Scale 1 year old website, or split work with a new website?

irishchap

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Hi all, im caught in a dilemma here about what I should do.

I have an amazon affiliate website that is generating around 300-400$ a month after a year. I worked on it the first few months and then just let it sit up until recently. The monthly revenue from the website was from only 30 articles. Although, i've started pumping out more articles recently and plan to do so from here on in.

Here is how the stats are looking for organic traffic thus far:

analytics.png


So as you can see, it's been growing pretty steadily, albeit with a few hiccups along the way such as the May update and then an SSL issue earlier last month. But overall some nice growth for a website with not that much content on it.

For this website, it is quite easy to find keywords to rank for and I feel confident enough to rank high with most of my articles. These are mainly product reviews and best of keywords though, finding informational based keywords is something I struggle with.

Anyway, I'm struggling to see what's the best option now on whether I should really focus down on this website and pump out a lot of content, or to start a new website and split the work between both? Here are the options I've come up with:

Option A: Focus down on my current website with lots of new content.
Option B: Start a new website, pump 10-15 articles into it, and let it sit to get out of the sandbox.
Option C: Start a new website and split work 50/50 between the two.

This is all pretty new to me as this is the only website I've built before so I would love to hear some of the more experienced users' thoughts. Thanks a million.
 
The issue with having multiple sites is the temptation to go work on something more exciting, when you hit some of the boring stuff on one site.

If you do create a new site, I would choose a niche and an angle, that makes you learn and grow. Don't try to replicate what you're doing now, because $400 is not at all enough to prove this method works for real. When you run more sites, attention to detail and quality goes down, you need to have your method down, so that quality doesn't drop too much.

What you can do is create a secondary site that is a hobby topic or something like that or you can create a second site that is more based on coding or graphics or virality or whatever. Experiment and learn.
 
irishchap said:
Option A: Focus down on my current website with lots of new content.
Option B: Start a new website, pump 10-15 articles into it, and let it sit to get out of the sandbox.
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Why not do both Option A and Option B? At the end of the day, you'll need to wait a while for your new website to get out of the sandbox after publishing the initial articles. So, during the waiting period, you might as well continue working on your existing website.

The last thing you want to do is split work 50/50 between two websites when all your existing website needed to get to the $800 a month mark (for example) in a few months was some more content.
 
DanielS said:
Why not do both Option A and Option B? At the end of the day, you'll need to wait a while for your new website to get out of the sandbox after publishing the initial articles. So, during the waiting period, you might as well continue working on your existing website.

The last thing you want to do is split work 50/50 between two websites when all your existing website needed to get to the $800 a month mark (for example) in a few months was some more content.
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bernard said:
The issue with having multiple sites is the temptation to go work on something more exciting, when you hit some of the boring stuff on one site.

If you do create a new site, I would choose a niche and an angle, that makes you learn and grow. Don't try to replicate what you're doing now, because $400 is not at all enough to prove this method works for real. When you run more sites, attention to detail and quality goes down, you need to have your method down, so that quality doesn't drop too much.

What you can do is create a secondary site that is a hobby topic or something like that or you can create a second site that is more based on coding or graphics or virality or whatever. Experiment and learn.
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Appreciate the responses, thanks a million.

So if I am to scale site A, is just adding more content the best way to go about it?
 
This is a common dilemma and a legitimate one. On one hand you have a concept that's proven to some degree. $400 per month is a lot more than 95% of internet marketers ever make.

Regarding SEO, you can see that Google at least has a positive opinion of the site, which is a huge hidden benefit. Knowing that Google has given a stamp of approval can help you be a lot more confident in going balls to the wall. The risk is lower than starting a new site and not knowing how the Gorg-Mind will respond.

But on the other hand, you never know what other opportunities are out there. You may think you're on top of the world with $400 a month from 30 articles, but something else may be $4,000 from 30 articles, or even $40,000. You won't find these SEO opportunities (or ones outside of but including SEO) if you don't cast a wide net.

But that again is another problem. You have to cast a wide net to catch the special fish. You may start 5 more sites and they're all duds compared to your original. That has an "opportunity cost" built in: time and money that could have been spent on the "sure thing". Maybe you build 5 sites and 1 of them absolutely crushes it. You lost time on 4 to discover the 5th that changes your life forever.

You may not be in the position to go hunting for diamonds in the coal mine. That costs time and money. If this is your first or an early rodeo, I recommend doubling and tripling down on what's working. Once you have a lot more cash flow you can worry about additional sites. Going after those now is what we like to call self-sabotage.

irishchap said:
So if I am to scale site A, is just adding more content the best way to go about it?
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Content and links.
 
