My Strategy is Just to Outlast Everyone

If you were to ask me what the fundamental reason is that?I’ve been successful?at what I do I will always answer with the same thing: consistency and patience.?You’ll rarely hear me say “because the quality of my work is so great,” or “I put the needs of the customer first.”?Don’t get me wrong, stuff like that is 100% important and crucial to the success of any business.?However, in my particular line of work, it’s those who continue on year after year that do well.?I also don’t want to mistake this for “just show up every day and you’ll be successful.”?That’s naive and wishful thinking.?There are of course facets of my business I must pay attention to and strategies I must implement to ensure I have the best chance to do well.?But there are so many lines of work where people fail simply because they didn’t put in the time to see things through.?And in most cases that’s simply being impatient.?People are out to make a quick buck and 99 times out of 100 if you’re going to produce a stream of income that lasts a lifetime, you’re going to have to put in the hours.?There’s simply no other way.

The business of content based websites

I can only explain what I mean by “outlast everyone” as it pertains to my own business.?My business is producing content on websites just like this one.?Only I have a portfolio of websites which cover numerous verticals such as finance, entertainment, pets, home and garden, and plenty of others.?Over the course of my 15 years doing this I’ve had hundreds if not thousands of people ask me how I get so much traffic on my websites.?They’re always looking for some kind of answer like SEO tricks I’ve learned or how to “game” social media sites.?My response has been and will always be the same: produce solid content multiple times a day, every single day, for years on end.?Almost no one believes me when I answer.?Either no one believes me or no one has the stamina that I do.?Honestly there’s no trick.?Sure I have a fast server.?Of course I comply with all of Google’s search guidelines.?Yes, I have developers.?I have all of the bells and whistles you’d expect of a seven figure business.?But at its core??There are no tricks to taking a website from 0 visitors a month to millions.?The trick is simple.?Go after keywords and produce close to if not the best content on said keywords: that’s it.?Yes, you have to get backlinks.?I get all that.?But with enough content, you’ll rank for at least something, and if that something is good enough, someone will link to you and the cycle begins.

The hardest part by far in running a websites is the first 6 months to a year.?Why??Because you’ll likely have zero traction.?Be prepared to make 0 dollars in this time period.?And what happens to 99% of people who try to start a website??They all quit within the first 6 months to a year because they’ve made no money.??Building websites, like most businesses, isn’t a short term game.?It’s a very long, very boring, and very consistent game.?And if you’re not producing quality content every single day for?years?on end, you will inevitably fail.?I’m not saying there aren’t other facets to this game.?Of course there are.?But nothing, and I mean nothing will compete with a quality website with quality backlinks that the search engines look to as an authority on a given subject (not to mention advertisers will pay top dollar for ad space on your site).?So in my case, while everyone was going to conferences, trying to beef themselves up on social media, trying every single shortcut in the book, I was here, in my office, producing content day after day, year after year until I built a business that now takes me only about 3-4 hours a day and makes a fairly substantial amount of money.??I’ve been at this since 2007.

Changes come but the game always remains the same

Is my business the only one where consistency and patience pays off the most??Hell no.?In fact, I’d argue that most businesses are this way.??All?businesses require a certain amount of skill and competence, all of which can be taught to a great extent.?However, if there’s one thing you cannot teach, it’s showing up day in and day out to perform the tasks that require such skill and competence.?And finally, let’s say you’ve got the formula down.?Let’s say you’ve developed all the skills necessary to succeed.?Let’s say you’re showing up every single day and doing what needs to be done.?Is your business still safe??Not entirely, no.?There is always risk of two things happening.?The first is obsolescence and the other is competition.

You must innovate to survive against competition

Do you really think that a company like Exxon Mobil is going to survive if it remains and oil and gas company??Do you think Apple would still be around if they were still on the iPhone version 1??Of course not.?The companies that survive not only do their jobs well, but they are also acutely aware of the world around them.?If you’re a manufacturing company and you don’t embrace automation you’ll be left behind.?If you’re in a company where artificial intelligence is giving you a leg up on the competition and you don’t implement it, you’ll be left behind.?A smart company is well aware of its strengths and core competence.?Those should and will always remain intact.?But a company is also aware that if they can improve the ways in which those core pillars and goals are achieved, then all the better.?If you can do all of these things in tandem then you can have a company that is built to last.