How to sabotage your own website’s growth

Today, I’m going go tell you how a lot of people set themselves up for a tough time when starting up a new online business.

This is going to be some “real talk” here. Because, it involves spending money. And a lot of people don’t like that idea much.

See, a business has startup costs. It just does. I know that a lot of you might think you can use Wordpress (free), super-cheap hosting, a free theme, free plugins. blog your face off and out pops a check, right?

Hey, I’ve also got a bridge to sell you. 😉

Yes, in the real world, businesses have startup costs. All of them. Online businesses happen to be quite effecient in that the potential return is quite high given a pretty small amount of startup capital. However, startup capital cannot be zero.

I wrote an article about this. Check it out…

Online Business Startup Costs: How Much Should You Expect To Spend To Start A Money-Making Blog?​

In it, I make the case for why I think the bare minimum you should plan on for startup costs is about $500. And I break down what that consists of.

But, there’s something else here…

See, if you take your startup costs and only invest that into tools, then you’re still stuck with a problem…

No traffic.

​Nobody will know you exist.

And, one of the most common things that people do is that they spend all of whatever startup capital they have on getting set up and getting the tools… and they didn’t leave anything in the budget to make it go!

It’s like you bought the car, but you have no gas.

So, I should perhaps modify that article I linked to up there. Because here’s a more workable solution…

Take whatever startup capital you have and put at least half of it away for marketing costs. Better yet, maybe 80% of it. Go as lean as you possibly can on your initial setup, but put a solid chunk of your startup capital into marketing. I mean, even the most ugly site out there can do something for you if you have some traffic and targeted prospects coming by, right? But, a beautiful site with no traffic is just a dud.

So, when spinning up a new business, go as lean as you possibly can on the initial setup.

If you’re gonna start a Youtube channel, don’t go buy a bunch of fancy equipment and a new set. Just start using your phone to make videos… but put that capital into Youtube ads to build your channel up.

If you’re going to start a brand new blog, don’t put all your money into some premium theme design. Instead, build a simple landing page, use a basic blog theme, and use startup capital to promote using paid traffic.

It is all too common to spend all your money (and time) on the initial setup and skimp out on your actual marketing.

That’s backwards.

You need gas. You need fuel to kick things off. You need to get the wheels turning. You need to prime the pump and build up a little bit of inertia so that you have anything to work with. And you do that with promotion and paid traffic.

The prettiest blog in the world where you’re sitting there writing content to the crickets isn’t going to cut it. Not anymore.