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Niche Websites How Do You Manage So Many?

by LilBlackDress
51 replies
I am reading about people who have tons of niche websites. Now I can see how you can get them set up and if they are static, they are pretty much hands free...

But how would you drive enough traffic to such a huge amount of sites to generate income?
#manage #niche #websites
  • Profile picture of the author LilBlackDress
    So you are saying the sites are keyworded for the search engines, so that little article marketing etc. would have to be done?

    And does this involve using automated backlinks? I can just imagine how much time it would take to create backlinks for so many sites.....
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  • Profile picture of the author Allurre
    Usually, these people with 100+ sites outsource, or have a team.

    If you do it individually, and you're a perfectionist, this will take time.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mint-Tree
    No! You would be crazy to do it by yourself . Once u have a steady stream of income, give it to someone else to manage/update/add content to it for you. It helps build a steady increase of revenue (that's you must know how much the site is making =).

    Again, if u want to do it by yourself, you are walking down the dangerous path ... of losing a lot of hairs and eventually become bald .
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    • Profile picture of the author Jillian Slack
      I've got a workbook that I bought, creating especially for managing niche blogs.

      I'm in Amy Bass' Niche Blogger group and she is the one who created the workbook to stay organized.

      It's a nifty little resource and saves my time since I'm not reinventing the old wheel.
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  • Profile picture of the author LilBlackDress
    What is the workbook like Jillian ie...what types of things does it include?
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  • Profile picture of the author Launder
    I can only imagine that they would outsource or have a nice amount of people with whom they work closely. I have heard of some of them who work it all alone but I would assume that would be very very time consuming.
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  • Profile picture of the author nikki82
    someone told me that there is a wordpress plugin that can replicate the same blog settings across a number of blogs. that would be a good way to manage blogs.

    just not sure what this plugin is called
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  • Profile picture of the author Emmanuel Betinis
    What Keith said...

    And I have three words to contribute to this thread: Three Ring Binder.

    Seriously.

    I have taken the time to create checklists for each task
    I need to do for each website...from building to promoting.
    Getting it down on paper and physically checking off each
    item keeps me organized AND focused on what needs to
    be done...

    Originally Posted by LilBlackDress

    does this involve using automated backlinks?
    It COMPLETELY depends on if it's necessary or not.
    Different types of niches/keywords are going
    to require different types of backlinking methods
    and aggression levels.
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  • Profile picture of the author Thomas Wilkinson
    Remember the guy at the circus who spun plates on sticks. That's what its like.
    You just get used to working a regular shift. Most sites don't take a lot of time
    once they are running smoothly.

    Tom

    EDIT: I also use a three ring binder but didn't want to admit it.
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  • Profile picture of the author LilBlackDress
    Emmanuel....

    I need that checklist as part of a get organized, build tons of niches WSO
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  • Profile picture of the author Thomas Wilkinson
    Lilblackdress, If you take careful notes when you set up a site
    you'll have your own checklist by the time you get to number
    four and it will mean more because it will be your own methods.

    Tom
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    • Profile picture of the author Emmanuel Betinis
      Originally Posted by Thomas Wilkinson View Post

      Lilblackdress, If you take careful notes when you set up a site
      you'll have your own checklist by the time you get to number
      four and it will mean more because it will be your own methods.

      Tom

      Thomas is right here.

      Now, for the folks that absolutely know NOTHING about
      basic web design and promotion, a ready-made
      template checklist covering the basics (including
      ONpage SEO) may be helpful, yes...

      But...

      ...many folks here already understand basic
      web design and can whip up their own checklist
      by going through the process once and documenting
      the tasks that were involved in order to achieve their
      goal(s) customized to how THEY (you) like to do things.

      Moreover, timing yourself and documenting how long
      each task takes will give you an idea as to how much
      your time is worth for certain tasks...and how much
      each task is worth (you'll discover these things over
      time). That way, when you go to outsource the
      tasks again in the future, you'll be comfortable
      knowing how much to pay for the task(s) at
      hand.

