ThaiDreamer
Power Member
- Apr 24, 2018
- 768
- 361
Hello BHW!
You might have followed my first-ever Internet Marketing Journey in which I started an Amazon affiliate site from scratch to quit my job and get the fuck out of the country I hated living in. And so to chase my lifelong dream of living in a tropical paradise.
In short: despite some ups and downs both with the project and in life, the journey turned out success with minimum-to-no-investment (apart from my time) as I reached the target I set at the start (feel free to get familiar with the journey by reading the 1st post or the rest of the thread).
I also managed to settle in a Caribbean paradise after leaving the dullness of Europe, making the last 1,5 years easily the best period of my life.
The site was doing relatively well and I've continued developing it regularly until 2 weeks ago...
When I got back from a two-day trip to learn that more than 70% of my main keywords have absolutely vanished from the Google search, annihilating my traffic and revenue by more than 50% and more than 60%, respectively. I know that I'm not alone in this current hole as many BHWrs shared similar experiences.
Such drop and uncertainty in the future of my first project led me to massive anxiety and I barely slept for the next 2 nights. My demons were calling me to go on a drinking binge but I won the battle and instead decided to use that situation as motivation and develop a much better work ethic and hunger.
Such a drop in traffic and revenue, if it was to persist forever, would mean that I wouldn't be able to sustain a life in my current location and that I'd have to go back to the life I really hated. This for me was the biggest motivation not to give up and start looking for fresh ideas to diversify my income stream. Luckily, I still have some savings I could live on for a few months until the website recovers (if it ever does) and until... my new projects start bringing revenue.
Why Have I Decided to Open a Few New Projects at Once?
Well, since opening the first project that I mentioned above, I have always believed that you should focus on one project at a time to maximize its growth and avoid distractions. In a way, this has definitely helped me to reach the goal I set for myself - and proved to me that it is indeed possible to make money online without having to work a frustrating 9-5.
However, the latest situation with my affiliate site and the way it was butchered by Google, has led me to believe that:
- you need to find time on the side to research new ideas
- you need to diversify your portfolio of site types (affiliate/info/ecommerce)
- you need to diversify your income stream (something I planned to do this year but kept putting it off)
Finally, something resonated with me after coming across this video on finding obscure/boring niches with little-to-no-competition:
I renewed my group aHrefs subscription and started digging in.
After 3 days of research, I have come up with 3 obscure niches in which I'm sure I can be a success.
I'm lucky enough that one of the niches is actually one of my hobbies, so writing about it is not that bad as I actually learn something new. The other two are more robotic-type content but that's fine - they will require less creativity on my side and I will be able to help myself with AI (I have found a way to use one of the best AI writers FOR FREE so it will require zero investment on my side).
All 3 niches mentioned above have different potential regarding traffic (and revenue), as well as competition level.
Let's name them as:
1. Baby A
There's just 1 site doing the niche but it's limited to 50 landing pages. It's a low DA site (below 10) ranking in the Top 10 for all main phrases. What's more, it hasn't been updated for years, has ultra-thin content (average of 100 words per page), a spammy backlink profile, and is focused just on one niche-related category. I have found at least 200 more little-to-no-competition keywords I can easily rank for with this site and I'm sure I can find more.
I expect to overtake the competitor in as little as 3 months and dominate the niche from then on.
I have an idea of how to get free niche-relevant backlinks for this site once I get enough articles up.
Super excited.
Here's how I evaluate its potential:
- Obscurity: 9/10
- Content Potential: 7/10
- Traffic Potential: 6/10
- Revenue potential: 6/10
There is 1 main site that, similar to the niche above, is super old-school and isn't updated much. However, it has a DA of 30 so it will take some time to catch up. Again, the content on that site is ultra-thin and is usually less than 100 words per page - I want to improve on that. The traffic potential in this one is enormous as the site that is doing it is approaching 200k visits/month from Tier 1 countries. There are a few other sites that are, let's say, approaching this niche but they are not quite the same.
Super excited.
Here's how I evaluate its potential:
- Obscurity: 8/10
- Content Potential: 10/10
- Traffic Potential: 9/10
- Revenue Potential: 8/10
This niche is the least obscure out of the three but it still has a relatively small number of competitors, enormous traffic potential, and most of the content can be 90%-AI-generated. This will be the project that will try to profit from the AI tool I have the most.
Here's how I evaluate its potential:
- Obscurity: 7/10
- Content Potential: 10/10
- Traffic Potential: 9/10
- Revenue Potential: 8/10
Outside the obscure niches, I have also decided to go with one additional project that will be a more broad niche, an area in which I'm particularly interested - just to make sure I don't get crazy writing about stuff I'm not that much into. Also, I want to have a broad niche website to see how it fares compared to small niche sites.
Safe to say, this one will be the least of my priorities from all 4.
Who knows, maybe it will surprise me in a good way?
Here's how I evaluate its potential:
- Obscurity: 2/10
- Content Potential: 10/10
- Traffic Potential: 6/10
- Revenue Potential: 5/10
What's the Plan?
As already mentioned, I plan to monetize all 4 pages with ads. The % of affiliate articles across all four will be less than 1%. This time I will focus on informational content only.
Currently, I'm continuing the keyword research for all four sites using the combination of aHrefs, Semrush, KeywordFinder, and Google Keyword Planner. I prioritize keywords that have super low AIT (all in title) results as these have been a big success for me in the previous project. If I find a super easy keyword that doesn't require a really long article, I try to write it immediately.
The priority for the first 3 months is to focus on keyword research and publishing content. Link building will come later.
What Has Been Done Already? (+ Expenses)
So far, I have done the following:
- found 3 obscure niches
- analyzed competitors
- selected and bought domains for all 4 sites
- selected themes for 2 sites (the other 2 I'm still looking for the right option)
- created all my KeywordResearch spreadsheets, some of which contain tens of easy-to-rank keywords already
- published a combination of 40 articles across 3 sites
- continuation of keyword research (at least 3 hours/day)
- publishing content for easy keywords (at least 6 hours/day)
- learning about WP and SEO optimization (at least 1-2 hours daily)
- 4 domains from Namecheap: $28
- hosting: 0$ (I use the same hosting as for my first site)
- themes: $14
- SEO tools (group buy): $29
- AI Tool: $0
- Total: $71
What's the Goal?
The financial goal of this thread is to reach a combined income of $100 per day from all 4 sites and continue living in the place I learned to love. I'm not setting any timeframe on this not to put unnecessary pressure on myself - I have enough of it already lol.
Other obvious goals are:
- expanding my SEO and marketing knowledge along the way
- diversifying my income stream
- diversifying my website portfolio
- getting fucking rich for once
Thanks for sticking around and feel free to share your thoughts and tips, as always!
Edit: Yes, of course, in the meantime I will be trying to revive the first site. Busy few months ahead.
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