I may make enemies of some of my fellow bloggers by saying this, but it has to be said…
The current best-practice idea that you need to “be everywhere” in order to build traffic is bad advice.
It’s bad advice because most people follow it at the wrong stage of their business development and lack the capabilities to pull it off.
There is a right time to focus on diversifying into multiple traffic streams, but for most people, especially bloggers, that window is far into your future.
In fact, as you will learn as you read through this series on blog traffic fundamentals, I’m going to argue that the complete opposite of the be everywhere strategy is by far a smarter choice.
More on that later…
Why Do So Many People Make This Mistake
The internet is full of platforms you can use to attract traffic and build an audience. Doesn’t it make sense to have a presence on all of them?
From search engine traffic, podcasting, to videos, social media, webinars, kindle books, paid advertising and affiliate marketing – they can all be used to drive people back to your blog and your business, so why not do so?
To cement the idea even further, if you look at the biggest blogs and the most famous bloggers, it appears they use everything. They seem to be everywhere.
I can’t exclude myself in this assessment – I have two podcasts, a Youtube channel, use Twitter and Facebook every day, attract search engine traffic and have affiliates promote my content, on top of running my blog and email newsletter.
Hence it makes sense you should emulate the most successful people right?
The problem with that logic is it doesn’t take into account your resources or situation.
A successful traffic strategy requires specialised skills and knowledge about each platform, not to mention the resources to apply what is necessary to generate significant traffic.
To put it simply, it’s not easy and requires work.
Your personal situation also dictates whether this is the right path. Are you still working a full time job? If so, it’s very hard to “be everywhere” – it’s hard enough just to maintain a blog, let alone everything else.
Your business must be in the right situation to capitalise on the traffic too. Why bother trying to be everywhere if you don’t have a mechanism to profit from it? And if you are successful, can you maintain a presence on so many platforms AND service all the people this brings you?
It’s a smart idea to at least setup up certain platforms when you first begin, such as your social media accounts, and use them as a way to share your blog content. However to realistically generate significant traffic requires more than passive use of these platforms – you need to devote significant time and resources to them.
Who has the time and resources to devote to so many platforms at once? I don’t and I bet you don’t either.
Outsourcing Is Not The Answer
The common argument to help you expand on to multiple platforms and build your traffic is to outsource the work to other people.
Anyone who has ever gone through the hiring process to find someone to create videos for you, or manage your social media profiles, or any complex or creative task that involves content production, you know how difficult it is.
First, you have to wade through all the not-so-good people to find someone who appears capable, reliable and is a good communicator. Then you have to explain what they need to do.
You also have to educate them on what exactly you and your business stand for so they know what your brand and positioning is about. You can’t have someone build a traffic platform for you if it doesn’t line up with your current strategy, or it will do more harm than good.
Let’s not forget outsourcing costs money. Even at low hourly rates, when you hire someone to handle a complex task and you expect a reasonable level of quality, the fee quickly adds up. You won’t have the cash flow to justify it early on.
Even if you get through all of this there is one big fundamental flaw – outsourcing sucks your own time and focus. It will slow you down before it has a chance to speed you up.
Instead of working on your blog and business, you will end up spending time training someone else. They will interrupt you, ask questions, need constant hand-holding… etc.
Of course eventually once trained up they can be an asset, but there is a training period you go through with every person you hire, especially for complex creative tasks, that will slow you down significantly.
That’s why outsourcing is not the solution to a traffic problem until your business is at the right stage for it.
Once again I’m going to argue against conventional wisdom and suggest for an emerging blogger you should NOT outsource.
Build a traffic channel and cash flow source first. Hire help to expand later when you are ready for it.
Here Is The Truth: No One Truly Succeeds At Being Everywhere
I’ve got one more myth to bust.
Although it appears that some people succeed at being everywhere and using all the top platforms for traffic, the truth is they don’t.
If you were to dig into their statistics you will see that the truly valuable traffic – the audience that makes them money – predominately comes from ONE or maybe at most, two channels.
Even though someone might be using videos, a podcast, social media, kindle books, and paid advertising, the truth is they are really only very good at one thing.
What you will find is their traffic sources follow an 80/20 power curve. This means that 80% of their traffic comes from 20% of the overall sources of traffic they have. In other words, they really aren’t doing that good a job at getting traffic from 80% of what they do to get traffic.
Doesn’t it makes sense to focus on the one truly effective source of traffic and ignore the rest?
Oh, and in case you are wondering, although I do have a presence on many platforms I don’t get much traffic from most of them.
The lion-share of my traffic comes from organic search because what I am best at is content marketing. I’m a great blog writer and I’ve done it for long enough that I get rewarded with steady traffic.
My podcasts and videos help (and not just with traffic, but with branding and building trust too), but in terms of raw sources of traffic, my blog content brings in the most by a very wide margin.
The Smart Traffic Solution
I recently read a book called “The One Thing” by Gary Keller. His entire thesis argues that there is only ever ONE best thing you can do.
He takes the 80/20 rule and brings it down to the single most important thing. It’s the 20% of the 20% of the 20% down to just one most effective element.
I’m sure you can see where I am heading with this in terms of your traffic…
I believe to begin with you should not be everywhere, you should aim to dominate just one place. Become really really really good at just one thing.
Pick one platform or one method and get good enough that it brings in sufficient income for you to reach the next phase of you business growth. All that matters to begin with is cash flow so you can grow (and quit your job if you still have one).
Here are another two interesting points discovered from the research conducted by the author of The One Thing –
- It’s MUCH smarter to work sequentially, not concurrently
- Multi-tasking doesn’t work
Sequentially means you do one thing after another (the smart way).
Concurrently means you do several things at once (the inefficient way).
Sequentially means you focus on one thing, one traffic source, get the job done, then and only then move on to something else.
Concurrently is the same as trying to be everywhere at the same time. Spreading your focus, diluting your efforts and reducing your overall performance.
The women reading this might not agree with the statement that multi-tasking doesn’t work, but let me explain what that means before you judge.
The fact is your brain is not wired to do many things at once. It’s physically impossible when it comes to complex tasks. You can’t solve a mathematical equation at the same time as you compose a poem and plan what you are going to cook for dinner.
You can multi-task when it comes to combining different functions of your body – like eating a sandwich, while listening to an audiobook and taking notes with a pen, but you can’t for tasks that require your brain to solve problems or create things.
What you can do is switch tasks. You can go from writing a blog post, to replying to someone on Skype chat, to watching a webinar, and then back to your blog post.
The problem with this is you incur switching costs. This is the time you lose disconnecting from one task and re-engaging with another. Your brain doesn’t switch instantly, it needs to figure out where it was and get back into the flow.
This is why multi-tasking is inefficient and why you should stick to one thing, one core task that develops one core traffic source. The more focus and fewer elements at play, the quicker you will reach your desired outcome.
Okay, So When Can You Expand To Other Traffic Sources?
Perry Marshall summed it up best in his brilliant book, “80/20 Sales And Marketing“.
He said that there is a Ying and Yang to marketing – to traffic building.
The Ying is the one core marketing channel, the one best source of traffic you should focus on first to establish yourself.
The Yang are all the other ways you could market your business, all the other ways you could get traffic back to your blog.
The truth is that being as close to everywhere as you can and diversifying your traffic sources, if executed successfully, is how you reach the most people. It also keeps you safe from the “all your eggs in one traffic source” issue that can see your business disappear overnight (Google can wipe out income streams with a single change).
It’s also the path to make the most money. You need to reach a lot of buyers to make millions or even billions of dollars.
The problem is balancing the evolution from Ying into Yang.
As I outlined, you can’t successful expand into multiple traffic streams until you have the resources that come from one core traffic source.
You need one quality source of traffic to fuel your early momentum and deliver cash flow so you can reach level one – a stable, profitable business. Once you reach this level, you have cash resources and a system that makes money, which can then be leveraged to roll out to other sources of traffic.