      And a HUGE side-benefit I've discovered to
      timing yourself is IT MAKES YOU GET STUFF
      DONE because it's like a little racing
      game against time with yourself.
      Crank up some good tunes
      and off you go.
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      • Profile picture of the author ExRat
        Hi Nikki82,

        someone told me that there is a wordpress plugin that can replicate the same blog settings across a number of blogs. that would be a good way to manage blogs.
        WP Cloner from mass-automation.com - I used to use it.

        Hi Emmanuel,

        And I have three words to contribute to this thread: Three Ring Binder.

        Seriously.

        I have taken the time to create checklists for each task
        I need to do for each website...from building to promoting.
        Getting it down on paper and physically checking off each
        item keeps me organized AND focused on what needs to
        be done...
        I still use this method.

        And a HUGE side-benefit I've discovered to
        timing yourself is IT MAKES YOU GET STUFF
        DONE because it's like a little racing
        game against time with yourself.
        One of the biggest advantages I found across a broad range of similar sites is that if you make notes in your folders, including small changes and the dates these were made, it's helpful in tracking what works/doesn't work, over what timescale.

        Also, domain dashboard is handy, especially if you use a bunch of reseller hosting accounts. I use it - mainly for quick access to cpanel and awstats.

        Hi BGMacaw,

        You just have to be a good project manager and use automation tools properly.
        Yep, I agree.

        Have to say I'm moving away from this approach though. The best way to apply it is if you have a unique(ish) system (that works) that you replicate massively - but there are also many obvious downsides to this (think 'slap').
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      • Profile picture of the author Matt Gannon
        Originally Posted by Emmanuel Betinis View Post

        Thomas is right here.

        Now, for the folks that absolutely know NOTHING about
        basic web design and promotion, a ready-made
        template checklist covering the basics (including
        ONpage SEO) may be helpful, yes...

        But...

        ...many folks here already understand basic
        web design and can whip up their own checklist
        by going through the process once and documenting
        the tasks that were involved in order to achieve your
        goal(s) customized to how YOU like to do things.

        Moreover, timing yourself and documenting how long
        each task takes will give you an idea as to how much
        your time is worth for certain tasks...and how much
        each task is worth (you'll discover these things over
        time). That way, when you go to outsource the
        tasks again in the future, you'll be comfortable
        knowing how much to pay for the task(s) at
        hand.

        And a HUGE side-benefit I've discovered to
        timing yourself is IT MAKES YOU GET STUFF
        DONE because it's like a little racing
        game against time with yourself.
        Crank up some good tunes
        and off you go.
        I find this very inspiring, and have motive myself doing this like you said, i feel like im getting some where!
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  • Profile picture of the author mahmoodb
    Originally Posted by LilBlackDress View Post

    I am reading about people who have tons of niche websites. Now I can see how you can get them set up and if they are static, they are pretty much hands free...

    But how would you drive enough traffic to such a huge amount of sites to generate income?
    For handling huge number of mini sites, I recommend to use a hosting service that supports multiple domain hosting on the same hosting package. So, you will need one username and password to manage all your websites.
    Second, I recommend to use WordPress as a CMS to update your content.
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  • Profile picture of the author tommygadget
    I have over 300 now. You really need to stay organized. Just look at the stats of several of the websites every day and the ones that need some more links and/or content get it from my team.

    TomG.
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  • Profile picture of the author Spencer Haws
    I think someone already mentioned it. But the key is outsourcing. If you open your mind to what can be done with a little help from others; you will be surprised at what you can accomplish. You dont have to do everything yourself. Just find a profitable business model and expand.
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  • Profile picture of the author Allegro
    Keith Kogane mentioned in one of his autoblogging threads I think that he uses ONE wordpress blog to fill all his other blogs with content. The key? Category RSS-Feeds I think, he didn't share how he did it.
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    • Profile picture of the author Keith Kogane
      Originally Posted by Allegro View Post

      Keith Kogane mentioned in one of his autoblogging threads I think that he uses ONE wordpress blog to fill all his other blogs with content. The key? Category RSS-Feeds I think, he didn't share how he did it.
      I use two now. Not for performance reasons but for organization ones.

