a hopeless blogger or a hopeless blogger marketing slut.

Instead, just be yourself and focus on connecting with your audience.