This is when you take the time to hire good people, train them well and put them to task to grow your business. You finally have the cash flow and stability to do it right.
There is a time and a place for everything, but you are probably doing the right thing for the wrong time, right now.
What You Should Do Next
After all of this, what is the conclusion? What is your action step to start attracting traffic?
It’s simple: Begin a traffic technique testing process until you identify something that works, and then go hard developing it into the pillar of your business.
To guide you on what to test first, look for any existing advantages you can exploit to attract traffic.
An advantage might be based on a skill or talent you have, access to a certain resource (money or connections to people or a training program you can follow), or any established platforms you have developed previously.
Start with your advantages, test some traffic techniques and once you gain traction with one, go all in.
Don’t forget, every single super-star blogger you follow got to where they are because just one platform took off for them initially. They might appear to be everywhere now, but really it was one thing that provided their tipping point, giving them the momentum to expand on to more platforms.
Now you just need to find your one traffic source that works.
Want An Advantage?
To continue this process and build your first consistent traffic stream, give yourself an advantage, download my newest guide created specifically to help you attract your first 1,000 blog readers.
Blog Traffic For Beginners: A Step-By-Step System To Grow Your Blog Traffic From Zero To 1,000 Daily Readers
The package includes 100 proven traffic techniques. You then select five-to-ten of the techniques to begin testing immediately, so you can finally feel what it’s like to have a popular blog.
I guarantee if you work your way through my guide, set up the right foundations and then test the techniques I provide until you find what works, you will have your traffic breakthrough.
Coming Up Next: The Big Traffic Secret
In part two of this blog traffic fundamentals series, I will reveal to you the single biggest secret behind the new blogging model you should follow.
It’s a simple idea, one rooted in the fundamentals of what makes a business work from long before we had the internet.
You can move on to part two here:
Yaro
This is part one of a trilogy on the fundamentals of growing your blog traffic, when your goal is to make $100,000+ a year selling your own products and services.
To get all the articles in this series, click here to subscribe to my FREE Blog Traffic Email course.
Yaro, this is awesome especially now that I started a blog .
I will keep in touch to learn more.
Thanks
Hmm, not sure what to make of this entry. Definitely going to upset a few people lol
Absolutely spot on. I cannot fault that post, not only should it reassure those that are starting what feels like climbing a mountain in flip flops, but give clarity and sharp focus to tackling what feels like a path with a thousand turnings, all potentially leading up yet another blind alley. Bravo Yaro!
“You don’t get to be wealthy by copying what the wealthy do; you get wealthy by copying what they did.”
I really like this quote, I’ll be stealing it thanks!
Very powerful quote
Hi Evan, I love this statement, it’s loaded with wisdom.
That statement is a fallacy. Do you think you can copy what Bill Gates did and become successful like Bill Gates? Now try to start creating a computer in your garage and see if you will become the new Gates.
Do you honestly think you can copy what John D. Rockefellar did and become successful like Rockefellar? Now try to see if you can take over all the oil companies in USA. No, it won’t work. We are NOT those successful people. Their stories are only inspirational, but more or less useless to you.
Looking at and copying successful people is not a very good way to become successful yourself. You didn’t have their background, upbringing, experience and timing. If it really was that easy to simply copy what a successful person did then almost everyone would be successful.
Thousands of books and courses about “how to become this or that…” are created and sold every single year. Why? Because they don’t work. If one book or course really had the answers there would no longer be a need for additional books on the subject.
If you want to be “wealthy” or “successful” the start by learning a few basic mental/spiritual principles and decode counterproductive programming of your own mind.
Hi Yaro,
It does my heart good to hear somebody debunking this myth that is SO pervasive these days!
I know their premise is doing all you can to maximize your impact but if somebody is struggling to build something they need to find the ONE thing that works and build on that before fanning out.
Entrepreneurs have enough reasons and excuses for not succeeding. Do they really need to add “I’m trying to build six traffic sources concurrently” to the mix?
Yes, I do believe you should be as many places as your audience needs you. I don’t like the fishing net approach and never will.
Jeff
I love this post Yaro! (and this is coming from the “Be Everywhere” guy!)
I can’t deny that being on multiple platforms is difficult, but I know for a fact that there are people who only consume my content on each of those separate platforms. With podcasting, specifically, that accounts for MOST of where my new traffic comes from these days. Blogging was incredibly successful for me, but podcasting took it to a whole new level! On YouTube, there are things I cannot teach via text or audio that I can only share on video, and they are all complimentary to each other in my brand.
Is it right for everyone – no, but I think a lot of people ARE missing out by trying to just be in one place.
This is an important discussion to have though, because I think where a lot of people get it wrong is when they spread themselves too thin by trying to be everywhere all at once, or too soon. I didn’t start my YouTube channel until over 2 years after I started my blog, and then my podcast 1 year after that – only creating those new platforms after I was comfortable, had the systems down and “mastered” those platforms, so to speak (in terms of how they can fit into my brand and workflow, although of course I still have a ton to learn about each.
I’ve been able to help a lot of people across each of those platforms, and because I have the systems in place I am able to provide value to them in many different ways, and just imagining those people’s lives who I didn’t touch because I just stuck with one thing – it makes me understand that I’ve made the right decision.
My Ying is being seen as an expert by not being JUST a blogger, but someone who knows how to connect with people on all different platforms.
In terms of multi-tasking – you’re right, it doesn’t work! But that doesn’t mean you only have to stick with one thing – as long as you focus on one thing at a time – sequentially, then you’re good. I don’t write a blog post, and record a podcast episode and shoot a video at the same time while also engaging with my audience on social media. I do all of those things within certain times of the week, and as a result I am perceived to be everywhere, by actually still doing one thing at a time and not driving myself insane.
And lastly, since this is just on my mind, it’s not about “traffic”, which is the central discussion of this post, it’s about what I feel is best for my audience. I think another discussion to have would be thinking about traffic as actual people, than just numbers. You mentioned a couple of people in your post who I’ve followed in the past who, as a subscriber, make me feel like a number, or just another person who could potentially buy something.
Would love to hear your (and anyone else’s) thoughts on this.
Again, great post Yaro, thank you!
Hey Pat,
I’m glad you enjoyed the post. I figured you would see that I wasn’t actually saying what you do is wrong, or that we all shouldn’t aim to be on multiple platforms, that’s a smart idea – just not in the short term or at the start of a new project.
I am being a bit cheeky with the headline of course, trying to grab attention.
I have had the same experience with my podcast vs my blog vs my email list. There is overlap with all of them, but they all reach different people as well, people I wouldn’t reach without using all three.
I started my blog first, then my podcast six months later, then my newsletter another six months later. Of course this was back in 2005-2006, so a different world to now.
I still think for most people it would be smartest to focus on just one thing – stick to growing a podcast, or content marketing with your blog articles, or just a youtube channel. Obviously you can cross promote these things, but in terms of marketing them, you focus on only one until it is established.
In regards to your comment about looking at traffic as people, of course that’s the right thing to do. Many traditional internet marketers do not grasp this very well, but I doubt they stay in business for long.
However I do think you have to be careful to also include one more aspect – look for your buyers, the people who support you financially, who you then support the best.
It’s right to look at your audience as people and not just things on your list you can sell to, but I think the pendulum can swing too far in the other direction.
I’ve seen many people who end up spending all their time trying to be nice and give stuff for free, and never make money. There has to be a balance if you are aiming to run a profitable business, especially if you do not have the kind of traffic you do, which most of us don’t.
Unfortunately many people struggle to profit because they just don’t know how to make an offer or are afraid to ask their audience to buy something, even if that something can help them.
I am curious – I only mentioned Gary Keller and Perry Marshall in this article, they can’t be the guys you refer to as not looking at their traffic as people? You must have meant people in my previous article to this one?