      The feeder blogs are loaded with content using Yaab, WP-O-Matic, various Ebay/Amazon content plugins, and my own affiliate adsense-like ad system. I also use ZipPoster to bulk-load and post-date free and PLR articles. I also mix all this stuff in with some original snippets that I randomize via Stray Random Quotes.

      Via WordPress's own feeds, I push those out to many other WordPress sites, one feed per site, which I pull in and publish with Yaab. You're right in that I use category feeds to keep things sorted.

      I'm totally willing to share that part of it. It's my auto-backlinking system that I'm not keen to share because it relies on some 3rd party sites that may stop being free and friendly if the method I'm using were to become widespread.

      No offense, but I'm keeping that one under my hat. Trade secret. But I hope the rest of what I posted clarifies what I'm doing with my "feeder" blog as I call it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mr Money Maker
    It's my opinion that it's far better to have a huge high ranking Mega site with 1000's of pages ranked across the Internet with good article topics and sub-category topics. A monster website can make monster amounts of money and is far easier to keep track of than having 100 to 150 little blogs.
    If you can rank a Mega site with 100's of top google category pages and sub-categories pages all ranked on Googles SERP pages and .MSN,Yahoo,Webcrawler and ect....then you're going to make some good money, and you have less of a chance of someone knocking you off the top positions because of high keyword content.
    I notice this with my Mega huge Rock,Blues Guitar Site and several money making web sites.
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    • Profile picture of the author melanied
      That's great until your one site dips in the rankings and it affects your entire income. Sites go through ranking cycles, it's natural. If you have fifty of them, one going through a down cycle doesn't hurt that much.

      Originally Posted by Mr Money Maker View Post

      It's my opinion that it's far better to have a huge high ranking Mega site with 1000's of pages ranked across the Internet with good article topics and sub-category topics. A monster website can make monster amounts of money and is far easier to keep track of than having 100 to 150 little blogs.
      If you can rank a Mega site with 100's of top google category pages and sub-categories pages all ranked on Googles SERP pages and .MSN,Yahoo,Webcrawler and ect....then you're going to make some good money, and you have less of a chance of someone knocking you off the top positions because of high keyword content.
      I notice this with my Mega huge Rock,Blues Guitar Site and several money making web sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author cgallagher93
    I don't think it's wise to have tons of niche websites unless you have a large team of employees who GET what you're trying to achieve and can run your businesses for you.

    I think if you're just starting out or you're a one man band it's much better to start off in a single niche, optimizing for a LONG TAIL keyword phrase and then creating lots of articles and free content off your product domain.

    Also, get started building an opt-in list on your home page and use video marketing etc to drive traffic to your squeeze page. Then, once you've done a product launch, made some money etc consider moving onto another market and establish yourself as one of the leaders in that field.

    Once you've made money in 2-3 niches, you really do need to be hiring some people to take care of newsletters and continuity programs for you.

    Otherwise, it's all just gonna be too hard to manage...

    Hope this gives you a bit of insight
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  • Profile picture of the author Rory Wilkinson
    If you set up niche websites (eg. building a website empire with a strong base) in the right way then there is very little maintenance work required to keep them ranking. This means that you can very easily move on and keep creating new sites.

    Having a project manager and a team also helps
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  • Profile picture of the author mita
    At the moment I am using some software by pocket gear called Check List Pro (desktop version) . Its not ideal but it lets you build custom lists and then tick of items completed. It also lets you add notes to the lists. It is very easy to use. I think it costs about $15. They have a 20% discount for fist time buyers. This software helps you cut down on the amount of paper you use. It is good for keeping track of the steps you have taken on each of your sites. Just make a check list template and then use that for the rest of your sites. I think they also have a trail version . I find this a lot easier to use than a spreadsheet or a filing system.
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  • Profile picture of the author Danny Cutts
    Hello Warriors,

    I have 50 niche sites I think, I normally just send 2 weeks solid on one then move on to the other and so on. However as the time has gone on I outsource a fair bit of mine now and I also have lots of sripts to help with directory submissions ect ect!

