How Not to Run your Website into the Ground
In honor of Zero G Space Cow’s rapidly declining success, I’ve decided to write an article. This article should be of particular interest to those of you who wish to start a website, or already own one. If you don’t want your website to become a husk of it’s former self, then this is the article for you. If you want to prevent your lovingly crafted marvel of internet ingenuity from becoming a derelict of the internet, seen only by the occasional wanderer, then please follow these steps.
Everything you heard on that self-improvement blog was wrong. You can’t work full time and run a website successfully at the same time. Could a clown continue to terrify small children at birthday parties if he had to sit in a cubicle for the first nine hours of the day? Absolutely not! And so, for the same reason, there is no way you can run a successful poodle-dressing how-to website while working at the local Taco Bell during the day.
During the day, I have the fabulous job of Internet Tech Support Rep. I know what you’re thinking, and no, that doesn’t make me incredibly wealthy and I’m not typing this whilst bathing in a gigantic golden tub. And, even more astonishingly, browsing the internet is not part of my job description. What I do get to do is talk to customers that are angry because they forgot to pay their bill, and others who are too old to bend over and reset their modem. I guess what I’m trying to say here is that work sucks, and it will drain away your time and your soul; leaving you without the resources you need to run a website.
For virtually all of the same reasons listed above, it’s in your website’s best interest that you do not seek higher education. In addition to the reasons above, college also requires a great deal of essay writing. If you’re spending all of your time writing research papers on the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars, there’s no way you’re going to go home and write five-hundred words of comedic gold for your oddly-titled piece of web space. And, under no circumstances, with the exception of masochistic whim, should you attempt a full-time job and full-time school at the same time.
Sure, maybe every single visitor to your website has called it trash, but your mom still thinks it’s really good. You have to keep up the facade of being a talented, comedy-article-writing genius for those few people who do read your work. Oh, and by “few” I mean “one.”
Did you know that Van Gogh only sold one painting while he was alive? No, I don’t have any proof of that, but I’m pretty sure I heard it somewhere. The point is that you could be really super awesome, and people just don’t realize it yet. You can’t give up just because your dad tells you you’re an embarrassing failure, and that you need to go get a “real job” – pffh, like he knows what a real job is anyway. Seriously that bum hasn’t worked more than a day in his life, unless you consider lying on the couch drooling for eight hours a day a job.
Okay… moving on:
Some of you are going to take this as a joke, put please understand that I’m serious – deathly serious. Cats are irritating as hell. They walk all over your keyboard, typing random letters, deleting half of your unsaved article (let’s be honest, we all forget to save frequently), turn on the sticky keys, and just generally ruin your life. Sure, they look cute enough when they’re in that little cage drugged up on Valium at the local Petsmart, but as soon as you get them home they turn into little furry balls of annoyance, whose only goal in life is to keep you from doing anything productive.
There are two phrases that come to mind here: “money is the root of all evil,” and “money can’t buy happiness.” Personally, I believe that’s utter nonsense. I’m fairly certain I would have a smile on my face when I drove my Nissan Skyline R35 into my five car garage that is dwarfed by my multimillion dollar mansion in Beverly Hills. But, if you want to run a successful website, you must stick to the starving artist mentality.
Why you ask? You say you saw a blog once that earned the owner five grand a day? Well, I’m sorry to shatter your ill-conceived dreams, but those are few and far between. The only websites that generate that kind of revenue are those run by bored, young, scantily-clad housewives. Unless you fall into that category of person, you’re out of luck.
This information is sure to raise countless arguments; but take it from me, if your article is not in list form, it will receive no recognition in the internet world. Statistics from countless studies and surveys show that an article in list form is 400% more likely to be successful than the same article in essay form. Again, don’t ask me for my source, I just know these things.
In addition to only writing lists, your lists must also be precisely 5-7 entries long. Anything less and your readers will feel cheated, and will start demanding refunds. Anything more and your readers will most likely realize how poor of a writer you are, and will call the ALA and attempt to have your author’s license revoked.
Want to discuss this, or anything else? Join the forum!