New year, new me is upon us, and I wanted to share with you what I look for when starting a website or making improvements to an existing one.
First, you’ll learn what kind of content to create for your project. Then we’ll figure out how to generate revenue from it and strategies to market and bring back people, so you’re not relying entirely on Google for traffic.
Ultimately, you don’t have to adhere to all these points but rather create a combination that works for you. You can succeed in any combination of content styles, monetization, and audience-building.
Of course, this doesn’t cover every possible content, monetization, and audience option. I can only speak from what I’ve explored, implemented, and utilized.
Let’s get jiggy with it.
Before you register a domain, answer these questions
You should try and answer seven questions before you begin a new site. There modified from Warren Specter’s questions to ask for game design, but I think they fit in very well in the niche site space.
- What is the core idea?
- Why do this website?
- What are the challenges?
- Is this idea well-suited for a website?
- Has anyone done this before? If so, what can we learn from them? If not, why?
- What’s the one thing that hasn’t been done before?
- Do I have something to say?
Most questions are self-explanatory, but the last one is the most important. If you’re like many people and are starting with an idea for a new website or blog, the first impulse is to head straight to keyword research tools.
Number seven is paramount when understanding what you are talking about; otherwise, why would anyone read your content if they can find the same thing elsewhere? It’s not enough to be a “Kopycat Kyle” – one who reads 10 articles on page 1 of Google and merely aggregates that information into an extended post.
We’ve all been there! I was a Kopycat Kyle when I first started. No one should be part of that klub, the Kopycat Kyle Klub, or KKK for short😅
To stand out from the rest, bring something new to the table with original ideas and perspectives!
To stand out in your niche or industry, having something unique and valuable to contribute is essential. It’s not just about understanding the nomenclature of the industry you’re talking about; it’s essential to know the nuances!
What sort of content could you make?
When planning what content to create for your next website, what topics should you focus on?
The options I’ll go into a bit of detail about are
- Editorial content
- Programmatic content
- Shareable content
Also, you have
- Interactive content
- Video content
Additionally, I’ll break down how each one tends to perform based on traffic, shareability, and creation time. These estimates/graphs are based entirely on anecdotal evidence.
Editorial content
Editorial content – the kind of posts everyone starts with when creating a niche site, will serve as the baseline for our website. Aim to publish 50-200 pages of content initially. Make certain these articles are engaging and informative, creating the best damn resource on the internet for these pages.
I like to shoot for at least 100 page views per month, per post, when starting. Of course, it’s hard to know which pieces will hit and which won’t.
Regarding editorial-style posts, you can create content that ranges anywhere from less than 800 words to more than 2,000. Answer the damn query. Start with extensive keyword research followed by the creation of either intuition-based or data-driven articles.
To create a systematic approach to content creation, I analyze the keyword data of related searches and make an educated guess as to how an ‘unknown’ keyword or post could perform.
For example:
- If the number one service in my industry gets 880 searches for “[service] review” per month & 10k organic traffic per month total
- The second most popular receives 440 monthly queries for “[service] review” & 5k organic traffic per month in total
- There is no available data for the third option, but the website gets 3k organic traffic per month in total
Based on predicted organic traffic, I could assume that it obtains around 30% of the top service or around 260 searches per month for “[service] review.”
This data allows me to create meaningful content tailored to my audience. This form of extrapolation and educated guessing has successfully driven traffic from searches that don’t appear in keyword tools.
Traffic
The goal here is organic traffic, and if you do things right with keyword research, you should aim for at least 100 organic page views a month per article.
Creation time
Crafting unique content takes up a lot of time, even when you outsource the task. Though I have utilized AI writers in some cases, like summarization and smaller tasks, they don’t provide as successful results as manually written articles.
So when we compare editorial to shareable and programmatic written content, it typically takes the longest to create.
Shareability
This content is shareable but created to draw organic search engine traffic from Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ecosia, Yandex, and other sources. Let people share if they want.
Programmatic content
Currently, I’m focusing on programmatic content and have been experimenting with it for the past few months. Creating, developing, and bulk publishing from datasets has been a wild ride.
I’m learning more and more about the needs of the content that can be created programmatically.
