Over the last couple of years the guberu establishment has lead us minions to believe that we have to mine the niches. Find joy in the long-tail keyword phrases. Dive into the micro-niches for Adsense glory. Why there is no way you can compete with the big doggies in the search engines if you target a large niche like health or dogs?! Nay, you must dive into the outliers. If you want a website on health then it’s best to target “healthy fingernails” or “fit Achilles tendons”. There is no glory to building a site on “physical fitness” or “exercise”.
I disagree young warrior. I have a site on health and fitness that is so general that Patton himself is giving it a salute. The clicks have increased weekly. I submitted the blog to all kinds of blog directories. I do the lame blog comments. I doubt I have much ranking at all with any search term in the search engines. But somehow, someway, I manage to make a few bucks with Adsense every day and a nice affiliate sale as well every so often. I update the blog once maybe twice a week. Yet my traffic has increased from 2-5 a day to over 100-150.
Ha, you say. That is pathetic. My site on 6 finger bowling balls gets 200 hits a day. To that I say: how easy it is to update your micro niche with content? If I want content I simply go to 1 of about 80 million blogs and websites on health and fitness and report what I read, giving credit where credit is due. Throw a video up or picture and I’m done. 15 minutes tops. Twice, maybe three times a week.
Yea, but Splork, do the arithmetic. Sure you’re only working an hour or so a week but you’re only making about $10-15 in Adsense. You could do better hourly at the local Choke n’ Puke.
To that I say: you are correct. But I look at the potential. My income rises every week. I get more clicks every week than the week before. This week it may be $10 in Adsense. Next month I hope to build it to $20/week. The glory is in affiliate sales anyway.
Dunno man. It just seems to me that there is more than simply hoping Google notices you. I would love to rank #1 in Google for everything I do. The reality is it’s too hard. I do the best I can at Nichebot for keyword research. But that is mostly so people can find me wherever they search and not just from Google.
I guess my point is my health and fitness blog does better than my targeted fitness sites on pilates, weight loss, exercise equipment, yoga, etc. I just write or post whatever comes to mind. I get some nice traffic without even trying. On those niche sites where I’m trying (keywords, LSI, links, etc.) I get very few clicks. Go figure.
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Very interesting…. from a new reader.
I have several dozen WH sites, that all have broad topics…. too broad I have always feared. I constantly kick myself for making them Health, or Home & Family, etc, instead of deep niches.
But you give me hope! Also, I think the broad ones are more loved by people buying links on TLA or TLB, would you agree?
Thanks!
I couldn’t agree with you more!
I have a network of sites and 60% of the traffic and income comes from the site that covers a broad, competitive market. This site went up in late Februrary and it took off faster than any site I’ve put up and within four months it was averaging over 500 visitors a day and now gets close to 1000 visitors a day.
This is the one site that makes all the work worthwhile and it’s so generic, I can keep adding new related content basically forever.
I also have a dog related site that’s starting to show signs of life after about six months in a very, very competitive market.
So I totally agree with you. It’s best to do niches that you’re interested in because you’ll more likely want to spend the time doing updates and if it happens to be a huge, competitive market, so be it.
If you know what you’re doing, you can do it better than anyone else, because there’s a lot of crappy sites out there in large, competitive niches.
yes sir, i’d said it already the last time.. next time someone claims authority on any untested, unproven courses n/or softwares on some fancy high sounding stuffs, just look the other way and dun buy guys.
The comment that you make more money on with the site that you post what you are interested in than on the sites where you follow the guburu’s advice says it all.
The old aphorism to “do what you love and the money will follow” is true on the net, too. People can tell when you’re interested in a topic and your enthusiasm infects them.
You probably won’t build a crap site if you care about a topic and that, too carries over to the reader.
Happy holidays, Splork, and best wishes for a prosperous and happy new year.
Barry
About 100-200 visitors a day is a good average for the kind of site you described. You’re probably hitting some good long tails. That’s what I’ve seen happen on my established niche sites.
The real trick is find those that earn not $1 or so a day but $10+ a day or have 100′s of the $1 a day sites.
Hey Frank. Thanks for visiting. Your site is one of those I discovered after finding Blogger Unleashed. I particularly liked what you wrote about WP versus Blogger blogs. I’ve found a goldmine of great info between yourself, Griz, Court and Vic (the Four Horsemen). Good stuff.
That blog is getting around 200 visitors a day now. I generated $14 yesterday in Adsense from that health site. I think that is pretty cool. Today, it looks like I’m knocking back around $4 so all is not rosy in the land of clickdom.