Yaro
Great insights, thank you Yaro for the post and Pat for the comment.
Yaro, you said, “Begin a traffic technique testing process until you identify something that works.”
I don’t think aspiring entrepreneurs set out to spread themselves thin, but are in fact going through this very testing process.
Then, with all platforms being so interrelated, it’s almost impossible to work on your Ying without also working on your Yang.
Pulling back on one inevitably hurts the other. Your Ying and Yang become connected early on as a result of the “traffic technique testing process.” It’s hard to focus less on the 80 without affecting the 20.
Ahh very good, yet subtle point there Thai.
Yes Ying and Yang are always connected, especially online. What happens is the effort you put counterbalances as you progress. You might go from 90% on just one core technique to begin with and spend the 10% left over on setting up a few other platforms like social media. Then as you progress, your first source of traffic requires less work so you begin to divert effort to other areas.
There are never any absolutes, although that being said, I wonder what would happen if someone jumped online and ignored EVERYTHING and only did one thing really really well. Like for example they didn’t bother with blogging, or social media, or podcasting, and just spent 100% of their energy on amazing youtube video content.
There are too many variables at play to know what might happen, but it would be an interesting test. The level of mastery that would come from so much focus might actually result in a better overall outcome. It’s hard to know, but interesting to think about.
Yaro
I enjoyed reading this article and both perspectives on being everywhere. As a blogging “newbie” 1-2 years ago I remember trying to do everything all at once.
It’s difficult to focus sometimes on the online marketing / blogging space because their is so much going on everywhere.
I thought I’d add my 2 cents
I’ve found overall not worrying so much about traffic or mastering specific ways to “do everything” was easier for me in the long run.
When I interviewed Corbett Barr I asked him to share with my audience some traffic tactics and to make this the focus of the interview. The interview turned into a conversation about building relationships with other people and how powerful this is for your business, being able to leverage powerful connections to help you grow.
I loved his advice and I try to give back when possible, I enjoyed it so much I have a Kindle book I’m finishing up on the very same topic.
I know Pat put my video testimonial front and center on his Kindle book testimonial page. He also recently featured my question on his new Podcast Ask Pat! Out of probably hundreds of questions he has received!
I also know I mentioned your content Yaro in an in-depth guide I wrote about building a community and you shared the content on Twitter for me to thousands of people.
I interviewed someone last July who recently stumbled upon the content I was producing. We started talking a lot about how we could help each other out this year.
We ended up teaming up on a project to form an SEO business from scratch. We launched last month and I am happy to say I reached over $1500 in extra income for the first time!
I think word of mouth is really powerful, and shouldn’t be ignored!
Would you believe my mortgage agent was the person who told me about Pat Flynn for the first time? Or Ana Hoffman mentioned you Yaro on her blog?
From Pat’s podcast I discovered Corbett Barr who I then later interviewed for my own show, it’s all just a big circle to expand from!
We are all connected hey John! I do find all the little cool ways people discover each other online very interesting. Thanks to the scope of the world wide web we can make some amazing connections that in the past distance would have never permitted.
I think your key point is that we are all humans and thus relationships matter first, and word of mouth is the most powerful source of quality traffic ever. I totally agree!
That being said, from a technical stand point on how to use the internet to get customers for your business, it’s a bit vague. It might be a good ideology, but it’s no blueprint!
You’ve triggered a thought in me about learning styles. Loosely put, there are four –
– Why
– What
– How
– What If
The “what” people will love a discussion of traffic that talks about what goes on behind the psychology of relationships between human beings. They like to know the big picture behind what makes something work.
The “how” people are going to be frustrated with that kind of conversation because they want the steps on how to do something. Show them the technical things, the process from A to B and they will walk away very happy.
The challenge is meeting the needs of all the learning styles using all the different modalities of communication we have. The ultimate example of being everywhere would be using all three modalities of content (video, audio, text), presenting all learning styles. Now that is a huge job!
Consider that an extra 2 cents on top of your 2 cents 🙂
Yaro
Something to also consider is how competitive the landscape looks on a certain traffic channel.
For example, I don’t think a new podcast that interviews entrepreneurs is that valuable now in 2014 unless there was some unique angle or edge.
Hey Yaro! 🙂 Interesting concept and so true. I loved this blog post and can’t wait to see the next part.
What I will say here is that both you a Pat make excelent points, but in the end you both started out doing one thing didn’t you?
After you felt you were in a good position with that one thing you decided to do the next thing and I think that’s what Yaro was talking about.
However the problem is that what you say here about this topic doesn’t matter much, as much as I loved the post. Because most people are already on all of these profiles so obviously when they launch their blog they’re going to be all over the place promoting their stuff and that’s the problem that you just highlighted.
People shouldn’t be doing this, but it becomes a lot harder to once you already have access to a certain social network don’t you think?
I thought this was a great post and both you and Pat bring up some very good points in your comments.
I’m glad you liked the post Alan!
Yes I suppose it’s hard not to already have some social media accounts set up, although that is different to strategically viewing them as your main traffic source.
If you just use social media to share some content and interact now and then, which is what I do, that’s very unlikely to become a significant enough source of traffic to run a business on.
That’s ultimately the question that will determine what people do. If they don’t build an audience and thus don’t make money, they will start to question why they are on social media or why they are blogging. When you find your true motivations then you finally start to think and act strategically about how you use these tools.
There’s a learning curve to go through, but hopefully with this article I help to shorten that curve for a few people.
Yaro
Yaro, a great read… thanks Pat for referring me here!
It can be overwhelming for someone new to try and figure out which platform to maximise… I have been doing exactly what you said – and have been focusing on building my email list recently… building the products and audience first. Pat… I recently made a shift to start writing my articles to one person (I actually start it as an email to just one person – my brother / ideal client) and then once the info is out – I will go back and tweak it a bit. I have tons of feedback on my approach – people are really responding well to it! So yes, Pat… focus on helping the human… not chasing the number 😉
Yaro – are you going to outline the traffic techniques in the next blog post?
Hi Emma,
I’ve actually got another six posts in total in this series…I think, it might change as I write them depending on feedback. I have three of them done so far and they are all related.
I’m focusing on fundamentals rather than techniques in this series. I could say go start a podcast or go curate relevant pictures in Pinterest.com or create amazing slideshows you share on slideshare.com, or do interviews, or buy ads on facebook, or write free reports, or find affiliates, or create an itunes magazine, or run press releases, or publish photos on instagram, or create a plugin, or write a kindle book, or etc etc…
These ideas are not so useful if you don’t have a strategy about what to do with this information. In fact it can be detrimental, you shouldn’t spend time studying information you don’t need.
I did cover 100 techniques in my e-guide, which required over 50 pages to review (110 total pages in the guide), so a bit much for a blog post. I make my living through training products I sell, so I save the more step-by-step processes for those guides.
Hopefully you will still find this series useful. Those who like the big picture definitely will.
Yaro
Hi Pat,
I have to thank you for bringing Yaro’s post to my attention on Facebook.
It’s great that the both of you are explaining that it is vital to not do too many things at one time.
Creating systems and mastering a platform before moving on to the next platform should be a huge relief to people new to the online business world.
I think the both of you are setting a positive example for the novice and the seasoned online entrepreneur. Keep on inspiring.
Best,
Stacie Walker
What a great article.
I just started a blog few weeks go and i am kind of messing around right now,as you said in this wonderful article.
I am trying to focus on trafic,then in content creation,then in seo,all in the same time.
I think it is time i change my strategy and focus a bit.Thanks for this wonderful article
Pat Flynn is right, of course, but it is quite different to offer your content in different ways after you have an established audience to trying to build an audience that way, as he acknowledges. The idea that businesses need to be everywhere was begging to be debunked. My son works in IT for a large and successful construction company. The idea that they need a Facebook page or a presence on Twitter is, quite frankly, laughable. As in most things, it comes down to horses for courses. Next time can we have a piece on the overblown “content curation” hype?
