Writing for Your Wealth

If you spend much time in webmaster or make-money-online forums, you’ll inevitably see advice along the lines of…

“It’s easy to make $100 a day–just build one site that makes $1 a day and do that 100 times.”

While I understand the thinking behind this kind of advice (it makes the task sound less daunting, a la “a journey of 1,000 miles begins with one step”), it tends to make me wince. The simple truth is that it’s easier to build one site that earns $100 a day than 100 sites that earn $1 a day.

Since it would be a pretty short blog post if I stopped there, I’ll see if I can back up my statement with some of the reasons. Essentially, it’s all about…

Economies of Scale

Technically this is a term from the financial world, and I’ve heard it most often applied to real estate. Some people get started in real estate investing by buying single family homes, but the pros will tell you that, if you can afford it, it makes more sense to invest in multi-family homes.

If you have 100 rental houses, that means 100 yards to mow, 100 roofs to maintain, and 100 tenants to service all over the city. On the other hand, if you have one 100-unit apartment building, you have only one yard, only one roof, and all your tenants are in the same spot. It’s cheaper–more economical–and less time consuming to care for one large rental building than dozens of smaller ones.

The same things applies on the Internet.

Why it makes more sense to build up one big site than dozens of tiny ones

It’s not nearly as expensive to start websites as it is to buy rental properties, but if you’re doing it right, you are buying domain names for each site. At $10 per site, 100 sites adds up to $1000 a year.

That’s a lot more than what I pay for domain names and hosting expenses, and I make quite a bit more than $100 a day.

Aside from that $1,000 for domain name registration, those 100 sites will also need web hosting. Now, you’re probably not going to buy 100 separate hosting packages, but at the end of the day, even buying a reseller account or a package that lets you host multiple domains is usually more expensive than a single account.

Okay, you argue, what if you don’t buy domain names and you use free hosting? Reading my previous post on why it’s better to own a domain name and pay for hosting, may change your mind, but let’s say you’re ignoring my advice (I’m very hurt, by the way). Even if you’re not planning to spend money on hosting and domain names, there’s something else to consider:

Time.

A lot of what makes a large (and profitable) authority site is steady work applied over time.

Building links takes time

In order for a site to be found and to start receiving traffic from the search engines, it needs to have links pointing to it. Lots and lots of links.

In ye olden days, you could get enough links by submitting your site to directories such as Yahoo! and DMOZ, but we all know that won’t get you far today (even if you’re lucky enough to get those free links).

Not only do you need to have a quality site, but you need to spend time getting links from lots of other sites. This is true for whatever link-building method(s) you pursue, whether it be article marketing, social networking, blog commenting, forum posting, etc. etc. etc.

Now if you can devote your link-building time to one or two sites instead of spreading it across dozens of sites, it stands to reason that you’ll be able to get a lot more links pointing at individual sites.

More links to your site means your site has more authority (at least in the eyes of the search engine gods) and deserves to rank more highly in the search results. And, of course, a higher ranking means your site is more visible to searchers, and ultimately you’ll get more traffic.

On the flip side, a bunch of little sites, all with just a few links pointing to them, probably won’t get as much traffic. These little sites will probably never be seen as authorities by Google and other searcg engines, and chances are that even if they niche down deeply to target “long tail” keyword phrases, they’ll eventually be outranked by large, authority sites. (Just take a look at how often Wikipedia and Amazon outrank more focused sites, even though they may only have a single page on the topic.)

Links are not the only time-consuming exercise required to build up an authority site. Content is important too.

Building content over time

Another thing that takes time is content creation. If you’re spreading your daily writing hours across dozens of sites, or you’re only writing a certain number of articles per site and then moving on, none of your sites are going to grow large.

Large counts a lot in income potential though. The more pages in your website, the more doorways there are for people to come through to find you.

Also, it’s pretty widely accepted that the search engines favor frequently update sites.

Small sites, on the other hand, are constantly in danger of being surpassed by larger, more frequently updated sites. As more competition enters the market, it becomes harder and harder to do well with a set-it-and-forget-it mini site or blog.

Many eggs, one basket

When all is said and done, it’s more efficient to focus your energies on one site than 100. While there are those who will tell you to diversify, Andrew Carnegie said, “Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket.” (I don’t know about you, but I prefer to take advice on building wealth from people who have actually built wealth!)

You’ll get more opportunities to make money by growing one big site than having lots of little ones. That’s when you start getting noticed and when advertisers start approaching you to buy space on your site. That’s when you have the power to call the shots.

Do I practice what I preach?

I will admit that I myself have several sites (though for the last year, there has only been one I focused on and added content to on a daily basis). If I had stuck with the first site I built, I know without a doubt that I wouldn’t be making a living from my sites today. It just wasn’t that profitable of a topic.

I never tried to start 100 sites, but I did have 10 or 15 at one point. I’ve since sold one and have let others fall into a holding pattern. They still bring in some income, but I don’t focus much attention on them, because it makes more sense to spend my time on the proven winners.

Based on my experience, I usually advise people to start a handful of sites, because it’s hard to pick a winner on gut feel alone. After a few months, writing in different niches, you’ll usually find that one topic far outshines the others. It may be because that topic holds your interest better than the others, because it is more profitable than the others, or a mix of both.

That’s when you can decide if your other sites are worth pursuing or if you want to let them go so you can focus on one or two stars. In the end, though, you’ll probably go further with fewer sites.