I Was Totally Wrong (So Trust Your Gut)
Is my niche good? is a question I get a lot. Sometimes, it's tough to say exactly yes or no. ANY niche can make money if you tweak it enough and work on your site long enough.
Even as an "expert", my knowledge is limited! A great example of a bad judgement call was my own website I started a couple years ago. I thought it didn't have much potential, but it turns out I was wrong.
My Home Brewing Website
I started a website about homebrewing about six years ago. They always say to make your niche something you love, so I figured I should start a site about my #1 hobby: brewing beer!
After a couple months, I started running out of ideas. It was more work than fun, and I stopped working on the site so much. I still publish from time to time, but it's mostly to show examples and training I do for Wealthy Affiliate or my site in the MMO niche.
I just figured homebrewing was too small of a niche to generate traffic. I thought that there wasn't really a path to making good money.
Well, I was wrong!
I stumbled upon a beer and brewing website just this week that has some pretty crazy traffic numbers. SEMRush isn't exactly accurate with traffic, but based on what I researched, it looks like this website is getting about 350,000 Page Views per month!
That's pretty crazy. After checking out their website, it looks like they are not publishing anything too crazy or insightful. It's basic stuff like How To tutorials and Top 10 lists.
Meanwhile, here's the traffic to my beer blog:
Very unimpressive!
If I had been working on my site for the past 5-6 years, even if I was getting just half the traffic of that other website I'd be happy. I guessing they make pretty good money! They do the Amazon affiliate program as well as other affiliate companies.
I think if I had read Kyle's blog post about succeeding with golf balls (then scaling with shoes), I might have understood that I could branch out to more beer related stuff outside of homebrewing!
Does Your Idea Suck? It Might Not!
If you have something you're passionate about but are unsure if it can make "real" money online, you really should give it a try. You never know what could happen.
As you go through the training and get in the mindset of having an online business, you'll have more and more fresh ideas. You could take your website in a direction you never imagined. There's so much to learn!
If I had stuck with my beer site, I could be getting paid to drink beer right about now.
"Garçon, I'll take an IPA. I'm working."
The moral of the story? Don't be afraid to try out your ideas! Hard work pays off in the end. This whole affiliate marketing thing is a crazy path that could have you end up getting paid to do something you love.
Recent Comments
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Nathaniell,
This is a great point. I legitimately had a very similar experience recently. I wrote for a solid few months on a health and fitness niche website back a year or two ago.
I gave it up to focus on the MMO niche and promoting WA. I looked at Organic Search Results a couple weeks back and although I have been working on the MMO niche site for the past three months I am absolutely destroying that site in terms of rankings with the health & fitness site.
It's weird how cornering a particular market can result in great success... you just need to give it time.
Anyway, shared a similar experience. Thought this interesting. Thanks for sharing!
-Dalton
Glad to hear you're doing well with your MMO site. Never too late to go back to health and wellness. That's another big evergreen industry!
Hi Nathaniell the stars must have aligned in just the right way this morning as I really needed to read this post. After working on my website for almost a year just yesterday I started to wonder if my niche was too small. In my ‘gut’ I know it’s not, and I’ve branched out into other related areas too, but still my organic traffic is small. When I boost posts on FB my traffic increases considerably so there IS an audience. Guess I just need to keep plodding on writing good long informative posts and monetizing to grow my reach..... and get the search engines to ‘SEE’ me.
Seems like most people I underestimated the time it takes to build your site sufficiently.
Even if your niche is too small, you can always tweak it to suit your needs. Everything can be changed, edited, upgraded, etc.
Glad to provide a weekly inspiration for you Ann!
Brilliant post and made me recap and read again. Sometimes we do just go through the training without really seeing whats there.
I went to the link you shared about Kyles article. It actually says it right there in the face. Yet I missed it.
Brilliant and thank you so much. Makes me sit back and recap too.
Nathaniel thank you so much.
Debs :)
That's a great post from Kyle. I'm surprised so many people didn't see it the first time around :)
I actually saw the post before but missing the important details.
Thats because of rushing through no doubt.
I had to backtrack a lot in the beginning. I suppose I still do.
Sometimes we need to be pointed in the right direction as a reminder too. I think this post alone offers so much and connecting it to Kyles just adds to it.
Awesome post and thank you again Nathaniel. :)
Good stuff. I wonder how many people quit their sites just short of success. I see it happen all the time.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. I keep reading here at WA that you never know where your website will take you. And that anything can be a niche if it is refined and there is plenty that you are passionate about.
I will keep this in mind...
I wish you the best!
Bob
Enlightening and inspiring post, Nathaniell. Thank you for sharing it with us on WA. "Getting paid to do something you love" is a big why for a lot of us; and what better way to enjoy life than to work on our own projects! :) Blessings to you and yours, Jamie
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Oh my... thank you for sharing Nathaniell.
I think too many times, it's easy to have a strong gut feeling... sounds like a great idea, feels right...and then it's time for the fear factor to kick in..don't think it's gonna work, etc.
I agree ... don't be afraid to try out our ideas, after all, it's the hard work that wins.
Arrggg, the lessons we learn in life!
Have an awesome week.
Monica
It's always worth trying out your ideas, especially online. The consequences of a bad idea are not that big. Just a little wasted time, but you gain knowledge in the meantime.