I’m with Pat, though (like him) I don’t entirely disagree with this article.
Below are a few points in the article that I think are outdated. They might have been true a few years ago, but the world has changed.
1. Outsourcing. Anyone can outsource. For one-off tasks, Fiverr is completely affordable (who doesn’t have $5?), and for larger projects, Elance, ODesk, 99Designs, etc. are all viable, fairly affordable, and definitely doable. Using methods you can find on Pat’s site (or his podcast, or his YouTube… it’s all good), you can see how communicating with extra help is easier than ever. And with Chris Ducker’s resources, there’s no reason that someone with a little income can’t save a TON of time, almost from the very beginning, with virtual staff. Again, outsourcing wasn’t half so easy 5 years ago, but a beginner can and SHOULD benefit from it now.
2. The ease/difficulty of being found through just one channel. More and more, search engines favor sites that are not just linked from different sites, but from different form of media. A site that gets links from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ is going to do immensely better than one that uses old hat article backlinking. Sure, they’re different audiences in some senses, but that doesn’t mean that your target audience isn’t actually split between those places. New blogs just aren’t found easily anymore unless they diversify. We shouldn’t immediately jump on every new thing, but newcomers can’t expect to win if they’re only doing old stuff. The explosive growth of podcasting is a prime example. Once upon a time people would follow you through just one medium, but now both humans and the search engines (which are becoming more human) are expecting you to be in more than one place.
3. The idea that workflow is averse to multiple media. Again, things have changed. Before, I would also say to focus on just one thing. But we have tools now that allow us to batch process such that we can be 100% focused and STILL be everywhere at once. Batch videos and let your autoresponder send them out later. Batch blog posts and let WordPress publish them at specific times. Batch podcast episodes and let your feed take care of that. Batch social media posts and let Buffer publish at ideal times. Then batch your comment responses.
All that said, I agree that it’s best to focus on one thing at a time. But thanks to advances in online services, each of these areas is easier to master quickly than ever. So learn one new channel a month and be everywhere within 6 months.
Thanks for the article. This is a great conversation to have.
Hey Tim,
Thanks for stopping by and leaving your thoughts. I can say the same as you guys, I don’t entirely disagree with your comment 🙂
Most of my thesis ties back to strategy and focus. If you are not focusing on the right thing or using the right strategy, no amount of good systems or outsourcing or batch processing workflows can help because you are working on the wrong thing for your business right now.
I agree beginners should outsource if it’s something that completely stops them from taking the next step. For example if you are tech illiterate then your first task before you even do any traffic generation, is focus 100% on finding the right tech person to partner with to build what you need to get started. Either that or you focus 100% on educating yourself so you can do it yourself.
And yes there are huge advantages to being on Youtube at the same time as having a podcast and running an amazing blog. You can also repurpose your content across all these platforms too, but there is a time and a place to do that.
If you have little money and no content created, don’t start an outsourcing process to try and be on all three platforms. Go focus on one thing, one channel and start building content for it, get traffic to it, and then create an income stream. The last thing you want to be doing is setting up jobs in Odesk and assessing applicants and then giving them instructions when you haven’t created something for them to help you build on yet.
What I find when teaching my members is that the challenge rests in picking the right market to go after and then picking the strategy that leads to making money as quickly as you can. It’s not an easy thing to do, especially when you head online and there is so much helpful information, including Pat’s of course, but you don’t really get that much guidance on WHEN to do it or if it’s the right thing for the business model you use and the person you are.
The trick is figuring out the right question to ask before looking for a solution.
In regards to workflow, I see batch processing as the perfect example of anti-multitasking. If you batch process from one task to the next always in sequential order, executing the perfect sequence of tasks to solve the specific problem you face right now, then you’ve got it!
Easier said than done of course, I certainly do not execute this process perfectly myself, no one does. Like you said though, it’s getting easier and more efficient to do so, so theoretically we should be getting quicker at it.
Although I do wonder sometimes if because we have TOO MANY solutions to these problems and too many sources of information, that in itself becomes a major sticking point (information overload).
Thanks for your contribution Tim!
Yaro
Tim, I have had ZERO success outsourcing, why would I put my multi-million dollar business I built from the ground up in the hands of someone that is worth 5 bucks? that doesn’t add up and while I am a risk taker, that is a horrible bet. I tried using outsourcing using Chris’ site, had zero success there either.
2) Social media is WAY OVER RATED, will gladly compare my Google Analytics and income statement against anyone who thinks differently. The only one Google cares about is G+ and that is really only if you are using Google Authorship.
3) Batch Process = Unfollow, un like, defriend and then some.the whole idea of SM is to connect with your audience not to force feed and spew at them.
Just my 2 cents and will and as I stated, will gladly compare #’s as those do tell the whole story.. 😉
@mitch:
I remember you from Yaro’s blogging forum in 2008. I think you were from Miami? It would be awesome if you could get on Pat’s podcast and share your success story. I would love to hear about it.
Try these to start with Will if you want interviews with Mitch –
My original interview from his early days:
https://yaro.blog/993/mitch-interview/
A more recent interview with Leslie –
http://www.becomeablogger.com/blogsecrets/video2/
And I have a more in-depth interview where we look at how Mitch got his blog into the big money inside my Exclusive Interviews Club –
http://www.ejinsider.com/interviews/
Hi,
I just don’t do a lot of interviews anymore, Yaro asked me to do one for his new project, and I was a slug and still haven’t gotten back to him. I spoke at NMX and I very much still believe and and want to give back to the blogging community but it doesn’t always line up with what I do, I use marketing for my companies, but I am not really an “Internet Marketer”, and the money thing and talking about it is uncomfortable for me..with that being said, never say never..
Mitch
Hi Yaro and Pat and everyone else, big fans of everyone. I started off with Yaro in 2008. Before I started with Yaro i had 3 people a month visit my site, I still use many of the things he taught me. I just opened my third site, but the first two combine for 1.7 million visitors and 10-12 million page views a month and I have a ridiculous life beyond my wildest dreams, including all of things i never wanted nor expected like houses and cars (the vacations, hey, doesn’t want those), and I did it 100% by building traffic. If you don’t build traffic you simply are talking to the air. It is SO important to connect with your audience, but if you don’t have an audience, you have no one to connect with. Pat has a rabid fan base, he built it, he didn’t earn it, he didn’t contrive it, he continues to build it with what he does, and that is being Pat and being Pat, everywhere. I respect the heck of what he does, He even builds people in his audience into success stories as well. I personally don’t know how he keeps track of it all, I mean the guy is live tweeting at 3:30 AM, does he sleep?
With all of that being said, being everywhere doesn’t work for me, i choose my spots but test all of them. Because I am limited in where i can be, I have to go with the places I reach the most people consistently and for me it is simple, on my site. I have a podcast, i do video, twitter,G+, FB, pinterest but really I spend most of my time at my main site.
I have a great connection with a good majority of my readers, I have some that I can never make happy, I can’t waste time with them. I have others that use the site daily and will never buy anything and I will never know who they are, they don’t want me to know nor care but when I do hear from people like that they have always been around for years. As you guys know, there is a cost associated with that as well. I build traffic as it comes and each of those users fall into a category of user, and sometimes they move from one to another, EXACTLY how Pat talked about at NMX this year, but some just never move.
The bottom line is my expenses never get smaller, what used to cost me $100 now costs $5000 and what used to cost me $2,000 cost $35,000, the money has to come from somewhere and it comes from the money I make with my traffic. It isn’t like I scamming people or tricking them, it isn’t even close. Between my two older sites we produce 2,500 to 3,000 unique and original articles every month, I pay the guys who help me do this and the readers are reading something and whether they read the whole article or not, they still cost money and still pay the same to me, unless they buy something.
