Bringing Niche Sites Back from the Dead, Part 1 [Case Study]

Given all of Google’s recent changes, I thought it would be interesting to take a few of my good sites that lost rankings, and see if I can recover them.  I’m a big fan of case studies, so whenever possible, I like to document these types of experiments and make them public for all of you to read.

This experiment could ultimately fail, but I think it’ll be a good learning experience for both you and me.  Keep reading, and I’ll dig into the details.

Why Your Niche Sites May Have Been Hurt by “Penguin”

There’s a fair amount of speculation on what the Google “Penguin” update changed and no one seems to know with certainty exactly how websites were affected and how to go about fixing a site.  Based on my reading of various articles around the web, these seem to be the most significant causes of sites losing their rankings as a result of the update:

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Google AdSense Alternatives: Infolinks

The “Google AdSense Alternatives” series continues! In case you missed it, I previously wrote about Media.net, and today I’m going to discuss Infolinks.

Much like Media.net, Infolinks was one of the alternatives I turned to almost immediately after losing my AdSense account.  I had seen it around on a lot of other sites in the past, but never bothered to try it until now.  My overall feelings are pretty mixed on this one, and I’ll explain why below.

What is Infolinks?

Infolinks is a bit different than AdSense or Media.net, mainly because of the way the advertisements are displayed.  Instead of displaying advertisements in a separate box, the ads are actually embedded within hyper-linked text in a site’s content.

Here’s what it looks like on one of my sites:

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Bringing Niche Sites Back from the Dead, Part 2 [Case Study Update]

As promised, I’m going to periodically update the progress of my case study as I attempt to bring a few of my niche sites “back to life” (you can read part 1 where I explain everything here).

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My Passive Income Report [May 2012]

Time really flies as we get into the summer months – all you want to do is sit outside, enjoy the warm weather, and relax.   I did a lot of that May, as I saw my online business finally settle down and begin improving again.

May was a lot of fun in a “what the hell am I doing?” kind of way, as I splurged with a couple of fairly large purchases (for my personal life, not internet business).  I’ll explain more on that below.

Let’s dig into May’s report…

A Brief Overview of May

Income was up in May, and although I’m still very far away from where I once was, I’m happy with the direction that things are heading.  It’s becoming more and more clear to me that it probably isn’t worth spending time and money building and investing in assets with questionable value.

Even though these types of projects don’t cost much and don’t consume a lot of time individually, it all adds up.  Sometimes I look back on all the time I spent on micro niche sites and wonder what I would’ve created had I put all of that energy into one or two larger projects.

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Google AdSense Alternatives: Chitika Review

Next up in the Google AdSense Alternatives series is Chitika!  This is actually one advertising network that I’ve been using for awhile, almost as long as AdSense, because I was able to use it on my InfoBarrel articles.

As I go through and review these various alternatives to AdSense, I’m starting to realize that it’s going to be extremely difficult to ever match or beat the performance of AdSense. Perhaps it doesn’t make sense to set AdSense as the “standard” because then everything else is going to appear very weak by comparison.

Nevertheless, there’s a lot to like about Chitika, and I’ll go into all the details below.

What is Chitika?

Much like AdSense, Chitika is a display advertising network that primarily aims to provide advertisements that are relevant to the content.  The big difference is, the ads displayed are driven by the visitor’s search query, not directly by the content on a given page.  Also, similar to AdSense and other ad networks, you are paid per click, which you’re probably very familiar with.

Different Types of Ads

Chitika doesn’t offer to much in terms of ad variety, but all of the basic types of block ads are there.

Standard Ad Unit

Here’s what an ad would look like if you were searching for the iPod Touch:

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How to Get FREE Unique Content for Your Authority Site

Ever since Google rolled out its recent Panda and Penguin updates, the internet marketing world has been scrambling for new strategies, both with SEO and content creation.  The wildly popular mini niche sites are quickly becoming a thing of the past as website creators turn their attention toward something that is seemingly more stable: “authority” websites.

The term “authority site” can mean a lot of different things depending on who you ask, but the one element that we can all agree on is more content.  It’s difficult for a 5-10 page site to be an “authority” on a given topic, which is why people tend to equate more content with more authority (although this isn’t always true). There has to be a quality element as well, but that’s a lot more difficult to quantify.

For some of us, creating lots of content on a regular basis isn’t easy.  And if you’re like me, you like to work on multiple projects simultaneously, which makes it even more difficult to push out fresh content on a regular basis.  For one of my authority sites, I’ve found a way to get a lot of free, unique content so that if there are weeks where I don’t have the time to write an article (or simply don’t feel like it), I have options.  Don’t worry, I’ll explain.

You Already Know About Guest Posts

If you’ve followed blogging/internet marketing for longer than 10 minutes, you’re familiar with guest posts.  It’s fairly simple: You have a blog that has an audience, and other people want to get in front of that audience.  So, they write a post for your blog, and it’s a win-win situation – they get a link back to their site on your blog, and you get free content.

