[Live Study] Are Micro Niche Sites Dead?

[Daniel Wilson]

Very interesting.

I'd suggest you to do a really deep market research and get a few keywords that are really easy to rank for.

The thing is that people are taking offsite SEO too seriously. Small niche site with 5 articles is getting 1000s of backlinks 2 weeks after its launch. How is that natural?

Good luck with your sites. Don't over optimize when doing on-site SEO. Keep it natural make it for humans not for SE.

[Welsh Warrior]

Getting a tad behind on updating this and a bit on sites... 10 up so far, the majority of which have a squidoo and a hubpage link pointing to them. have paid for a AMR blast to each of these tier 1 links which will be happening over this weekend (is on my to do list, but dont have the time because of other projects)

The sites so far - backlinks were all researched before Yahoo shut explorer down, I have about 10 more researched via that, afterwards I will need to find a suitable backlink checker.

KW1
1600 exact match
$1.21 CPC
Top 5 have a maximum of 30 backlinks, top has just 5. All poor SEO'd for it

KW2
1900 exact match
$0.72 CPC
Top 5 have a maximum of 40 backlinks, top has just 8. All poor SEO'd for it

KW3
1400 exact match
$0.79 CPC
Top 5 have a maximum of 14 backlinks, top has just 14. 2nd seems well SEO'd

KW4
1800 exact match
$0.81 CPC
Top 5 have a maximum of 65 backlinks, top has just 1. All poor SEO'd for it

KW5
1100 exact match
$2.47 CPC
Top 5 have a maximum of 60 backlinks, top has just 4. All poor SEO'd for it

KW6
2400 exact match
$1.05 CPC
Top 5 have a maximum of 4 backlinks, top has just 4. Top seems well SEO'd

KW7
1900 exact match
$0.78 CPC
Top 5 have a maximum of 40 backlinks, top has just 8. All poor SEO'd for it

KW8
1400 exact match
$0.78 CPC
Top 5 have a maximum of 22 backlinks, top has just 8. All poor SEO'd for it

KW9
1400 exact match
$0.98 CPC
Top 5 have a maximum of 48 backlinks, top has just 12. 3rd and 2nd seem well SEO'd

KW10
1200 exact match
$0.92 CPC
Top 5 have a maximum of 32 backlinks, top has just 4. All poor SEO'd for it

Not checked ranking, search or income yet - expecting minimal. Will update this next week when we start looking at the stats

Hope to have another 5 done over the weekend

[Welsh Warrior]

Originally Posted by Tim_Hawksworth

Hi,

This is great thread and well done for sharing.

What platform are you using for the sites ?
Wordpress ?

Yep. Currently using the clickbump theme, but may consider playing around with options to check CTR etc

Any chance of seeing ( just one ) of your sites so we can see
what you are experimenting with ?

I'll consider it, though am concerned about revealing anything too 'exact'. Will give it some thought.

Thanks and wishing you all the best.
.

Cheers!

[Welsh Warrior]

Originally Posted by Daniel Wilson

Very interesting.

I'd suggest you to do a really deep market research and get a few keywords that are really easy to rank for.

That's the plan! he whole thing revolves around easy to rank keywords so am looking carefully at the competition for each one.

The thing is that people are taking offsite SEO too seriously. Small niche site with 5 articles is getting 1000s of backlinks 2 weeks after its launch. How is that natural?

Agreed, which is why I am planning on only hammering massive links to 'buffer' sites such as squidoo, hubpages, infobarrel, etc

Good luck with your sites. Don't over optimize when doing on-site SEO. Keep it natural make it for humans not for SE.

Have varied 'pure' SEO (over optimizing) with those that are less pure, will see which works. So far this is the only real effort at 'split testing' I have done.

[jficarro]

Originally Posted by Welsh Warrior

.... have paid for a AMR blast .........

What's AMR? Some kind of backlink or article marketing thing?

[Timothy Ellis]

Micro sites are not dead (They better not be)! I had a guy ask me to look at a few of his sites recently, he wanted to know why he wasn't earning any money. His keywords were terrible. Rule number one with Adsense, don't fall in love with a bad keyword!!! If the numbers don't add up.. Find another keyword!!

[Barry Unruh]

Originally Posted by jficarro

What's AMR? Some kind of backlink or article marketing thing?

Article Marketing Robot - The Ultimate Article Marketing, Spinning & Submission Tool *EVER*

Their words, not mine...

[Welsh Warrior]

Originally Posted by jficarro

What's AMR? Some kind of backlink or article marketing thing?