At first, I found one dataset online and used it to create thousands of pages. I’ve learned that when multiple datasets are combined, and manual data entry is used in tandem with scraping, this allows for more depth on a page.
To ensure your dataset is as expansive and reliable as possible, it is best to have a variety of sources. The amount of data may be relatively small – say 250 or 2500 lines – but the quality should lead to an impenetrable defense that gives you a competitive edge in the market.
Depending on what type of content you’re creating, it might be bottom-of-the-funnel content, so people are ready to purchase one of the products or services on the page.
For example, comparison posts can be highly beneficial for conversions as they give customers an easy way to compare different offers and decide based on their preferences.
I’m a massive proponent of comparison content, especially for affiliate-based content. It is incredibly scalable, especially when you have the information for 20, 50, or 100 products.
Traffic
Although traffic on individual pages may be low, those one to five searches per month won’t appear in any tools. Plus, when you have a thousand pages created getting a few searches per month, cumulatively, it adds up significantly. pretty faster creation time once you
Creation time
Assembling all the data is likely the most time-consuming part. After collecting and organizing your information and crafting a template, you’ll be able to blast content quickly. Then it’s scale city!
Shareability
If the content is naturally being shared by users, then great! However, it’s not meant to be actively promoted and try to generate social clicks.
However, if you have someone who can run your social media full-time, monitoring key phrases in real-time on a site like Twitter, you can have them reply with your page. Someone’s asking what’s the difference between A and B products, and boom, you’re there!
Shareable content
Regardless of your competitive position, creating shareable content to tap into alternative traffic sources and go beyond just SEO is important.
Have you ever been on forums for webmasters and found someone talking about how a recent algorithm update has devastated their site’s progress? It seems they were doing everything “right”: they hadn’t bought backlinks, all content was handwritten in-house, etc., yet despite following the rules as best, they could still have traffic decline by 40%.
Then you have someone chime in on how they use AI or outsource for a penny per word, have a PBN working overtime, and only win every algorithm update.
At the end of the day, there are so many ways to get traffic to a website, and it’s worth it to tap into a few of them.
Creating content that encourages people to share a way to combat relying on one algorithm. This type of content requires a different approach than SEO writing; it may appear in search engine results, but its main purpose is for users to engage with your brand by taking action and sharing the results.
To generate a passionate response, choose topics that are controversial or engaging. Aim to reach as wide an audience as possible with your content – consider making it interactive by including polls, surveys, or quizzes.
Although understanding the process may be challenging, once you unlock it, you can leverage traffic at your disposal!
“Hey, I’m looking to attract 10,000 people to my site to make an additional $400 today.”
You know if you share x-content on y-subreddit with the right title, it will result in tons of visitors rushing towards your website – almost as if you know which slot machine would hit every time!
This is ultimately about boosting your chances, like counting cards when playing blackjack.
A good resource for this is trafficleaks.com. Even though it was written more than five years ago, if you take the core message and apply it to modern platforms, you can start experimenting.
Traffic
At first, you may get intermittent wins. Probably not want to continue.
But once you find the techniques and strategies used to bring in visitors and, ultimately, customers, you can begin replicating that success and see traffic climb higher and higher.
Creation Time
Not long at all. AI could provide the perfect testing ground for your traffic leaking efforts.
This doesn’t have to be A+, 1st page-ranking content. It has to be entertaining or controversial. “RIP SEO in [Next Year]: Google Can’t Do This 1 Thing Right” will get people clicking and talking if the right people see it. Even if it’s negative, a response is a response. That can be generated with AI, given a bit of character, then shared in bigwig SEO communities.
Shareability
Do I have to explain how this is high?
Interactive content
Interactive pieces can be highly effective in driving traffic and conversions.
One way to do this is with conversion calculators; these are relatively easy to create and bring a lot of traffic.
Quizzes are a great way to create interactive content, and they can be simple to create. Whether you want something comprehensive or just fun and easy, AI can be incredibly useful in this process. You can make them share the quiz to see the results.
Remember, we’re not the average internet user. Most people don’t think twice about sharing something on Facebook.
Video
Including video as an element on your website can separate you from the competition. This addition is one that many website creators are neglecting or not even considering; however, doing so will help you create a moat around your site that makes it harder to dethrone.
