I love my job. I can’t wait to start working in the morning and often spend a ridiculous number of hours each week glued to my computer screen. It’s crazy. I’ve become a workaholic! I would have been the last person anyone would have described as a workaholic but I guess I’ve changed. Or maybe it’s that I don’t really consider what I do to be work because I love it so much? Who knows.
One of the reasons I probably never seem to tire of working is because there are so many different elements to this job. Each of the elements of this kind of work lines up really well with stuff I love to do so not only do I get to do something I like, I get to do a variety of things I like. This means that if I get bored of doing one task, I can happily switch to another and do that until I want to move onto something else.
I thought it might be interesting to break down all of the individual parts of my job to give a well-rounded picture or what it is I actually do and why I love it so much.
- Entrepreneur — I wasn’t sure what to call this bit because I guess overall I am an entrepreneur but what I’m referring to is idea generation. Spotting a business opportunity and forming a plan to capitalize on that opportunity. I never sit down to brainstorm new ideas because I seem to have so many old ideas still to work on that I don’t have time for thinking up new ones. But the ideas pop into my head at various moments and new projects are soon added to the list (or sometimes pushed to the front if I think the idea is really good). While I don’t dedicate any time to brainstorming new ideas, I do spend time fleshing ideas out as they come to me, coming up with plans and thinking about how to make money from it. I really love this stage… maybe it’s the business grad in me. Perhaps my degree wasn’t a total waste?
- Web Designer — I’m not really sure what to call this part either (I guess dividing my tasks up is more complicated than I though!) but what I’m referring to here is the creation of the navigation and organization of a website and the initial building parts, not the actual design part of making it pretty. This is one of my favourite things because at this stage I will be working on a brand new project and will be able to steer it in any direction I want. I love trying to think of a logical path through the site and the best ways to divide the information up.
- Writer — I would never call myself a writer but there’s no denying that writing plays a huge part in what I do… at least until I can afford to outsource as much of this part as possible. Unlike most people who seem to want to make a living online, writing is not one of my favourite tasks. I’m capable and I like writing about certain things (this blog and articles on certain travel topics) but, for the most part, I would rather take on an editorial role and have a troop of article writing minions submitting stuff to me.
- Photographer — Surprisingly, photographer is one of my least favourite parts of this gig. I love to take photos but I don’t really know how to use my camera which leads to a lot of frustration when the images on my camera screen don’t match up with what I want them to look like. At the moment, snapping photos for my websites is more of a must do thing than a creative thing which takes some of the enjoyment away. I keep meaning to take a photography course so maybe when I learn how to use this thing, I’ll enjoy the photographer role a bit more.
- Researcher — Once an idea is thought up, some research has to be done to make sure it’s a reasonably viable one. Sometimes I don’t care if it’s viable or not and I skip this part but, more recently especially, I have been undertaking a lot of competition and keyword research before I go ahead with a new project.
- Graphic Designer — This is another of the areas along with writing and photography that I would have initially thought would have been my favourite. But, as it turns out, graphic design is the thing I hate to do the most. I love art and drawing and painting are hobbies I dedicated loads of time to growing up. I can draw. I can paint. I’m creative. But I don’t know how to get the pictures in my head onto the computer screen. I can get by with Photoshop but my skills are basic, and I wouldn’t even know where to start with Illustrator. I keep meaning to spend time learning with online tutorials but there are just so many other things I need to do and I can never seem to justify the time, especially since I can get by ok and a website can make money even when it’s not sexy.
- Marketer — I can recognize a really good marketer when I see one, especially in the context of online business. I’m not much of a marketer and am crap at self-promotion but I do like it. I find the internet to be such an interesting place to do business and I’m learning more and more and enjoying trying different things to promote my sites.
- Salesperson — I got canned from my job in London as a travel agent mainly because I can’t sell anything. I’m terrible at sales. Fortunately, at this stage, advertising on my websites seems to sell itself and waking up to an email asking to buy ads always puts a smile on my face. If (when?) this changes and selling advertising starts to take more effort on my part I could find myself in trouble. But for the meantime, sales without having to actually sell works for me.
- Supposed SEO Expert — SEO these days seems to come naturally, at least the onsite stuff does. I love optimizing my sites so that all of the boxes are checked for onsite SEO and I think my sites do well in this area. I’m learning more about link building and offsite SEO and I actually enjoy it. I love finding my site languishing on page seven of Google for my keywords before I go on a link-building campaign and then seeing where it is afterwards. It’s really motivating to see the sites climb as I work on SEO, especially since I know how important good results with Google are to a site’s success.
- Social Butterfly — This is something I’ve gotten into a bit more this past year than I have previously. I started this blog to connect with other people in the web development and travel website industries but, besides writing the occasional post and replying to comments, I hadn’t really been too social online. These days I’m really enjoying connecting with people on Twitter and on other people’s blogs. I don’t look at forming relationships online as part of my job or something I do to help my business but there’s no denying that it’s a benefit.
That’s ten components to thing web developer/internet marketer/whatever its called job of mine. I really like that there are so many different parts and I think that’s one of the reasons I hardly ever find myself getting bored.
Leave a Reply