It’s been a while since I’ve contributed to where I started from a couple years back. I’ve lately been focused on growing my ebooks and iPhone app portfolio, as well as a couple authority sites on topics I am passionate and knowledgeable in.
One of those authority sites, roughly 8 months old, has really taken off (relative terms of course). Over the past weekend I was strategizing the next steps and the direction I want to take this site in. While doing so, I reflected back on what I did different with this site compared to my 20+ niche sites, all of which have essentially been abandoned from a content creation perspective.
Some of my niche sites have taken a significant blow in terms of both traffic and income, while some have remained relatively stable, although have stagnated in terms of income and traffic growth. Content freshness matters more than ever today, and complacency will quickly catch up. This is a lesson I’ve learned first-hand in the past year or so.
Compared to the past, when establishing a content heavy site and building back links to it was sufficient enough, times have drastically changed today driven by search engine behavior. Authority sites that are large, fresh and accessible through multiple avenues are seen as true subject matter experts and therefore given the importance in ranking relative to its competitors.
Here are some facts about this particular authority site:
- It’s focused on a sub, sub, sub niche within a niche (i.e. career success à career success in accounting à career success for CPAs in taxation à career success for CPAs in personal taxation à career success for CPAs in personal taxation for expats)
- Currently on page one sitting at around 5 (half way through the page, still above the fold)
- 200 pages of text content I personally produced
- 31 videos I personally produced mostly by repurposing the text content
- Active Facebook page with 2,000+ likes
- An active Twitter channel with 923 followers
- An active Google + page and profile
- Aside from automated directory submissions at the onset, I have done very minimal “deliberate” back link building for the site – mainly through a handful of guest posts
- I have worked on this business at least once every two weeks since inception – passive income?
- The site has generated just over $3,100 a month for the last three months
- Google Adsense is not the main revenue source
As you can see, this is already quite a lot more than what I have done in the past in terms of the various platforms where my content is available and where I am active.
THE ONE AND DONE APPROACH AND QUEST FOR PASSIVE INCOME
Whether passive income is truly passive in nature is an age old and never ending debate. But without going into this debate, the idea of putting up a website and raking in serious dough with Adsense just doesn’t work anymore, at least not to a level of any significant income.
The one and done approach quickly fizzles out, again because of lack of content freshness and a one dimensional approach to content creation and distribution. Over time, as a site become complacent, it just doesn’t attract the same level of traffic anymore because of the ever increasing competitive landscape especially today when the barriers to entry almost do not exist.
Guest posting used to be, and still is, one way to drive some quick traffic to a static website or blog, but as time passes, the guest post loses its freshness and you lose the traffic coming from it (let’s not get into the possibility of guest posts going viral, or hitting it really big and becoming evergreen pillar articles as these are rare situations).
I am not advocating against guest posting. In fact it’s a great way to get some solid links back to your website. However, do it for that specific purpose only, not the traffic. Treat the traffic you get from guest posts as icing on the cake.
But if your intention is deliberately to get traffic (i.e. for example if you really work hard on attempting to get a guest post to go viral), then ensure that your website, blog, Facebook page or wherever else you are driving your readers to have a way to capture your reader so they can return in the future.
Many online entrepreneurs miss out on this key detail and thus never retain the traffic that is sent to their sites resulting from the instant boost delivered by guest posting initiatives or a similar content piece going viral for a few days. Over time, the guest post slowly fizzles away as well and gets buried deep down in the archives.
CONSIDER YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE’S LEARNING APPETITE AND PREFERRED CHANNELS OF CONTENT CONSUMPTION
Some channels are more conducive to a certain type of audience than others. For example, a Piano Lessons site would be much more effective if supplemented by videos. On the other hand, a Philosophy based site may be most effective through text and voice mediums.
Most niches however cater to multiple avenues. Your audience will have different preferred methods of content consumption, and it is important to branch away from text only mediums like static websites and blogs, especially today when turnkey resources are abundant and allow anyone to crank out content on multiple mediums almost instantly.
Some people simply refuse to consume content in one specific form. I’ve learned this first hand by experimenting with my authority site. Diversifying into other avenues had delivered tremendous results for my business.
