For any long-term endeavor you need to establish the standard or standards by which you can judge your ventures success or failure. You must decide for yourself what you consider this success to be. This is where I suggest detaching yourself emotionally from this all important decision. This is the part when you email me and let me know just where I can stick that last sentence!
All kidding aside, I know only too well how easy it is to become attached to a project and how difficult it is to let it go if it isn't working out. The purpose of this article is to offer some insight on how to deal with cutting the life support on a website you may have spent months developing as well as what to do if it all works out and you are making a profit.
For every ten websites I developed, or helped develop, at least one died on the vine. I didn't do anything different, it's just for some reason things did not work out.
One of my most spectacular failures occurred back in 2004. In September that year I had put the finishing touches on 35 websites designed around allowing people to book hotel reservations for popular destinations around the U.S..
In October and November I was enjoying a daily revenue stream in the excess of $300 daily. Things carried on like this into December, but right around the beginning of the new year my revenue dried up overnight. Initially I wrote it off as as one of Google's frequent updates. This was until I received several e-mails from fellow website owners asking me if my sites traffic had dropped off as suddenly and dramatically as theirs had. We found ourselves victims of the "Florida" update.
To make a long story short, after the dust had settled it was discovered that Google had overhauled their ranking logarithm in an effort to clean up their listings. Those of us caught in the fallout were just unfortunate. Where I really goofed was spending the next 12 months trying to resurrect those websites to no avail. I focused on nothing else and not one thing I did made any difference.
Why the long story? It is to point out that I should have made the hard decision early on and let those sites go. Instead I let my emotions take over. After a period of time it is far better to take stock of where you and decide to make adjustments to improve things, or simply move on to something else.
For most money is the most important standard for determining success. I agree money is certainly a factor but later on it turned out to be secondary. Money is a means for measuring progress in business. In my humble opinion the most important step you must take is calculating your Return On Investment, or more commonly known as ROI.
Why is ROI so important in business? It's the real indicator of success or failure. It is easy to say "But I'm making thousands of dollars a month", but is it profitable? Only you can determine this. The ROI on any venture can only be determined once you take into account all factors contributing to it. What are you paying for web hosting? Web development? Advertising? Marketing? Any and all costs must be taken into account when calculating ROI.
Even if you are a do-it-yourself owner I urge you to consider your own time and what it is worth. A lot of people overlook this and wonder later why they just cannot seem to make a profit. I do not want those reading this to think I am preaching gloom and doom. Far from it in fact. I would wager those that follow a sound business plan in a viable market are very likely to turn a decent ROI.
I want to you to consider what to do next if you are profitable. What happens if you find your website sitting at the top of the rankings on the search engines and your traffic and sales have leveled out? Where do you go from here?
This is a problem most would like to address I'm sure! Go back and ask yourself why you started in the first place. Was it to supplement your income or to replace it? If you wanted supplemental income you may well decide to stop where you are and work with what you have. One benefit of this is you will find yourself spending less time marketing and advertising and more time adding new content to your site, as well as handling customer orders and inquiries. In a sense you are helping your online business become self-sustaining.
If you had planned to make your living from the proceeds of your online business, but cannot seem to swing it, what then do you do? My answer is simple. Consider starting over with another online business in another viable niche. It should go far easier this time around because you already have all the experience from your first one. This formula has been used over and over with astounding results. Lather, rinse, repeat. All it really takes is patience and some idea of where you want to go next.
E-commerce is risky, but the rewards can be great. Taking a chance is better than not trying in the first place. Stick to your plan, make the tough assessments and move on when the time comes.
Chuck Lunsford is the owner of JustGoDoItYourself.com. Visit his site and save up to $100.00 on
diy website software. You can also learn how to do just about any
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