Building a bulletproof niche site (business)?

I won't mince words. This niche site publishing business is frustrating. Takes forever to get some traffic and revenue. You no sooner enjoy growing traffic and revenue and along comes Google and knocks it down with an update. --------------------------------------------------------------- -Today's Promotion- A few weeks ago I decided to try some HARO links on a smaller site just to see what would happen. I looked into it myself and quickly realized I have no idea what I'm doing. I decided to leave it to someone who does have a clue. I found a service. It's not cheap. I paid for some links. So far the service created 4 links. They're good. Two DR 89 links. One DR 32. One of the DR 89 links is nofollow, but that's okay. The DR 89 sites get 16 million and 22 million monthly visitors per Ahrefs. Those are some legit sites. As mentioned, the problem is it's expensive per link. Which is why the guy behind the service is offering a [live HARO Masterclass]() On September 22 at 11 am Eastern. Better yet, if you sign up, use coupon JON50 to save 50%. Enter the coupon when checking out as follows: ​ ​ There's a learning curve to acquiring HARO links. I didn't do it myself all that long. Just long enough to realize I either need to hire someone or learn. This is your opportunity to learn if paying for the service isn't an option. => [Click here to join the HARO Masterclass]()​ Use coupon JON50 to save 50%. -END PROMOTION- --------------------------------------------------------------- At any given point, all sites are growing, in plateau or dropping. Only one of those scenarios is good. Two are frustrating. While I would love never-ending hockey stick growth, admittedly periods of decreasing traffic forces me to improve things. If you keep on publishing you will experience all three situations at some point. As Fat Stacks chugs along and I hear from readers and course/forum members, it's become clear to me that there are two different strategies people seek out. The first strategy people want to know about is building up one lucrative site. They're prepared to put their all into it. They have no plans to launch more sites or at least not get serious about additional sites. They have their passion, idea or interest and wish to focus on that. Undoubtedly it's a proven strategy. Arguably, the better strategy. The second strategy people are interested in learning is the portfolio strategy. This focuses on growing multiple sites for a variety of reasons such as: - Diversify, - Stave off boredom, - Use as experiments, - To flip, and/or - Earn more money. ​ I do both strategies. My course goes into detail about both strategies. The course evolved as my publishing business evolved. Not long ago I was a one-site outfit. Now I'm a multi-site outfit. Here's what I've learned It's hard to publish a "perfect" site. I use the term "perfect" loosely because no site is perfect. What I mean is that it's stellar in every way. Every article is a work of art and has the traffic to show for it. This is hard to do. I certainly don't do it. Part of the problem is quality requirements have become more stringent over the years. I have content published in 2016 that I wouldn't publish today. Stick around long enough and what you're publishing today could be improved upon in 5 years. That's the nature of this work. And so after several years, the site that was my focus for so long is not "perfect." It's good. It has plenty of promise but to reach its potential requires again upping content quality. For the past two days I've been putting together an content upgrade plan for the site. I don't mean going back and improving older content. I'm already doing that. What I"m talking about is a content upgrade for new content; a system for creating and publishing better content. It won't be easy. It will require legwork. With luck, if I can get it together, video will be part of the strategy. What I mean by upgraded content is going all in on creating every aspect of an article myself (with the help of other people). An example is if I were in the quilting niche, every article would be my own photos of whatever an article was about, whether a how-to, inspiration and/or quilting patterns created to give away (or sell). In other words, move away from stock photos as much as possible. Put together content in a studio-like situation where every aspect of content can be created. This also results in video-production opportunities but I'm still on the video fence just because post-production is labor-intensive and isn't necessary for the articles. That said, one way to further bulletproof a site is to build a YouTube channel in conjunction with a niche site. It's certainly not my comfort zone but then much of what I do now was not my comfort zone 8 years ago. A good example are these newsletters. I used to send email newsletters solely to promote content on the Fat Stacks blog. It consisted of a few paragraphs with a link to my site. One day I just wrote a pile stuff about this niche site business in the email. No link. Just wrote about what I was doing. I received more replies from that one email than probably all emails before that combined. Clearly readers preferred content in the email than having to click to some site. That was the start of the Fat Stacks Email Newsletter in current form. If it's hard to grow a nearly perfect site, how does one also grow additional sites? Unless your resources are nearly unlimited, this is where you have to ease up on content quality on additional sites. You don't have to go the garbage route but you can't possibly give it the attention you do your primary site. That's okay. I've learned over the last few years it's not all that hard to get a site to $50 to $100 per day. It takes time but you can kind of phone it in relying entirely on content agencies. If one or two show promise, you can invest more into it and level it up quality-wise. For me, when I'm not fully hands-on a site daily, it's not much on my radar. I just let it grow on autopilot. It's not ideal but these sites are still proving to be good investments. What's the objective? That varies person to person. I know some folks launch all kinds of sites just to test SEO. That's kinda fun. Push the envelope. Some folks prefer to build a bulletproof, or as bulletproof "perfect" site as possible and see how big it can get. Some folks like the idea of many sites all earning something that in total earn well (nicely diversified). A few observations: Having multiple sites earning reasonably well is a good position to be in especially when Google announces updates. On the flip side, having multiple sites means having to let quality slide to some degree. More and more that doesn't sit well with me. It's not so bad I'm quitting the multi-site strategy but it is a reality check. It would be dumb to stop because it does work. Not that I know firsthand but I imagine having a huge YouTube channel alongside a successful site is a good situation to be in. That's worth working toward... I think. What about email lists? Email is amazing, in the right niches. I know people say email is the be-all and end-all and it can be but it has to be in the right situations and niches. The niche must be one where there's ongoing interest by your audience. Not all niches offer this. Many topics people search for are a one-time thing. Cars are a good example. When someone buys a car, their interest in cars is gone. Before I bought my current vehicle, I spent weeks reading auto sites. Once I drove it off the lot, I haven't visited a single auto site. I certainly wouldn't read any auto emails. I no longer care until I'm in the market for another vehicle. If you do have an audience with some ongoing interest, then email is definitely worth doing. Decisions, decisions, decisions We are constantly faced with decisions. Some are hard. You will make wrong decisions. I certainly have. For instance, I screwed up some articles that were getting piles of traffic for years. Now I need to undo what I did and hope traffic resumes. Another example of a bad decision is having expanded too broadly on my primary site. It was a traffic-grab that's seemingly failed. I'll give it a bit more time but it's not looking good. Fortunately, I can easily splinter it off onto another domain so it's not wasted. Nevertheless, had I known this would have been the result, I wouldn't have gone as broad as I did. On the other hand, years ago I decided to source most photos for my primary site from many sources. It's been a lot more work over the years emailing thousands of contacts asking for permission but that effort paid off. Another fortuitous decision I made is not focusing on affiliate content given the recent series of product review Google updates. Maybe I would have sailed through but maybe not. So, what is the secret for building a bullet proof online publishing business in any niche. As trite as it sounds it's the following: - publishing content visitors want, and - strong alignment between targeted search terms and content. - doing the above two while fully optimizing for Google without compromising the content. ​ Jon Fatstacksblog.com P.S. This email is a meandering pile of information. When read together, all my emails are and that's because this business is fluid. Things change. Had I not evolved over the years, I'd still be spinning my wheels trying to rank 500 word articles by blasting them with software-generated backlinks. [Unsubscribe]( | [Update your profile]( | 2016 Hill Drive, North Vancouver, British Columbia V7H 2N5