The Niche Site Challenge Week 14
It’s a quick update from me today.
For those of you who’ve googled “How to make a niche site that makes a ton of money” and landed here thinking, “What the hell is this all about?” let me give you a rundown:
- The niche site challenge is a little collective group idea where we spend a year making niche sites on a part time basis with the goal of making money, improving our copywriting abilities and other cool stuff.
- Every week I post about random thoughts, what I’ve been doing and other articles that are useful (although this week is a bit different.)
- That’s all there is to it. You’re welcome to leave thoughts, join in and ask questions in the comments below.
Let’s get to it.
What I’ve Done This Week
This week has been more routine stuff. I’ve written some articles, particularly concentrating on Niche Site #1.
I also got a new item in the post yesterday which I’ll be reviewing for Niche Site #4 this coming week.
It’s not very exciting, but that’s the name of the game.
Random Thoughts And Other Articles
Usually I put these things into two different sections. Today, I’m going to condense them into one because it suits the topic:
Expected Value And Niche Sites (Part II)
James (who just posted a great article about split testing on niche sites a few minutes ago) left a great comment on this article about niche sites and expected value.
He said that he wouldn’t have been convinced by my niche site money argument. Instead, he suggested two things:
- Think of niche sites as an asset you can sell on at the end of a certain period.
- Think in terms of the hours you put in.
Expected value as I’ve described it thus far can be used for both of those things.
What are the chances you can sell a niche site for $1000? Weigh that up against your time per hour and the chances that you won’t sell the site for that $1000. If there’s a 50% chance your site will be worth $1000 and in the worst case scenario there’s a 50% chance you’ll have a niche site worth, say, $300, then what’s the expected value of each niche site you build, or the value of each hour you put in?
That’s quite straightforward.
What isn’t straightforward – or immediately apparent – is that you can also use expected value to work out whether something is worth your time.
Let’s use copying adverts out by hand. It’s something I recommend people who want to get into copywriting do. I’ve stolen that idea from a ton of great copywriters who all said that that’s a practice you want to get into.
But it takes you an hour to write out an advert by hand, and you don’t really get anything from that hour. Essentially, it’s a wasted hour.
If you have to do this every day for six months, it’s a hundred and eighty wasted hours.
Or is it?
Let’s say you can earn six-figures a year as a copywriter. Let’s say there’s a ten percent chance that that figure will be realised if you follow the prescribed handwriting practice. Let’s say you currently earn $20 an hour.
90% chance of losing $3600 ($20 * 180 hours) = $3240
10% chance of earning $100000 a year = $10000
That’s a very basic summary of why putting money into training at $0 an hour is very rarely a bad choice, and it certainly isn’t a bad choice when you’re talking about getting good at copywriting.
Now, what does that have to do with niche sites?
If you’re worried about wasting your time, then think of niche sites in terms of all of the things that I’ve mentioned (and James has mentioned.)
- You can make monthly money somewhat passively
- You gain the niche site as an asset that you can sell on or keep like a rental property
- The value of the domain you bought increases from $10 yearly as it becomes older and established
- You’re using the niche sites to practice your copywriting – a skill which’ll potentially net you big money down the line
- You can also use a niche site as a portfolio piece for copywriting jobs, making you more money and demonstrating that you know what you’re talking about
- Niche sites are also a great sandbox for trying other things out (new site designs, new writing voices, new marketing methods) that you’d never do on an authority site
- Niche sites can mean that you can write certain items off as taxable expenses (***NOT LEGAL/TAX ADVICE***)
Theoretically, you could add all of those things together, estimate a value to them and then put them through the expected value calculations. I would do that, but it’s currently one of the four days that England will have nice weather this year, so I’m keeping this short.
In fact, if you’ve got a ton of time or you’re curious, that’d be a great thing to do. Expected value works on probability, and with a lot of variables like the above, you can work out the potential upsides in terms of their likely probability.
For instance, it’s unlikely that you’ll sell your niche site for $50,000. But there’s a small chance it’ll take off.
On the other hand, there’s a high probability that the domain you buy for $10 will be worth more than $10 after a year, because aged domains are worth more than new ones, generally.
There’s a high probability that you’ll get better at copywriting. There’s a high probability that you’ll make a small profit and a medium to low probability you’ll make a high profit (depending on what you consider a high profit.)
So on and so forth.
Final Thoughts
We’re three months in to the niche site challenge. Let me know how you’re all getting on.
Write some sales letters. Write some articles. Build some niche sites. Have fun and learn lots of cool stuff.
See you for another update next week!