As a result, I plan on focusing more on alternative channels of content creation and distribution for my blog and other online businesses as well. What’s specifically convenient about this approach is that it lends itself to content repurposing. You don’t necessarily have to create new content. You just have to make your existing content available on other content consumption channels.
Think about this as marketing your business. Instead of building backlinks through article marketing, you are spreading your reach through “content marketing”, “content syndication”, “magnetic marketing” or being “everywhere”. These are some of the common phrases you may have seen online. They all really mean the same thing.
HOW TO MARKET YOUR INTERNET BUSINESS GOING FORWARD?
In a nutshell, the plan going forward is much easier, but at the same time more challenging as well. I say easy because it is really about focusing on the basics, on creating solid content, being prolific at it and consistently doing it over a period of time and syndicating it across multiple channels in various ways.
I say challenging because doing this alone will not guarantee the gobs of traffic you need to make decent income. In order to accomplish this, you have to spread the reach of your content. This means more content channels to establish, manage and feed genuine solid content to over time.
The biggest barrier to overcome here (assuming you are comfortable with the text aspect of it – blog/website) is to learn how to utilize the other platforms (i.e. YouTube, Facebook, etc) and then actually get comfortable doing it just as consistently as you would work on your web content.
This is often an underestimated challenge. Many simply don’t have the technical wherewithal and/or the desire or capacity to learn. Others are just not proficient in their speaking ability, or are simply not confident enough to put themselves “out there”.
Focusing on quality content and diversified methods of distribution is the “new” name of the game. Stick to what you know and do more of it. Deliberate back link building methods are slowly losing their effectiveness, and focusing solely on these may result in a complete waste of time. Pick other content distribution avenues that cater to your niche, as well as to your target audience and consistently deliver.
MAKE IT EASY TO SHARE YOUR CONTENT AND HELP YOU SPREAD THE WORD
User generated content, social sharing and behavioral patterns are becoming the “go to” resource for people who consume information and make decisions. No matter what you do for your online business, make it easy for your audience to share your content. For example, if you are producing blog posts, make sure you have the relevant social sharing icons visible and readily available for readers to easily access.
When you post videos on YouTube, include language to encourage viewers to share, like and subscribe to your videos and channel. The good news is that most platforms online inherently have the sharing ability embedded within, such as the Retweet function in Twitter.
All you have to do is encourage sharing the content. The simple, obvious yet underutilized message to share your content goes a long way.
MY AUTHORITY SITE’S GROWTH VS MY BLOG’S GROWTH
When I compare the growth trajectory of my authority site to my blog, it is evident that my authority site is outgrowing my blog at a faster pace. I don’t do much for my blog other than basic guest posting and creating content couple times a month. That is sure to change once I re shift my focus back on it, especially after what I am learning and experiencing with my niche and authority site projects.
The inherent benefit of this marketing approach is that although not deliberate, you will be naturally building quality back links to your website or blog. These links will actually be more meaningful, of higher impact and those that will deliver more effective results.
This is how you want your traffic distribution to ideally look like imo:
Within each chunk of the pie, you want another similar pie chart distribution. For example, within the Referral traffic, you want to see traffic coming from social media channels, guest posts, video channels, etc.
Content diversification is not a new concept. Many successful internet entrepreneurs have been doing this for years. However, it’s more important and powerful today than ever before especially since one dimensional internet businesses are becoming less popular in the eyes of the search engines.
To summarize this post in one sentence, what I am quickly learning is that one can promote existing content a lot more successfully and effectively than produce their way to success. In other words, simply cranking out 500 articles for your blog or website, while may deliver results, is not nearly as effective as creating 100 articles and then syndicating the same content everywhere else. Given the passage of time you will find more and more traffic attracted to you.
Over to you now – Do you agree or disagree? Why? In addition to text, what other channels or avenues of content creation and distribution are you utilizing in your business? What kind of results have you seen since you branched out to these channels? How has your business (in terms of operational performance and bottom line) evolved over the last 3 years? If you have a business where your focus has only been creating content (and you have a lot of it), tell us about your experiences? How has that been for you?
START A MONEY MAKING BLOG
It’s been around six years since I started Financial Samurai and Yakezie and I’m actually earning a good passive and active income stream online now. The online income stream has allowed me to pursue other more interesting things, such as consulting for various financial tech startups, traveling around the world, and spending more time with family.
