Are Niche Sites the best way? Interview with Spencer Haws from NichePursuits.com

May 8, 2012 in Interviews with 3 Comments

spencer from niche pursuitsIt’s a crazy time for Niche Site builders with all the changes Google are making. With the recent Penguin update and the Porcupine Update* coming this summer it’s an uncertain time for anyone who profits from organic search traffic.

Since I found  NichePursuits a few months ago it’s been my main resource on information about niche sites. Spencer knows more about building a successful business based on niche sites than anyone else I know of.

Spencer runs hundreds of niche sites and  makes a huge amount of money from them. He also makes money online in different ways which you can find out more about in the interview.

I wanted to know whether building niche sites was still a viable business. In this interview we discuss:

  • How Spencer got started online and how he stayed motivated after his first “failure”.
  • The benefits and drawbacks of building a business based around niche sites.
  • “You can’t be truly successful online if you focus on the money” – Is this true?
  • The lessons learned building an authority site and a brand at nichepursuits.com
  • Whether there’s still money to be made building niche sites.
  • Whether your time would be better spent following a different approach.
  • And much more!

Click me to start the podcast!

W’re on iTunes! Search for “Experiment Income” to find the podcast on your iPhone.

There were sound issues in a couple of parts during the podcast but you can understand what we’re saying throughout. There are some great lessons to be learned in the interview and I urge all of you to head over to NichePursuits to find out more about the amazing things Spencer continues to achieve online.

* I made the thing about the Porcupine Update up.

April Progress Report – A smashed record!

May 1, 2012 in Progress Reports with 4 Comments

On the first of each month (Even in May when the 1st is my Mum’s birthday!) I do a progress report. Since starting these reports I’ve been much more motivated and things have started to happen.

It looked like I was going to make less money than last month so I wasn’t looking forward to this report so much! I stayed focused and believed that my hard work would pay off in the end anyway.

So lets take a look at what happened:

Niche Site 1

  • Income: $9.99
  • Traffic: 679

The downfall of Niche Site 1 continues. I literally didn’t touch it for the whole month and I don’t plan to work on it any time soon. I will consider this niche site my learning experience and move on. Take a look at what happened with the traffic though:

crazygoogle

Clearly Google are making some crazy changes!

Continue Reading…

A full time income from a single niche? Interview with Steve Scott

April 27, 2012 in Interviews with 4 Comments

One thing that most of us struggle with when trying to make money online is focus. We “spread the risk” by working on loads of websites and projects at the same time. Is this necessarily the best strategy? Would we be better off putting all our time and energy into one niche and focusing on building a profitable email list?

Why is building an email list so important anyway? If you follow a few online marketing blogs you may have noticed an increasing emphasis on creating and building email lists. In a recent (and HUGE) article on Viper Chill Glen Allsopp says “The Importance of Having an email list is only going to increase”.

Steve Scott from SteveScottSite.com went through the focus struggle that most of us go through and finally figured it all out when he decided to put all of his focus into one niche.

In the following interview we discuss:

  • The current state of online marketing and where we think it’s heading
  •  The importance of focus and how it can be the difference between success and failure
  •  The importance of picking a tightly focused niche
  •  Why building an email list is so important
  •  Do you really need a “lead magnet”?
  •  How the show “lost” teaches us how to keep out emails interesting
  •  And more!

Click me to start the podcast!

W’re on iTunes! Search for “Experiment Income” to find the podcast on your iPhone.

I really enjoyed doing the interview with Steve and I personally learned lots from it so I hope you can learn something from it too. If you’re interested in learning more about affiliate and email marketing then I highly suggest you head over to Steves site where you will find some great articles.

It looks like I’m going to have to turn back on my “Emails are soooo last year!” strategy and add some opt-in forms to this site!

Creating Content that will Resonate With Your Audience. Guaranteed.

April 5, 2012 in Other Cool Stuff with 2 Comments

Wouldn’t it be great if you knew your audience would love your article even before pressing the publish button? While listening to a Podcast I had an epiphany. This isn’t a rare occurrence as I have about 30 “epiphanies” a day but this one was worth sharing!

I know topic ideas aren’t always easy to come by for any blogger, podcaster or any sort of content creator. Even when you’re writing what you think may be an amazing article it may end up flopping.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could get inside our audiences minds so we could write an article that would really stick with them?
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March Progress Report – On my way up!

