Can You Work On A Niche Site With Other Projects?
A few times recently people have asked me about niche sites and whether you can do them alongside other projects. They’ve asked me this for various reasons.
The answer is almost always “yes.”
Multiple men have stepped on the moon.
But the real answer is “Should you?”
There are two approaches you can take.
Approach One: Niche Sites As An Active Hobby
Niche sites aren’t a full time thing for me. Despite a ton of the attention I receive on the blog being about them, they’re like the publishing stuff I do: I do it because it’s a good alternative to wasting time binge-watching TV shows, it brings in residual income and the individual sites are worth more as a network than they are just as a simple site.
Niche sites are a great hobby.
You can pick something you’re interested in, take a look at the equipment you may or may not buy and then write up your thoughts on exploring the new hobby… and you can get paid.
Niche sites can be written as and when, as a totally part time thing.
Most of us have downtime and niche sites are a great thing to do in that down time.
But what if you don’t have down time or you want niche sites to be a full time thing?
Approach Two: Niche Sites As A Hardcore Thing
Let’s say you have a book to write, or a course to create, or a bigger business to run.
Or, on the other hand, maybe you are destitute and you’re in need of some money so you can avoid getting a job or pay your rent.
If the latter is the literal case, then you’ll want to get a job so you can pay your rent. I see people come down the “can I build a niche site to save myself?” path and despite guru claims to the contrary, I’d argue that it’s not a smart idea.
Get yourself out of trouble first, and then start building your niche sites. Think of niche sites as long term investment opportunities: You don’t invest in property to avoid getting a minimum wage job.
But anyway… many of you say things like, “I want to concentrate on finishing my book,” or, “I make $200 a month with niche sites… should I scale or work out how to turn them into $1000 sites or do something else?”
And here’s where the anti-guru truth comes out: If you want to make a full time living just with niche sites, then you should prioritise them. But I don’t recommend this.
If you’re running a freelance business, creating a big authority project or doing things that are more profitable, then you should clearly focus on those.
If you have a niche site that makes $100 a month and you’re exploring a business idea that’ll make you $5000 a month, it’s a no-brainer. You’d have to build fifty niche sites to cover the scale that your single business idea is offering.
Only concentrate on niche sites full time if you have no money, a lot of time and the skills to make them profitable.
Otherwise, treat them like the section above states: idea generators, skill-building opportunities and data collection points, as well as passive income opportunities.
In shorter words: think of niche sites as online real estate investments. Kyle Trouble recently posted this analogy, and it’s a good one.
But Jamie… You’ve Said Niche Sites Are Great?
Yes. I have said niche sites are great. They are.
They are like a real estate investment.
But like real estate investment, the work you do upfront is high, the investment is high (in niche site terms, that’s a time investment and not a monetary one,) and it’s not generally a primary source of income.
Let’s go back to the Niche Site Challenge. The goal with that was simple: 28 sites in a year. One hour a day.
One hour a day is an active hobby. It’s the same as you’d spend watching TV in the evening or playing computer games or whatever. Niche sites are great for this, and the Niche Site Challenge framework is an excellent way to get ahead of the curve on that.
The good thing with niche sites is that past a certain point (a few dozen articles) niche sites are set and forget.
You can race there – and write twenty articles per week – or you can write one a week and be done in a year.
In any case, other projects can and should take priority, because there’s no real loss for not taking this approach so far as the niche sites are concerned.