How Do You Make Sure You're Not Spreading Yourself Too Thin?

This used to be a problem of mine, and I think it was a big factor in why I didn't start making regular money(as in at least few hundred a month) from IM until the last couple of months.

I started concentrating on my strengths(article marketing, writing content + SEO mostly), building the sites I felt I could generate good traffic and money from, and getting rid of any sites I felt just weren't going to cut it.

In the last week though, I'm going through a bit of a lean phase again - my traffic is down, the sites aren't converting as well etc. Obviously I need to get to the bottom of why my traffic is down, why conversions have dropped, but I've been looking at another site I've had for around a year now and wondering if I should put more effort into building that one than I have been.

This site has excellent on page SEO, a reasonable amount of backlinks and with consistent effort for a few weeks, I'm positive it could comfortably rank in the top 10 for 4 keywords - each of which gets 100,000+ searches per month. I literally haven't added any new content to it since last summer, and haven't built a backlink to it for 4 or 5 months. Right now, it's ranking at the bottom of the 2nd page and around the third page of Google for all 4 terms. It's optimized for all 4 though.

This is a site where I'd really prefer just to have organic traffic - it's in the gaming/electronics niche. I'm thinking if I just spent some time each day adding more content, building backlinks through articles, web 2.0, press releases and such, I could get it up to the top in time.

The problem is, time spent working on this site takes time away from my other sites and projects. I have thought about flipping it, but it's a .co.uk domain and the way it is monetized is only really available to people in the UK, so I think that kind of limits my chances of selling it for a good price.

If I was to work on this site on a daily basis, that would mean every day I would be building 3 sites, in addition to some freelancing writing I'm getting into too. For one of my niches, I'm also planning to start writing a detailed eBook soon, which is also going to take a couple of hours out of every day.

OK, sorry for rambling on Here's my dilemma in simpler terms, I have 3 sites, that in an ideal world I would work on each and every day to bring traffic to them and rank them higher in the SERPS. Here my situation in a nutshell:-

Site 1 - In the niche I find it easiest to write about, and the one I have put the most effort into in terms of content and building the site. This is the main focus of most of my work, but as yet it isn't really bringing the money in I would like. With more work and time, I'm confident it will in the future.

Site 2 - Simpler site promoting a CPA offer, is still fairly new so needs regular content and backlinks. This site brought most of my IM income last month.

Site 3 - The one I was talking about earlier. I literally haven't worked on it in months, but it still ranks pretty well and with a push over a few weeks/months could bring in a lot of traffic and money. Not a niche I find easy to write about, and my target demographic is mostly teens/early twenties. Is pretty competitive so would need consistent effort.

Freelancing - I've recently started to get into some freelancing writing(Constant Content and the like) and this is an area I would really like to put more into. At the moment it's just a side thing to the other things though(particularly site 1).

Other Projects - There are other niches I look at and think I could do well in, but I know how much effort it takes to build and rank sites, and to bring consistent traffic. That's why I hesitate on entering new ones, as I have some good existing ones.

I would also like to do more WSO article pack projects and things like that. In addition, I'm contemplating taking my first tentative steps into the MMO niche(now I kinda know what I'm talking about, as opposed to my first experience of it when I first started out, which was pretty awful ), with my own site, creating products, passing on what I know etc.

I've been keeping track on how many hours I work on IM each day over the last month or so, and it generally works out at between 2-6 hours per day. More often than not, it's 3-4 hours. If I'm working on all these sites and projects I know I have to dramatically increase my productivity to at least 8 hours per day.

Of course, there is outsourcing, but I tend to think I'm not yet making enough money to justify that. To be honest, I find hiring other people to work on my projects pretty daunting too, as I've never done it

I'm really sorry for this loooooong post, but I would just really appreciate some advice on how to prioritize, and how to determine which projects to put my time into. I know how costly spreading myself too thin can be. How do you make sure you don't spread yourself too thin?

Any and all input and advice very much appreciated