Exactly, Barry put the link up. I use it myself, but for this I simply don't have the time so have paid someone else to do it. Anyone doing this themselves would easily be able to do it if they have any time, but as this is a side project for me it makes more sense to outsource it.

I said at the start I would try keep outsourcing to a minimum - but to be fair to my partner who is putting the time in it is the only real prospect I have. If we were doing things slower, or I didnt have other work on, then it wouldnt be an issue.

The plan is to use AMR to create a large amount of links from spun articles to my tier 1 sites (squidoo, hubpages and the like), to power up the links to my money sites

[Welsh Warrior]

Originally Posted by Timothy Ellis

Micro sites are not dead (They better not be)! I had a guy ask me to look at a few of his sites recently, he wanted to know why he wasn't earning any money. His keywords were terrible. Rule number one with Adsense, don't fall in love with a bad keyword!!! If the numbers don't add up.. Find another keyword!!

Abseloutly. No KW tool is right, not even Google's. I've been top of the rankings for some keywords, and got zero traffic despite local KW searches being high - and for others I find good traffic coming in despite being in #15 place.

The KW tools and stats should be a guide, not the be all and end all.

[TryBPO]

Wow...really looking forward to this case study! You're starting off almost EXACTLY the way Joe and I started building the niche sites. What I've wondered is whether our same approach can be duplicated by others. I've talked to some of our readers that have had success on a small scale, but haven't started at the level you're starting at...this will be really interesting to follow.

PLEASE make sure you follow up on this thread though...good or bad. There are SO many threads like this that just die out with no follow-up from the OP...would hate to see that here. I'm hoping I can give you a few points that will help you out quite a bit:

1. Get a website/blog up. Document your process and story there as well as this thread. Start building some readers now as you start your journey. You might not have as many readers right now, but it will be wonderfully helpful to you later on.

2. Along with the website/blog...get an email list. It helps tremendously when it comes time to sell the sites. Aside from a direct monetary benefit...it helps you really think through your process, your content, your direction, etc. if you're going to be sharing it with others. Also...we've received a ton of valuable information from our readers this way...totally worth it so start early!

3. Vary your anchor text. I see that you've modified (made better?) the linkbuilding portion of our process...just make sure you modify the anchor text a bit to make it more natural.

4. Don't get frustrated too early. We made around $30 our first month...it was a bit heartbreaking. We stuck with it and pulled it out...by our fourth month we knew we were on to something good.

5. Once your partner is ALL OVER the content writing...have him outsource it and check the outsourced writer's work. He'd be much more effective editing than actually writing all the content required. It's GREAT that you're starting off doing it yourselves, though...you'll be infinitely more familiar with the process down the road...a big help.

Thanks for the mention, guys...definitely rooting for you!

[chrislangley]

I think the experiment will work swell, having great content and promoted on some top tier sites is a great way to find out if a keyword will deliver

[Welsh Warrior]

Originally Posted by TryBPO

Wow...really looking forward to this case study! You're starting off almost EXACTLY the way Joe and I started building the niche sites. What I've wondered is whether our same approach can be duplicated by others. I've talked to some of our readers that have had success on a small scale, but haven't started at the level you're starting at...this will be really interesting to follow.

Cheers for posting! As I said it was you guys that were the inspiration for this - I have honestly been meaning to do this for about 2 yars but kept coming up with reasons not to - mostly time related. I've had some very good success with mini niches but never done a whole process, then I read your blog (and listened to the podcasts) and it struck me how good mates you 2 are and made me think it might be an idea to bring in a mate of mine. Since a very good friend is time rich but cash poor it was an obvious fit, and one I should have thought of earlier!

PLEASE make sure you follow up on this thread though...good or bad. There are SO many threads like this that just die out with no follow-up from the OP...would hate to see that here. I'm hoping I can give you a few points that will help you out quite a bit:

1. Get a website/blog up. Document your process and story there as well as this thread. Start building some readers now as you start your journey. You might not have as many readers right now, but it will be wonderfully helpful to you later on.

2. Along with the website/blog...get an email list. It helps tremendously when it comes time to sell the sites. Aside from a direct monetary benefit...it helps you really think through your process, your content, your direction, etc. if you're going to be sharing it with others. Also...we've received a ton of valuable information from our readers this way...totally worth it so start early!

You're right, been debating it but it is absolutely something I should be doing to get interested buyers in place. On my to do list for this week!

