Is the fear of losing all your income rational?

JStuffs

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Hello,

I previously asked a question here about multiple sites and I decided to focus on just 1 site for now. It has grown from about 20K visitors to almost 40K at the moment in about 3 months and hopefully I can apply to MV soon.

I really would like to push this site all the way to 1 million visitors by writing 10 to 15 articles a week (this is all I do) in the coming years.

I just keep on hearing a voice telling me I could lose it all and I need at least 1 or 2 backup sites. Is this maybe irrational?

How do you deal with this fear?

Cheers
 
Just keep doing and going. The more you do, the further you'll go. The further you go, the more confidence you'll have in what you're doing. Eventually, you'll realize you only need 1 site. If you want to make a lot of money just keep your head down and go. Do not start another site. Do not diversify. Put everything you have into 1 thing and GOOOOOOOOOO.

Also, set your goals bigger and clearer.

Bigger: Make your goals so big they are scary. Scare you to the point where you're not sure if it's even possible, or how you're gonna get there. I.e. Go for 10 million visitors, not just 1 million.

Clearer: What's the point of those visitors anyway? Who gives a shit if the you have 10 million visitors if you're not actually making money from it. So get clear on what the actual goal is and get clear on your monetization strategy before starting. Do NOT just try to get a bunch of traffic with the thought of "Get the traffic first, then sell them something". That's retarded and is the path to pain and suffering. Decide how you'll monetize first, then get the traffic. That's the path to god and all his heavenly glory.
 
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Thanks, that's the kind of answer I was looking for. I believe in my site and It's already clear what I'm doing is working. I also already decided to just stick to this site.

I associate traffic with money, though, like 1 million visits is $20K per month. I earn between $10 and $15 RPM in Ezoic so switching to Mediavie should achieve $20K RPM.

I guess I'll just have to overcome my fear and continue what I'm doing. :smile:
 
The fear is very rational and it can ( and does happen ) all the time to people/businesses.

I'm not going to frame this as 1 website or 5.

I'm going to frame it as any business. Any personal wealth.

There are all kinds of stories of people losing all their money every day bc of X situation or Y reason.

Fear is a good thing.
 
I've gone to zero income twice in my SEO career. Can it happen? Yes. Does it happen "a lot"? Sure.

But the real question is "why does it happen"?

If you don't have some answers to the "why" question that you're actively doing (bad things that can kill your income) and you're still afraid, it's irrational. If you're doing no-no things, then it's not irrational.

The reasons it happened to me were mass link spam prior to Penguin, and then Penguin coming out. The second time was building monstrous PBNs and allowing access to them to other people who eventually compromised it.

Both times I knew what I was doing was risky, but I also made good money doing it. Now I build stable projects and don't deploy link spam at all. I have zero worries about my income now.

Does Google release updates that move my sites up and down? Sure. But the ones I'm actively working on do nothing but trend upwards. The ones I haven't touched go up and down but are stable (though they will decay some over time).

That's what it looks like from someone that went "black hat" to "grey hat" to "white hat". Stick to the white and you have no worries past the worries everyone has to deal with (algorithm fluctuations).
 
^ unless you get attacked by a competitor with link spam. Happened to me in a non competitive niche weeks before I listed for sale.

Cost me around 400k.
 
JStuffs said:
I just keep on hearing a voice telling me I could lose it all and I need at least 1 or 2 backup sites. Is this maybe irrational?
Click to expand...
IMO, it is a reasonable fear to have. The way I would approach it is to see what are the ways I could "lose it all"?

Somebody hacks the entire thing and makes it their own? Possible, but the chances are very low. And there are equally good chances for this to happen to your bank account, or crypto, etc. So, what you can do is set up good authentication systems so you don't lose it overnight.

Any other way to lose would be more gradual. A drop in traffic, perhaps? Unless you are doing something shady with links or AI content - chances of all your pages losing traffic overnight is quite slim. I'd say keep monitoring traffic, and the moment you notice that your traffic is not moving in the direction you want it to - and it's not redeemable (because of whatever strategies you deploy), you can always look at selling your site. But if it's just a regular dip like all sites experience, keep doing what you do, and wait for the spike again.

