Build it and they will come they said… that might be true, but you’ll be waiting a long time to see anyone come. My time horizon is much shorter than the 1+ year it really takes to see things start coming together on a new website.
Build backlinks they said… that does work, but damn does it suck. It’s also risky.
If you’ve tried link building, you know the frustration of link outreach for basically no result. When link building gets stopped dead in its tracks, niche site owners resort to getting links from private blog networks or other spammy sources. Link building also isn’t ‘free’, particularly when you consider the cost of your time.
Google openly acknowledges trying to penalize or discredit unnatural links. That is not something that will stand the test of time (related: 4 Key Elements Of A Niche Site That Will Stand The Test Of Time.)
So how can you you promote your niche site?
The Sizz Method.
It’s not some free growth ‘hack’ that relies on pulling levers aimlessly. This is scalable, efficient, paid advertising for growth. You’ll need $7,300 for the year… that’s less than many niche site builders spend for a year of backlinks.
Here’s the objectives:
> Build a community for your Niche site.
> Build your email list.
> Drive traffic to site.
BY doing the above, you’ll also get the by-product. SEARCH ENGINE TRAFFIC. When you build a real community, of real users, and send real people to your site (providing Google with real user signals), search traffic will grow.
I’ve used the principles behind this method to drive traffic to my local business websites, and also a niche website of sorts. I say “of sorts” because it is in a niche with minimal search volume and relies largely on the community and email list.
Preventing The ‘Killer’ of Niche Sites and other ebusinesses.
If you’ve been involved with ebusinesses of any sorts, you’ve certainly suffered from ‘shiney object syndrome. That is the killer of all businesses digital.
Why does shiny object syndrome hit so hard?
Because the business (or niche site) is getting no activity. There is nothing to see. There is no feedback. There is no result. Just do and wait.
Promoting your niche site through paid ads, generates real user engagement and feedback quickly. You’ll know if other people are finding your content valuable, what they want more of (or don’t like), and see traction from your efforts.
When you have traction, it is much easier to keep focused!
Let’s break down the steps to The Sizz Method.
This is a system. Follow the step in order. They all tie in together.
Here we go.
#1 Create a Facebook Group
Facebook groups make for an easy, and highly engaging area to build a community. Create your Facebook group around the pain your site solves and or the passion that brings people together.
Of course, your Facebook group won’t fill itself. We’ll get to that in a second.
#2 Create a Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is a GREAT piece of content that your audience gives up some information to access. In this case we just want their first name and email address… so that we can get them onto our email list!
It can also act as a ‘qualifier’ in identifying great audiences for our content.
If you’re comparing 2 audiences you might notice both of them click through to the same content at about the same rate. BUT then if you ask them to ‘pay’ with their email address you find one performs much better. That’s not something I am going to get too in-depth with here, but do keep it in mind.
To start off, take one of your current pieces of BEST content and turn it into a lead magnet.
Actually there is not much to ‘turn’.
Here is the shortcut; in your automated delivery email just say, in non exact words, “we have recently moved this piece online, go here to check it out”. BOOM. No PDF or anything fancy needed.
Of course you will need to set up delivery of this lead magnet. That could be done with a program such as Activecampaign or Mailerlite (basically any email marketing program.
Pictured above is what the simple deliverable automation looks like in ActiveCampaign.
#3 Setup up Your Lead Magnet To Run As a Facebook Ad
Now things gets fun. It’s time to get people onto our mailing list with paid ads.
Rather than setting up landing pages and using designing tools and messing with conversion events, and the hours that it takes to get that right, I just use simple lead generation ads in facebook.
These have a native popup which captures the info you need.
As you can see with mine, there is nothing fancy… just a stock image. The ‘offer’ (your lead magnet) and the audience are the 2 biggest functions of performance.
Let’s put some target numbers behind performance…
As a rule of thumb you need to get opt-ins for less than $1. If you get downloads for less than 50 cents you’re doing great. ????????????
Set this up to spend $15/day.
Read the next section before jumping into to set up lead ads…
#4 Funnel Your Leads To Your Facebook Group
Since leads expess interest in your content and are willing to give up their email address to access it, it’s a safe bet many would be interested in your Facebook Group.
If you’ve tried building a Facebook group with ads, you know that Facebook throws a wrench in the plan as they do not allow you to link to your group.
This is what is cool about the lead ads. You can put your group link in the button on the ‘completion page of your form!
Its not possible to track exactly how many join the group, but my rough calculations from daily optins vs daily group join requests shows about 30-50% of opt-ins will go on to click the button and join.
From there you, be sure to include links to your Facebook group in the deliverable email, in case they missed the button or didn’t care to click it at that time.
If you’re following along with the math, at $15/day adspend, $1 leads, and 30-50% join rate you should be getting 4-8 (real) people per day into your FB group.
#5 Set up Facebook Ads to send traffic to your content.
Sending real people to my (high quality) content using paid ads has shown a major correlation in search rankings. Possible Google looks at how much time people spend on the page. Or the shares that the post gets. I’m not sure… and no one is… but to me the relationship has been clear.
The method above, does get real people to the content, but at a lower much lower volume. Running facebook ads for ‘traffic’ straight to the content gets a higher volume of people to the content.
Pro tip: create lookalike audience from those that spend the most time on your page.
Spend $5/day on this campaign. Since these ads are easy to create, set-up new ads for your new (high quality) content as your publish it.
#6 Share everything with your Facebook group and email.
You’re not building this audience for nothing! This is why it is more valuable to spend money to build an audience of people you have an open line of communication with (by email and FB group) then just send blind traffic.
Use both your email list and Facebook group to promote the content… naturally as these user opt-ed in to join, they have an interest in relevant content. It’s also your job as a ‘content creator’ to figure out what will engage them.
Every time you publish a new piece of content, set up a simple email campaign, and post it in the group.
Do this consistently for 1 Year
Rome wasn’t built over night, and neither will your niche be. Everything takes time and consistency. That’s the hard part.
Look at the end game. Following this method takes $20/day… that’s $7,300 over the course of the year and a relative small price to pay for what will conservatively be an email list of 4,300 and an engaged Facebook group of 1,800.
You will have build a real community around your site and not wasted any time or money on gimmicks and backlinks.
Then you get the by-product; organic (search traffic) growth.
The best part, your site will stand the test of time.