Adjust Your Strategy For Maximum Success

You may have noticed that my posting frequency has slowed down somewhat lately. I would love to say I ran off to the Keys to take a few years off but that is simply not the case, I have been working hard on my niche site empire. I have learned a valuable lesson the last 6 weeks and I wanted to share.

Bans Site Strategy

It seems like the prevailing winds when it comes to the BANS software involves mass creation. Setting up a huge number of sites as fast as possible and hope to make a few bucks a day off each site. I don’t know where this trend started, probably left over stinking thinking from the adsense niche site builders.

A key part of many people’s adsense strategy is to actually build a sub-par site that will not solve or answer the problem that the searcher was looking for in the first place. When they can’t find the answer on your site, they click out on one of your adsense ads and move on.

I think this kind of thinking has permeated the BANS crowd as well, at least that has been my experience. You rarely see anyone touting the benefits of building a mega site but rather an empire of mini-sites. They both have their pros and cons and I used to subscribe to the “empire” theory. That has changed dramatically in the last few weeks.

Niche Site Strategy Change

I am a huge advocate of testing and trying different things and I have always said that there isn’t any ONE correct way to do anything. Some people will tell you to NEVER use Adsense on a BANS site, some will tell you not to use affiliate links on BANS sites, others will tell you that hyphens in the domain names are a bad thing. There is no shortage of bad advice being given on a daily basis.

My theory is that you don’t know if any of this is true unless you try it for yourself. Adsense might not work in some niches, but may work GREAT in others. The same could be said for affiliate links, they might not convert on your golf club site but they may convert even better than Ebay on your digital camcorder site. Just because someone else tells you that it won’t work, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try it.

My previous strategy had been to build as many sites as possible this year in order to get as big a footprint as I could and start the aging process for the domains. In order to accomplish this, I would build sites very quickly and sometimes overlook some of the key data I should be looking at. I would also find myself building niche sites in niches that I had absolutely ZERO interest in. With zero interest comes zero content creation because I cannot stomach writing articles about topics I have to research.

My typical site would be built using stock Ebay categories and would have about five 350ish word articles on the site to draw traffic. About 6 weeks ago I decided to try something dramatically different with a niche that I personally love. I build a site that was in a niche that I can generate content for all day long, because I love the topic, it’s a hobby of mine. The only thing I will say is that it is motorcycle related.

The site to date has produced more income than any other niche site I have built in its first 6 weeks and it should only get better as I continue building content. I have 15 “product review” type articles that are quite relevant to the niche so far and I plan to continue adding about 3 a week until I simply exhaust the possibilities.

Niche Site Flexibility

The best part about this niche is that I can build a network of niche sites based around this topic. I won’t reveal all that much about the niche other than to say I could easily build a small network of sites that are similar to this one that I can use to link back and forth as they are very relevant to each other.

I could see growing these into approximately a 10 store empire that will outproduce the 100 stores I planned on building all day long. I still have a number of other niche sites that are scattered amongst various topics but without that steady flow of content, they simply do not draw the type of traffic that I need to make serious cash. They produce a hit a couple of times a week and easily pay the domain and hosting fees but I have set my sights MUCH MUCH higher than a few thousand dollars a year.

If you are building a BANS store empire of your own then I would suggest that you try the same strategy and see what you think. Find a niche that you absolutely LOVE and build a site that is 5 or 10 times the size of the sites you were building before. Spend a few weeks building it as opposed to a few hours and measure your results.

If yours are similar to mine then you will be pleasantly surprised at the earnings capability. You should also find writing content to be much more enjoyable than writing about antique mantel clocks or some other scintillating topic like that. (No offense to antique clock lovers.)

Conclusion

As good as this site is doing, I know I will still have the sandbox to deal with. The movie site that I have referred to in the past has definitely hit the sandbox and traffic is down from an average of 100 uniques a day to less than 20. It’s normal and I am not concerned as I know how to bring them out of the box but it still stinks.

I am still going to build an empire of niche sites but I am going to build each one more thoroughly than before and I am not going to worry so much about hitting 100 sites as I am going to worry about how much revenue they each produce. Once you hit a strong niche, you kind of see what is possible and it can get your juices going no doubt.

I am still a fan of small numbers, I am just changing my idea of what “small” is. Whatever you do, make sure you do something. You won’t make money online sitting there like a bump on a log. You could be making money online right now, instead of reading about ME making money online.

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Learn to Build Niche Sites