When I ask bloggers about their chief issue they need help with, traffic usually ends up at or near the top of the list. And it seems obvious. After all, you can’t make any money if you don’t have anybody looking at your blog, right?
However, I’m hear to tell you that, most of the time, your problem isn’t traffic. Traffic strategies aren’t the solution. Usually, there is some constraint holding you back that supersedes traffic. In other words, low traffic might be the symptom.
Myself As An Example
To illustrate what I mean by a constraint, let’s take a look at myself. As any entrepreneur, I want to grow my business and make more money. However, even though I am doing well, I’m not satisfied. So, I look for constraints.
What I found was that my constraint was ME. I found that I was single-handedly responsible for my business not growing to the point that I want it to be. If I take my ideal scene (what I want my business to look like) and compare it to reality, I see that there aren’t really any external factors holding me back. So, the problem is me.
When I look further, I realized that my primary constraint was a decision I had been operating on that I should be the one performing most of the various tasks in my business. For various reasons (or excuses), I found myself doing work that I’d be better off having somebody else do. So, I had become a huge bottleneck.
With that constraint spotted, I work to remove it. I immediately start looking for good people to do more of my work for me. This will allow me to focus on what I enjoy and what I’m good at, and let others do the rest.
An Inconvenient Truth
To steal a title from Al Gore, this is an inconvenient truth. That truth is:
Usually, your biggest constraint will be found when you look inward.
When I talk to people who say they need more traffic, I give them suggestions. Build the list. Give away free content. The usual suspects. But, does that solve the problem? Usually, no. Because being told the solution (which is plainly obvious) doesn’t solve the underlying constraint.
Here are some possible constraints that might be a little closer to reality:
- Information overload and resulting total confusion. The solution is to pick a single tactic you have learned and apply that one, forgetting about the rest of them. Simply do one thing at a time.
- No time to blog. Solution: bite the bullet and schedule in time where you will use self-discipline to sit down and work on your blog. You know that building a successful blog takes time and work, but if you don’t actually put the time there to work on it, nothing will happen. Pretty obvious.
- You Don’t Take Action. This is HUGE. A lot of people like to think about what they need to do, but don’t actually do it. The constraint here is the person and a real lack of decision to actually succeed.
- Lack of Interest. Some people just want the money, but they really don’t have the passion for their market to do the work which is necessary. That’s a constraint, and one where the solution is usually to pick a different market or to, instead, spend some time on personal development so that you are a person who can create interest in things. Interest in anything comes from the inside, not the outside.
You can begin to see why the overall market of “internet business” so often gets intertwined with personal development. Most of the savvy entrepreneurs spend time on themselves in addition to their business.
What To Do Next?
If you have certain things which you know need help with your internet business, then spend some time and peel back the layers and see if you can arrive at the true constraint. Usually that constraint will be something involving yourself. Perhaps a decision you have made which you are operating on (even if it wasn’t the right decision), or perhaps a lack of honesty with yourself as to what your true strengths and weaknesses are.
I’m not going to sit here and tell you what your constraint is. I have no earthly clue. Only you can decide that.
We all have them. It is up to each of us to figure out what we are personally doing to hold ourselves back and fix that. Because, when you get right down to it, we are the only people who can hold ourselves back.
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