Don't forget the smaller markets!
April 3, 2008
Back in late November I did a promotion for Alok Jain's Project Quick Cash. That promotion did very well, even prompting me to write a report about it (Pre-Selling Secrets).
I'm telling you about this because today I happened to look at my AdSense account and noticed that yesterday the case study blog I created for the promotion had earned $3.50 for the previous day. That's not a lot of money, it's true, but it's a lot more than I expected from a case study blog that I haven't touched at all since November 23, 2007.
I was intrigued, so I looked at the stats for that blog. To my surprise and delight, the blog has averaged almost 1,200 unique visitors a month since the last time I added content to it in November.
And where is this traffic coming from? 62% is coming from search engines, with 68% of the search traffic coming from Google.
I also checked my AdSense account, and in the 4 untouched months that little blog has earned me an extra $110. Not a gold mine, no, but then I stopped doing anything to it in November. Imagine if I had created 100 little blogs that I stopped working on, and 4 months later each one had earned me $100? That's $10,000 and a steady monthly revenue stream. Or better yet, what if I used a powerful article research tool to help me create content fast, and regularly updated those blogs? Imagine the kind of traffic I would see then…
The case study blog has very few backlinks, and yet has gotten traffic from a combination of 773 different keywords (according to the stats). All I did was follow the first of Alok Jain's 5 methods from Project Quick Cash, and use the tools that I created as the one-time-offer for PQC to automate the process. I posted to the blog daily for about 3 weeks.
What this tells me is that it still pays to research untapped niches for content creation. So many marketers are so focused on the hot items (diet pills, celebrities, insurance, etc.) that they miss the smaller untapped markets that can really bring in traffic long-term, and that require very little work to rank for.
Find those smaller niches, and create solid content for them, and you'll see the traffic and revenue roll into your sites. I've always found this to be true, and this little forgotten blog is just one more pillar supporting that truth.
Please post your thoughts and comments below.
Comments
98 Responses to “Don't forget the smaller markets!”
Got something to say?
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Jonathan Leger has been earning his living online full-time since the fall of 2004. He regularly posts advice about search engine optimization (his current passion), AdSense and Internet Marketing. 
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Great Points. I have ezine articles from 3-4 months ago that still get great traffic! I never modified them or anything. Thanks for the quick case study.
Regards,
Daryle
Hi Jonathan,
Interesting post. What type of blog (Blogger, Wordpress) did you set up? You said," very few backlinks". Appx how many and what was PR of the linking sites?
Thank for your great posts.
Tim
Hey Jonathan,
Thanks for the site update. With all the voodoo that so many SEO "experts" throw at us now-a-days, it's refreshing to have a true down-to-earth case study to examine! Thanks for sharing this with us.
-Mark
Elegant !
I like this, could you tell me how to create this ?
Thank !
Rapani
Tim:
It's a blogger blog (you can click on the embedded link in the post to see it). It has maybe a dozen unique links from pages of no consequence.
Cool post Jon, as usual. This actually gives me a little more motivation to keep creating quality content. And with the help of IAW Pro 2.0, it should be all that much easier! (so far, great program by the way).
Thanks again for the great post.
Hi Jonathan: Just this day added Adsense to my new blog,
The SpiderWeb Marketing System. I hope to be a bit more involved than you were but am encouraged by your comments.
Thanks.
Best Regards. Bob
and use the tools that I created as the one-time-offer for PQC to automate the process
Do you Still Have This For Sell (The Tools to automate the process??!!) , Or a FREE Bonus??
Let me Know as soon as you can Thanks..Jonathan
Scott.
JONATHAN,
How do I check stats.
You always stress that.
How is it done ????
all the best
Good point Jonathan,
Your case studies are always warmly received. I'm having a similar experience with a forgotten article-directory style site that was purchased and uploaded with tiny changes. As such, it did not go well at all and Google still does not like it for its duplication-factor, however a couple of months back it started actually earning for the 1st time and is now 1 of my best Adsense earners. In fact, it is one of my some-time-soon priorities to revisit this site and actually monetize it, make some changes, get some blogs for it going etc.
