Last week I got a comment on this post about how to make successful niche websites in 2018.
Reader Al asked:
Hi Jamie,
I’ve thought about getting into the niche site business for a while and I’m struggling to pull the trigger to get started. I’ve read other blogs saying the same thing about how great money makers niche sites are but later on those same guys focus on other things.
What are your thoughts of having one massive niche site that pitches many different products as opposed to making many sites for one or two products per site? The second option is all I see, but I believe the bloggers/site owners who have the most amount of content on one site tend to make the most amount money. Maybe I’d be crazy for trying, but I’d rather have one site with 1,000 reviews than 1,000 sites with one review each.
Thanks and I look forward to your response.
There are a few interesting things that I can bounce ideas around on, so that’s what I’ll do in this post.
Getting Started With Niche Sites
Al is “struggling to get started with niche sites.”
Here’s the thing with this point to get started.
You should have your own internet space. For numerous reasons, you want to get a hosting account that allows for multiple sites. You should have an online portfolio and hopefully own your full name as a domain. Also, business ideas and the like, as well as personal online security.
The above is a good practice for life.
So assuming that’s the case, you have hosting already set up.
A niche site is the domain and a few hours of work – hopefully tied to your hobby. Total investment : $10.
If you’re struggling to get started, then look at your niche site as a $10 learning experience.
You’ll learn incredibly valuable skills, like how to write articles, how to set up a WordPress site and hopefully how to get traffic and sales.
That’s worth more than the cover cost of $10, and I’d argue that the skills you’ll build will be crucial in future business.
If you’re worried about failure psychologically, I’d say, “Assume your first site will fail at making money.”
This is true whether you’re talking about ecommerce or niche sites or a portfolio for your consulting biz. You’ll not get everything right first time.
So make your goal something you can win, and then you won’t fail.
With that said, let’s address the money thing.
Are Niche Sites Great Money Makers?
Niche sites are good money makers if you look at them with a reasonable perspective.
People start a niche website and hope that it’ll make them thousands per month passively without them doing anything.
This is unlikely going to be the case.
Any website requires some work and you’ll have to write articles, build the site and more. It’s not passive- but as a wider thought – most income isn’t passive in general.
There’s also a ceiling to a niche site’s potential. Some people have large niche sites that earn in the thousands… these are outliers. Most niche sites earn a few dollars a month and if you follow my advice, then you could earn a few hundred in a month per niche site.
Now… people say, “OK… I’ll just build fifty niche websites and make $100 from each of them per month.”
When you talk about that sort of system it’s not that easy or straightforward, and if you’re putting in hundreds of hours into something, then there are better investments for your time.
That said if you have ten hours spare a week, you’re learning how to do online business stuff and you want to make a better return on your money than playing video games in the evenings, niche sites are great money makers.
You can write thirty articles in your spare time, put them on a site and generate residual income. As an added asset to your investing basket, you get a phenomenal return.
Why Do Niche Site Makers Move On To Other Stuff?
Al correctly notes that most guys who start building niche sites tend to make their money from other things.
Does this mean niche sites are a scam? Not at all.
There are two camps here:
- Guys who sell info-products and affiliate market hosting companies and the like
- Guys who use the skills and move on
There’s nothing wrong with the former, but you’ve all seen the types. “Here’s my $999 course on how to make a niche site!”
The majority of their income comes from selling you hosting or selling you the course, and their niche sites are nowhere to be found.
This is lucrative, but doesn’t necessarily mean the niche site thing doesn’t work. Simply that they’ve found a lucrative opportunity that people will pay for.
Of course, among these are the guys who’ve never built a successful niche website, but that’s true of everything online business related.
The second group tends to be people who’ve learned how to make niche sites and then realised how useful the skills are.
Here’s the thing: When you build a niche site, you realise you can build any site.
When you write a sales letter for a product on Amazon, you realise you can write a sales letter for anything.
Once you’ve learned how to get traffic to your site, you can get traffic to anything.
Most guys move on because they take the skills and in a lot of caes the income, and put them to more lucrative avenues.
This doesn’t mean the niche sites were useless, because they sit there generating more money. It just means you’re a more skilled and better bankrolled businessman with more open doors after you’ve mastered building niche sites.
(Not) Final Thoughts
Alright… This article is getting long and I have some more writing to do today. Next week, I’ll give my updated thoughts on the rest of Al’s questions. Mostly, these are to do with building a niche site around few products or a bigger site focusing on many products.
Hopefully this answers some questions though about niche sites.