“You don’t have time to think up there. If you think, you’re dead.”
That’s the iconic line by Maverick played by Tom Cruise in Top Gun.
Top Gun Maverick is slated for theaters in November 2020. Can’t wait.
“If you think, you’re dead” in many ways applies to online publishing.
That’s hyperbole for sure, but it’s also fitting.
It’s too easy to overthink and overcomplicate everything in this business.
When you overthink you miss the forest from the trees.
Examples:
- Getting bogged down for hours or days with some finicky design tweak we want that nobody will notice and will make no impact on revenue is missing the forest from the trees.
- Agonizing over whether a Q and A should be added to an existing article or create a new article is again missing the forest from the trees.
- “Reading and learning” while has its place is too often a distraction under the guise of “getting things done.”
I’ve done all of the above more times than I care to count. I’d probably have an extra thousand articles published if I hadn’t wasted time or chose to do nothing out of indecision.
When in doubt, write an article. Or order one. Or do both.
Instead of spinning your wheels overthinking and doing nothing, focus on publishing good content that targets low competition keywords.
That’s it.
If you do nothing else day in and day out, that’s okay because that’s what works.
My cutesy design tweaks that I’ve wasted days on over the years doesn’t generate the $40K per month. It earns nothing.
It’s the 4,500 published articles that earn the money.
The only difference between a new site and a site that makes a $1 million per year from ads is a lot of good content ranking for tens of thousands of keywords.
It’s a good thing most days over the last several years I focused on publishing content instead of tweaking design and messing around adding cutesy blog features.
I need to focus on publishing because that’s what works.
Here’s the default process:
- Find low competition keywords
- Write and publish great content about those keywords.
- Rinse and repeat until you cash out.
For me, when I stick to the game plan and get 4,000+ words published are the ones that count.
Factories don’t make money sitting idle. They make money pushing out widgets.
It’s the same with a content-centric business. It makes money pushing out content. Let your ads do their thing. That’s the beauty of ads.
The more you publish the more those ads fire. It’s the perfect business model IMO.
If you think, you’re dead.
Jon Dykstra is a six figure niche site creator with 10+ years of experience. His willingness to openly share his wins and losses in the email newsletter he publishes has made him a go-to source of guidance and motivation for many. His popular “Niche site profits” course has helped thousands follow his footsteps in creating simple niche sites that earn big.