Anyway, your point is a good one and I intend on following this strategy in 2008 with multiple good content sites. Thanks for the tip
Nice to wake up to a surprise like that.
But Jon, you know what would of been better? Placing that content on a domain of your own. Did you know that blogger uses the pub-caXXXXXX as your adsense ID?
No matter how many times you enter your own pub-XXXXX adsense ID, blogger will always use the pub-ca, but lately they now force the code google_ad_host which shares 50% of the revenue you earn to the blogger crew.
All the best
Loz
Hi Jon
I know a lot of people would laugh $3.50. But like you say if you have more sites, and what if you did work on them. Thanks for the update, that's good to know. Keep up the great work.
Gary McElwain
I have used smaller niche keyword and original content and get rank at the first page of google . But the the problem is low demand keyword, and even no visitor. How to find smaller niche keyword and high demand effectively?
I have done research the keywords by using digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/ and nichesearcher.com. Thanks to share this motivating article.
Ardi Panondan
Cool findings John, really goes against the old thoughts of consistent content additions to maintain traffic. By the way instant article pro is awesome!!!
I would just like to point out a few more things to your "Newbie" readers if I may.
1. Jonathan knows his seo and writes some damn good articles. Just anybodies article or blog might set there forever and never get a hit, although if you have followed his advice and are in a small niche you will get traffic.
2.Thank you Jonathan for including realistic Adsense results. You did well getting $3.50 from 1,200 unique visitors on a "normal" blog. I will venture to say a lot of people with blogs do not ever get that many unique visitors with their active blog. (reading some of Jonathan's old blogs will help there)
Finally. I read and learn from Jonathan's work and respect him for it. His work is always well researched, documented, and written. I learn as much by noticing how he does the work as reading it, posting articles like Jonathan writes on the web and simply submitting it to the major search engines will eventually build your traffic, maybe to a point where you can make a few bucks with Adsense.
Fantastic post. I summarize this as content = traffic, traffic = money therefore content = money.
Your content never goes away, as long as it is online and available for indexing by the search engines, there is potential for you to receive traffic and make money.
Guru Bob
How true it is! I have one particular blog that is targeted at a narrow sub-niche. Never have to do site promotion except writing 2 articles and it nets me $100 plus every month. No updating required. Long tails in untapped niches are gold mines.
It's true that targeting smaller niches is often easier in the long run and more profitable.
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for the update on the blog it just goes to show that sometimes you do have to let these things develop their own momentum and as you say the potential if you keep adding sites could really be beneficial long term.
Cheers
Gez
Hi Jonathan
$110 from a site you haven't touched in months….nice! You're right about the fact that if you just had a few of these they can pay some bills and that's what many people forget and go for the big score, fail and then say internet marketing sucks.
There are many sides to every story. I appreciate how you document and explain step by step your progress so there leaves no room for misinterpretation. Keep up the excellent stuff
Sincerely,
Mark
Many thanks Jonathan…
As a newbie (I don't care for that term anymore) and a rank
amateur, I continue to learn from your offerings, and the comments
found here are awesome. My education has been enhanced
manyfold!
Toby's site almost makes me want to head East from my beloved
shores of Lake Superior. Keep up the great work.
All the best,
Jon
Hi Jon,
Like usual great blog post
That very impressive that the blog generate over 1200 visitors from
773 different keywords.
Definately there huge money to be made in small niche.
Keep up the great work, you are a real inspiration for many of us
All the best,
Cedric Aubry
Hi,
Thanks for another terrific post!
I'm glad to see a marketer using Blogger
rather than flogging Wordpress all of the
time.
I look forward to your next article.
best regards,
Laurie
Jonathan,
Very nice. I have several small blogger blogs myself that do this. I'll notice week to week each of them is making a little bit of money each, but hey, it adds up.
It builds in the background while i focus on my business.
Anyways, great post.
Jon,
Thanks for the info. It is nice to see that even to pros earn small sums. It kind of a reminder that us newbies have to start somewhere.
Great post Jonathan!
Thanks for sharing those results.
I have the same results btw
and I'm also aiming at the 'smaller' niches with my own blog building.
