I don’t think this will surprise many people. John Reese has decided to shut down BlogRush. It just didn’t work out the way he hoped.

Users got very poor clickthrough rates on their traffic. Quite simply, that was the problem. It wasn’t as beneficial as hoped.

Of course, many people spotted this problem early on. I long ago removed the BlogRush code from this site. It was a nice experiment, but I soon decided it wasn’t worth the space it took up in my sidebar. That may seem like a small thing, especially since I didn’t add anything to replace it, but it matters to me.

Overall, though, the concept could have been great. The only way to find out was to try it. Just because one idea fails doesn’t mean the next one will too. That’s an important lesson for any business.

With the popularity of sites such as Squidoo, Twitter, Facebook and so forth, not to mention my own enthusiasm for article marketing, the question of how much time one should be spending on creating content for others does come to mind.

Is it a waste of my time?

So much depends on how you use it. Generating content for others can be a waste, but it can also be a great way to bring traffic to your own website. Shoemoney does well with it, for example.

We aren’t all Shoemoney or any other big name blogger, of course. Not everyone will get delightful amounts of traffic from such sources.

The key factor I consider is whether or not I can afford to be dependent on a particular source. The simple truth is that no business should be relying on a single source of traffic. If you aren’t trying to get traffic from a range of sources, what are you going to do when that one vanishes?

Of course, many people make the very good point that if you are creating content for other sites, you’re also helping them to earn money, rather than earning it for yourself.

Honestly, I don’t worry about that very much. It’s perfectly true that these other sites do need to earn money, and what I post on them helps them to do so. But so long as I also get a benefit I don’t see it as a huge problem.

Each source I use has something to offer me in terms of traffic or networking. I don’t get tons of traffic from Twitter, but I do get to meet some pretty great people, and I do get some traffic out of the deal.

Facebook I don’t use much, aside from finding old friends on. My business uses of that are minimal.

Squidoo has been something of an interesting experiment for me, but not one of my big traffic generators. Others have had different experiences. As with anything else, you in part get out of it what you put into it, and that one hasn’t drawn enough of my attention to get much out of it.

Article marketing, on the other hand, has been an interesting experience for me. While many of the links come from sites that aren’t that great, I’ve seen definite SERPs benefits that I consider to be most likely due to the links gained from article marketing. That’s not a bad deal at all.

If you look around, there are ebooks telling you how to earn money using any of these sites. There’s The Twitter Report, Squidoo Affiliate Destruction, and Facebook Fortunes, just to name a few. I haven’t read a one of them, so I can’t tell you about the quality of these particular titles, but they are out there.

The catch to using just one of these sites, of course, is that if they change the rules or vanish away, you’re out of luck. Over reliance can be a poor decision.

So why do I use any of these at all?

Just as with any other method, I know better than to rely solely on a single method, such as article marketing. You never know when the rules of the search engines will change and suddenly everything built from that method will mean less.

Fortunately, just because the rules change at one search engine doesn’t mean they will change at them all. That is one of the advantages of article marketing. If you can get your site up there in more than one search engine, you aren’t doomed by a sudden rule change.

Overall, it all comes down to being sensible about all your marketing tactics. Once you’ve mastered one, keep it up and start learning another. Just about anything you do online depends on another site to bring you traffic. Rely on that one source at your own peril.

I do a lot of article marketing for my sites. I enjoy it and get decent results for my efforts. But it’s sometimes hard to decide whether an article belongs on my blog or being distributed as an article for other sites to use.

Sometimes I do both. A few edits and it’s not the same article on my site as it is on others. But other times I can’t imagine doing that to a good article… err, blog post.

How to Decide Which to Do

Picking which way I go can be a bit of a pain. Sometimes an article that starts out as something I mean for article marketing ends up being something I would far rather have on my blog. There’s a difference that can be hard to explain. I guess you could say blog articles tend to be a bit more personal for me. Not too significantly, but there are some elements I can picture better on my own site than someone else’s.

And sometimes that means I need a new idea for the article site. It might be a twist on the now blog post. It might be an abbreviated version of the post.

Either way, a decision must be made. It’s almost a whim, no hard and fast rule. Just the feeling that the style or how personal I get goes better one way or the other.

Editing for Article Sites

If I choose to just edit it, there are a few ways to go about it. I don’t worry much about duplicate content issues. I don’t particularly want an article site outranking my site with one of my own articles, but it can happen. Even if the article is more thoroughly rewritten it can happen. After all, how many people are going to search for your article by quoting from its text?

I do prefer to keep the most thorough version for my own site. What goes to article sites should still be a good article, but mine should go one better.

Release Schedule

Of course, anything on my own site gets published first, by several days at least. It’s always good to have the content on your own site have first shot at being discovered by the search engines. A couple weeks is better yet in my opinion, but I’m not always writing far enough ahead to manage that.

Are They Really So Different?

Depending on your style, blogging and article marketing don’t have to be all that different. But they can be. I see my blogs as something more personal than what I want to send off to article sites. They need to have more of my personality.

Articles still need some of that personality, but I prefer to count on the information bringing people in through my article links. A hint of personality combined with good information strikes me as a good combination to bring someone to a blog where you continue with the good information and more personality.

It’s been my experience that not every home business picks up a lot during the holiday season. Some slow down.

If your main focus is information, for example, it may be hard to come up with ways to bring people in for the holidays. While people may be looking for jobs during the holiday season, for example, they may have more trouble finding work as fewer companies hire, especially as you get close to Christmas.

Similarly, families may be too busy with get-togethers to be online so much. I’ve seen this particularly happen with mothers. They will look more for holiday ideas and recipes, but in other areas they just lack the spare time.