3. Vary your anchor text. I see that you've modified (made better?) the linkbuilding portion of our process...just make sure you modify the anchor text a bit to make it more natural.

Agreed - the backlinking part is the main area I intend to do some spli testing on, but in the past I have found mixing bare links with correct anchor text (and similar anchor text) has worked well.

4. Don't get frustrated too early. We made around $30 our first month...it was a bit heartbreaking. We stuck with it and pulled it out...by our fourth month we knew we were on to something good.

No worries there - as I said I know mini niches pretty well and know it takes time for them to get going - traffic and income wise.

5. Once your partner is ALL OVER the content writing...have him outsource it and check the outsourced writer's work. He'd be much more effective editing than actually writing all the content required. It's GREAT that you're starting off doing it yourselves, though...you'll be infinitely more familiar with the process down the road...a big help.

100% agreed again. Until Xmas I have him on the content and soem basic other stuff, then I'll be back in Swansea (my home town) for the Xmas period where I can run him through the back end/web stuff and show him how I run my VAs (which I use on my own content site projects)...which should really speed things up.

Thanks for the mention, guys...definitely rooting for you!

No worries - keep up the good work!

[Welsh Warrior]

As an update, got 4 of the target 5 done on the weekend (which was better than I was afraid of as both of us were playing rugby on loooong away days on the Saturday, and hungover to hell on the Sunday).

Will get the stats up for that on Friday, along with hopefully another 10 during the week.

Does anyone know a good backlink checker? Trialed a few and been very unimpressed. I check it with an authority content site I KNOW has over 7k backlinks including a couple of hundred from the BBC and a few dozen more from various UK newspapers, and only one has found the BBC links, and none have shown my the Newspaper ones (and none has shown over 2k in backlinks).

[AfteraDream]

Originally Posted by TryBPO

Wow...really looking forward to this case study! You're starting off almost EXACTLY the way Joe and I started building the niche sites. What I've wondered is whether our same approach can be duplicated by others. I've talked to some of our readers that have had success on a small scale, but haven't started at the level you're starting at...this will be really interesting to follow.

PLEASE make sure you follow up on this thread though...good or bad. There are SO many threads like this that just die out with no follow-up from the OP...would hate to see that here. I'm hoping I can give you a few points that will help you out quite a bit:

1. Get a website/blog up. Document your process and story there as well as this thread. Start building some readers now as you start your journey. You might not have as many readers right now, but it will be wonderfully helpful to you later on.

2. Along with the website/blog...get an email list. It helps tremendously when it comes time to sell the sites. Aside from a direct monetary benefit...it helps you really think through your process, your content, your direction, etc. if you're going to be sharing it with others. Also...we've received a ton of valuable information from our readers this way...totally worth it so start early!

3. Vary your anchor text. I see that you've modified (made better?) the linkbuilding portion of our process...just make sure you modify the anchor text a bit to make it more natural.

4. Don't get frustrated too early. We made around $30 our first month...it was a bit heartbreaking. We stuck with it and pulled it out...by our fourth month we knew we were on to something good.

5. Once your partner is ALL OVER the content writing...have him outsource it and check the outsourced writer's work. He'd be much more effective editing than actually writing all the content required. It's GREAT that you're starting off doing it yourselves, though...you'll be infinitely more familiar with the process down the road...a big help.

Thanks for the mention, guys...definitely rooting for you!

Did you had to give my plan away? huh?

First month wasn't great to me too, second one isn't stunner either but rankings are starting to come slowly as I'm testing few different linkbuilding packages and maybe I will settle with one to complete the system for myself.

[Welsh Warrior]

12 sites done this week (including last weekend), fully backlinked. That will be it for the week though - wife's xmas party tonight (shes a nurse and they know how to get drunk), so will be hungover tomorrow. Then on Sat both me and my partner in this have a rugby game and a rugby xmas do after it (he plays in Swansea, me in London) so Sat and Sunday also a write off.

22 sites so far, happy with how it is going.

Noticed a few clicks on Adsense, but not checked ranking and income. that will be my one and only job tomorrow whilst feeling like hell...will let you know

[Welsh Warrior]

As a separate note I have been working on starting my own private blog network in the last few weeks (high PR, well backlinked, aged domains built out with fresh content). To begin with I have a few things in mind for it, but in the new year I shall try it out on 10 or so microniches to see how that does with the ranking.

Always wanted to try a private network but been reluctant to give others control and access to my keywords, setting up my own is rather exciting for me!

[jameskahon]

Originally Posted by yukon

I'll take a larger site any day of the week.

