Is it time to re-focus your site?
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| Crazy Bob says, “Click my affiliate links. CLICK THEM!” |
Here’s your term of the day: scope creep.
Scope creep, as defined by Wikipedia, means:
“[the] uncontrolled changes in a project’s scope. This phenomenon can occur when the scope of a project is not properly defined, documented, or controlled. It is generally considered a negative occurrence to be avoided.”
In business, this happens when owners don’t have a proper, written business plan. On the web, it happens when a site starts creeping out of its niche into more generalized territory.
The Depressing Story of Crazy Bob
We’ve all seen blogs that start out with a singular focus. For example, let’s look at a fictional blog. We’ll call it “Make Insane Money Online with Crazy Bob.” Crazy Bob intends to make insane amounts of money by showing people how to do the same. Also, he’s trying to pay for his psychiatric medications, but that’s another story.
The project starts out well. Crazy Bob writes some intriguing articles. He works all the social bookmarking angles. He makes enough to cover his medication with enough left over to buy food for his 17 cats. Everything is going just as planned.
One day, Crazy Bob realizes that he’s out of ideas, and begins repeating the same trite advice from every other “make money online” site out there.
Unfortunately, Crazy Bob is so bored by this that he begins posting pictures of his cats. Then more details of his personal life creep in: what he ate for breakfast, whether he’s getting enough fiber in his diet, what he tells his dates when they ask about the pervasive odor of cat urine in his apartment. That kind of stuff.
At this point, scope creep has set in. The site should accurately be called “Make Insane Money Online with Crazy Bob and Please Look at My Funny Cat Pictures while You’re at It.”
Damn cats.
What to Do about It
- Stop publishing pictures of your cats. No one cares.
- Look at the original theme of your site. Has the site drifted away?
- Determine if it’s best to re-brand your site around its current, expanded theme, or whether it’s better to spin off the extraneous content into a separate site.
Scope creep kills. You have been warned.