    When the 2 weeks is up the site normally has enough content to rank well and if I decide to add a forum this always gives the unique content that is always being written so most of my sites once built are maintenance free.... However I do occassionally take a break and do abit on another.... change is as good as a holiday!!

    Danny
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  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    Originally Posted by Mr Money Maker View Post

    It's my opinion that it's far better to have a huge high ranking Mega site with 1000's of pages ranked across the Internet with good article topics and sub-category topics. A monster website can make monster amounts of money and is far easier to keep track of than having 100 to 150 little blogs.
    If you can rank a Mega site with 100's of top google category pages and sub-categories pages all ranked on Googles SERP pages and .MSN,Yahoo,Webcrawler and ect....then you're going to make some good money, and you have less of a chance of someone knocking you off the top positions because of high keyword content.
    I notice this with my Mega huge Rock,Blues Guitar Site and several money making web sites.
    I agree with what you're saying to an extent, however given my experience, I would suggest doing both, with more of an emphasis on minisites. Ive invested the best part of 5 years trying desperately to build the next facebook, or myspace. The amount of time, effort, work and marketing involved for the returns, in my experience hasnt been worth it. Especially given the fact that you can build a flat html 5 page site that brings in a few hundred a week, passively. All of the "big" sites as you say, require constant maintenance, and monitoring.


    Originally Posted by tommygadget View Post

    There is NO support at all. They are Adsense sites.

    TomG.
    Aha! Thanks Tom

    Originally Posted by Emmanuel Betinis View Post

    Gotcha.

    Out of innocent curiosity, why would
    you want to deal with all that customer
    service for 100's of different websites
    & products?

    Wouldn't it make more sense to
    outsource that part? In my opinion
    it seems like it would be WORTH
    spending the bucks to have
    someone else deal with
    all that (can't put a price
    on sanity).
    Emmanuel, I will be outsourcing everything apart from the actual web developement, as I intend on doing this myself.


    By the way guys, I found this in my travels just recently which could prove beneficial for centralising support and making things more manageable and efficient.

    http://www.accord5.com/trellis
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  • Profile picture of the author Kris Turner
    If you just launch them one at a time, and make sure each one is running smoothly before you move onto the next, you'll find that you can handle much more than you originally thought.

    If someone dumped 50 sites on your right now, you'd kill yourself by the end of next week. But if you slowly built them up over time, I bet you'd be fine.

    So the best way to handle a lot of sites at once is to first handle one.
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    • Profile picture of the author ExRat
      Hi Legitblogger,

      I am considering investing in it myself. Can you please
      share your experience with using it and why you stopped?
      Yes. I bought quite a few of the old plugins from them, one of which was the 'wp install' which ran on the server, rather than being a plugin.

      Although my hosting matched the required specifications, I couldn't get it to run even after dialogue with the creators and my hosts.

      Then, the company changed hands and they changed all of the plugins to server-side scripts. Plus they decided not to continue to upgrade the old plugins in line with wordpress upgrades (as they always had - when required), therefore they ended up broken, IF you wanted to keep wordpress up to date.

      The only other option was to buy it outright again. I believe they originally offered a discount to previous owners, but it was still pricey and I missed the deadline.

      I felt a bit 'sold out' by the previous owner, and contacted the new owners about it and asked nicely for the discount, but if I remember correctly, they refused and were a little abrupt. So I replied in a similarly abrupt manner, and it turned into a war of words.

      So this, coupled with the previous hosting issues, meant that I decided to leave them be and occasionally look at my pile of dead plugins with a slightly sad feeling.

      The concepts and plugins were great. The new owners - not so great.

      I believe WPmanagerDX has somewhat similar capabilities - but guess what - when I bought it 18 months or so ago - I had hosting compatibility issues and had to refund it. The creator of that product is lovely though

      I use HostGator. And also, every time I have bought a product or joined a membership site which has then been 'flipped', I have been screwed by the new owner when the old owner sells it. Not good.
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      • Profile picture of the author LegitBlogger
        Originally Posted by ExRat View Post

        Hi Legitblogger,

        Yes. I bought quite a few of the old plugins from them, one of which was the 'wp install' which ran on the server, rather than being a plugin.