So yes, for readers who want to part of what we are doing, welcome aboard, for those who don’t, you at least got what you are looking for.
I can safely say I have never used any article spinners, long tail wizard type things, keyword ninja or whatever u call it, I have never bought a single adword, never paid for advertising, never used any black hat SEO, none of anything, pure organic content.
I am a big believer that traffic is the most important thing, but, if you provide enough quality content then you provide value to a good portion of those who make it to the site. I think Yaro taught me that, and what I always say is, it isn’t just about getting people to the site, it is about getting them to bookmark it and come back, that is how you build a real audience.
Whoa, what a comment – thanks Mitch, I always enjoy reading your long replies, it reminds me of the days back on the Blog Mastermind coaching calls hearing how things were progressing for you.
You are a great example of focus. You found one core thing – a huge scope of content coverage on a blog – and used that as the philosophy to make a million dollar business.
There is one important point I want to make for everyone else who reads the success stories of people like Pat and Mitch.
Both these guys are extremely generous and supportive to their communities, offer amazing free value and make a very good living from it. These are certainly qualities worth emulating.
However to reach the income levels they have reached, you need significant amounts of traffic. The kind of audience numbers they have is NOT COMMON. It’s rare, requires ongoing hard work, great timing (it helps if you can ride a trend like Pat did with Podcasting and Mitch did with blogging), excellent niche selection, and some luck too.
Of course all businesses require luck, timing and hard work to a degree, but you really need to understand that you are not in the same situation as these guys. You can take the principles they represent and apply them today, but do so given the current environment you face.
I personally believe there are better leveraged business models that you can use that do not require nearly as much traffic as these guys have, which means they are more likely to lead you to a full time income quicker.
Probably the quickest path today if you want to use information or content as your vehicle to make a living, is to buy ads and send people to a webinar (like John Dumas does, and Lewis Howes used to specialise in). You might also buy ads and send people to an ecourse or free report and then sell your product after that.
If speed is of the essence to you, building a blog or podcast or video channel to the kind of numbers that Pat and Mitch have is not a realistic outcome. It’s possible, and by all means, don’t let me writing this stop you from trying it if it is your dream, just understand what you are up against, especially today in a much more crowded internet space.
What you can do is cherry pick ideas from these guys, and then test them out for your business. Just make sure you do so at the right phase as I outlined in the blog post above.
Wow, so interesting! Especially your reply, Yaro. I am just figuring out which areas to focus on, and I will actually know that, I think, from the results after I launch in a couple of weeks: where are people engaging the most? what is getting me the most traffic? Yes, I will be using paid ads, to drive people to the website/blog, and to an opt-in page, to subscribe (that’s about keeping people coming back). Yes, I know there needs to be an offer, to get people to do that. I won’t be able to rely on just organic traffic, as my monetization will come, as yours did in the early days, Yaro, from affiliate links. Yes, I don’t have forever to build up organic traffic.. 🙂
Hello Yaro,
Traffic is truly something every marketer has to leverage in their business. If your business is just starting out, it’s best to first set the foundations for yourself. For me, that’s when doing things “sequentially” is most applicable. I don’t fully agree outsourcing is not good. Main reason why people choose to outsource is because they can’t carry the load anymore, they can perform the tasks but problem is their schedule won’t allow. Asking questions from time to time from workers goes only during the training process. After then, they can work independently.
If you will do things all on your own, I think that’s not smart. You will just make your business fully dependent on you. But then, I truly respect your point of view, I picked up some learning from it. It’s a good read.
Best,
Rose
By the way, saw this post at kingged.com
Hi Rose, thanks for stopping by.
To clarify, I said outsourcing is not smart for a certain PHASE of a business, usually the very starting phase.
Outsourcing – and hiring full time staff – is the only way to grow once you reach a certain point.
The main thesis of my article is that timing and strategy determine choices and many people are making the wrong choices because they are following the advice of other people blindly, who are at a different stage of development.
Evan’s comment above sums it up nicely.
Thanks again!
Yaro
Hey Yaro, Just wanted to say great article and good discussion here so far in the comments also. It is a really interesting topic because you have two big name bloggers like Derek Halpern and Pat Flynn who seem to take very different approaches in regards to this. Maybe it comes down more to the individual and their strengths and weaknesses?
Oh yes very good point Nathan. Personal preference always comes first, which is why I believe at the start of a business you should do a strengths assessment of yourself first. The first place to find 80/20 power curves is in your own personality!
That’s also in part what I refer to when I wrote about looking at your own situation before deciding to follow what someone else does. You might not have the personality type to be quite as brazen as Mr Halpern can be 🙂
Spreading one’s self too think leads to burnout, so I think it is sound advice to start small and build from there.
I have to promote a offline business with online tools, so my personal philosophy is to is to not necessarily be everywhere, but to be in front of potential clients. And if they happen to be all over the place (fb, twitter, pinterest, instagram, youtube, etc.) then try to be strategic and smart about repurposing content to fit the various platforms.
Amazing read and I totally agree. Most of my traffic is from organic search as well and I try to focus on that instead of spreading myself too thin. Although I plan to grow my other traffic strategy later as well.
Making an impact in a few set spots trumps spreading yourself too thin….plus, you said it best Yaro, we’re already connected as ONE! Thanks for the power post!
I’m SO glad Pat Flynn shared this post on Facebook and I was able to find your blog! I’m totally enjoying what I’ve read so far and this post took some weight off of my shoulders.
After reading this I’ve decided to engulf myself in mastering one area, or platform, instead of struggling to learn everything.
Thanks for a great read!
Nicole, that’s exactly the outcome I’d hope for people after reading this article. Thanks for sharing your feedback.
Yaro
Hi Yaro,
your post comes at the right time to me.
I started my blog recently and I’m already struggling with time. I have a full time job and my time is very limited to me to work on side projects.
I tried to “be everywhere” but I realized that it’s not possible for someone that is just starting.
For example, I created a facebook page for my blog, and I cannot grow my fans. I try to divide my time between blogging an facebook, but is very demoralizing to see that I cannot bring fans organically.
That’s another problem of “being everywhere”. If you are just starting and you cannot grow your numbers in the various platforms you demoralize which can lead to giving up.
Your post help me to decide focusing in traffic source
p.s – I came to this post through Pat Flynn facebook page. His a person who I admire, but in this I don’t agree with him ( sorry Pat 🙂 )
Hi Nuno,
Again – that’s exactly the point I was making. Someone like you should spend all their time on the blog or facebook, not both. I’d spend 95% of your time on the blog and marketing your content there, and 5% sharing it on facebook (and twitter, google+ and LinkedIn) just to keep the social platforms going, but not as your main focus.
And very good point about mindset. I wrote a lot about exactly what you are saying in my other e-guide on Mindset & Productivity For Bloggers. Positive attitude is linked very much to performance. You can’t help be motivated by success, but unfortunately, the reverse happens with things you perceive as failure. That’s a massive issue for everyone that only your mindset can overcome.
You can help to “stack the deck” in your favour by making it more likely that you experience small successes each day if you make smart choices about how you use your time.
Good luck!
Yaro
No need to apologize, but I don’t think you actually followed my advice. When I say “be everywhere”, I don’t mention doing it all at once. That’s not how I did it, and I even mention over and over again that you should start with one platform, get comfortable with it, and then tap into your audience to see where you can branch off next – and I’m talking months down the road.
You stated: “I started my blog recently and I’m already struggling with time.” – well then of course you shouldn’t Be Everywhere at first.
I think most people see the final result of a strategy like mine, and fail to realize exactly how it was implemented. It’s more like:
“Pat has this, so I should have this too.”
when it really should be…
“Pat did this, so I should do this too.”
Maybe it’s human nature or whatever, and it’s no offense to you Nuno – you represent the majority when it comes to how they decide to tackle being everywhere.
