The Blog Income Life summer sabbatical is over, after all anything summer was officially over a week ago and the fourth quarter of the year is upon us.

I  took the summer off of blogging and called it my summer sabbatical ‘cause it just sounded better that way.  Taking the three months off was good.  It was one of chose choices that was made for me.   Have you ever had this happen to you?  Suddenly too much is coming at you, most of it good and most of it means an income, either right away or in the pipeline?   Now that’s not a bad place to be, but suddenly you’re caught up in a whirlwind and you don’t which way to go, what to do?  So you get the picture  and although a lot was happening precious little was actually being done.

That’s when I decided that I needed to pull back.  It happens to all of us.  When caught in a vortex the best thing to do is suspend yourself outside of the milieu and take a bird’s eye view of the maelstrom below.

It’s not something I recommend for everyone or every situation.  The sabbatical has cost me – it’s cost me traffic, growth and lovely Alexa has dropped Blog Income Life like a hot potato from a one time 239,072 to an embarrassing 1,560,842 (and possibly worse at press time). Testament to the importance of consistency and fresh content.  Google on the other hand has allowed my PR2 to remain.   I hope that my regular readers return and perhaps the search engines will once again take an interest in what is going on in this little corner of the blogosphere.

On the other hand the sabbatical allowed me time to take a breath and examine what was on the table. Sometimes we don’t see the forest for the trees, in my case opportunities.   It`s not as though I sat at the top of a mountain meditating, waiting for the universe to deliver  …what?  Something.   What I did was to engage myself in activities of a different sort from blogging but still within the sphere of internet marketing.

The result is exhilarating.  A new business partnership for one and another that is a joint venture.

While the money made from this site is negligible at best, neither of the two would have happened without this blog.  I thought I would share some of my experiences with you, perhaps there is something there that might resonate with you.

First and foremost the purpose of this site was to apply that which I knew, learn and grow.  This is an ongoing process.  The main thing is that by applying one learns a lot more than by just knowing.  Trust me.  It’s true.   You find holes in what you know.  You begin to know how little you know.  Sometimes that is discouraging but then you look at where you’ve come from and there is renewed zeal.  But sometimes that isn’t enough.

There were signs already in May … signs that pretty much said I’d need to clone myself, decline opportunities or do a half assed job of everything.  One morning I sat down and reviewed the state of Valentina  – the good, the bad and the ugly.

The good was obvious. The bad was that I had no time.  The ugly was specific to this site – once again it seemed to be in a stall.  So I made some decisions.

Sometimes the best cure is a change of scenery.  I decided to take a leave of absence from Blog Income and concentrate on some of the other areas that needed addressing.

One:  Clean House –  Pocket Some Money.
On several occasions I made mention that my dog sites are the ones that are at least giving me some income off the net.  I have several dog related sites.  The thing is I no longer have a dog.  Dear Darby went to doggie heaven.  For personal reasons I decided not to get another dog.  Even though the mere sight of a dog tugs at my heartstrings, my heart was no longer into the dog sites.  I put them up to auction and sold them – well at least a few.  Someone I know locally has offered a deal for the rest of them with a revenue share component.  We’re talking.

If you have stale blogs that are just gathering dust, you just might want to polish them up and put them up for sale.  You’re not likely to get a lot of money for them, but chances are you’re not getting much of it anyway if the blogs have gone into a catatonic state.  Clean house – pocket some money.

Two:   Navigating the Rabbit Trail.
Through a convoluted set of circumstances I was asked If I would help promote an early stage company going to IPO (Initial Public Offering).  Coincidentally this is a digital media company and wow!  Did I learn a lot about the importance of video in online marketing.   Here’s a statistic for you:  companies with websites that have a video are 51 times (that is times, not percent) more likely to end up on page one of Google for their product over companies that don’t have videos .  What that means is that a site that does not have one will be lost in the maze of a rabbit trail. Now that statistic is tumbling fast as I see an increasing number of businesses adding videos to their sites.

Three:  Joint Venture
Through my internet mastermind group I am now a legal  equal revenue sharing partner in a startup internet project – a site which is part of a bigger scheme.  Development costs in terms of time and money have been significant to date – none out of my pocket.  How good is that?

Four:  New Online Business
This one was an incubator for several months, inching along step by step.   Big change as someone with depth of online experience and offline business success expressed interest in a partnership – would I be interested ?  Oh Yes!

I know there are bloggers out there that are busting their butts trying to make their blogs fly, to make a bit of money, maybe that’s you.  All I can say is don’t give up … you just don’t know what and how your efforts will pay off.  Keep on keeping.