Time For a Niche Site
The road to success online today is paved with niche sites. Any guru today will tell you that. I’ve proved this as well with some of my own projects, but haven’t fully dived in to setting up multiple micro-niche sites. I’d say it’s about time. Although I refuse to do it guru style with purchased content.
It use to be super easy to rank well in Google. It also use to be the only search engine you had to worry about. Believe it or not, MSN and Yahoo haven’t always used their own results. They use to pull info from Google. So it didn’t matter what search engine you used, you were ranked the same in all. Those were the glory days for most affiliate marketers and SEO professionals, and boy did we make bank. Sure it was work setting up the pages, but after that………ahhhh what an easy ride. Well deserved too, because we were giving searcher exactly what they wanted. Our pay checks proved that. It didn’t require niche sites so much either. In fact, the bigger the site the better!
Times changed though, Yahoo and MSN broke away, and all three thought those affiliate sites were “spammy”. Content was what searchers wanted - or so they thought. Obviously that wasn’t true or else we wouldn’t have been making sales. Why would someone looking for “Dora the Explorer Toys” NOT be looking to buy something? Yeah I’m still scratching my head about that one.
Either way us affiliate marketers saw our sites crash. The income that had been pouring in just went *poof*. Some had newsletters that kept them above water. Others had side projects they went to focus on. Many just decided to give in to the powers that be and actually PAY for advertising in the form of PPC (*GASP!*). Then of course there were those that simply gave up.
Me, well I was one that went off to do other projects. My success isn’t near the same as what I had years ago, but it’s nothing to complain about. Because I never stopped playing the SEO “game”, I’ve gained some mighty fine copywritting skills. For the most part Google still loves me. My pure content site sees hundreds of unique visitors a day, and gives me a nice “lazy” income. Not saying I didn’t earn it, but the work is long ago finished.
Back to the point of my post - niche sites. I’ve come to realize if I want to get anywhere near the success I had before, it was high time for some high-content niche sites. That’s where the money is, I know. Traffic too. I have one small niche site that does pretty well for our main business, and serves as a “doorway” to the main. It sees some sales alone, but for the most part drives traffic (and sales of course) to the main.
I did some brainstorming today, and my thinking was still too big. My usual problem is I start with site ideas that are just way too big to start with, and aren’t really ‘niche’ sites. Somewhat in the way the “general stores” online set up shop. You know the ones that sell a little bit of everything, yet nothing at all?
Anyway, I started out with a “general” idea and didn’t like my results. No one looks for “in general” things or stores. They look for SPECIFIC things and products. I realized that a particular topic that was going to be a branch of this “general idea” could actually be THE main site. AH HA! That light bulb finally went off, and the meaning of “niche” finally clicked with me. I sat looking at hundreds of terms for that ONE topic of interest……and wow. I could really make a HUGE site out of this.
That’s what I’m now working on is this niche site. I won’t say what, for obvious reasons. Since this is a specific site, it could very easily be stolen. Not that the stolen idea would get very far, because they would only have my idea and not my plans. Plus I’ve already got it in my head these pages will be absolutely filled with search engine friendly content. At the risk of sounding conceded, I doubt someone stealing an idea could pull off my rankings (being the SEO copywriter I am). I’d just rather not take the chance of someone even coming close to stealing this idea though.
Here we go! Niche site ahoy!
Increasing in Him,
Kara
Topics: Business Stuff |
August 13th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Welcome to the world of niche sites, Kara. You will love it.
My business model is created around niche sites and it’s a blast.
Like you, I do not used purchased content (for obvious reasons). There’s no need to.
Be true to the niche and the niche will be true to you.
Patty
August 13th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
You Go GIRL! Just found your site from your WAHM.com siggy. Love this post…and plan to be a regular. Can’t wait to see your niche site. I just launched mine and hope it is “niche” enough! =)
Keep up the good work. Love your blog.
August 14th, 2007 at 8:06 am
Thank you kindly ladies! I really am excited about this site. I’m still working out the money-making aspect of it in my head, but I think I may have a solution. It’s going to be a bit more “work” than it was years ago, but that’s probably a good thing. I’m hoping once the bulk of the work is done, the “upkeep” won’t take TOO much time. I hope. I’m all about the lazy residual income! LOL!
August 18th, 2007 at 1:50 am
Nice post. I completely agree with your idea of the niche websites. And as far as monetizing the blog, I’m working on that one myself.