Way back in the dark ages of the internet - 6 months ago - I published a blog post titled "Why Do Internet Marketers Fail". My main point in that post was to really tell myself why I fail from time to time.
Those times when my income is slipping and my sites are falling in rank I tend to have poor focus. During those times I seem to be trying to learn too many new things and experiment with to many projects.
Often times the things that are working best for me are the things I set aside while I "work" on endless endeavors that don't really get me anywhere. They just occupy my time and make me feel like I'm spinning my wheels needlessly. Eventually that work without return causes me to want to take a break and then where does my business go?
Nowhere naturally.
Funny thing. In that post I called myself out and said that I needed to buckle down and do what was working right then and really go to town at it day in and day out for months on end.
I chose Squidoo as my vehicle as I had built up a $600/monthly stream there in about 5 months time and Lissie called me out in the comments saying in her own way to stay away from spending too much energy on a Web 2.0. Luckily for me Squidoo whet nuts only 2 months after that post and I didn't end up losing it all.
Like any one would have I changed my vehicle out. Although I did not keep pumping out good money lenses I did work on polishing up the majority of my lenses so that I wouldn't lose them and then I started a new site based on ideas from my own experience and some inspiration from my friends over on the Pond. That new site has been my rock all summer long and it's where I've spent most of my energy and it's already making me more money than my lenses ever did.
I can't reiterate enough that in the IM space to succeed you have to have focus. Sure, adjust your plan when major things happen but start one well defined project and work on it like it's the only thing that matters. For me at least it's the only way that I ever seem to have big successes.
When do you diversify?
I used to think you needed to diversify early but these days I say do it much later than you think you should. For the vast majority of post-penguin IMers dodgy link-building is a thing of the past. For the most part I think sites are far less likely to take major hits when you play by G's rules.
For me I've hit a home run with my newest site and instead of branching out into other niches and setting up other sites I've been working diligently on this one main site. I've got social accounts set up for it and even got some good activity going on one of those accounts too. I've even set up a small arsenal of related mini sites as a fallback plan or complimentary set of sister sites should I ever want to expand the project onto multiple domains for whatever reason.
For 2013 this really has been what I've been up to and I hope to continue with the focus. It helps the bottom line a ton... Now, if I could only get my home improvement projects behind me so that I can actually get more work done here at the PC.
If you are having trouble getting anywhere in IM or maybe you're looking to end a long plateau or slide in income maybe it's time you revisited what you are actually doing. Maybe it's time to pick one thing that's working right now and go all in for the foreseeable future.
At least consider it.
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