I never thought I’d be able to quit my job in 2012 just three years after starting Financial Samurai. But by starting one financial crisis day in 2009, Financial Samurai actually makes more than my entire passive income total that took 15 years to build. If you enjoy writing, creating, connecting with people online, and enjoying more freedom, see how you can set up a WordPress blog in 15 minutes with Bluehost. You never know where the journey will take you in 2015 and beyond!
Regards,
Sam
Updated for 2017 and beyond
I think traffic and revenue diversification are key for any site! Just like you should rely on one source of income, or put all your money in one stock, you shouldn’t expect all your traffic to come from Google.
Plus, I think that social traffic and referral traffic shows that real people are coming to your site via other real people – that’s better from both a content and revenue perspective. With search, people may just hit your site looking for something. With shares, they typically know what they are getting and choose to come by.
In the long run, that will make your site more successful I believe.
agreed, and in addition one should focus on turning organic visitors into recurring. the diversification of mediums allows that constant flow of traffic into your top funnel that you can work on
Sunil you continue to amaze me with all of the niche sites you have and now iPhone apps – how cool! I agree that having regular new content is more and more important. And content diversification makes sense too. Although I don’t publish as often as some other blogs, I keep my posts meaty. I’d much rather post fewer, higher quality posts than a lot of low quality posts.
you can syndicate even the meatier posts, in fact even better. you can break a long one into several short videos, or a long podcast session or several small ones
Great information Sunil! I have been using the typical channels to distribute content, twitter, facebook, social bookmarking, and a lens site. I have been procrastinating on guest posting and need to get going on that front and not sure Youtube would be successful for my niche. I would be interested to hear what other channels people have used with success!
guest posting still works, the key is to retain the short boost of traffic. a newsletter opt in is one way to do that
I love your authority site. I actually came across it organically a couple months ago. It was an article on meeting some people from google. I love the way your write and keep people engaged. Great post. You are a niche king.
not sure about the King title Jai :) but a small portfolio of profitable ones can certainly make you feel like one
That’s wonderful things you’re achieving out there Sunil!
For me, I do daily posting on my Quotes sharing blog, while currently spend time on building my 2nd website is focus on information based static website. Still yet to hit big, but I’ll keep improving and sure will achieve the success like what you got there. Cheers!
Excellent start on your authority site, Sunil. I’m not a CPA and not trying to become one, so I looked at it from that perspective and the site is a great start on being a comprehensive resource for those looking for help in passing the exams. I also like that you included career advice and other information – like you said…it is diversified.
actually these results/report are not from the CPA site. the CPA site is my public experiment with an authority business. it’s a very competitive topic that will take a long time to break into. the stats above are from another site that is in a less competitive industry
I tend to ignore audio and video as content delivery system. That’s because I tend to ignore audio and video was ways of consuming content. I can read much faster than English can be spoken.
so you are assuming that your readership is a mirror reflection of you and would only prefer your style of consumption. this is fine – it shows you really know your audience. my audience likes to consume in various ways
I thought for a moment that Sam had developed a split personality. :) Then I saw it was Sunil!
Most people prefer audio and video. I hate it, I read 800wpm. :) Much more efficient!
I am a big consumer of podcasts. I exercise daily and feel I can fill in that time with education. same goes while driving, doing other brainless tasks
Sunil, thanks for writing this; I did check my trafic distribution and it looks almost as the one in your posts with one exception: high level of refered trafic and lower campaigns. Feeling better about what I have been doing :)
you seem to be in a well diversified position. what are you consciously doing to ensure that?
Hi Sunil, Wonderful work and as usual, thanks for sharing. You are inspiring! When you speak about syndicating, are you referring to social media or something else? Also, what is a campaign? I also like your questions in the comments, Shows your commitment to learning.
syndication simply refers to the process of spreading/blasting your content in various avenues of info consumption – such as videos, audio, text, other avenues of text and each, etc. the more you spread yourself, even if it is repurposing, the results from my experience show that the more the traffic grows, particularly the organic traffic
i like having more of an authority site. Being diversified seems to be key no matter what you are doing. No need putting all your eggs in one basket.