Forum Moderators: phranque
I've been reading for some years this forum and its been of great help, I've shared what I can (the little I know) as some others have said it better and its been a fun journey. I began with a site, then another... now I have a few on my own.
At this time I'm finding it quite hard to expand my sites traffic. I have verified that is absolutely true that your sites grow if you play by the rules, clean, honest, good practice and specially, nice and original content. Work has become cyclical as I have to do this and that on one site, then the same to the other and so on. Its costing me a lot of effort.
After thinking about this I realized that I'm a one man band. No copied or bought pictures, no copied content at all. All my sites are not so big but original.
As others have explained their situation on other threads, most of their friends don't even know they have this or those websites... not even they are earning some cash from the web. That's my situation too. Working in silence...
I've been reading more and more these days and I'm quite concerned as there is much work to do (perhaps double) to earn the same now... how do you manage this?
are you a one man band?
don't you get tired at times working doing all this besides your regular job?
What's your experience? hiring a team? selling sites?
I've thought about getting ride of some sites-domains as I'm not workaholic enough to replicate the effects of my biggest sites there.
* I read about "sites that work for you" but its not my case (community generated content, I can't risk my sites by now opening to that option)
When the candle burning at both ends AND the middle gets to be too much I take a look at the established sites taking my time, project future growth/needs and decide whether I need to be hands on or hand it over to another. When I say hand over I mean locate a youngster with reasonable skills, a desire to learn, is willing to work. Five out of six I've enlisted in this manner have done bang up jobs. As a result they have learned the "trade" and I simply monitor their work, which is a lot easier than DOING the work. The contract terms give me the lion's share as the expenses are mine with their share a reasonable return for effort and OJT. The one that didn't work didn't HURT, but I had to take management back until another young person... gal this time... could be found. A lot of what we do is grunt work. Get a grunt, train 'em... just know that at some point they will learn enough they are no longer grunts. Rinse, repeat.
Works for me. YMMV.
Any advice on where I could start looking?
Things are at the point where I could really use help, but the income from the site doesn't permit paying someone. There are a lot of things that need to be done to the site to make sure it continues to get good traffic. If I don't get help soon, it's going to hurt in the long run.
I've been in this situation with other types of businesses. It's always meant taking a hit financially myself in order to pay someone else.
It may mean being financially hit at first but if you are lucky with the first one there is no more pain since the 2 of you make enough to afford an investment into the third, etc.
don't you get tired at times working doing all this besides your regular job?
I did get tired of it, then I quit my day job and made being my own webmaster my job... ;-)
third world, Vietnam, India and Scotland
I've been a one man band since 1996 I have 3 main sites of my own and run many customer sites, my wife does the typing and office tasks, I get to hang out here all the time reading the many excellent posts from the pros.
moderate it!
I love the design and programming side of things but moderating a forum. No thank you.
I dont mind putting money into that side of it though I understand it will be great for my visitors.
This is something I have seen across my niche.
Where everybody thinks they know better than the next bloke.
however I now hire people in the third world, Vietnam, India and Scotland etc
I used to be a one man band however I had to hire someone because I had too many ideas and too much work going on as I could handle on my own and I already outsource writing tasks & other tasks to companies all over the world.
I was at the point where it would become more cost effective to hire someone rather than outsource more work and it was a good idea as communication increased, productivity increased, my motivation increased and last but not least work became slightly more socialable as I had someone to talk to, go on lunch with etc.
So it’s good to have an employee.
RJ
Ideally make your own strategy and let people work on them.
Of course, there is investment but you are confident on your project and profit margin, then just go ahead..
Trying to do a normal job, run your websites and manage an employee or two sounds like a nightmare to me! You have to pay those employees and that means understanding legislation - tax, health and welfare, etc. etc. More work.
Your first thought should be to give up the normal job and concentrate on the sites full time. When that fills up your time look for employees / outsourcing.
Right. Why fund someone else's side job and help them quit their day job? Put that money aside to help YOURSELF quit your day job someday and work from home. Then when you grow beyond the capacity of yourself, look to bring in others.
What every you cannot do, teach yourself! As for tech stuff, there is so much open-source out there to get folks started with very little coding experience. Then learn the ropes in forums like this and the hundreds of other forums out there.
