Monotony

What is monotony?  Well, the dictionary definition of monotony is:

Lack of variety and interest; tedious repetition and routine.

I am a strong believer in having a routine.  I like having a regular set of things that I do daily, weekly, or on some regular schedule.  This is true in my personal life and also my business life.  Today, I am primarily talking about my business life, though, since the subject matter of this site is about business, money making and such.

The problem with having a firm routine is that it can become monotonous.  So, the question becomes, how do you combat monotony?

If I get into a period in life where I think things in my businesses have become too monotonous, I sit down and look at what I am doing in my businesses, and I change things.

One of the things that I believe is that if I am feeling a sense of monotony, my customers or readers probably are too.  Probably not to the extent that I do, because I am deeply involved in “my world” on a daily basis.  Readers or customers probably only devote short and infrequent periods of time to “my world,” and thus don’t sense the monotony as much as I do.  But, if I am feeling it, I am betting that others are too.

In my publishing business, I publish lots of websites.  How do I combat monotony on my sites?  Well, first, let’s look at what parts of the business can become monotonous:

• Your writing style or topics that you write about could be monotonous, and it can feel like you are writing about the same things daily
• The looks of your site can get boring, or tiresome
• If you are selling products, the same old products day in and day out can become boring

So, how do you combat these three areas that I’ve identified?

Writing

As I said, your writing style or the topics that you write about can become the same every day.  There are a number of ways to address this:

• Look for new topics to write about
• Write from different perspectives to change up your style
• Bring in some guest writers to your site to shake things up a bit
• Read more.  The more different writing you read, the more things you can change about your own style

See, you can do things to shake things up on your website, and make things interesting again.  Interesting for you and for your readers!

Site Design

From time to time, it’s a good idea to redesign your website!

For me, I prefer to not make too radical of changes.  Try to keep at least some continuity between designs.  Maybe you will at least keep the color the same or similar.  Maybe the design will be similar, but a change of color.  Whatever you choose, making design changes can kind of “wake up” your readers and make them take a second look at the site instead of just reading the article.

I have found that when I make a site redesign, my ad revenue picks up significantly.  Have you heard of “ad blindness” before?  Basically, it just means that because everything is the same day after day, people don’t really recognize your ads any longer, and thus they don’t click on the ads, even if the product being advertised is something they really want.  By changing your site, people need to “re-acquaint” themselves with the site, look a  little closer and they often rediscover things that were there all along!

Sometimes, some web publishers change the looks of their site seemingly on a daily basis!  Maybe not every day, but truly, some people go with radical changes to the site design very often.  Personally, I do not believe in doing that.  I try to re-do my main sites on an annual basis.  One new design per year is enough, in my opinion.  It’s a personal choice, though, and only you can decide how often is often enough.  I find that the more time I spend concentrating on the content of the site, rather than the looks of the site, the more successful I am.  Your mileage may vary, of course.

Products

I sell products on almost every site that I own.  What kinds of products?

• eBooks
• Instructional courses
• Consulting
• Gift products for delivery

Selling the same old products day after day, week after week can certainly be monotonous.  Even if it is not monotonous for you, it will be for your customers.  If somebody wants to buy something from you, but they already own everything you are selling… well… you probably just lost a sale.

No matter what you are selling, try to add new products.  Maybe you can just write two new eBooks per year, no problem.  Write those two, and add them to your selection.  Another thing that is nice about adding more selection is that over the years your efforts add up, and soon you have a whole store full of products to offer instead of just one or two items.  You’ll be surprised at how your sales will add up when you have a larger product selection.

It’s easy!

So, it’s very easy… if things are getting monotonous in your business, change it!  Shake things up.  You can do it easily, and you will likely find that your customers and readers like it too!  Your pocketbook will thank you!