Hi Yaro
What a tremendous post. Thank you. This is the first post I’ve read from you that I was directed to by Pat Flynn’s posting on Facebook.
I launched a new website in March and I found the biggest challenge is exactly what you’ve detailed in your post. There is so much to do with the new website and so much to do when your new blogger like myself. From learning everything about WordPress to trying to improve my social media, spending more time on my writing and editing, it seems endless.
Just this week the two big questions I had for myself were, should I limit my time spent on a small number of social media sites, and; is it time to produce videos for YouTube?
My numbers are small at the moment, but with some research and the thoughts from your article I’ve narrowed down what’s most important. My blog focuses on healthy eating made from scratch, daily fitness and well-being. Food is visual so making videos as well as posts are my key contact strategy at the moment. Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter seem to be the best place for my niche. I see Instagram is really big for food but my thought is that one would get a lot of use on Instagram but not necessarily traffic.
Thanks again for the great article, I’ve subscribed so I’m looking forward to reading your free e-book and forthcoming articles.
Hi Darren,
I’m glad to hear my article helped you focus. I suggest as you continue refining your market and work on traffic building you ask one more question on top of where the good traffic is – ask yourself what traffic is more likely to generate an income for you?
The answer to that depends on your business model of course – advertising, affiliate income, selling product or services, coaching or consulting, etc. You might not know exactly where the profitable audience is, but remember sometimes the smaller traffic sources are more lucrative – it’s not size that matters, it’s quality.
You can do a lot with a very small loyal group of buyers. My other articles in this series will help cement the ideas.
Yaro
Thanks, Yaro! You’ve hit the nail on the head. Looking forward to the rest of the article series.
Welcome back Yaro!
Yeeeeeee hah, you’re back in the saddle and riding hard. I kind of tuned out shortly after your writer outsourcing experiment a few years ago.
I wonder if it was your L.O.A meditations that brought me back or the fact that you recovered from the loss that you not so recently suffered. It looks like you re-focused on that which originally brought you success.
It’s also interesting to see your students Pat and Mitch debate with you, the teacher. To me it simply proves what you stated earlier. Figure out what works for you and leverage it as far as it goes, then diversify.
2 for 2 now Yaro, keep it up. Do you think meditating on the Blue Jays will bring them a World Series? Is it time to update the graphics on Blog Traffic King and re-launch?
Wishing you the best, buddy.
Haha, Dennis if you remember the blog traffic king then you have been reading my work for too long!
I’ve been away from Toronto for far too long to know where the Blue Jays sit. I still think of Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar Jr and Paul Molitor and that era, which by the sounds of things was the golden years of a time long ago.
Yaro
Yaro,
Can you share with us exactly what is your blog traffic numbers and how is it divided in detail?
thx
Hey Sam,
My traffic numbers have doubled in the last two months, but they also halved in the last two years, so I’m basically back to where I was (that’s another story!).
Here’s a quick screenshot of referral sources for the last month – Yaro’s Blog Traffic Sources
As you can see 70% of my 3,000 to 5,000 daily visitors (about 100,000+ a month) to this blog is from Google search although it’s gone as low as 60%), with direct coming next (which a good chunk is from my email newsletter), referrals and social media next, but a very small percentage.
However those numbers are not the important metrics. The important data to know is how many buyers you have, how much they spend and where do they come from. If you can track the entire marketing funnel and put a number to it, that’s what matters.
It’s nice to know I have several thousand daily visitors and 40 to 150 sign up to my newsletters each day, but frankly those are vanity metrics. I’ve been too caught up with vanity metrics like this over the years, which is why now I’m focusing more on conversion and ROI and a much better tracking system.
I switched everything over to Ontraport last year and have finally set up the tracking tools to learn a lot more about my audience. There is so much the system can do, learning and implementing it is a job in itself.
If you have any specific questions about this I’m happy to answer.
Yaro
Hi Yaro,
Thanks for the response! It’s interesting b/c I pay hardly any attention to my subscriber count, partially b/c I don’t even remember my Aweber PW haha. I need to write an updated quarterly newsletter.
I feel I’ve been totally remiss in getting people to sign up. The only thing I have is a book to sell on how to negotiate a severance package (How To Engineer Your Layoff: Make A Small Fortune By Saying Goodbye) to give people a runway to be an entrepreneur, travel the world, or find some other job.
I’ve got about 500K pageviews a month to FS, but feel at a loss as to trying to get people to sign up for a newsletter I don’t even regularly write to sell something they can see from my homepage no? Or I’m I doing this backwards? Most of my income is from affiliate income, which is generated from Google Search visitors.
Cheers,
Sam
Hi Sam,
500K pageviews a month is a big number, I hope you are making a good income from that.
If you are not earning from affiliate and advertising income with those kinds of numbers, then it’s definitely worth focusing some effort on selling a product or service of your own and building a marketing funnel behind it.
Read the other articles in my traffic series for details on what I mean.
Yaro
The income is a pretty healthy number. I’m just wonder if there is an “optimal revenue number” for a set number of page views.
For example, with 500K pageviews a month, what do you think one should be earning a month? A range would fun to know.
I’ll check out your other work for sure.
Hello Yaro, What great advice !! I to believe we need to master one thing and do it well, We cannot be everywhere and doing everything. Chances are you will actually end up doing nothing!
I used to be a great muti tasker, but this just does not work her on the internet. you need to stay focused on the task at hand. I have found that when I use a timer it actually pushes me to get things done and when it goes off Bingo.
Next task..
I do agree we need to test out different traffic techniques and once you find the one that works for you go all in.
Looking forward to part 2 Chery :))
P.S. I did end up on your blog today Via Kingged where I also commented and kingged this post..
Hi Yaro,
That was a though provoking article. I must agree with things you shared in the post. One must not get lost, trying to be active everywhere. Instead, one must first go for a thorough analysis.
One must analyze that what works best for profits, sales etc. Is it building and maintaining a mail list? Is it content marketing? One should ask series of such questions and come to a conclusion based on the answers.
I stubled upon this post thanks to Kingged. I’m going to Kingg this awesome post there! 🙂
Arun
Hi Yaro,
I am so happy you said what I have been thinking: it’s hard to be everywhere when we are new.
I liked it when you said: “Your personal situation also dictates whether this is the right path. Are you still working a full time job? If so, it’s very hard to “be everywhere” – it’s hard enough just to maintain a blog, let alone everything else.”
I like blogging. I really like technology; to me it is fun. I like learning. BUT . . . a website is time consuming. And I learned that if I wanted to stay with the website, I had to “get out there” and develop relationships or I was going to be the only one reading my posts. And developing relationships is also time consuming. So many pieces of blogging are time consuming.
I agree with Yaro, it is impossible to be everywhere when we are starting out. There is so much learning involved that things take longer at the beginning.
I like this post. I am happy you put things in to perspective.
Barb
P.S. I read this on kingged.com
Yaro, I’ve been one of those, who was everywhere. Though my everywhere is a limited version of what you literally mean by “everywhere”, which includes doing podcasts, videos, ebooks, among other things. Actually, I don’t deserve a place here to tell my story because I’m not an Internet marketer, I don’t make a significant earning from my blog, and I’m not one of those great bloggers. But my being everywhere was to be on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and importantly commenting on blogs of other bloggers, and most of the times, being the first one to do that.
What did I gain by doing that – traffic, getting recognized and being a face in the crowd, getting popular as a social media enthusiast, and earning authority on commenting. I built a strong community and big following by being everywhere.
What did I lose – I lost on my writing jobs, which I did as a freelance writer as I had to devote more time to social media promotion and blog commenting, I lost on my health as I was always working online, I lost my valuable time that I could’ve used to make money.
So, was this a good bargain in the end. I’d say it helped me to rise and be known, so it is okay to try to be everywhere initially, but then one should change the strategy after getting to a comfortable zone. I had to do lot of hard work. I agree with you that you need to be smart and be selective in your choice of promotional media and make your approach more focused and targeted.