It’s not just another way to drive traffic; it also adds credibility. If you’re the one who wrote the article and made a video, then your reputation is further supported – anyone can write an article, but you can’t outsource your face or voice. Yet. AI is making headways in cloning voice.
Constructing your video can be a laborious task, and it’s not easy to get in-depth with the Vegas Pro or any other platform for videos that include effects like flames and flying objects.
However, investing more creation time will lead to increased traffic. There is an undeniable connection between the amount of time spent editing and how that video performs.
How are you going to make money
Money. Gotta make it.
I’ll break down each in terms of earning potential, the effort required, and protection.
Your product or service
Above all else, I am searching for an opportunity to create a product.
When I’m selling my product or service, it’s totally up to me how much I charge – $5, $50, or $1,000. There are no external restrictions on my prices; this is my business and mine alone.
There’s always a risk with display ads because your income is affected by your traffic level. Selling a product, my earnings aren’t directly linked to how much web traffic I generate because I have an email list, repeat purchases, and can create new products to sell to existing customers.
Plus, different platforms have different payout periods. This delay in collecting funds can be hugely inconvenient; when it’s a ‘net-60’ situation, you’re essentially waiting two months for your money. Anything could happen within those sixty days and change the outcome entirely.
Unfortunately, there are horror stories of people having their accounts suddenly shut down unexpectedly without warning and losing thousands of dollars. I don’t have to worry about an affiliate program shutting down.
Thankfully, I have yet to experience this issue myself.
An example
With this job board I created, I could have thousand-dollar days from one HR lady. She would post seven or eight jobs every month that cost $150 each.
I could trace back her source with some strategic detective work (looking at analytics). It all began with a simple comment I left on an article about top job boards in the industry, simply mentioning that my website should be included. Traffic leaking 101.
Earning potential
The earning potential for this could be high. The exact amount will depend upon the activity undertaken, what you create, and how much you price your services or products. It could be extraordinary.
Effort
The level of effort could range from low to high, depending on what you’re selling. Creating the job board was easy, and it only took a few hours and next to no actual maintenance. It required minimal effort on my part for great results.
Investing six months to craft the top-notch course on flamingo breeding sounds like a great idea; however, you may be uncertain of how large your target audience is in this area.
If you visit Etsy right now, you can find individuals selling Canva business card templates. Once they make a sale, they personalize the template and send it off. Meager effort.
Protection
Your product is safe and secure if you avoid anything illegal or unethical, like fraud or scamming people.
I would advise steering clear of questionable industries such as gambling, adult content, CBD, or the like; many payment processing companies are not open to dealing with these products. You have to go through third-rate payment processors with wild fees. First-hand experience here.
If you’re in a vanilla niche like homesteading or goat racing, your payment processor will never leave you stranded – your business is pretty damn secure.
Recurring affiliate programs
Next, I’m searching for a reliable recurring affiliate program to create some earnings sustainability. Unlike 1-off affiliate programs and display ads where earnings decrease with decreasing traffic levels, I can take my website offline for an entire month yet still receive residual income through the ongoing commissions.
Regarding pricing and commission, they’re not nearly as critical compared to 1-off programs. Even though it could be a small commission of $5 per month for every customer, that still adds up over the long haul when folks stay on for years. $60 per sign-up per year that continues adding up over time; that’s nice!
If you’re trying to achieve high rankings in this competitive space, then the best approach is a mix of editorial content, intuition, and programmatic strategies.
Creating comparison posts allows you to target long-tail keywords that might not be as visible when using keyword tools. As a result, you don’t have to worry about competing against Keyword Karen, who only uses keyword tools to compete.
She’s in the same Klub as Kyle 👎🏾
The greatest danger is amending commission conditions, such as going from a lifetime to a first-year expenditure plan. What a pain in the ass.
That’s why relying on one program would never be wise; instead, try to identify competitors and join their programs.
Earning potential
Although you won’t make as much money from creating something yourself, the earning potential of existing products is still quite impressive.
Effort
The competition has made it difficult to achieve success by relying solely on SEO. Instead of relying solely on SEO, you can still gain a significant advantage by focusing on content that is easy to share and creating video content as well!