April 2, 2012 in Progress Reports with 0 Comments

marchreport

This is my second progress report on Experiment Income. I’ll go into detail about how much income I’m earning from each of my projects and where applicable, I’ll track the traffic too.

I planned to be as transparent as possible with each of my projects but I’ve already been told off for giving too much away. To protect the innocent, I’ll hide the details of some of my projects.

Continue Reading…

5 Ways to Drive Traffic Without SEO

March 26, 2012 in Other Cool Stuff with 4 Comments

With all the changes that are happening in the world of search engine optimization I thought it’d be a great time to look at some different ways of being discovered. The following techniques are great ways of getting targeted traffic to your site and don’t involve Google in any way shape or form!

I’m not saying SEO isn’t important as it can be a huge source of traffic but I’m saying it’s less risky to diversify your traffic sources. The following methods could be used to drive traffic to niche sites but some of them are long term strategies so they are better used on bigger projects!

Before I get started with the methods I’ll mention an important point that’s applicable to all of them. It’s about direct the traffic. With all these methods, you can send the traffic to anywhere on your site and you could even create a landing page so the visitors gets more of a personal experience.

Sending traffic to a relevant piece of content on your site could be more effective than sending people to your home page.

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Build My Rank is Dead! What does the future hold for niche websites?

March 21, 2012 in Niche Sites with 2 Comments

build my rank is dead

As I’ve mentioned before, building niche websites is one of the most popular ways to make money online. One of the main aspects of doing that is getting your sites as high as possible in Google search results.

To do that, you need back links. For years there have been many “blog networks” that have been used for building back links. Google has never liked them. Today I got an email from PayPal stating that I have a refund from Build my Rank.

I headed over to my account only to find a message from Build my Rank letting us know that most of their blog network has been de-indexed so they’re closing it down. Many other blog networks have been de-indexed too. This isn’t something that’s never happened before but the scale of the changes that Google’s making is pretty significant.

Continue Reading…

February Progress Report – Income and Traffic

March 1, 2012 in Progress Reports with 9 Comments

Starting today, I am going to do a progress report every month. I will go into detail about how much income I’m earning from each of my projects and where applicable, I will track the traffic too.

I planned to be as transparent as possible with each of my projects but I’ve already been told off for giving too much away. To protect the innocent, I will hide the details of some of my projects.

These reports are intended to:

  • Help me keep track of my progress.
  • Allow you all to hold me accountable for my actions.
  • Let you know exactly what I am doing and how successful or unsuccessful my projects are.

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I’ve been penalized by Google!

February 20, 2012 in Niche Sites with 4 Comments

As I’ve mentioned previously, building niche sites is probably one of the most popular ways to make money online. I’ve been having a bit of a dramatic time with one of my niche sites and thought it would be worth sharing the story. Basically, one of my sites has been pinalized by the boss, Google. This is what happened to my traffic:

googlepinilizetraffic

Google can pinalize a site for a few reasons. If they feel like your site is ranking higher than it should be due to “black hat search engine optimization” or something else, then it can de-index your site or move it lower down in the search results.
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Social Referral Marketing – Would you “like” a coupon?

February 8, 2012 in Other Cool Stuff with 0 Comments

Referral marketing is nothing new. Businesses have always recognized the power of referrals made by their customers. Something along the lines of “refer a friend and save 30% off your next bill” has proven to be very effective for businesses.

Studies have shown that referred customers are both more loyal and profitable than regular customers. If you sell products online, implementing a referral program can improve your sales in both the short and long run.

With the rise of social media, referral marketing is evolving. Various new startups (including one I’m involved with) are giving companies an easy way to reward the customers that click on that all important share button.

Social referral marketing allows businesses to raise awareness, drive traffic and acquire new customers. With the speed that referrals can spread, a well planned incentive can spread through the networks virally.

Vouchers go Viral is UK’s own social referral platform. It’s a site that’s populated with vouchers (aka coupons) from various retailers. For a customer to use a voucher, they simply click on one of the share buttons. I’ve been involved with this company for about 5 months now. We only operate in the UK at the moment but plan to expand in the future. If you want to know more about what we do, just send me an email!

Like A Coupon is a similar company in the US. It’s a mix of group buying and social referral. The website features various coupons which need to be tweeted or liked a certain number of times before it’s “unlocked” and can be used.

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