You can of course combat this somewhat by having content relevant to the upcoming holidays. Share tips on saving money on holiday shopping. Suggest fun things to do. Share recipes.

You can also prepare for the post-holiday season.

Employers start hiring again in the new year, for example. Anyone who has overspent during the holidays is looking for ways to pay down those credit card bills. People are generally ready for life to get back to normal.

If you weren’t able to pick up holiday traffic, perhaps some of this will be more accessible to you. Think about what your target market will be doing after the holiday rush. Life and business shouldn’t stop after the holidays.

The holiday season is fast approaching. I’m seeing stores with Christmas decorations up already and hearing reports that people are hearing Christmas music in stores. And it’s not even Halloween yet.

Hopefully you’ve done some work on gearing up for the holidays. If you haven’t, now is not the time to procrastinate. Poor economy aside, people are shopping already.

What you need to get done depends on the kind of business you’re running. Some will need more preparation, others less.

This is the time to spend more on your advertising, for example. You want to get those shoppers who are already buying for the holidays. Shopping early is an easy way to spread out the expenses of holiday gifts for many families.

You should also make sure that any holiday themed merchandise is easily found. This is the time of year it will get moving.

If you write about products, now is the time to start thinking about what products will sell well for you through your articles. What do people need to know in order to buy through your links? What’s going to capture their attention?

What else do you do to get ready? How early do you start planning?

Making progress with your home business can be a frustrating experience. Sometimes it all goes so smoothly, but other times you’re just stuck. Why is that?

I believe that one of the big reasons is that it’s so easy to let the past rule what you’re doing now and what you plan for the future. Just think about it. All those habits you’ve built. Are they all still productive?

Sometimes what worked in the past will hold you back later on. It just isn’t good enough anymore. If you’re still relying on the tried and true, even as it becomes less effective, you’re going to work yourself into a rut.

For example, I just rewrote my work schedule the other day. It’s a pretty lightweight schedule, focusing on general tasks I want to work on each day. I had long since quit following the old one, but hadn’t done anything about a new schedule.

Having a good schedule does amazing things for productivity, though.

Similarly, you may find a particular marketing tactic just isn’t working anymore. You can’t let your pay per click ads just stay the same forever, for example. You’ll often get better click through rates and quality scores if you keep on testing. You can let an ad that is converting well sit for a time, but then it’s time to check things over and try something new.

Your past failures can also hold you back. Maybe something didn’t work for you, and you’ve just never gone back and tried it again. You may have struggled with pay per click advertising, article marketing, commenting on blogs or forums, and gotten poor results.

If you haven’t looked at why you failed at one of these, perhaps it’s time. Take a look and figure out what you can do to make it work this time around. Maybe this time the whole thing will click and you’ll have a new source of traffic and leads.

Don’t try more than one new thing, or retry more than one thing you’ve done before, at a time. Most people get overwhelmed by trying to do too many new things at once, and you increase your odds of failure. Give yourself a chance to focus on picking up that skill while still working with the old ones that work for you.

A lot of people get into blogging for money because they hear about the fantastic success some people have enjoyed. It’s hard to not envy someone who is earning 5, 6 or even 7 figures a year from their blog.

Trouble is, for many people earning the way someone else does becomes their sole focus. They do their best to copy the successful people they see around them, rather than be themselves.

The biggest problem with imitating the more successful bloggers around you is that it’s easiest to be nothing more than an imitation. You don’t stand out. And if you don’t stand out, you’re not going to get people interested in what you have to say.

It’s one thing to take occasional inspiration from those who are doing better than you are. But if that’s the only thing you do, you’ll have more trouble developing your own voice.

Be aware of what others in your niche are doing, but find ways to stand out. Take a controversial position. Have fun. Worry less about what’s working for others and figure out what works for you.

The thing about blogging is that you can learn quite a bit about what successful bloggers are doing, and still not succeed with your own blog. You’re different people, after all, and the different approaches you take to similar tasks will not get you the same results.

If you really need to compare yourself to someone, take a look at the people who are at your same level of the game. Watch the people who are doing exceptionally well, if you like, but in many ways your most direct competition comes from the people who know about as much as you do.

Even then you don’t want to focus too much on what the other people are doing. You should be focused more on what you can do.

So What Should You Be Doing?

There are some things you absolutely need to get done to succeed as a blogger.

1. Develop your own voice.

You don’t want to sound like everyone else. Be yourself. Have your own style and your own opinions. If you love covering industry news, cover it. If you don’t, leave it alone except when it catches your attention.

2. Write for your blog - a lot!

Many of the most successful blogs are posted to more than once a day. Sure you can get away with less, but you may get less attention.

Don’t overdo! You can annoy readers if you are writing so fast that you forget quality in favor of quantity. Or if you just provide too much information for them to read. There’s a balance to be struck, and it’s up to you to decide what that balance is.

3. Comment on other blogs.

Yes, this takes away from your writing time. But it’s a great way to network with your fellow bloggers and get visitors.

Don’t worry about whether the links to your site are “do follow” or “no follow.” Don’t constantly link to your own posts within the body of your comments. Don’t be self promotional in general.

Be a genuine contributor. Your comments will stick better and bring better attention to your blog.

4. Don’t start too many blogs.

It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement and start up blog after blog. But it’s not going to do you as much good if you can’t maintain quality on all of them. Run just one blog until you really know what you’re doing. Then decide if another one is something you need to start.

Am I perfect with these? Heck no! I post on this particular blog far less than I should, but I have others that are more of a focus for me. I have also dropped blogging on sites that I simply do not have time for right now. As my personal life changes I may pick them back up, but for right now they’re on the back burner.

And of course I sometimes wish I could succeed as wildly as certain other bloggers. But I don’t let that get in the way of working on my blogs in my way.