Niche Sites Aren’t Always Best
No matter how many projects I start or how many ideas for niche sites I have, I keep going back to Idea Queen. I’ve come to realize it’s my favorite of all the sites I have, and tends to get extra attention from me.
The site has been live for only 2 years now, which seems so very off to me. I could have sworn it’s been more like 3. But that’s how far back Adsense goes, and I know I’ve had those ads up since day one. (The views and clicks in the report prove this too, since I see less than 10 visitors the first few days). I go in spurts working on it and it’s a pretty big site, so that’s why it seems like it should be older than 2 years.
Regardless, I love the site. Out of all my sites, it brings in the most traffic and is one of my main streams of income. Which is should, it’s like 10-15 niche sites rolled into one. When you look at it that way, seems like it should bring in more than it’s daily average of 700-800 unique visitors.
Since I put up the new blog a few weeks ago, I’ve been putting most my time into it. I got even more excited when I saw the traffic jump by several hundred a day after the blog was indexed. It floored me to see how much of a difference that blog made. So of course, I want to do even more to improve the site and my income too.
What I think is funny about all this is the fact it’s NOT a niche site. Not in the least. I kid it’s a wahm cleverly disguised with a different name, which of course we all know there is no shortage of. Seems they pop up on a daily basis. Funny this one in particular would be so popular. Could it be my SEO skill? Possibly. That makes me feel good to know what I’ve learned over the last 5 years is making a difference.
With that said though, I’ve noticed quite a few pages that need serious help. For example, one page in particular I found at #90 for it’s keyword phrase. OUCH. That will simply not do! Also there’s entire sections that could do better. Money saving ideas for example. Oh man, it’s terrible. Most pages within that section you can’t even find on Google. This will not do either!
And it’s not like I haven’t done any separate work on it because I have. Even though it’s not a niche site, I treat all sections of the site as if they were on separate domains. When I took Cricket’s SEO class early last year, I went through the site page by page. I literally did a complete overhaul of the site which took probably 4-5 months of daily work. It was worth it too, since I went from an average of 30 visitors a day (unique, whenever I say “visitors” I mean “unique”. I don’t count “hits” or duplicate visitors!) clear up to an average of 300-400.
Now while I complain about how badly some of those pages rank, I also realize something very fantastic – there is room for more improvement. The first overhaul gained me about 300 extra visitors a day . The second spurt of work gained me another 300-400 extra visitors a day. If I start working on this site again and improve those pages sitting at the bottom of results, will it jump clear up to averaging well over 1,000 unique visitors a day? I sure hope so.
I decided that’s my current goal. Of course I never lose site of other sites I own, and keep a watchful eye on them. I do “check ups” on them here and there when I catch something that needs attending to. With the candle site, I take care of orders and get payments where they need to go. But the bulk of my time is usually spent on one site at a time, and I try my hardest to focus my attention as long as possible into it. Which is what I plan to do with Idea Queen now – focus my attention back to it, and watch the site do even more amazing things. I’m so proud of it, even though it’s not a niche site. Less isn’t always better 
Your fellow WAHM in success,
Kara
Topics: Business Stuff | 2 Comments »
October 5th, 2007 at 10:32 am
It sounds like you are getting decent traffic and your improvements work. Many of your ideas can be used by non-WAHMs, too. I like the fall leaf designs on Idea Queen!
October 5th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Thanks for your comments Wendy! I saw the blog template and thought it fit pretty well….thinking I could also change it for the seasons as well.
I think the fact that it’s not about business makes me love the site even more, since it’s somewhat of a “break” when I work on it. 