The difference between a site worth a few thousand dollars and a site worth more than $1M is in the details, though… literally.  Listen to the developer of that iPhone app:

We obsess over details. It makes for better apps. Camera+ was no different than any of our other apps in this regard and it’s taken literally dozens of design sessions to get it in the state that it’s currently in. I’m talking about hundreds of hours just for the app design.

But we’re passionate about this and love doing it so it hardly feels like work to us. Spend substantial time making your app look and feel good to the user and it’ll likely pay off.

Or the five-figure blogger:

The best way to make money with a legitimate blog is by focusing all of your time and attention on providing your readers with as much value as you can.

They’re not saying this to discourage you or to hide their real secrets.  It’s true.  If you really want to have a million-dollar website, you have to sweat the details and create real value.

Let’s Look at Some Examples

I bought Lobster Boats from Rick Latona a while back.  It’s not the thinnest of sites in the world, but it’s pretty weak — nothing more than really just the minimum required to make it, technically, a “real” site.  I could build links and drive traffic to a site like that all day long, but I’d always be swimming against a very significant current.  It’s just not delivering any real value.  This is the type of site people build and then wonder why they’re not making any money.

Online MBA Rankings is a big step up from that.  The design is better, the content is much better, and it’s delivering some real value.

And then there’s TrueCar — a site so amazing that people link to it and tell their friends about it all on their own.  A ton of development went into this site and it shows.  Building links and traffic to this site is like shooting fish in a barrel.

So Which One Are You?

The easiest way to tell is by how hard you have to work to get someone to link to you.  If it’s always a struggle, you probably need to step back and spend more of that time working on making your site great.

There’s no shortcut to a million-dollar site.  Quit trying to find one.

(What do you need to work on?  Check out The 3 Reasons Your Traffic Is Struggling and Are You Sure You Have a Great Website?)

Photo by zzzack.

That’s where you come in.

You know social media.  You love social media.  You wish you could get paid for being on Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare all the time…and now you can.

As a social media consultant to one or more of your local restaurants, you manage their Twitter account, Facebook page, foursquare account, business center listings (Google, MSN, Yelp, etc.) and maybe even their website.  In return, they pay you a flat monthly fee.  Prove your worth, and you’ll have more business than you can handle from the businesses in your area.

This is a job, granted, but it is a tremendous way to learn not only how to leverage social media but also how business actually works in the real world.  You won’t retire early from this, but it could easily lay the foundation for a business from which you could.

This post in my Free Business Ideas series is only available in the RSS feed.

• The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics
• A Call to Die
• The Gospel & Epistles of John, 2 Volumes in 1
• Now Is Not Forever
• Holy Discontent
• Judas and the Gospel of Jesus

When I got home from the Biscuit Barn yesterday, the box had finally arrived.  I was quite excited, but my excitement was instantly tempered by the condition of the box.

It looked like it had been dropped from a 15-story building…multiple times.  As anal as I am about the condition of my books, I was expecting the worse — and opening the box didn’t do anything to allay my concerns.  Here’s what the inside looked like (click for a larger view):

The bag you see is the only packing material in the box, and it had burst completely — which meant, of course, that it was just a plastic bag and wasn’t providing any useful purpose at all.  Note, too, that three of the four edges of the box had been almost completely torn.  They were held together by copious amounts of packing tape on the outside.

Dismay quickly turned to perplexed amusement when I unpacked everything, however.  Here’s what was in the box:

If you’re scoring at home, I did receive two of the things I ordered.  However I also received three other things that could not have been more unrelated:

• A headlight for a tractor (in a very beaten-up box)
• A container of “Jif To Go” peanut butter
• What I am guessing is a package of Japanese rice noodles (in Japanese!)

I just sat there and stared at it, trying to make these contents make sense somehow.  Ultimately I think I’ve decided that there was some sort of catastrophic mishap at the post office that demolished numerous packages.  Someone was then left to figure out which items went in which boxes…very hastily, apparently.

To CBD’s credit, I called their phone number and instantly talked to a customer service representative (Erin) who was fantastic.  She immediately placed the missing items in an expedited order at no additional cost.

And she didn’t even make me send back the peanut butter

When in doubt, make your product more compelling. All of Fog Creek’s affiliate marketing ideas, coupons, discounts, direct-mail pieces, catalog ads, and everything else we spent time on — none of this was as good a use of our time as simply doing what we loved best anyway: creating useful software.

I know that seems to be clear all on its own, but trust me: you need to read the whole article to really comprehend what he’s saying.  If you’re trying to grow your business, there are few pieces of advice as critical as this.