Ryuzaki said:
This is a common dilemma and a legitimate one. On one hand you have a concept that's proven to some degree. $400 per month is a lot more than 95% of internet marketers ever make.

Regarding SEO, you can see that Google at least has a positive opinion of the site, which is a huge hidden benefit. Knowing that Google has given a stamp of approval can help you be a lot more confident in going balls to the wall. The risk is lower than starting a new site and not knowing how the Gorg-Mind will respond.

But on the other hand, you never know what other opportunities are out there. You may think you're on top of the world with $400 a month from 30 articles, but something else may be $4,000 from 30 articles, or even $40,000. You won't find these SEO opportunities (or ones outside of but including SEO) if you don't cast a wide net.

But that again is another problem. You have to cast a wide net to catch the special fish. You may start 5 more sites and they're all duds compared to your original. That has an "opportunity cost" built in: time and money that could have been spent on the "sure thing". Maybe you build 5 sites and 1 of them absolutely crushes it. You lost time on 4 to discover the 5th that changes your life forever.

You may not be in the position to go hunting for diamonds in the coal mine. That costs time and money. If this is your first or an early rodeo, I recommend doubling and tripling down on what's working. Once you have a lot more cash flow you can worry about additional sites. Going after those now is what we like to call self-sabotage.


Content and links.
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Really appreciate all of that, that certainly helps me put it into perspective.

I think I can get this site into the $x,xxx a month revenue, I have a spreadsheet full of keywords that have low competition. The only thing thats holding me back right now is money to pump out the articles, but I can do around $500 a month which with my current writer is about 30k words.

For now, im going to follow your advice and just go hell for leather with this site. It will give me more time to learn too. You say links are a great way to scale, is there a guide that you can personally recommend on getting relevant links? It's something I struggle with as a beginner.

Thanks again.
 
I love how Ryuzaki thinks on topics like this and would trust his words.

He's overstated, the exact points I would think but just giving a layman's version for me. And he'd actually play it safer, than I would, which could be the better way.... but you never know.

$400 a month isn't where I'd see my 'fishing potential' to be at. If it's stuck at $400, though there's a risk, i'd likely re-cast the net and try for something bigger. At worst, you can hire and/or train a writer to help you produce content of quality for a piece of the $400; while testing.

This way you learn delegation and scaling at the same time. These two things will be invaluable over time.

However, this is ONLY if i'm stuck and not motivated to try other resources I have to grow.
 
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You have established a proof of concept with your first 30 articles. Google likes your site. Grow it more.

Scale this site into $X,XXX monthly profits, sell it, and then start a few additional sites.

You're doing great. Don't fuck it up by spreading yourself too thin. Ride your winner.
 
Focus on growing for sure. I was in your shoes, convinced myself to start a new site in a more exciting niche and neglected a site making £x,xxx a month. Now that site is down to £xxx a month and the new site isnt near what the original was making. Live and learn
Keep us updated of how its going
 
I guess I can weigh in here since we share a similar position.

I started my site 6 months ago and was sold on the idea of diversifying once I hit some arbitrary figure of 1000 dollars. However, considering how fast my site grew, I decided against spreading myself too thin and doubled down on what worked. I could not have made a better decision than that.

If you have a site that gets good traffic and earnings from a relatively small number of articles, then it means that you are in great niche. It also means that you have enough “trust” with google. Capitalize on it. You are closer to making 5000 dollars a month with this site than you might think.
 
Appreciate the responses. I've taken on all of your advice and I am going to triple down on my main website. Im really excited to see where this can go now. Hopefully i'll be posting back here in 6 months time saying i've crossed the $1,000 mark!
 
I would still recommend just getting the second site up with at least some content, if you do plan on going that route, because of the time it takes to gain trust.

Get the 5-10 pillar post pages up along with an About Us page.
 
bernard said:
I would still recommend just getting the second site up with at least some content, if you do plan on going that route, because of the time it takes to gain trust.

Get the 5-10 pillar post pages up along with an About Us page.
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Thats a good idea actually, I think I'll do that.
 
bernard said:
Don't do any reviews, just put up 1000-2000 words with pure info content.
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I just got finished writing up around 10 article templates for pure info based content. Will outsource most of it but I'll help out with it. Appreciate your input, this one is a smaller niche than my current site but there not much competition at all.
 
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