You’ve been lied to. Probably more than once.
It’s time to call bullish!t.
Why micro niche sites are a leftover myth from another era?
This post is not going to say niche sites are bad.
I’ve promoted niche sites for years. I even give away EIGHT of my best niche ideas here: https://www.brendanmace.com/8-easy-niches-for-an-amazon-affiliate-your-shortcut/
The PROBLEM is that too many of us are doing it all wrong.
There’s this fascinatingly attractive idea to set up a website, throw up some posts, and expect money to pour in like sweat dripping from a sumo wrestler.
That’s not the way it works.
And if you read this whole post from start to finish, you’ll understand why.
Who Started the Big Lie?
Actually, no one is to blame for this.
It’s just outdated.
When I started with niche sites, about 7 and 1/2 years ago, setting up micro niche sites worked.
It was easy to stumble on the idea.
WarriorForum had famously popular threads on the topic.
Here’s one that broke 100K views:
It was a beautiful thing then.
You’d do your good ol’ keyword research.
That was key, and continues to be important to this day.
The process was:
- Find a good keyword
- Set up a website
- Write or buy 4-5 posts
- Repeat
Smart marketers repeated this over and over.
And they made money.
So what’s the problem?
Those posts that inspired me 7 years ago still exist.
And what’s worse, people still read them.
There’s a new Joe Blogger every day. Most think a few posts and a good keyword is gonna be life changer.
A follower messaged me last week and said he registered THIRTY domains.
He now plans to create niche sites on all of them.
Hate to cut the sails down before the shipwreck, but that’s just emotional suicide.
None of those thirty sites will make more than $10/month.
That’s the truth.
From Doom to Boom — How to Make a Niche Site Today
This may seem rather obvious.
If puny niche sites are swallowed up by the vast Google wastelands, then clearly you should create a non-puny niche site.
BINGO…
It actually doesn’t really even need to be a “niche” site per se. As long as your site features lots of juicy quality stuff, it will fare much better with the G-bot.
Follow these simple steps, and you will create a site that withstands all future updates.
Step #1 — More than Four Pages
What quality site has less than 20 pages?
Can you think of one?
Not possible, right?
Sites like Amazon, Ebay, NyTimes, etc all have thousands of pages.
Google is not stupid.
A site with less than a couple dozen pages will not be an authority — Nor should it be.
Lots of pages is crucial.
Step #2 — Visitors Enjoy the Site
It would be easy to publish garbage.
You could buy it for $5 a pop on Fiverr. Or you could use some crappy Auto Post 3000 software to make some steamy content goop.
That’s not gonna work.
But Brendan, Google is not a human. It can’t read webpages and test for quality.
AHHHH… But that’s where you’re wrong, laddy.
Google can’t read the pages, but it can see how fellow humans are digesting it.
This is also known as “user metrics”
There’s three crucial “how’s”
- How long does a visitor stay
- How many pages does a visitor see
- How often does a visitor ‘bounce’
The first two are obvious.
If you’re curious about “bounce rate,” it means does the visitor immediately leaves after seeing your site.
A crappy website will lose visitors faster than a smelly fart.
So yes, Google will know if your site sucks.
Step #3 — Updates on a Reasonable Basis
This is a bit of a changer.
While you could leave a site without updates for years, it’s now more important to keep adding more.
And it makes sense.
Let’s think again, what quality site would __________?
In this case we’re asking “what site would stop updating?”
Not always the case, but usually this indicates a lack of authority.
Good sites are maintained.
Skipping this step is a big red flag to Google.
Step #4 — Real Social Love
Without question, you could fake this one.
The idea is that if a site is good, people will share it with their friends.
There are ways to get social shares that are self-contrived.
The only problem I have with getting fake social signals is that it’s unsustainable.
Sure, you may have the time and energy to fake it for awhile.
But do you really want to regularly fake shares?
On top of that, do you want to balance out the shares, so that they appear real?
Of course not.
That would be a HUGE dump of your time.
The whole goal of a niche site is that it’s passive. Or mostly passive.
That means any social signals need to be sustainable.
There’s one real easy way to get more shares…
… ASK FOR THEM.
A quality site could double it’s social signals, simply by ending pages with a genuine plead for likes.
Something simple, like “If you enjoyed my review of ____, please share it with your friends.”
A whole three second task, and it would immensely improve your sharing.
Another great way is to start a social following on the big networks.
I’ve shown how to do that on:
It’s easier than you think.
An Action Plan — For Do’ers
Nothing equals nothing.
No action will get you nowhere.
So let’s set the right plan of attack.
- Pick something you’re passionate about
- Research keyword possibilities — Go or No
- Can you turn this into a bigger authority site — Go or No
- Write or Outsource quality pages. Personality helps.
- Build it out over time.
- Grow a following via social networks, email list, etc.
Sound easy enough?
If you’re stuck with any of those steps, leave a comment below.
My job is to make sure YOU are successful.
Seriously, that’s what I do.
Bye for now!