Protection
Although protection is present, the risk of a company randomly changing its terms remains.
Every other affiliate program
Finally, all other affiliate programs. One-off commissions. Regarding affiliate sales programs, we can all agree that higher-paying ones are better than low-paying ones.
I’ll also prioritize programs that offer ownership of customers. This means that when someone signs up through my link, I get a commission on all their purchases indefinitely. Forever. Five ever.
Incredibly, I get a commission from someone who signed up in 2020 and made a purchase three years later. It shows just how powerful this system is – even if my customers don’t buy anything for a few years, I have the opportunity to make money when they do come back. Plus, there’s the added opportunity to land whales or people that spend a ton of money.
Earning potential, effort, and protection is a big crap shoot because there are too many variables to account for.
Regardless of how popular a specific topic is, it’s always possible to create content around these less popular topics and still garner traffic through product comparison pages.
Display ads
At the end of my list is display advertising, which can be a viable option. However, I’m not too hip with this monetization method because it ties earnings to traffic. Unless you’ve mastered traffic leaking and can generate traffic on-demand, you’re at risk of an algorithm update.
Suffice it to say that many people make money from running display ads.
The audience-building plan
Let’s explore the best ways to grow your audience and get them coming back for more!
Push notifications
Push notifications are an invaluable tool to get people back on your website – it’s like getting targeted traffic immediately! As I mentioned earlier, though we won’t be subscribing to push notifications ourselves as internet marketers, they can provide a powerful boost for those who do.
But we’re a distinct segment of internet users – an infinitesimal fraction compared to the whole. Don’t let a few vocal users, who you might be familiar with and regularly engage with, distort your viewpoint into believing that their actions are generalizable to all netizens.
Not every person on the internet behaves the way internet marketers do.
Though it may seem outdated, push notifications remain a great way to engage customers. Out of habit, people often accept them and click on the notification when they receive one; this is especially true for those who are already glued to their phones.
Every time your business sends out a new update or special offer through a push notification, there’s potential for customers to be interested in what you have – and at that very moment. Boomshakalaka: instant traffic and customers.
With a simple push notification, you can estimate that within one to two hours of sending the notification out, 1-2% of those subscribed will click. That’s not all, though; it follows by a slow burn effect. If, for example, you have 10 thousand subscribers, after the initial send, there would be 500 people in that first hour, then 200, then 40, and so on, until eventually reaching just five, three, two, and one.
Automatically every time you hit publish.
Publishing shareable content is the best way to get an influx of traffic in no time. Once you hit publish, your quiz will instantly be shared with your followers, who will interact, and it will eventually end up on multiple platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, etc.
Push notifications are still effective for getting results – depending on your niche, so don’t underestimate the power.
Building that email list
Email marketing is a great tool to have in your arsenal, mainly when you are selling products. It’s mandatory that you begin collecting emails and setting up automation such as abandoned cart sequences, welcome series, and product review prompts.
However, if your main focus is content creation, it may not be quite as important. Depending on your niche, I suggest waiting until you have around 50 to 100 consistent visitors daily.
This way, the money spent will be quickly recouped through your profits. On average, initial monthly costs range between $15-$20. You’re probably not sending enough emails if you cannot make this back using sales from the email list.
Keeping your readers engaged is as simple as sending out daily or weekly emails referencing any new posts, products, or quizzes you think they’d be interested in. Share an affiliate link and ask for their feedback – it’s easy to keep them involved!
Some poopoo on the daily email, but it’s much more beneficial to have 50 well-engaged subscribers than 500 that skip over your email, both for your wallet in terms of paying for the service and making more money.
Social media
Social media is a tricky game, as it’s easy to fall into the trap of only communicating with your followers. The key here is to go beyond just pushing out promotional content and engage more authentically with potential customers.
Social media is an incredible tool when properly used. It’s not enough to post regularly and cross your fingers, but rather a two-way street of engagement on platforms like Twitter, Reddit, Facebook groups, or Instagram.
Don’t approach it as simply putting out content and hoping for success; instead, get involved in conversations that matter to you and build relationships with other users – this will make all the difference.
