Which is most important to your business?

I second that

I'm going to say list building cos nothing compares to having a list.

I'm also going to say list building. I've never focused on it much, and that is probably a big mistake on my part!

I cribbed and adapted these from Dan Thies, but there are 6 main areas of any online business that should be continually improved in order to keep growing.

1. SEO (and other Organic Traffic)
2. PPC (and other Paid Traffic)
3. Copywriting
4. Email and Follow up
5. Affiliate and JVs
6. Metrics (Conversion, Analytics, Testing)

Time / Effort / Money spent improving these things (not just chasing gimmicks but actually WORKING on them) will always bring back a return, and often a lasting one that will add to the overall business.

I cribbed the list because I think it's true. When I work with clients, I usually use that list to figure out where they are lacking, and where we can immediately improve the most.

I recommend this if you take on clients, because it shows both versatility (because you know every piece of the online pie) but you can also show off your virtuosity in a given field (I think you and I are both primarily copywriters).

In my own personal business, I need to do ALL of them. It's a symptom of being busy, but I need to do better.

Another cool thing about working on these in such a focused way is that if you share what you learn and do, and share your results, it can have the same beneficial effect in growing a following / list / affiliate business in your niche (the marketing niche).

As you do these things and get good at them, it makes you better at teach and commentating on them, which makes it easier for you to sell things that address these topics. (And you seem real smart!)

Of course, that's just the technical/mechanical answer based on your poll questions. I tend to think a strong persona is WAY more important to any business than any technical aspect.

The power of the internet is in the way it connects PEOPLE - if you don't have a persona through which you are engaging your audience, you're only ever going to be able to focus on new sales to new customers.

If you want that rich back end with bigtime affiliate sales and highly responsive lists, you HAVE to have a strong persona that people want to engage with.

Anyway, maybe not what you were asking, but hope it helps.

Well I don't do much affiliate marketing. I flip sites but I also have a list that I announce my new sites to which really boosts my site sales, so for me, they're both important.