You see, I make a lot of blogs (with a minimum of 44 pages) and not all of them will be updated for a long time, simply because I run out of articles or I don't care about the niche that much anymore, but the results are often similar to yours.
Only one big difference though…
I don't write any articles for those blogs because I only use quality and seo plr articles which also makes it a lot easier to build those 100+ little blogs
Regards,
Robert
Hi Jonathan,
Right on the money, like usual. The return on a smaller market is way faster than on a broad one.
When I first started out I built a site for a broad market and it has taken me three plus years to get it up to $350 a month in adsense revenue. A lot of work, it has over 110 pages and a ton of articles written for links and support.
I also have very narrow niche sites that take only a fraction of the work that produce good revenue on a steady basis. A lot easier to build and maintain.
If i had to do it all over again i would definitely go with the smaller sites.
Life is too short to keep hitting brick walls!
Terry
You have a ton of articles on this blog… How did you come up with all that content?
Interesting. From your stats it looks like you had some decent traffic from the get-go. Were you indexed rather quickly? Have you been happy with Project Quick Cash?
I also have some Blogger blogs which are doing well, although with the ones that are doing well I notice it seemed to take Google about a year to start sending me traffic. But, once the traffic tap is turned on, it's a nice, steady flow.
As for Adsense–I don't know if it's your experience, but the CTR for Adsense on my blogs seems to be much lower than my websites.
Career:
Yes, using Alok's method it was indexed very fast. Project Quick Cash really worked for this blog, that's for sure.
And yes, generally CTR on blogs is a lot lower than web sites.
Very interesting. I wonder how long traffic will continue. I've heard of websites/posts getting traffic steadily for 2 years. Not bad for the time put into the effort.
Congrats!
This reminds me of one site I have that keeps on getting traffic without me updating it for over a year.
Hi, Jonathan!
Well, I'll be …
That was very encouraging indeed and inspiring.
I have struggled with this "driving traffic" issue I don't know for how long reading confusing and contradictory statements about it.
Thanks!
Rolf
The Windmill Operator
I have several such sites too, and I always use them as a case study to creating residual income on the Internet…
Thanks for the insights John.
I can see that tracking results is essential but I can't find an easy to use but effective method of tracking and analysing web stats. I check my cpanel info regularly but it doesn't give me the insight or the results that I need to measure the effectiveness for my site.
It may be that I am just not good at interpreting the information I have available to me now.
If you have something or can point me at an effective tool for this it would help heaps.
Keep up the good work!
I was suprised to receive a cheque yesterday for £53 for the AdSense on a blog I haven't touched for well over a year - so your post is very true!
well, that's encouraging. I had a couple of blogger blogs that didn't produce at all. I recently moved to wordpress because it makes management of my site a whole lot easier and I am so happy about that, you have no idea!
But this isn't about the platform. Your case study should hold true no matter what you are using. It's all about the seo content. So hopefully I'm getting that right this time.
Thanks for the insights! I think I bought project quick cash. Wonder where I put it? I think it's time to read it again
Carole
All your post is very useful to my Internet moneymaking endeavor. Thank you and hop[e to read more useful and informative tips from you.
Hi Jon,
This is great stuff.
I actually set up a new niche site as well and it got me something like $18.80 within the first week and I rarely update the blog itself as well. What a cool way to earn online.
Oh yes, Jon, thanks for the effort to come out with this software. Would you be publishing a tutorial in how to generate more traffic by using IAWPro 2.0 instead of just articles alone?
Would love to see that from your blog here.
Regards,
Vern
Good content about diet pills, gets you fighting amongst 20,000 people all pretty much as competent as you. Writing content about a smaller niche, especially with some long tail keywords within the copy, will bring you smaller riches. As many may say, rinse and repeat; or times the one procedure by 10 and you begin to get a steady income.
Cheers
English Expat - Earning Online from Spain
I find it frightening to learn, that a CTR on visitors is that low - and that you can only make 3½ USD on 2000 visitors…
I know that the blog was old, but considering the links being highly relevant to those 2000 people - scary. And the guy that has spend 3 years of hard work to esatblish a monthly income on 350 $… I think that that will scare a lot of fortune-hunters off.
