Niche sites on FIRE today… probably won’t be tomorrow.
If you’ve been in the space for a few years you’ve seen it happen. A site takes off. Traffic is coming in hot. The affiliate links are getting click and conversion. Someone is making $10,000/m or much more. And then a Google update or whatever happens and then that traffic drops radically. BUST.
Like this site that was for sale about a year ago in 2019.
It was making about $10,000/m. The seller was asking mid 6 figures for the site. I was confident it would bust. And a year later SEMRUSH (affiliate link) reveals that it did.
Unfortunately these pump and dump affiliate sites are common, even pushed by established business brokers, as I explain in this post: Buying A Website: Be Cautious of Pump & Dump Affiliate Websites (even brokered listings).
Building or getting involved with a site like this is not my style. I only get involved in businesses that will stand the test of time and ethically couldn’t sell one that wouldn’t like that broker was.
So what key elements do niche websites that will stand the test of time have in common?
Focus on a major on-going, problem, goal, or passion.
Creating content just for the sake of getting keywords slapped on a website isn’t going to last very long. No one truly finds value in rehashed review articles and ‘conversion optimized’ product tables.
For long term success there has to be a focus on something big picture that solves a problem or promotes a passion.
Let’s look at some examples…
- Home Appliance Review Website: ❌ no problem or passion. Not on-going. Someone finds the website, makes a purchase, has no further interest in the content.
- How To Make Your Home A Place Friends and Family Enjoy: ✅ Passion. People take passion in making their home a ‘castle’ and entertaining, and keep coming back for new ideas, and share the content.
As you can see from the example above, nearly any ‘review’ based site could be turned into a site with a focus deeper than ‘product review’.
Real Site: Cromweld.com
They publish content on learning welding, and welding careers in addition to their reviews.
Has established community
Over the last 10 years, the internet has morphed from anonymous websites, to engaging communities. You can’t expect content to thrive long term without having a community behind it!
There’s 3 ways that are very easy for Niche sites to build a community.
#1 Create a Facebook Group
#2 Build an email list.
#3 Create a youtube channel (and encourage comments.
One that I need to point out, is to be successful with any of the above, you need to go back to the first heading of this post; “Focus on a major on-going, problem, goal, or passion.”
Has content beyond ‘reviews’
To have an engaging community, and site that people actually want to follow, you need content beyond reviews, and content that has no ‘monetable purpose’.
Bottom line. I don’t know what else to say.
Has traffic beyond Google.
Any business reliant on a single source for all their revenue is a ticking time bomb… yet that is how 99.9% of niche sites operate. Their only source of acquiring customers is hoping that Google rewards them with free traffic.
Reality check; google doesn’t want you to leech on them… unless you’re paying them.
You’re one algo away from broke.
If you want traffic beyond Google, look to your community, and paid ad sources.