        Although my hosting matched the required specifications, I couldn't get it to run even after dialogue with the creators and my hosts.

        Then, the company changed hands and they changed all of the plugins to server-side scripts. Plus they decided not to continue to upgrade the old plugins in line with wordpress upgrades (as they always had - when required), therefore they ended up broken, IF you wanted to keep wordpress up to date.

        The only other option was to buy it outright again. I believe they originally offered a discount to previous owners, but it was still pricey and I missed the deadline.

        I felt a bit 'sold out' by the previous owner, and contacted the new owners about it and asked nicely for the discount, but if I remember correctly, they refused and were a little abrupt. So I replied in a similarly abrupt manner, and it turned into a war of words.

        So this, coupled with the previous hosting issues, meant that I decided to leave them be and occasionally look at my pile of dead plugins with a slightly sad feeling.

        The concepts and plugins were great. The new owners - not so great.

        I believe WPmanagerDX has somewhat similar capabilities - but guess what - when I bought it 18 months or so ago - I had hosting compatibility issues and had to refund it. The creator of that product is lovely though

        I use HostGator. And also, every time I have bought a product or joined a membership site which has then been 'flipped', I have been screwed by the new owner when the old owner sells it. Not good.
        Wow, THANKS, a million for a very detailed reply. It's incredible
        how far you go sometimes, ExRat, in your detailed explanations,
        to help make things clear for lots of people in this forum.

        Well appreciated.
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  • Profile picture of the author funky_budha
    i think they just outsource some of the works. no secret formula to it. I dont think that any time management technique would succeed if you have too much.
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  • Profile picture of the author Christian Fox
    I have 30 niche sites all made within the last 6 months. My theme has helped with this immensely. I also use automation whenever possible.

    No 3 ring binder but a wall full of booklets full of spreadsheets hung on the wall detailing every aspect.

    I will have over 100 by the end of the year,,,,

    I used to have trouble balancing a check book.... This has FORCED me to learn to become organized and it has been a good experience for me.
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  • Profile picture of the author Vijay M
    I have about 21 niche sites and until I went back to good old excel, it was a pain to keep track of what was done when..and what had to be done next. Now, its a basic cyclic process and works well for me.
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  • Profile picture of the author LilBlackDress
    Alright is there anyone williing to confidentially share an example of their checklist. I will PM my email.
    I recognize everyone does this differently but I would like to have a feel for what someone who is successful in building these niche sites is doing.

    Or does anyone know of a checklist (action plan) out there to look at.

    Emmanuel ~ Yes I meant YOUR WSO
    Keith ~ Your business model sounds amazing and a whole new learning curve for me.
    TommyGadget ~ I do think organization is your middle name!
    Kayblast ~ Yep outsourcing is great but I think you have to feel you have a money making proposition first.
    Christian ~ Sounds like you are on a roll! Where did you learn your techniques?
    Mr. MoneyMaker ~ I like that idea and have been focusing on a couple Of my websites as I was scattered trying to focus on so many!
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  • Profile picture of the author Matt Helphrey
    I think the answer here is simple... outsourcing.

    100+ is a lot of sites for one person to handle. Sure it's possible but if it were me, I would take all the profits and reinvest to outsource as much as possible.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kevin AKA Hubcap
      Like others have said.

      Figure out what you do to get a site up and running then hire a VA to do the mechanical things while you concentrate on the marketing.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Linley
    I totally agree with Mr Moneymaker here...I tried building a few small niche sites when I first started in IM and it didnt work too well for me..I even used automation and a main control site called Firepow from a fellow warrior here...I found that it was harder to build and promote many sites and get the traffic and sales you need then to just build up one big site and focus on that and drive as much traffic as you can to it and keep posting to it...and it will make a lot of money for you...but if you can afford to outsource these mini niche sites then it might be profitable...not too many people can do that though..not right off that bat anyways....good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author dnka
    If you know how much time each task will take, it is easy to manage or set up a large number of niche websites. Time and resource management is the key.
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