Should You Build A Niche Site Or Authority Site?
I see a lot of people asking questions like the above. I’ve always found the “niche site or authority site” dichotomy to be a false one because in reality it’s a massive gradient with hundreds of options.
Yet people create two fake boxes and try to decide which is which.
Then you have weirdos who try and differentiate themselves by saying you should create a “niche authority site.”
Whatever that’s supposed to mean.
The Only Difference That Really Makes Sense…
The only difference between a niche site and authority site is that with one you’re trying to get a reader, and the other you’re trying to get a sale.
Thus a thin website with a landing page, privacy policy and other boilerplate copy is a niche site. An authority site is one where you pull out the tricks and try and get someone to stay for more than a single page.
Now, for all the guys who try and create a “niche authority site” are trying to make a brand based on giving things arbitrary names, most of the niche sites I talk about – and the ones I recommend you create – fall somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.
This is just basic direct marketing practice on the one hand; there’s no sense in building a website for the sake of online fame or authority so you define a goal (which is profit) and base every action around that.
On the other hand, the harsh fact is that search engine love is hard to come by with a pure micro-niche site that’s designed for the sale. It’s easy to get outcompeted and hard to build trust.
So, we sit with the arbitrary niche authority site definition.
Alright… So Niche Site Or Authority Site. What Do I Build?
With the above said, whether you treat your site like a niche site or authority site exists on a matrix.
The more effort you can put in, the more you treat it like an authority site.
The more passive you want the income to be, the more you treat it like a niche site.
Niche site = sales letters that convince the customer to read and quickly leave your site.
Authority site = reader retention is important.
Generally then, the less time you spend the more you want your content to achieve the former, the more time you’re spending on the site the more you want to do the latter.
This isn’t really ground-breaking stuff or anything. I’m just giving you all a list of things to do for both approaches, and you can chop and change.
Niche Site Activities
- Concentrate on building product reviews and sales letters.
- If you have social media, then automate it and just post links to your offers and better deals
- Up your scarcity marketing – you want people to leave your site immediately
- Look for the best deals and write your letters accordingly
- If you have an autoresponder, then set it to send out your sales letters via email
- IF you have autoresponders or other pop-ups, have them only appear on exit intent
- Pick a narrower range of subjects
Authority Site Activities
- Concentrate on keeping the reader on-site.
- This means good user experience (no ugliness or broken design)
- Autoresponders to build rapport and direct readers back to site
- Prioritise long term subscriber count over short term profit
- Create legitimate social media profiles and interact with readers
- Crosslink between your posts to create a web of content
- Keep a strong ratio of how-to content to sales pitches
- Strongly consider building your own products
- Pick a wider range of subjects
Final Thoughts
Like I said above, it’s not about choosing to do a niche site or authority site as much as it is deciding how much time you’re willing to sink into a site at the outset.
If you have twenty hours total to devote to a project, then you’re going to do a lot more of the former group and a lot less of the latter group. Many people get this wrong – they’ll write a single review and then go on Twitter, Facebook and Reddit to promote it.
If you only have twenty hours, here’s what I’d do:
- Spend fifteen hours writing 10-20 articles. 80% of them reviews, 20% “start here” or “how-to” compendiums
- Spend a couple of hours designing and creating the site and making sure it works
- Spend your remaining three hours setting up automated profiles, maybe posting a couple of links to reddit or wherever and then setting up a quick autoresponder that just sends email subscribers (who’d be leaving your site anyway) copies of your slightly rewritten sales pages.
If on the other hand a niche had high profit potential, you loved it and could write for five years on the subject, then consider:
- Thinking about a product that serves the market and is missing
- Writing 80% useful articles for the niche for six months to a year
- Creating a set of social media profiles that act as funnel entrances
- Then interacting with readers and other market authorities to determine the best fit for building a product
- Selling the product
- Repeating the process again
Now, I’d recommend starting with the former and then depending on how you get on, introducing more authority-style elements as you go on.
Hopefully, this’ll give you some ideas.