And since you are working on this full time, what you could do is once you hit a decent goal in terms of volume (say 500, or 700 posts), start devoting a tenth of your time to another project.

We all need to diversify our sites at some point. Why not at least seed them slowly when you are still full on to your other website? This way, when you are actually ready to spend more time on a second site, it's already aged and ready to grow.
 
I think it depends on your goal. When picking a decision I always think you have to consider the consequence which is bearable. So don't pick one which isn't bearable for you.

For me I am looking for other skills I can learn so even say I go broke, I can just do that thing so I don't have to be homeless. But, once I have a proper skill that can net me a specific amount I would just go do things that are risky as possible to achieve my goal and only diversify after I hit it.

MrMedia said:
^ unless you get attacked by a competitor with link spam. Happened to me in a non competitive niche weeks before I listed for sale.

Cost me around 400k.
Click to expand...
Is there no way to fix it if this type of thing happens to you? I mean if this was the case why not just hit like almost all your competitors with link spam and you're automatically at the top right?

Is a domain irrecoverable if it has spammy links? I am a little worried because a few days or weeks or something I put my site on backlinkr.net <- cause I saw a youtube video on it but, I didn't think much of it since Google is smart enough to know that someone else could be spamming the site.
 
If you're worried about something happening to your website that would impact your income, figure out a way not to make your website your point of failure. Or rather, the volume of visitors to your website. Email list, selling products with a recurring component, whatever.

If Google went down right now, how would your website make its next $1,000? Brainstorm that, and you'll start to feel alright.

For example, I just paid a guy to research 100 new affiliate programs for me to join in my industry. Going to start jamming those out from most lucrative (read: rebilling/recurring/lifetime ownership of account purchases) to least. Additionally, start a weekly email newsletter doing industry interviews (in addition to my already existing automated email send-outs).

If my site goes down, my income does not.
 
I've actually been poor, close to homeless, with not enough money to buy food, medicine or clothes.

It's taken me 3 years of not being poor to begin thinking about relaxing again. Not that I am rich now, far from it, but I've taken measures to prevent becoming poor.

Which is what I suggest you do.

Get some savings, get private unemployment insurance if possible, learn to live more within your means. Strengthen connections to family and society. Focus on things outside work/money that can give you happiness.

If you have those things, then you won't fear being poor as much.
 
It's not paranoia and it's not irrational.

Most people, without some level or type of fear, never think about the what if.

They just assume "life will continue as is" until they get cancer and end up with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical debt, or until COVID forces them out of a job/business. or other XYZ event like a competitor.

Having some level of fear gets people thinking, and then most times, planning on how to try to mitigate it/avoid it. Without the thought or fear, most people simply will not ever plan or adjust their game plan.

Therefor, it's not paranoia or irrational. It's actually the most rational thing someone can do and think about.

COVID put a lot of people out of work. Employed and self employed "i made myself a job" type people. You can simply say, " a lot of those people didn't plan properly" - I can say a lot of those people never feared losing their job or business to have thought up a backup plan.

But even then, the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray...

COVID wiped out a lot of businesses. Businesses that have people with degrees and experience. Businesses that have thought out plan B's and C's. They are struggling with getting people to simply show up and work. Not too many businesses can run properly without human capital. Those plans, skills, and work are pretty much do-do now without someone pulling the levers and getting their hands dirty.

In the end, those who have some fear at least think about it and maybe then will plan for it. But regardless that plan is not a safety net ( see my example about businesses ).

Have a plan for when shit hits the wall. All your skill and work will amount to nothing under the right circumstances and those circumstances can pop up any time ( and have popped up multiple times to people on this very forum ).
 
"Is the fear of losing all your income rational?"

Maybe.

People can be too fearful and it hurts them, for example when they kick ass at their work and take low pay and abuse because they are so afraid of losing their job even though they could easily get a better one.

Or far too cavalier where they hit a lucky hot streak which obviously will not last but they start living and spending like their income will only ever continue to go up.

It's just important to recognize your situation and act accordingly.

If you are building websites and making money from Google what @Ryuzaki said probably applies to you.
 
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