Wish You all luck out there:-)
Claus:
I think you misunderstand. The $3.50 was for ONE DAY, not for all 1,200 visitors.
Great post! I always enjoy reading your posts and have long followed your tips. I have had the same success with my antique engagement rings site (www.antique-engagement-rings.info). I haven't touched it in months yet it still rattles the Adsense tin every day. Must create some unique articles for it…..
Regards Allen
Thanks, Jon, for not bombarding us with unrealistic stats. Yours can be emulated by all of us. Your advice is always doable. It may seem like a small amount of money, but if duplicated a couple of times, the results can be very gratifying.
My inactive blogs generate half of that approximately. All through Adsense.
Hi Jon,
A good reminder! Smaller niches do not necessarily mean smaller profits. As long as fundamental principles of SEO, quality content and sound marketing are followed, just about any niche can make money.
Thanks for your insight
Best wishes,
Clarence
I would like to know more about IAWPro2.0. But, I couldn't find anywhere about the main features of IAW. Is there any sales page for this?
Simply incredible. There is much to be said about the power of blogs and using some of the techniques you discuss.
What I find most amazing is the fact your blog just sat there without you adding anything to it and it still was able to get traffic and still eanr a residual income. This is truly a wonderful testament to the power of good solid content holding up over time.
Thanks, Jonathan.
Hi Jon
Quick question: does HyperVRE still work well or is it one of a number of sitebuilders which Google will recognise and stamp on?
Also, what's your view of "Rapid Niche Websites"
JC
What a timely post. I checked my sites soon after your post and I see the same phenomenon. Off to generating some more content.
G,
Forgot to add. Use IAW its great.
G,
the same happened to my blog
how nice for you that you little blog made u good money
Very interesting to see how such a small blog with no real focus and little content can get traffic, PR and revenue.
I must say, that's very encouraging. Thanks very much for sharing!
I also used the first from Alok Jain's 5 methods for my case study. I created a brand new blog specifically to try this method. During 1-2 weeks after I posted a hot trend article on my blog I was observing an incredible boost in traffic to the blog. This post was receiving about 200-500 visitors per day and was on the top position in search engine results.
Suddenly after 1 or 2 weeks the things changed. This article on my blog vanished from the first pages in Google and traffic decreased to a few visitors per day only. What has happened?
I was thinking over this behavior and came to the conclusion that Google showed more recent results if a search query wasn't popular before and all of a sudden got many searches.
For example, if 10,000 people search for "Nathan Robinson" every day then the search results will show trusted content from older websites. If 1,000,000 people search for "Nathan Robinson" on a particular day, Google thinks that something might have happened and will list new blog posts and news articles in the search results to give people more relevant results. Remarkably, the highly ranked pages were mostly blog pages.
If you want to benefit from a hot trend topic, you should create a blog post related to that hot trend.
Just remember that you will get only short-term high results with that method. After a few days or maybe a week or two older trusted websites will outrank your blog and your traffic will lessen gradually.
In short, the method requires a lot of work. To benefit from it and keep the top positions in Google, you should regularly post new hot trend articles on your blog and consistently build backlinks to old articles.
Hi…
I have been using your ideas since the day I created my first website and am very grateful to you. I, too would like to know more about your "free" tools. Where can I find them? I must have missed that somehow. Sincerely, Marie at howtorentvacationhomes.com
Hello Jon
Interesting post…I totally agree with you in that smaller niches will bring in more traffic.
Thanks Jonathan! Your case studies are always very interesting. I have also seen that some blogs continue to receive traffic even if you leave them without updates for a long period of time. There is no doubt blogs are very useful for generating traffic.
Cheers Jonathan …. sheer amazing information for research and educational purposes thanks a bundle
I would like to know more about IAWPro2.0. But, I couldn't find anywhere about the main features of IAW. Is there any sales page for this? "motorcyclestuff" …
All my best to you and your Golden Oldies
Phillip Skinner
Jon, I find it amazing that we can 'forget' certain projects but go back to them a few months later to find they've been quietly chugging along! That's what's great about this business we're in
Julia -
Is it possible that your site/page got hit by google's dupe content filter? Try adding unique content (like a sentence or 2) to the top and bottom and the meta description and see if that brings you back up.
