Avoid the Gogle rat race

During my recent family crisis I had little time for my web sites, but it gave me alot of time to think about what i had been doing with them.
I realised what i consider to be a few important lessons.

Firstly stop the Google rat race. What i mean by this is simply I took a back step and started working out what I wanted my sites to do for me. Was I really that concerened what Google thought or what the Pr was? Were my visitors and customers,as long as they got what they wanted.
That led me to my second conclusion, who were my customers , where did they come from and how could i get more? Simple.... forget chasing something that was always going to be a moving goal post and concentrate on the latter points.
I then began to do some research, not just of my own customers but of other businesses and what they were doing. I also asked myself why do i buy from the companies i do? The answers i came up with were very interesting.
Putting all this together i came up with an action plan.
I now do things completely differently and its working.
Now i am not saying what i did will work for all but by applying the same ideas i am sure will make a difference.
I havnt given up on google altogether but i only give it time if i really have time to spare, i dont now make time.
I dare say at some point I will need to spend the time, but for now....no!

Ok, I have a few questions.
1. Did you take all the google ads off or just reduced the amount of google ads?
2. How many websites do you own.
3. How long did it take you to realize what you needed to do?

It wasnt google ads i was refering to, it was the constant chase for PR and their search engine.

Google has changed our lives and our online appearance. I think it was necessary because we couldn't get appropriate results. I believe in originality and let my site or forum flourish in its own way. Google ads are being used just to get some money and we can't compare it with other Google stuff.

Even I am against Google ads because their payout is not as attractive as others. Definitely I shall go for some other option.