I didn’t write this post to simply tell you to go out an solicit guest posts.  Furthermore, it’s not that easy.  What if you have a blog that no one really reads yet?  It’s probably going to be difficult to find people who actually want to spend the time to write a guest post for your blog.  And to find people to write guest posts on a regular basis…well, that would probably require just as much effort as writing the content yourself.

Here’s the Solution I Found

Although my authority site does receive traffic and has a decent Twitter following (over 2,000 real followers - and I’ll explain in a later post how I obtained those), it’s by no means popular, and still has a PageRank of 0.

Not too long ago, I stumbled across MyBlogGuest.  

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3 Easy Steps to Building a Life Changing Authority Site (And Other Ramblings)

I’ll immediately point out that the title of this blog post is pure satire.  Contrary to what a lot of people would like you to believe, and what you know to be true deep down inside, creating a true authority site is not easy.  It requires a lot of hard work and patience.  It’s great to “follow your passion”, but the truth is, doing so is not some magical one way path to a proverbial pot of gold.

We all know this to be true, but it’s something I’ve recently experienced up close and personal.  You probably read a lot of blogs about people who have quit their jobs (or been fired) and have subsequently made an amazing living by starting a business online.

Unfortunately, that isn’t my story (and if you’re like most people, it’s not your story either).  This isn’t intended to be a “how to” post – it’s more a collection of thoughts I’ve been meaning to write about, so take from them whatever you want.

The “Get Rich Quick” Mindset

Even though we all inherently understand that “get rich quick” schemes are not real, we often try to find ways around that reality.  We may not outright fall for these schemes, but we’re still attracted to this way of thinking.  We understand that there is hard work involved, but where we fail is when we equate hard work with (relatively) quick success.

That’s one reason I think mini niche sites have become so popular.  Yes, you still need to invest your time and put in a solid effort, but the “set it and forget it” model is so attractive.  And there’s a simple formula to follow, that goes something like this:

1) Do your keyword research and evaluate potential competition.

2) Buy a domain and build a website.

3) Add content to the website.

4) Perform (and even somewhat automate) SEO tasks, primarily link building.

Those who could perform those four steps well and efficiently could somewhat easily create an income-producing asset that requires little maintenance.

It feeds perfectly into the “get rich quick” mindset.  It’s not that you’re actually getting rich quickly, but you’re taking what you perceive to be a small step in that direction.  Even though one niche site might only earn $30/month, we all understand scale.  We can all do the math and figure out that if we could make 200 of these sites, we would earn $6,000/month – an income that could easily replace a “real job.”

Niche Sites Aren’t Dead, But…

Clearly, niche sites aren’t dead.  There are several public examples (Spencer from NichePursuits and the guys from AdSense Flippers come to mind), and probably many more private examples that prove this business model is still viable.

The problem with this logic (and pointing at these examples) is that you’re highlighting those who stand out.  You might even call them exceptions to the rule (and they are exceptional – I have high respect for the two sites I linked to above).

This is somewhat of an extreme analogy, but it’s almost like pointing at the leading manufacturer of paper and saying, “Look – that business is wildly successful, so it must be a good business model to try and emulate.”  The fact of the matter is, our world is becoming more and more paperless, and the only reason these paper companies are successful is because they have learned to adapt and stay on top of the industry while many other similar companies have probably crumbled.

This isn’t exactly the same as creating niche sites, because the challenge isn’t staying ahead of your competition.  The challenge is overcoming whatever changes Google throws your way. Niche site “X” generally doesn’t compete with niche site “Y”.

And while you might like to say “don’t rely on Google”, those who are massively successful with mini niche sites rely on Google for both traffic and earnings (via AdSense).   Maybe they diversify with other businesses (which is great), but their mini niche site business on its own is very Google-centric.

Here’s what I’m getting at: The landscape is changing, and it isn’t as easy to create a profitable niche site today as it was a year or two ago.  Although people still do it, and will continue to do it, I strongly believe it will become more and more difficult.

The very best will adapt and continue to succeed, while others may find mediocre results at best.  As I mentioned above, this situation isn’t unique to this type of business model.

The Solution is Simple but the Path Isn’t

If you really want to build a more sustainable (content-driven) online business, it’s becoming more and more apparent that “authority” sites are the way to go.

The biggest challenge with this type of site is that you can’t fall into the trap of assuming that more content

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Google AdSense Alternatives: Facebook Ads?

This is going to be more of a hypothetical post, but it’s something that I really believe will be a reality before long.

No online “empire” has penetrated the average web user’s home like Google, and it only makes sense to look at a online business just as popular to find out who could be the next big player in the ad publishing world – Facebook.

This isn’t all conjecture on my part – there are some real signs that point to Facebook becoming the next big online advertising giant, which I’ll of course explain further…

Facebook is Already an Advertising Machine

For starters, let’s look at the fact that Facebook already is highly driven by its own advertising platform, which takes into account every last detail about you, and tailors the ads you see to those details.  Talk about highly targeted advertising.

As an accountant, I like to first dive into the company’s financials – as you can see below, advertising makes up a significant portion of Facebook’s revenue (as of the end of 2011). This data was taken straight from their registration statement for when they went public earlier this year.

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