Rank multiple internal pages instead of a single keyword rich Index page.

This is what I'm currently planning to do. Ranking many keywords on every single post.

[Welsh Warrior]

Originally Posted by jameskahon

This is what I'm currently planning to do. Ranking many keywords on every single post.

Horses for courses an' all that. I have a couple of authority sites and started another a few months ago that i am loving atm (getting much better at understanding the keywording of long articles for numerous keywords in a single post - loving the traffic that it can bring in).

But not all keywords suit larger sites, and the laser focus that a micro niche site can bring to a keyword can really help you nail it. Plus it has the advantage of being able to flip a bit at a time when you want a cash injection or to move on, rather than having to sell the entire cash cow.

I love both methods, but like to keep things mixed up.

[AfteraDream]

Originally Posted by Welsh Warrior

12 sites done this week (including last weekend), fully backlinked. That will be it for the week though - wife's xmas party tonight (shes a nurse and they know how to get drunk), so will be hungover tomorrow. Then on Sat both me and my partner in this have a rugby game and a rugby xmas do after it (he plays in Swansea, me in London) so Sat and Sunday also a write off.

22 sites so far, happy with how it is going.

Noticed a few clicks on Adsense, but not checked ranking and income. that will be my one and only job tomorrow whilst feeling like hell...will let you know

Good job! 22 sites are awesome!!! If they make $1/day that's already 600 bucks a month.

[MikeWike]

How's going? I know it's holidays and so, but I would like to read more about your live study

[JoeLawrence]

Hey there!

I am curious as to what tools you use to stay organized. I have many niche sites and am doing something similar as you (except my backlinking campaign is different).

I use a google doc (shared spreadsheet) and ranktracker to track rank, but admittedly, each site has like 20 steps to take to get it running and I like to constantly check on the site to make improvements and see patterns. for example, if one of the sites makes $60, then i want to say, "ok what page on the blog is making this money and how do i repeat this process and multiply it?" (rinse, wash and repeat method).

To clarify, i'm just curious how do you keep track of all the work needed when you are taking on so many micro sites (like if you use a CRM or something like basecamp). And how do you track progress?

P.S. Don't worry too much about the critics, just focus on the progress and updates. Its a case study, not a debate! (just my two - cents. it's awesome that you are doing this and don't want to see you get distracted).

P.P.S. Keep up the good work.

[MMateo23]

I hope Micro Niche sites are not dead. Would like to create some with wordpress. Did you use Wordpress for your niche sites and, if so, what plugins do you recommend?

[sasai]

Welsh, could you share more about keyword research, I find it very hard to find one, not to say 50.

[ale88]

Hi there, any updates of your microniche project??

regards

[todawg_not]

Originally Posted by Welsh Warrior

I have seen a number of threads on here asking

"Are micro niche sites dead"
"Can you still make good money from niche sites"
"Is Adsense a viable option"

Now personally I have a large number of these sites that do well...but most of them have become well established and, to a greater or lesser degree, been built out to be more than their original premise.

So what I wanted to do was show that, actually, micro niche sites DO still work. Yes they take a bit more work than they used to, but given the money they can generate I still think them worth it.

Just before the weekend I was chatting with a mate who is struggling for a bit of cash - he runs a pub which is starting to take off, but a side income would be useful to him. Since he is often sitting in the pub in quiet times with nothing to do he figured there must be a way to make money.

I suggested to him we partner up on microniche sites. I have been struggling for time to carry on my building of sites as I take on new projects, so combining with a partner (one I can trust) makes sense from my end too.

The Basic Game Plan

The plan is a simple one...to build about 50 microniche sites a month. We will flip some - some profitable ones for quick cash, some of the ones that fail for us to hand to those that can get them to work.

But we anticipate keeping 15-20 a month, building up a stash of passive earners.

Details

Presumably every one is more interested in the details. To that end I will be looking at first of all keywords

Specifically my research will focus on keywords with 1300 exact searches or more a month (ideally local searches to US or UK), $.70 or above and with low SEO'd top 10 competition.

I only ever care about the top 10, the rest can go hang for all I care.

Oh and the EMD has to have .com, .net or .org available

We will create a minimum of 5 articles on the keyword and related keywords for each site before we go live, and probably add a few more on each site as we go.

