sklavier
Registered Member
- Dec 20, 2021
- 62
- 43
I agree it's a balancing act. I have 3 main sites that are my money sites, then 2-3 smaller sites that I'm hoping to grow, and every now and then I'll test out a new idea or 2 (or 3 or 4!) on other new sites. Similar to the OP, I do almost all the work myself. I do purchase link building packages etc so that part is outsourced; other than that I do pretty much all of it. But yes, there is the risk of spreading oneself too thin to develop more sites.
Here is my strategy: whichever site is making the most money is the one I spend the most time on. Then the next most one, and so on. Of course, doing it entirely this way this would mean some of the smaller sites would never get developed, so I do make a point to develop the non-main sites. I actively schedule that on my calendar or productivity software (just use whatever you normally use) so there is some time to work on the sites that aren't bringing in anything yet. It's not a whole lot of time, but some. I schedule a specific action or task to do on that site for that day which will in theory will grow that site. Of course, this means scheduling it in for what would not normally be a busy time for the main sites. For example, in my case Black Friday and Cyber Monday are really busy times for my main site, so I would never schedule to work on a minor site around then or close to that time. On the other hand, my main sites don't typically do much or earn as much money around or just after New Year no matter what I do, so that's a great time for me to work on growing my smaller sites. In fact that's what I'm doing right now.
I also give myself a "creative license" rule, which means if I think I have a great idea for a new site or an addition to an existing site, and I actually think it's a good one, then it's OK to push other stuff aside for a moment to test out the new idea. I might have say 10 new ideas but I would not test all 10, it's only when 1 of those sparks some sort of creative joy / unique-ish idea I haven't tried before, and I can't stop thinking about it after days, that's when I play my "creative license" card. Without that, I would never innovate, and in fact that's exactly how I've managed to diversify income streams a little bit, by starting out on new ideas. So innovation has to be somehow prioritized, but not to the point of penalizing the current earnings of the money sites. I think of my "creative license" rule as my own 1-person R & D department. If I let that keep going, it's like developing tech that may later pay off, like when you play computer games where your ppl discover new tech by researching, that helps them in the future (e.g. Civ-style games).
Sorry this is kind of a long answer, but to summarize what I've said about managing multiple sites alone:
Here is my strategy: whichever site is making the most money is the one I spend the most time on. Then the next most one, and so on. Of course, doing it entirely this way this would mean some of the smaller sites would never get developed, so I do make a point to develop the non-main sites. I actively schedule that on my calendar or productivity software (just use whatever you normally use) so there is some time to work on the sites that aren't bringing in anything yet. It's not a whole lot of time, but some. I schedule a specific action or task to do on that site for that day which will in theory will grow that site. Of course, this means scheduling it in for what would not normally be a busy time for the main sites. For example, in my case Black Friday and Cyber Monday are really busy times for my main site, so I would never schedule to work on a minor site around then or close to that time. On the other hand, my main sites don't typically do much or earn as much money around or just after New Year no matter what I do, so that's a great time for me to work on growing my smaller sites. In fact that's what I'm doing right now.
I also give myself a "creative license" rule, which means if I think I have a great idea for a new site or an addition to an existing site, and I actually think it's a good one, then it's OK to push other stuff aside for a moment to test out the new idea. I might have say 10 new ideas but I would not test all 10, it's only when 1 of those sparks some sort of creative joy / unique-ish idea I haven't tried before, and I can't stop thinking about it after days, that's when I play my "creative license" card. Without that, I would never innovate, and in fact that's exactly how I've managed to diversify income streams a little bit, by starting out on new ideas. So innovation has to be somehow prioritized, but not to the point of penalizing the current earnings of the money sites. I think of my "creative license" rule as my own 1-person R & D department. If I let that keep going, it's like developing tech that may later pay off, like when you play computer games where your ppl discover new tech by researching, that helps them in the future (e.g. Civ-style games).
Sorry this is kind of a long answer, but to summarize what I've said about managing multiple sites alone:
- I would recommend focusing on your main money earner(s) the most, to maintain and increase that stream
- then in less-busy times for the main site actively work on the lower-earning sites (keep an ongoing list of specific tasks needed for that)
- While doing both of the above activities, if a new idea is burning in your head then ASAP allocate some time to that new idea and/or other R&D-type of stuff for existing sites. By R & D, I mean innovation (new feature for that particular site, or an entirely new site), not keyword research or something routine like that. One example of an innovation that paid off for me is to start selling ad space on one of my sites. I coded the back end so I could enter the dates the ad would run and it would automatically do it, so I'm not having to physically log in at a specific time X to display my client's ad. I'm not earning much from that (or at least not yet) but it's better than nothing. So in terms of income it helps if you can prioritize R & D to some level, unless of course you happen to already have a process or formula for your income stream that works well for you.
