Niche Sites As Billboards
When is a niche site not a niche site?
There are quite a few occasions where you could say the above is true.
Here’s one.
A niche site is not a niche site when it’s a billboard for local services.
This is an idea I’ll probably play with in the New Year, and something I mentioned before in location dependent businesses and one of the Niche Site Challenge articles – this one, in fact.
Geo-Located Niche Sites AND A Monetisation Strategy That’ll Work Here But Nowhere Else
When people think of niche sites, a lot of them pick the worst possible type of monetisation strategy they can: They go for Adsense or another similar advertising program. The problem with these types of programs is that you’re paid for impressions and views. Sometimes you’re paid for clicks.
With a niche site, you are going to target mostly low volume keywords and you’re going to have to aim to maximise each of those keywords.
Sometimes, I’ll get 60 views and make $100+ from those sixty views. That’s because I’ll sell a product with a $100 commission and have a 2% conversion rate.
Now, if I used Adsense or a similar program, even with the same conversion rate and targeting the same keyword, I might get a $1 click commission if I’m lucky, but it’ll probably be a lot less than that.
If I’m working on a program that pays per thousand impressions, then I might not get paid at all and if I do, it’ll be about $0.2.
Now, this is ok – I actually have a niche site that works on that principle. I’ve had it for a few years now, and it consistently makes me $0.1 a day.
But trust me… everyone should aim for the former of those two examples and aim to get $100 as opposed to $0.1.
So that’s why advertising is rubbish or niche sites.
Except when they’re not niche sites.
Local Billboard Sites
Here’s the thing with geo-targeting your niche sites: They don’t have to be “niche sites” in the sense that your average online marketer thinks of them.
They can basically act as local directories for businesses. Instead of charging the end user or the end reader for your site, you instead charge the businesses for directory listings, premium spots or prime advertising space on your site.
The only thing you have to do is to create a website that has visibility for local terms.
Here’s a quick how-to:
Go to your local news sites. Rewrite, expand and otherwise out-SEO their news stories. Link to them. Drop them on social media. Start some social media properties for your area. Keep writing.
The great thing about local SEO is that the competition is very low (unless you’re talking about “London,” “LA” or “New York” but niche down.) Also, people search disproportionately for local searches when it comes to the lack of competition there is.
So you keep pushing out content. A few words will do – you don’t need to write The Odyssey about how some guy drove his van into the roundabout sign or anything. Then you naturally start writing reviews of local restaurants and the like. Then local businesses and events. After that, start putting ad blocks on the screen.
Contact people and say, “Hey… can I write about your site?”
Who knows where it’ll take you.
Bonus: Why This Article Is Short
This article is short because I spent the day at a Christmas Market. I love Christmas Markets for a whole ton of reasons. Most of those reasons involve eating food that I shouldn’t, buying things I shouldn’t and looking at the wide variety of dogs that people have.
But if you go to decent Christmas markets, there is a treasure trove of ideas you can exploit. I’ll potentially write more on this in the future. But forget my words; instead, go to a Christmas Market. Look at the products on sale. Look at the prices. Think about the different products people pay a premium for and then think about how many are unique items as opposed to items that are bought and then repackaged.
Also, go because they’re awesome. Going outside is important.