I’ve been looking at my websites over the last week or so and have compiled an eight page report where I have detailed traffic levels, earnings, the current state of each site, each site’s future potential and so on.

It’s basically a snapshot of where each site is at the moment, how far it has come over the last year and what I can do to improve things over the coming year.

And some of it makes sober reading.

For example I have two sites serving more or less the same niche market. One site is developed and regularly updated. The other quite the opposite.

And yet both attract almost exactly the same number of visitors every month.

Even more surprising to me is the fact that over the last year, the undeveloped / abandoned looking site has actually earned me more money than the regularly updated one!

That actually isn’t as surprising as it sounds. I remember reading an interview with Adam Dicker, a Canadian who owns various high profile domain names and websites, in which he said that he had tried six different designs with one of his sites before realising that he could make more money with a basic website and pay per click advertising. I visited the site at the time and very basic it was too.

The reason for this is because people are looking for information and when they find it they stop looking. The secret of successful PPC websites is not to give away all the information they need, but instead to whet visitors’ appetites so that they want to continue their search - preferably via a pay per click ad.

But I’m a firm believer that content is king. In the short term, a poorer site might be making me more money, but in the long run a site that provides quality information will always win as far as repeat visitors are concerned and therefore hopefully in the earnings stakes too.

Another thing, I have spent a lot of time working on sites that actually don’t make a big contribution to my earnings pie - at the expense of spending time on sites that do contribute a lot or that should contribute a lot. Sometimes you are just can’t see the wood for the trees and I think I have suffered from this during 2006.

When it’s all there in front on me in black and white it is as clear as day what sites deserve more of my attention and what sites don’t and I’m hoping that in the coming year I can get that balance right.

The good news is that some sites have performed well beyond expectations and I have others that should blossom over the coming 12 months and really start to pay their way.

There’s a tool called The Boston Matrix that is sometimes use to describe a business or a product. Basically, it says that a product falls into one of four categories:

dog - low market share in mature market
problem child - low market share in growing market
cash cow - big market share in mature market

star - big market share in growing market

Stars are best, cash cows are good, problem children have potential and dogs are basically a waste of your time. Looking at my list of websites, I’ve got a lot of problem children, but no real stars or indeed cash cows.

Although I have no dogs as such, I can also see that a couple of sites just aren’t worth continuing with, while others have suggested other areas worth investigating. And of course I’ll be looking closely at my domain name portfolio to see what new sites are worth bringing into the world come 2007 in my bid to discover the stars of the future.