The greatest problem for me was the lack of time resources, and trying to create time for my “being everywhere”, I had to eat up my time resources allotted for my “earning” work, health, and family time. Though I did manage my time efficiently, but being everywhere was hard on life.
What I have been doing could not be done by a person in working in a full time job. And, I’d suggest that they should not even try to “be everywhere” because they’d make their lives miserable.
I never started blogging to be popular or to earn money, but when you say “why bother trying to be everywhere if you don’t have a mechanism to profit form it”, it makes sense. But now that I’ve built a strong base, I can work for monetization now.
I actually never tried to know which audience or channels can make me money, so I guess I’ve not been successful if that is the criteria. But I was successful enough to build a community, create following, and make a name by being everywhere. I read your discussion with Pat, and I don’t think Pat was wrong anywhere with his approach because it worked for him.
However now, I can afford to dominate at just “one place”. I think one platform that took me off was “blog commenting”. This is something I did differently from others.
I really look forward to the other posts in your blog traffic fundamental series. Thanks.
~ Harleena
Great Article. it’s Really Enjoyable Post. Thank you very much for Sharing with us.
Yaro, thank you for this refreshing read (and let’s thank Pat for sharing it, I’d never have found it otherwise!) Aside from your perspective, I enjoyed going through all the comments, too. It helps me see where I fall on the spectrum between nowhere and on my way to everywhere. I’m poised on the verge of “I need to ride my growing wave” yet being reminded that’s it’s not time for me to do so much quite yet. You’ve raised so many good points that apply to my scenario, including earning good income from smaller numbers. And for sure, I get the best results when I am maximizing my best personal assets and working according to my interests.
You remind me, there is a lot to be said for the “flow” in workflow… it happens when you aren’t struggling or stressing. It’s why I offer the help I do to others, and why I have made that kind of relief clear in my brand voice. I mean it, and I know it will create faster success (and peace) for entrepreneurs if they don’t mess with things that I can do for them so much quicker, easier and more successfully.
Now, I need to keep remembering to apply this same care and keeping to my own business efforts. There’s nothing better I can do than write and communicate with my peers. It’s how I share authentic support and the voice of experience. That’s my gift–but still it’s so tempting to want to figure out Google+, build Twitter following and podcast and… wait, it’s not even tempting. I don’t really *want* to podcast. But I guess I might. One day.
Thanks again!
Excellent article and well timed for me personally.
I’m going through some courses right now and they have quite the conflicting view internally within the student body, much less the methods expressed over the courses themselves.
Suffice to say, it is a bit confusing.
I will make sure to take this to heart and lay out some steps and goals I can use to measure my success in this one area. Thanks for reminding me I can and should do that. I appreciate it!
Yaro this article was like a breath of fresh air to me. I have to be honest I was starting to feel really overwhelmed with trying to be everywhere and when vine hit I was at my tipping point. I was thinking that I CANNOT handle any more social media platforms and determined in myself that I was just going to focus on the ones I liked. Facebook, twitter, Youtube and pinterest are the best for me. I keep instagram because I enjoy it. I have been blogging since 2009 but I still feel like a beginner when it comes to trying to profit from my blog. I honestly didn’t know if I could profit from my blog until I came across your work. I purchased your recent e-book and hope to reach 1,000 views a day by the end of this year. I really appreciate your work and how simply you break things down.
My only question would be to the person starting out on social media. How would they find out which platform works for them if they didn’t try all of them? Is there a method they could start with or questions they could ask themselves? My blog is a lifestyle blog so I know that Pinterest is the best way to find my target audience. Twitter took a while for me to catch on to. Facebook seemed to be the most natural for me. Youtube is enjoyable because I love visual story telling and hope to make movies one day. Well maybe I’ve answered my own question but others thoughts are welcomed!
Hi Dija,
I’m pleased to hear this article resonated with you and hopefully made you feel a little less stressed about the whole process.
To answer your question about social media – The way I would go about it is to pick only one platform to focus on and clearly define my success criteria. Since all the social platforms require quite a bit of content and active participation, you really should do this sequentially. Test one then if it is not giving you indications of success, or it’s too slow, stop and try another. Definitely do not try and be proactive on all of them at once – that will just end up diluting your efforts so you won’t be able to conclude which is working.
I would pick the one you like the most or that leverages a strength you have the most.
Bear in mind a lot of this ties back into what market you are in and what your model is for making money. If you really want to know which social platform is delivering results, the important question to ask is which leads to actual return on investment. Just because you get lots of likes or shares or video views does not mean you are actually making sales, hence you need a mechanism to track back ROI from each platform.
Yaro
Thanks Yaro, this is one of the great posts I’ve read on this platform. VERY insightful and helpful.
Hey, Yaro,
the link to the eGuide does not work…?
Can you please check…
Cheers
Sigrid
My host for my membership areas including the e-guide, Hostgator, has been down all day unfortunately Sigrid. They are of course working to fix it but I don’t know when it will be back up. They host millions of websites so it’s definitely a priority for them!
Try again later today or tomorrow and it should work.
Wow what a great post! I was half expecting this to be one of those very long ones that you write from time to time but this was an easy read and ha put my mind at rest!
I admit I suffer a lot from indecision and I do procrastinate all the time but I am getting better! I have been blogging this time round now for a little under a year but I find it very hard to build that audience as I am always hopping from one tab to another especially when there are ten open in chrome!
You see my problem is I start something then some other thought pops up and I leave that one thing to start the other! I cannot imagine how many hours I have lost starting one thing like commenting or writing a post and never completing it!
What do you think about using tools like Hootsuite or Market Me Suite to automate the process of being ‘Everywhere?’. One thing that I love is to use twitterfeed to promote others blog posts when they get published with my custom url and @mentioning them! seems to me a great way to build a following hey!
Anyway an awesome and inspiring post dude I loved it!
– PD
Hello Phillip,
I think Hootsuite and similar services are great tools, but that’s all they are. They might help you post content you create everywhere, but they don’t magically create an engaged audience on every platform.
Engagement requires a lot of work interacting with people and building followings on each platform. Unfortunately there is no tool that can do this for you, besides another human being of course.
Thanks for your comment and I’m glad to hear you made it all the way to the end of my article 🙂
Yaro
Blogging, like most activities in life is just plate spinning.
To get it started takes all your concentration. The 1st few spins are the most precarious, but once you get it going you can move onto the next plate.
Your writing is always so concise. I admire the way you can pack so much information, so persuasively into a few short sentences. Thank you.
-YM
Yes, Yaro – this is exactly what I needed to hear right now. It’s like, from a logical standpoint and being a marketer I know this already, but it can be hard to step back and really evaluate these principles in terms of your own business – especially when you feel like you absolutely CAN rule all the different channels.
This is especially difficult to overcome when you are early in the entrepreneurial journey. We feel like we want to do it all, be everywhere, get traffic from every single possible potential stream and instead of really owning one, we end up doing a little bit of everything and not really OWNING anything, just playing around with everything. Not only can this prove to be straining and overwhelming to manage for a new entrepreneur, it is also just not realistic to do, especially in the beginning.
I also love that you get most of your traffic from organic sources – content marketing at its finest and I absolutely know what you mean here. This is part of what I do and there’s no better way to get traffic than put out valuable content first with the idea of content marketing AND providing great value to the readers.
Glad I found your website. Subscribed.
Good to see you here Kamila, and I am glad my article resonated with you.
Yaro
Yep, Yaro is still the man- when it comes to blogging. He was the first resource I ever encountered about blogging, and still the best.
Yaro, I can’t thank you enough for your email course. I miss it now that it’s over! This part in particular inspired me to blog about the things I learned from you. I’d love to share it with you if you’re interested but I know you’re a busy dude! Either way, thanks so much. I made sure to subscribe so I’ll be back for more!