I get so much from your emails and your blog. Keep up the good work.
Great post. Woody Maxim recommended you in one of his recent Maximum Overdrive issues. I can see why!
Jon,
Interesting point, I have experienced similar results with several of my old blog posts. I would assume all of the traffic or 90% has come from the engines. I may still get a trickle from some of the articles written and submitted.
Thanks for keeping me focused. Do you think it gets more engine traffic because of the sites age?
George
Although I didn't get PQC, from the reviews I've seen at the Warrior Forum. it seems that blog was intended to capitalize on recent news.
Did you see any significant traffic spikes during those periods directly after the news hit also?
Thanks,
Joe
Thanks Jonathan,
It is always a pleasure coming to your blog for gems like this. But my problem is how to locate those profitable little niches worth investing time and money on.
Again, I learn blogger.com often delete blogs with affiliate links without regard to the owner.
What do you think…?
Jonathan,
Great comment. I've purchased a number of the tools that you've recommended in the past. I agree that this one site doesn't make a lot by itself, but it's a great model that can be scaled - find a way to get them build for $10-$30 and make $100+ and an ongoing revenue stream. Great point!
Jonathan,
I know what you mean about getting revenue off old sites you have forgotten about.
I have one right now that I haven't edited in around a year that generates a nice yearly income.
I must admit, I am getting more interested in the techniques you are referring to.
Dear Jon,
Always refreshing to get your honest opinion out there. I have seen my traffic also spiked and then dropped on google and a few months later Google picked it up and now I have some pages coming up on the 1st page of Google and bringing in consistent traffic.
Thanks
Buck
well, i don't know much about this topic, but if you earn $3.5 in 4 months, how much is the hosting for this blog in this period of time
? or u can earn with adsense in a free blog spot……..i don't know……
Luia:
First, it earned $110 in 4 months — it earned $3.50 in one day — and second, blogger blogs are free — so it was pure profit.
its great story. keep cool. i am newbie in blog, still leran to crated a good content but i can write very well.
thnks for idea
The point of tapping into small niches is very important. I recently created a site that has less than 50k competitors in Google, but gets about 2000 searches a month. I only get about $1.40 a day from it (Adsense and Chitika) but that's still money. It can pay a bill (or two). I am going to do the same thing over and over….
Another great post, Jon. I find it amazing how easy it really is to get "Google love" and earnings from chasing the untapped niches and with very litte work to boot! We all talk about links and their importance, but very few people realize how just a few links to the right long-tail keyword can be simple to accomplish and very profitable.
Hi Jon,
Good point about the small markets, however did you have your blog hosted by an individual hosting company or did you have it on a free site? Because even though you made some money doing nothing for 4 months there's still hosting fees and auto-responder fees if you're with Awebber etc. I don't know I mean what was you net profit? Also if your traffic was about 1200 a month, what was your conversion rate? If you're on a shoe string budget and want to duplicate you efforts by setting up 100 different sites as you say, what sites or services would you use to keep the costs down? I mean a 100 different domain names even if they're $8-10 a name that still runs you from $800-$1000 to register and the hosting fees on top of that and anything else you might need to run the individual sites. I guess my question is how would you go about doing that while still maintaining your shoestring budget?
Hi Jon,
Thanks for the post, it was a very interesting article, it just goes to show how important research is. i.e.to identify a niche and to get the correct key words.
Regards
Alan
Jonathan,
I appreciate what you have written. You're right - that doesn't necessarily seem like a lot of money. But the point is, if you had been working to promote the site or had more sites, it could be a considerable sum.
Good case study.
Wow.awesome..Juz imagine if you have so many website like that.great info..
Wow, more than a hundred bucks without actually touching it for 4 months. That's really incredible.
Is there any way to discover untapped niches like what you've said Jon?
Thanks.
Question:
What is Mr. Leger's take on creating a sitemap,
preferably automated.
Jon,
How's Widget Bucks working for you? This is the first time I have seen them and I like they way they look.
More of the meat and less of the veg - good mini tutorial that's always informative and educational.
