Forgetting To Focus

The wacky world of web publishing is awash in a tidal wave of data distractions that pose a real threat to novice webmasters.

Plans, systems, options, experts, products, services, tools, tips and techniques. Breathless sales letters a mile long tempting us from around every corner. Forums full of frenetic friends, filling our heads with links we are supposed to click, ebooks we must read, opinions we should consider. We want to read it all.

Round and round we go on this manic merry-go-round, telling ourselves we're working. Spending too much time attending this crazy Net biz circus is one of the most common mistakes new webmasters make.

Months later we awaken to the realization that we are going around in circles, and don't really have much to show for all our time and effort. Darn.

It's time to focus.

Let's zero in on just two things, and start getting somewhere.

Content

In this article we're assuming you want to build websites that attract readers who buy things from you, or merchants you support.

Yes, that's a big subject that can be quite complicated for publishers.

But it's not complicated for readers. They just want to know, do you have interesting useful information for me, or not? Yes or no? Simple.

Let's listen to our readers, and learn from them, and refocus on their simple demands.

Instead of spending day after day wandering the web reading anything and everything that will feed our own success fantasies, let's reinvest that time in to producing quality content that serves our reader's needs.

We don't even need a website yet. That can wait.

Let's write our articles first. Articles we can be proud of. Articles that readers will actually read.

If you just aren't a very good writer, ok, don't despair. There are options.

We can hire writers. We can get articles for free. If you have a Publisher-For-You account you have over 25,000 free articles installed in your control panel. You select the articles you like, and click a button to add them to your site.

However we go about it, we're publishers, it's our job to publish. That's what we should be focused on.

If our website is young, we should be spending almost all of our time online researching and writing quality articles on our topic, or obtaining such articles from others.

Links

Once we have at least dozens of quality articles on our site, we can broaden our focus to include another important element, links.

Imagine we wrote a great book, and then hid it in our basement. That's a website without incoming links.

As our site matures, we'll want to balance our time between producing new content, and convincing others to link to our content.

Content and links.

It's not that complicated really.

Content and links. If we push most everything else aside, and focus most of our time on these two elements of web publishing success, we'll be far ahead of most novice publishers, and well on our way to a successful site.

Alright, Alright, One More Thing

Is focusing on just two things just not quite complicated enough to satisfy your inner Net nerd? Yea, I hear you. I have that problem too. Ok then, one more thing.

Let's add keyword research to our focus list.

Keyword research helps us understand what our readers want to know about our topic, which can surely be considered an important part of creating useful content.

As Simple As 1 2 3

If you discover you don't really seem to be getting anywhere with your web projects, sweeping aside the distractions, and focusing on the basics, can really help.

1. Keyword Research

2. Writing Articles

3. Getting Links

If you're spending 90% of your time online focused on these three things, your web publishing career is on the right track.

It's not easy, but it's as simple as 1 2 3.

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