How Many Earning Sites Do You Operate?

[Samwise89]

How many of you are still operating under the MFA style of making a lot of EMD sites? Or are you working on one or two authority sites or ecommerce sites? Membership sites?

Of these, what percentage of your total profit is each earning?

I have 3 sites. Two make pennies that need to be ranked still (Adsense sites) and my main site is earning 99.9% of my profit.

 

[rothschild]

100% focused on 1 site - I'm doing this on the side so if I split my already limited time I'd get nowhere.

 

[RomesFall]

I have a few sites, but only one of them is making regular $.

My story is similar to yours really @Samwise89 I'd say it's responsible for 99.9% of the income.

Interestingly I don't hate the high-volume MFA site model, it's just that it really doesn't work like it used to... With the focus shifting to authority sites, the lower quality MFA sites just don't stand a chance really. Even if the MFA sites can outrank them, it's still not the same.

As for focusing on one authority type site, that really comes down to the same thing... The quality specifications are in another world. It's not like the difference in content is a 10% improvement, it's more like the content has improved by entire leagues.

In my current niche I'm very lucky in the sense that I have first-mover advantage, to be clear I'm not saying I have 0 competition as I'd take that as a very bad sign usually, just that the competitors there are fit that MFA model or are just hobbyists who don't know what they're doing.

Since there's very few (quantity) and low quality competitors in my niche I can't outsource my content, having tried, the articles just weren't good enough to fit that authority site model. So it takes up a lot of time as @rothschild says, there's not really any way you can split your time on these kind of sites. Usually you'll find varying reasons for that to my own.

That being said I think given enough time, these kind of sites do get lass hands-on, but that's why you've got to pay special attention to automation as well, whether it's hiring a VA or outsourcing content where you can.

That's got to be mandatory really, otherwise you'll be stuck working on one site forever, and informational sites in particular are at the mercy of so many external factors. One thing I'm doing right now is using my spare time to up my dev game because I think the informational site model is as crowded as ever and that there's little hope of running more than 2-3 of these sites at once. Just look at AuthorityHacker, there's Mark and Gael there, 2 guys with good resources available and they can only manage 2-3 sites including their AH blog.

So yeah I've digressed a little, but I think a conversation about this entire subject has been too long coming on BuSo.

 

[animalstyle]

@RomesFall great post, really helped me understand the landscape of what the hell is going on these days a bit better.

I'm reaching that later end point where my site is a bit more hands off, and starting to think about how I can outsource/hire. It's not an easy place to be when the quality level I've created is high due to my unique level of knowledge on the subject.

 

[RomesFall]

@RomesFall great post, really helped me understand the landscape of what the hell is going on these days a bit better.

I'm reaching that later end point where my site is a bit more hands off, and starting to think about how I can outsource/hire. It's not an easy place to be when the quality level I've created is high due to my unique level of knowledge on the subject.

I feel you, it's a difficult decision to make... More time for other activities versus lowering the quality of the content.

I'm starting to think that taking on the role of editor, adding and amending areas, is probably the only viable middle ground!

 

[c4yrslf12]

I'm starting to think that taking on the role of editor, adding and amending areas, is probably the only viable middle ground!

In my opinion, this is one of the best ways to scale an informational site. A team of writers (who can write 80-90% as well as me) free up my time so I can spend my time editing quickly, then marketing the heck out of it.

Also, if you can, consider hiring a person who is knowledgeable to simply go through your existing content and update it regularly... adding content, editing old information, updating new facts/figures/pricing, etc. This type of 'refresh' is a significant, positive signal to send.

It all goes back to working your strengths, and outsourcing (delegating) as much else where you see fit.

 

[dresden]

I'm one of the 30+ votes. The number is probably closer to 200 or so if we count active revenue in past 30 days. I've got sites laying around from all the way back to 2002. Couple insanely big balls when it comes to scaling up domain outlay and extreme laziness and you've got a nice collection of old crusties that didn't get whacked by Goog.

Even so, bing is a kind god and a lot of my penguin 1.0 slapped sites are still destroying bing.

It's funny - the shit I actually care about and work hard on (custom SaaS projects, etc) are mostly a crapshoot, I fail at 90% of them at least. It's pretty hard to fail with a $10 domain, $500 in decent content, a handful of links and 3 years of laziness. Makes me want to re-evaluate my roadmap.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I'm at 3 websites. One is an authoritiy info site, one is a community site, and one is a lead-gen site.

Once upon a time I was over 200+ domains. What a nightmare.

I do have some wishes, like @dresden mentions, of having not sold off or gotten rid of various small and medium sites that were earning money. Building a wide net of various income sources would be fun, but then there's the temptation to salvage them if something happens, etc. I'm happy where I'm at, ultimately, with my small set. More focus and bigger goals!

 

[Future State]

I didn't even think about keeping Penguinized sites around for Bing. I let a lot of sites expire or rage deleted their databases when they were slapped in bulk. Could have just fired even more spam at them and let Bing eat it up. Waaay too late for that. But then again, I can't imagine trying to play Bing SEO after winning in Google. I'm sure the earnings pale in comparison.

 

[Greyhat]

1 site that is making most of my online income and one that is a WIP but turning a profit and scaleable. I still sell myself 3 days a week doing dev / IM which pays my rent and gives me a steady wage. So 2 days and evenings / weekends I have to build my empire.

I read somewhere that the average millionaire has 9 sources of income. That is my goal. I'm not a n00b i've done different stuff. My joining this forum is part of my drive to take myself to the next level completely away from clients etc. If I play my cards right i'll be on 3 sources by the end of the year moving on to 4 in Jan / Feb at which point I will lose a day of the paid work to spend more time on this. Most of that is already planned out and some work is done towards it with one of the next projects already making a bit.

