I’ve been puzzling lately over working out how I should calculate or rather decide the criteria by which I choose which niches I should be working on. In other words deliberating on the problem of prioritisation. So far I’ve come up with a few vague strategies, which might be worth considering. And I’ve been collecting some data on July statistics for each niche. I can see which ones make the most money, and which are failing even to break even. Now then, should I concentrate on the ones which are already working, in order to make them work better, or work on the trailing ones to bump them up above the break even line and thus justify their existence? One thing I never even thought of before now is the possibility of concentrating on the middle layer. Does that make any sense?

I formulated one plan which is to concentrate on both the top and the bottom. That would allow the possibility of leveraging success to go on to greater success, while also trying to keep a good spread, and destructive testing the potential losers. If they stay on the bottom after repeated attention, then they deserve to be ditched. The middle layer would then be left to float or sink, or maybe even stay in the middle which would mean they generate a good residual income without any effort. So that seems like a good plan.

Then there was another idea, which was to look at the overall markets and differentiate between the failing properties for new or unique niches, as opposed to failing subsidiary properties on more widely represented niches.

So if it’s a newly positioned blog in a market I don’t already have success in, then work it through to success or failure. That way we keep adding to the spread. If it’s a subsidiary blog that’s not doing so well, just leave it and concentrate on the best optimised for the main phrases. Makes some kind of sense, but also seems a bit clunky. I’m glad I’ve written this down though, because it can get a bit muddled up thinking about it.

Also, the mere collection of data is getting painful. I only do a bit at a time, and the spreadsheet is a pain to work with. Google adsense figures as a source of traffic data are easier but not by any means comprehensive.

In 2009 there were a total of 12 blog posts posted on the ICT-Tutor blog, including this one.

We also move web hosts once or was it twice. In 2010 we may take a new direction, or close down or amalgamate or something, very uncertain times we live in.

The video for lesson 1 in the image editing series is now up on the blog together with some hints as to what the remaining 4 lessons will be about.

Seashore is the open source photograph and image editor based on Gimp technology and tailored for Apple mac OS native cocoa environment but the video lesson is fairly basic and applicable to any image editing software that uses layers.