If you’re wondering whether it’s worth creating niche sites or not, read on. I followed Pat Flynn for some time and his Niche Profit Duel competitions he ran online. If you haven’t heard of Pat, he created the website smartpassiveincome.com and ran a competition based around his success with a site:Â securityguardtraininghq.com. He built the site and was earning more than $1200 a month in less than a year.
The site still ranks for the keyword he picked, you guessed it (security guard training). So can anyone do the same thing and how easy is it to build a profitable niche website and earn a regular income from it?
Creating Niche Sites – What Is A Niche Site?
A niche site starts with keyword research. Using the Google’s keyword planner, or even one of the many research tools you can purchase, you can find untapped keywords to base a website around. In the case of the aforementioned site of Pat Flynn’s he found the keywords “security guard training” were a highly searched for term which had little competition on the search engine Google. He didn’t know anything about security guard training before this and learned all the knowledge he shared on the site after having chosen these keywords. The two elements for keywords research are:
- Find a keyword which gets a good search amount every month and
- Which has few competing pages in the organic searches.
I talk about this same strategy in more depth in my ebook Niche Blogging For Profit.
Niche Sites Today – Is This Still A Good Strategy?
Pat’s site wasn’t just a throw up site which he forgot about. He put a lot of work in to it. It worked because he made it an awesome site. One page niche sites with very little content and stuffed with affiliate links won’t rank on Google. You need to create something which is better than what is on offer. The same strategy still works but there is much more competition online now than when this site was created. Also Google has changed a lot since then too.
It ranks great content but places more value on authority now. Small sites with little or no back links, social media presence or traffic simply won’t rank well. Aged domains gain authority over time. Google has multiple signals to decide on a website’s value. You have to create value and the best way to do this is with an authority site, rather than many niche sites which all require a lot of work to keep them ranking.
Creating Niche Sites – My Experience
I spent a good couple of years creating niche sites. They ranked in the early days but you need to keep on top of them. Unless you are continually adding content and building authority, there will be someone out there who is, and who will outrank you. Pat’s site worked well because there were no other sites like his at the time. He found a great niche. I worked long and hard and was mostly disappointed with the results from my sites. The key really is to provide something of quality.
Don’t chase the money. You need to think into what Google wants. Trying to ‘trick’ the search engines is a losing game. Quality content and good keyword research is a good start. Then promote and keep promoting your site. I ran into problems because I spread myself too thin. I was juggling several sites, none of which I could maintain interest in. Choose a topic you love and you have a good start. That way you will always have something to write about.
Successful Niche Sites
If profit is the goal then there are quicker and easier ways to build an online income. Taking your chances with Google can leave you very disappointed. It also leaves you very vulnerable. If Google changes something it can dramatically affect your business. Many websites have dropped from the rankings following an algorithm change by Google. This can be devastating for your business, especially if your income depends on it. There are other ways to build traffic and stability to an online business:
- Advertising – Adwords, Facebook, Linkedin, etc.
- List Building
- Offline Advertising
But you need a product to sell which will cover your expenditures. How you make money money from your website is  as important as how you get traffic to it. Paying for traffic means you need buyers and you have to be careful as to how you do it. Otherwise you could end up spending a lot of money for nothing. Go after the ‘free’ traffic from Google and you could end up spending a lot of time for nothing. Which is worse?
Creating Nice Sites – A Profitable Online Model
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