I have learned to not keep all of my eggs in one basket. Anything can happen.This is even more true with IM and the fast pace at which it moves. I had a site go from £30K in a month / to to £4K the next month and lost a business with premises / staff all because Facebook changed something in the AD platform. It's hard staying focused with different balls in the air but I think it's a safer bet and I play safe for the long term.

 

[coopreme]

I used to run 8-12 at a time... never again.

I've dumped old methods of juggling tons of sites and focusing on just one. The whole "there can only be one" thing helps me keep focus (considering i'm my own worst enemy).

 

[eliquid]

I think, but I could be wrong, the stat is the average millionaire has 7 sources of income.

No matter the number, don't read into that wrong which a lot of people do.

Most normal non-millionaire people read that number and think, gee wally willakers I need 7-10 businesses to be a millionaire, I'll plan out 10 businesses tonight and work on them all so I can be a millionaire! I am not saying you did or do, I am just throwing out a word of caution for everyone else that might read that.

The truth is, that person became a millionaire maybe from 2 ( more likely its really just 1 ) income source by running their own business in something like being a plumber or HVAC specialist. Some people got it in digital marketing, etc, but the point it they got their millions off 1 source that really isn't sexy at all.

Then once they got the million ( or at least on the path to their first million ) they pumped money into side things that aren't really a business like retirement. or investments This would include:

1. 401k - They were probably an employee at some point in their life and now its rolled over into something else.
   
2. Simple 401k - Their self-funded one
3. Real estate. Lets face it, at some point these people tend to get into RE no matter what with a second home or a vacation condo on their way to the top.
4. Dividends or Interest - A lot of millionaires ( if they disciplined ) have a lot of money in the bank or investment in some form like a passive index fund or something. They are going to get money off of it.

Right there you have 4 forms of income, not including whatever it is you do right now to make that million which would be your job/business.

Bam, 5 total right there.

They also don't tell you that not all 7 do good cash flow. In my example above the first 2 probably don't cash flow very well at all ( depending on age of course and the amount you have in them ). But if I am 65, I could count them as income sources even if my 401k from when I was a bagger at the grocery store only pays me $100 a month.

If I am also a certain age, I can count Social Security as an income source too. Now I could be up to 6 total sources. We both know SS isn't paying much.

That's the trick though. Not all of these income sources are "actively managed", not all of them cash flow well, and most of them were built up on the side while doing the main hustle over years of work.

I'm sure at some point this person could sell their "plumbing business" to their son or another person now that they are a millionaire and part of the deal is they get 15% of the business revenues for the rest of their life. This replaces one of their sources ( actively running a business ) and now that everything is passive, they go into retirement and probably start something else like being a consultant or starting another business which becomes their 7th income source.

Also not talked about, how many times they had to cycle in and cycle out these income sources over trail and error during the years. Not everything you touch and do turns out perfect, so how many income sources did I need to fail at before I got to the 3-5 I am at today that are producing me money over the long haul? I could have went through 10 before I found the 3-5 that actually make me money.

If you are not a millionaire yet, your best bet based off all the info I presented to you above is to stick to 1 income source and build up the others in a passive manner ( Investments, etc ) while focusing on just that one.

Once you have a million, or at least a lot of extra cash you can "waste" so to speak... all bets are off and you can prob try to start lots of other business ideas.

 

[eliquid]

BTW, as far as the topic goes....

I know I used to have more than 100 sites/domains at any one time between both GoDaddy and Namecheap.

I think total ever, I've had over 500 easily with all the sites I've built, ran, and planned to run and then let drop over the years.

These days I have less than 15 domains at any one time, and I really need to get that down to much less.

 

[Andrewkar]

Well I misunderstood the question, I though it's about any site, that is my own or my client's sites (management). If it's about JUST my own then I operate just one. But because I'm addicted a bit to searching for dropped domains, lately I could't help myself and I bought this domain that I'm planning to use for MFA site (just for adsense). It really is a great domain name (.com) and I consider myself very lucky, because it dropped just day before I bought it. Someone started it in 2002, then bought another one and then went out of business probably. In 2014 it was bought by another person who managed it till May this year, but gave up also. But this last person created FB profile that was getting some traction plus as I've just checked he created Twitter profile as well (and now I'm trying to take control over it..). I know I probably shouldn't do this, and instead focus on my mian site. But this MFA site is meant to be created, updated constantly and sold in about 12 months so it will become additional source of $ for my main site, hopefully. For this FMA site I want to outsource all the content, while for my own site I will be creating content myself and building brand, with serious long term goals.

Right now I have like maybe 10 domains in my Namecheap account left, and I know already that 8 of them is not going to be paid for the next year. It's good anyway (as for me), before I had like 30 and dreamed that each one will become one day a great business

It's good to look for new opportunities (domains in this case) even while hustling on main website. If it's good domain name it can be at least sold for some extra $, and if not it can be used to create a simple site just for flipping.

 

[Sisu]

I have a few sites, but only one of them is making regular $.

This is me right now. Of my 5 sites, 2 bring in 99%, and I'm having a devil of a time splitting attention between them, as well as with a third site that makes the remaining 1% but could grow to the size of the big 2 if I focused on it. I might end up dropping the 3 do-nothing sites to just focus on the big 2; I don't have the bandwidth to do more, and I know the ideal would be to just completely throw myself into one site.

 

[Future State]

as well as with a third site that makes the remaining 1% but could grow to the size of the big 2 if I focused on it.

Sounds like you should outsource most of the work for this 3rd site or bring in a partner to put in the rest of the work.

 

[Golan]

Few years ago it was so easy to slap a MFA and to forget about it. If there is some traffic - to put some bucks in the site content and promotion. At one point i had more than 100 MFA.