I’m so glad you went through the entire course Brittany! I only just finished putting it together and think it’s very timely for how the internet works today.
Thanks for your participation!
Yaro
I understand that your best source of traffic is your blog, cos it’s what you’re best at; however, what that really means, to do well in organic searches, it means you are ranking in google for keywords, or no-one would see the content. So that means, what you’re also best at, is ranking for keywords! Can you please say something about how you do keyword research, what tools you use, and who you use to do it? This is a super frustrating area, for me. Thanks! 🙂
Hi Michelle,
I never do keyword research, and thus never use any tools for it either. I write valuable content, share it with my audience and let them share it for me if they believe it is worth while.
If you don’t have an audience yet, don’t worry about keywords, worry about marketing. Go out there and get yourself published online so other people can discover you. If you do this and produce valuable content, the search traffic will take care of itself.
Yaro
This is valid point to , but do you think it will be more powerful if you will combine keyword research and building a vlauable content around that keywords
Keyword research doesn’t hurt, that is for sure, especially if you enjoy looking at data like that.
Yaro
You know Yaro, I really appreciate this post. I am in the planning stages of creating a blog and the number of hours I can devote weekly to it is limited. Popular thinking states that blogging has to pretty much consume your life in order to make a living from it. I had already started ignoring those who stated to write and post content daily.
Anyway, how this post helped me is (1) it’s coming from a man who is an expert in blogging for income, (2) I don’t want to be all over the place so I appreciate that it is smarter not to, and (3) I want to enjoy the process, not be stressed and you have shown me how, and (4) I love the idea of working on one thing at a time. I appreciate your social media and outsourcing advice as well.
I love this post. Thank you so much for writing it. This advice I will follow. This works for me!
Happy to help Diane – you have had exactly the reaction I want people to have after reading this article.
Now go out there and master one technique!
Yaro
Yaro … Yet another fantastic article by you !
I (a woman!) whole heartedly agree with your comments on sequential versus concurrent working. While us women might be more capable of multi tasking than men for whatever reason I have also observed in myself and female entrepreneurs I coach that is the a bit of the ‘Wonder Woman’ complex at play and leads us into overwhelm, burnout & resentment.
We try to convince ourselves that just because we can feed a baby, whip up the kids lunch boxes &vacuum the living room all at once that that is the way we should approach a business too. The reality is that mastery in business requires focus and a calm & strategic approach to each step of the journey.
Running around trying to do 10 different things at once usually leads to (in my experience anyway) chaotic & sub optimal results …… And a cranky self loathing to match !
Hi Yaro,
It’s my first time to your website and I discovered you through Ryan Biddulph and Adrinne Smith.
There were a number of things in your article that struck me as so true. I’ve been an online entrepreneur and owned a high end web design and development company, online community website, online newspaper and much more.
In the beginning ten years ago we didn’t have all these things so over the years I’ve blessed to continually build my presence and add new strategies to reach my targeted audiences. But even that has limitations. At some point you have to decide where your going to settle on your engagement activity that brings in money and where you may post with limited or no engagement. You covered that really well!!!
The key to all successful interactions in my opinion starts with knowing what business you’re really in, what problems you “really” solve (ie from the prospects perspective not yours), who you specifically solve them for and how your products and services are part of the solutions.
From that you can create specific strategies with specific and measurable goals, and objectives or tasks.
You have to create the guide map or else you’ll be everywhere, talking to everyone and in turn reaching no one.
But the problem is people are not trained how to do this. Business owners in particular are fortunate if they are competent enough to do a job within their own company let alone learn how to give it the leadership it needs to grow and thrive. There has to be those of us out there that have been there and done that to help them.
Your key to success as you stated is the longevity of learning. It’s inspiring to learn that there is someone out there encouraging people to stop the nonsense and just think! You don’t have to reach the world, just the few people who have a need and you’re there to tell them you can help them. If we really got all we say we want we would get buried and end up out of business. So target, attract, and find the right people to engage with is the only strategy I’m comfortable with… not the reach everyone, everywhere strategy that doesn’t work.
Yaro, I’m delighted to have learned about you and I look forward to sharing you with my audience. I do a weekly summary of articles I read for my audience called Saturday Rewind and this article is definitely making the list this weekend.
I look forward to reading more from you and learning from your experiences!!!!
I hope you have an amazing week!
~ Don Purdum
Hello Don,
Great to hear from you! I am glad to see that this article resonated with you and I appreciate you sharing it with your audience.
The Internet is so big and we can be in so many places that I believe it is important to understand what our true business objectives are – to service our customers and make a profit doing so. It’s nice to reach a lot of people, but it’s more important to have a business that works!
Thank you for stopping by!
Yaro
Thank goodness for this, which I found via Adrienne 🙂
I’ve always thought of myself as a multi-tasker but I have to confess it’s not worked in my blogging ventures.
It’s a relief that you and Adrienne have “given me permission” to stop running myself ragged.
And for independent confirmation, I looked at my Google Analytics!
Look forward to reading more.
Joy
People often tell you to focus on a niche but I rarely saw anyone write about focusing on one plateform.
Now that I think about it we see great traction from Linkedin and Slideshare for our business but we still focus on all the other plateforms, taking time away from those 2 that seem to work best.
I think the problem is they don’t work as well as I’d hope so instead of focusing on growing an audience there, I keep looking for this miracle plateform that will work for us better than any others.
Definitely going to change my approach.
Hi!
Great post. The link to the traffic guide is not working. Please check.
Reiny
Hello Yaro,
Thanks for this priceless information. you are easily one of the greatest bloggers out there. Keep doing what you do and inspiring others like me.
Thanks and God bless
This is pure gold, thank you Yaro! Every bit of your post makes complete sense and yet we are so bound to think we SHOULD BE doing everything… Great insight!
Yaro … I enjoy reading your posts. You truly do have a gift for writing quality content. This post may be controversial to some but it resonated completely with me. Porbably because I have been in the sales field for so many years and I already knew that concentration of one’s effort into one lead generation technique produced the vast amount of leads at any given time.
I already know you have great skill in regards to content marketing. I am still learning. Writing copy doesn’t come easy for me. I can invest hours writing a first draft and by the time I have rewqorked and published I may have invested up to two days, even more.
I have a couple questions for you and hopefully you’ll answer.
You have a 3 part series (this particular series) with this post being the first part. So my questions are:
1. – How long did it take you to write this post?
2. – How long to write the series?
3. Was this al brand new, original content or did you take some here and there from other content previously written?
4. – IF you had to start over what platform (I’m guessing simply writing content since that is what you excell at) would you choose as your main focus of traffic?
Ok, thanks. I appreciate your time. I follow you on Twitter so I’ll probably be back again when I see a post I need to read 🙂
I have a little problem with “where to begin.” In essence, it should be “finding out what works for you,” but how do I start finding out what works and what doesn’t? A new blog with few posts may not be the thing search engines look for and neither does such a Facebook page make sense. So, my problem is, where and how do I begin to begin?
The process is simple. Pick a strength you have (writing, video, audio, speaking on stage, making connections, etc) or a platform you like (guest posts, youtube, instagram, pinterest, facebook groups, slideshare, joint ventures, etc) then run a test.
If the test shows signs of positive growth, keep doing it. If nothing happens at all after testing for a month or two, stop and try something else.
Yaro
I totally agree. I’ve said this for years while countering all those other folks who believe that everyone should have an account everywhere, even if the only reason is to protect their names in case someone else shows up with the same name. No one can be everywhere all the time, and I learned that early on after I was signing up for every site even while realizing I was never going back to most of them.
Awesome Post Yaro, rightly put, we should not try to be everywhere as its humanly not possible, to start I feel facebook, twitter should be the first ones to start with and then add of if one can handle.