We then SEO the hell out of it

Onpage

Images with keyword titles, captions, etc, the right headers, titles, keyword density, bolding, italics, underlining, interlinking etc, meta dexription, meta tags and the like

Offpage

Squioo Lenses and Hubpage hubs as tier 1 links, as will some EZA articles (for syndication more than the link). Then we will be using AMR to spin and distribute articles to point at our tier 1 properties - plus building out a few wide range niche blogs on blogspot and wordpress. We may look at things like profile linking to these depending on how it goes.

TIME

We know that the reality is that these things take time. We're not really going to even be looking at income for sites until 90 days after creation (other than for stats for this thread and a blog if we bother setting one up). At that point we will take a decision on flipping or keeping (some may go before, depending on what we need).

We'll be keeping the stats going on here, and showing (hopefully) that microniche sites work. With the level of site creation we will be doing we should find out within 6 months whether micro niche is dead or not...I suspect it is alive and well, but if not then we have learned that OUR approach to them is wrong.

If you have any tips you'd like to share so we can alter our approach, we're always open to new ideas! simply share them below.

Anyway wish us luck. Just chosen our first 4 domains, should look at getting started on development first thing tomorrow.

Hey Dude,

Don't build Micro sites and don't build Authority sites , build in between.

Don't build 3-5 posts build 20-30 posts split them through pages each linking
each other like a silo structure.

1000+ Exact searches is too high and compeditive.

Go for lower hanging fruit but with more articles you'll make up the search
volume on the longtail.

With articles 4-5 words KW's you will rank easy peesey lemon squeezey

I would focus on quality than quantity.

Obviously if you can punch out 50 sites at 20+ articles per site then your a
machine.

Outsource as much as you can and spend the money on tools
to make your life easier.

Consider a highly aggressive bookmarking campaign but you must stay consistant
don't just do 300 one day and none the next.

Be patient and give yourself 3 months before you start seeing decent results and don't
get distracted by shiney object WSO syndrome

With some hard work watch the paper roll in

Good luck

Nigel

[grinder3011]

Originally Posted by JoshuaG

No offense, but if your goal is 50 sites a month you're going to see some dismal returns. Careful keyword research is paramount to building a successful micro niche site. You simply won't have time to do enough digging if you expect to get 50 sites up.

If you just pump them out in bulk like this you'll end up with $500+ in domain fees and meager gains for the vast, vast, majority of your sites.

If you get lucky and a few start earning, your earnings will be low and you won't see a positive ROI on the project for years.

You can't expect to sell the clunkers for any substantial amount. No ones going to pay a fair price for sites without earnings.

If I were you I would take a serious look at your model and re-think it.

Excelent point made!! I am also diving into the niche websites and figuring from my past experiences, a poor keyword research and things done hastingly will only make you end up with big expenses....which I am guessing is not your goal.

Still apparently this thread seems to have found a dead end...

[pimplesremedies]

I don't know about others but I think anything less than 3000 exact searches is not for me. I learnt this by doing. I worked on some sites and when then became number one I was getting around 2000-3000 visitors per month.

I use adsense, so just do the maths what you can make? Just not worth my time and effort.

But there are exceptions. If it is in high paying niche the site can earn good.

[owlfowl]

great description, learned many things.

[d0rhk]

I would like to know where the OP is with this..

I'm assuming it's been forgotten about or something, as usual with these threads.

[Michael Fereday]

Best of luck...rather best of action! I know you'll do great; already proved it to yourself now you're just branching out more - Keep us posted.

[TryBPO]

That's too bad...another one bites the dust?

It's too bad that these threads so rarely get seen through. These are typically the types of threads I WOULD like to keep up with...yet they always get abandoned...ugh. Hope the OP does come back for an update.

[Captain_Morgan]

TryBro

u are doing adsense too yes have you ever done one of these posts before too where u have done a case study say on micro niche's??

[TryBPO]

Originally Posted by Captain_Morgan

TryBro

u are doing adsense too yes have you ever done one of these posts before too where u have done a case study say on micro niche's??

We asked a question as to whether there was anyone out there scaling the process heavily that turned into a pretty long thread. You can read that here:

Scaling the micro niche sites...

[spoiledkid01]

If i missed it. Can you please share which keyword tool are you using to find that much amount of keywords?

[markviduk86]

What's your title mean?
Micro niche site dead on Adsense, on Search Engine or anything?
If it dead on adsense - Maybe, I have banned from adsense because my micro niche site.
On SE: No, It also depends on your way to build link

[sackboy127]

Micro Niche Sites do work, just make sure that each of them has at least 5-10 articles (not as micro as it used to be), and build out the successful ones to even bigger sites, while selling the rest.