So for the first time in a long time, I have NOTHING going on with me. I almost feel, dare I say it, normal. Aside from my flying off the handle with sheer anger towards whatever is irritating me at the time (which is normal) I feel like I’m not suffering form anything. No depression. No overthinking. No hyperness. No crying. Just here. I don’t know if this is necesarrily a good thing, or a bad thing. I don’t feel very much emotion at the moment. Just been trying to concentrate on my ‘work’ as much as I can.

I’m on a mission to create a couponing/deal/freebies/sweepstakes site of my own. I’m hoping that someday this site earns me and my family money. I’ve realized that you cannot earn money form a website by doing it as a hobby, you need to think of it as your career. If you don’t feel like doing it today, too bad. Just because you don’t feel like going to work, you still go. I’ve come a really far way from where I used to be, even last year. I’ve learned a lot about the tricks and the trades of the business. I’ve also learned how to create professional looking designs, code professional and proficent websites, and all around how to be successful.  It used to be about the little things that really didn’t have much meaning. (For instance, the years I spent with the “cartoon doll world”. HA! That was a joke.) I don’t know I’ve matured. I’ve progressed in my web design career. I’ve moved on, and I’m NOT looking back.

I’ve been working extremely hard on Coffee ‘n Coupons and its coming along very nicely. So far I have over 40 pages of articles, tips, tricks, and resources on how to save money while shopping.  I’ve learned that I need to work on my writing skills.  I also need to learn how to prioritize my articles and not to make them so exhausted and long written. I’ll start writing an explaination on how to do something, and suddenly its 10 pages of really long paragraphs. I know people don’t want to read really long paragraphs without pictures or visual effects – I just need to learn how to capture what they do want instead of what I want to explain. Its a work in progress.

As you can see from this theme alone – I’ve come a really far way from where I used to be. I don’t look at generic graphic sites anymore. I look at professional online magazines. I mean, you want to be successful at what you’re doing, you’re not going to look at someone who isn’t successful for inspiration and tips. For instance, I used to do the whole “myspace glitter graphics” and I was so bored with it in weeks. There are indeed sites out there that have made thousands, but there are very few. Also, that is a VERY SMALL audience compared to others. Not everyone likes the glitters; Usually they are targetted towards 13-30 something females. Well, how small is that target percentage? Tiny compared to, lets say, all blog readers.

I’ve just become very interested the business and career side of things. I’ve learned its not about what I think looks good, but what my viewers want to see. That’s the whole point, you make money by getting readers/viewers well you can’t get them if they dont want to see more! Something needs to catch their eye to want to click another link, not spend five seconds looking at the main page and closing it because its not of any interest to them.

These are just some of the things I’ve been trying to learn and teach myself about the graphical design world. I hope someday I become successful at what I do. I’m only 22 years old, and I have a lot of time to get further. We’ll see where I am five, ten, even twenty years from now.

Written on Thursday May 7th, 2009 at 8:58am || Filed under: Site Updates ||