Once again; thanks for the free learning
I hope my can produce those kind of numbers with just a little effort, that would make me happy since it is not my day job so to speak.
Jonathan, thank you for this insightful article.
An associate and I have been working on a number of mini-sites, the majority of which are receiving consistently good traffic for the amount of time and content that went in to them.
We have been having a bit more trouble turning that traffic into revenue. We learned the hard-way that Google does not operate in good faith, and AdSense has thus been effectively ruled out as a potential revenue stream as a result.
What other methods of mini-site monetization would you recommend? Are there any other good AdSense-like advertising programs that you are aware of?
This is really a great post. And it's so true!
I have a whole bunch of those little sites making me some easy cash till the fat lady sings. And I hardly spend time linking to them. Most keywords I target just don't need it, yet make a very healthy amount of easy cash.
Thanks for the great post, Jon.
J.
Thanks for that very interesting post. Right, it's easy to earn money from smaller niches.
hey John,
Never fails to amaze me with the quality and depth of your posts. Always a good read which is why it's hard for me to opt-out of your lists. lol
Blessings,
Kelvin
Thanks for providing such a great resource on niche marketing. I must dust-off my blogger account and get posting… Looks like I'm wasting money by not bloggering
All the best,
Tony
Hi,
Thanks for another informative post! You are right! Smaller market shouldn't be missed
Great post, Jonathan!
This really motivates me to take action:-)
It's great to see so many different possibilities in IM.
Cheers!
is it best to start with one main topic or do many. i hear you speak of both. i am not clear on just what to do creat ablog put adsence on it and drive triffic or many blogs or aritcal sites and put adsence on them and leave them alone or have just one and foucious every thing i have on just this one …
do you have any thing like 1,2,3, a,b,c, on what should be done first then so on ???????????????????????????
Well, the idea of making money is pretty easy once you understand it:
get a niche market
get some good keywords
get some good content
promote a good program (or hope good ads show in Adsense)
promote the newly put up blog/site/page/lens/hub correctly, and….
don't forget to send Jonathan some thanks!
Hi Jon,
All good stuff as usual . I would like to have a few of your little niche sites. Are you using the find a hot niche site that you have a ad for?
If you are how about a little info on it? Keep up the good work.
William
I have been reading the postings to this site and your answers avidly for the past few months as I attempt to build a site and get ready to launch it. The information is very helpful.
I am definitely new at this, so this question may seem a little “newbie-ish” to the rest of you. If I want to have a blog on a site that I am building in a WYSIWYG program (Expression Web) can I add it in using a program like WordPress and still maintain the “look” of the site? And is a blog better than a forum, or are they basically the same thing? I would appreciate your feedback.
Thanks for any help you can give,
Deborah
Deborah:
You CAN make a WordPress blog look like your site, but if you're using a WYSIWYG editor, it will be difficult as you'll need to use the actual HTML code for the header/footer.
A forum and a blog are different. A forum is where a bunch of people go to talk, post threads, responses, etc. A blog is one person posting articles (blog "posts") and others having an opportunity to leave a comment on them. With a forum users can generally start up topics on whatever they want. With a blog only the owner posts, and others can comment on their post.
Hey Jon!
Quick question, you used to promote the Semiologic Pro Wordpress theme because of its CMS qualities, it seems like you've now switched to the Revolution theme by Brian Gardner (or something similar) or a mix between the two. I am curious as to exactly what switch you made and why you made the switch? I'm building a new blog and don't know what direction to go.
I've always liked the Semiologic Pro theme because of its back end management capabilities, but I haven't liked the design of it and i'm not much of a designer myself. I use the Semiologic Theme on my site and I did the best I could to make it look decent without help. I like the Revolution theme because it has a customizable front page and it looks sleak and professional.
Seth
Great post. I'm planning on creating some small blogs and your post was quite a help for me. The most important thing if you want to have long-lived income stream is timeless content. So now i'm trying to figure out what would be the best content
I've always been aware of smaller markets. Even within a large market, you can segment it to make your customers easier to target.
If you make a network of websites, all focusing on small niches, after a period of time I'm sure you could start to generate huge incomes from all of the sites combined. I might try to do that some day.