A Niche Blog is Better than A Nicheless Blog to Make Money Online
If you want to make money online (by blogging), it is good if you have a niche blog. It is good because you would be recognized by people as an expert on that niche. When people recognize you as an expert, they would be visiting you site and that will help you to be an authority in Google eyes (You can read more about how to get authority status on Google). You don’t necessary have to choose a niche you know about. You can choose a niche that interests you and you want to learn more about it.
The main reason why you need a niche site is because it is easier to SEO i.e. to get backlinks to the site. If you want to get backlinks to your site, you need to do dofollow commenting, article marketing, directory submission and other ways. With all these methods, you would find out that what they all have in common is your anchor text. You would need to use your anchor text when doing this. so that you can improve your SERPs.
SEOing A Niche Site
When you are SEOing your niche site, basically you are mostly SEOing your home page. When you are doing this, you would have to use your anchor text or the keyword you would like to rank high on search engines. This means that all traffic that comes to your blog would be landing on your home page. This is great because when they go to your home page, the readers would see other articles you have written about the niche. Seoing a niche site is also easy to do directory submission. As you probably know, if you are doing directory submission, you have to submit your home page to the directory. Only few directories allow inner pages or deep submission. The top names directories such as DMOZ and yahoo directory requires you to submit your blog’s URL only. Most of the few directories that allow deep submission usually charge a fee for you to be able to do that.
SEOing A Nicheless Site
But if you have a nicheless blog, you cannot only optimize your home page. You have to optimize other pages for those pages to have good SERPs for their keywords. Optimizing other pages would need more work. And when the traffic (from search engine) comes to your site, they would not land on your home page, they would land on that article page they saw on thr search engine that they used. This means that they would not see other articles on your blog. The only readers that would see other articles are the curious ones that wants to know more about your site. You can argue that your readers would see other posts with the help of any related post plugin. But the plugin shows posts that are related either based on categories, keywords, anchor text or tags. For instance, if you wrote an article about caring for dogs and you also wrote another article about how to sleep; there is no way your readers would see the other article if they are reading one of the articles. They would only see it if they decide to explore your site.
In my opinion, not only do you make money with a niche site, but it is easier to make money if you can make a blog on a long tail keyword. The long tail keyword blog would help you to start making money quickly because it is easier to dominate. When you see that you can dominate the long tail keyword, that would post your confidence, and motivated you to go for the main keyword.
About the Author
Dalirin is a blogger that likes blogging about how to make money online. You can read more about how to make money on the internet at his blog.
Hey, I am Syed Balkhi, The guy who is behind Balkhis Inc. I entered the industry back in 2002 not knowing a single thing. I barely spoke English at that time. In the past six years, my language barrier has been eliminated. Aside from English, now I also speak html, and php. Along with the languages I have also managed to master a few arts. Art of web-designing started when I first entered. Messing around with photoshop, I learned how to create my first web design. Now I founded a web designing firm Uzzz Productions. After running numerous amount of websites in various niche, I have mastered the art of web-development. Now I am compiling a resource of what I already know, and what I am learning on this blog. This resource is to help me if I ever need a guide to look back to, and it is help my fellow webmasters.
Very nice Post.
SEOing a site within a small niche is definitely much easier than trying to optimize your blog for a large number of broad keywords.
Igor
Well, it is always better to have a niche site when there is one individual involved in the SEO process. But, you can try to build a site or a blog with multiple niche and divide them into neat categories or sections with relevant and unique content. This can only work well if you have a team of professionals. Having unique and pure content makes your SEO campaign easy and is held in high regards in the eye of Google.
Hi,
The “making money from blog” topic is very popular among pseudo money makers. Amateurs stumble upon John’s Chow, Shoemoney’s, Problogger’s blogs, say “Wow! I want to make money from my blog!” and start posting fairytales. That’s the way how it usually happens. That’s why let me express my thoughts about this article and reveal some false statements. (No offense, just my two cents).
I do not agree with:
1. “…it is good if you have a niche blog. It is good because you would be recognized by people as an expert on that niche”
Sorry, but it’s totally WRONG. Why would anyone treat me as an expert because I have a niche blog? This just doesn’t happen in the real life. I can write about anything, even quantum physics, without any knowledge about a topic. And people will never treat me as an expert, because they recognize falsity.
Expert means alloy of theoretical knowledge, practical experience, passion about topic and ability to learn fast. You can’t be an expert only because you write about something (and have a niche blog), even if you write professionally.
Lesson #1: Niche writer Niche expert.
2. “You don’t necessary have to choose a niche you know about. You can choose a niche that interests you and you want to learn more about it.”
This is the most widespread mistake of all newbie bloggers. They think that their path from X to Y is somehow interesting. Not at all.
Blog is a place where you share you knowledge. If you don’t have any, you’re just another posting looser who waist everybody’s time. Nobody will read your blog if you write about something you don’t know, but only willing to know. Let’s make it clear, people can learn things much faster than you can. (I know it hurts). I will skip your website and will never return if I can’t find “advanced” info. What about you? Just put yourself in the visitor’s shoes.
Lesson #2: Readers don’t read amateur blogs. They read “advanced” blogs.
3. “The main reason why you need a niche site is because it is easier to SEO i.e. to get backlinks to the site.”
What do you mean “easier to SEO i.e. to get backlinks”? I can buy backlinks, I can comment someone’s blog (I’m doing it now), I can, attention newbies, create another niche blog or five, ten, twenty blogs and link to my “main” blog. (One more argument against “…it is good if you have a niche blog. It is good because you would be recognized by people as an expert on that niche”. You can generate many niche blogs, but you’re not an expert in niches. It’s just SEO.)
Getting links and creating linkable content are different things. You CAN obtain thousands of links/hour by doing spam. You CAN’T create valuable content that attracts thousands of natural links if you’re amateur.
Lesson #3: SEO Blogging, never mix them.
4. “When you are SEOing your niche site, basically you are mostly SEOing your home page.”
Not really. Let’s take my blog for example. I pay my attention to posts/pages, cause they drive MUCH MORE search engine traffic than home page. If you mean it’s easier to get backlinks to homepage then it’s true. But SEO is not only about getting backlinks. What about on page keyword optimization, HTML/CSS code optimization. etc?
Lesson #4: SEO Link building. It’s bigger and more complex than link building.
5. “But if you have a nicheless blog… You have to optimize other pages for those pages to have good SERPs for their keywords.”
It doesn’t matter what kind of blog you have – niche or nicheless (as you say it). If you want your blog rank high, you HAVE to optimize (almost) all pages, not only home page.
I don’t want to write more about it. Read professionals, for example seomoz.org. They can explain it better than me :]
Lesson #5: SEO Homepage optimization. SEO means getting REQUIRED maximum from SEs
6. “…but it is easier to make money if you can make a blog on a long tail keyword”
There are many longtails that absolutely useless for making money online. You have to know what searchers are typing when they want to buy a product (or service). That’s what separate professionals from amateurs.
You can create a simple landing page (no SEO at all) with affiliate link and do PPC to make cash. And you don’t need longtails. You need “money making keywords” to succeed.
Lesson #6: Longtails Money making keywords.
I hope it helps to clarify some widespread misunderstandings about blogging and SEO. Have a nice day!
Thanks for trying to clear it up. Let me tell you about my experience with blogging.
1 & 2. “Sorry, but it’s totally WRONG. Why would anyone treat me as an expert because I have a niche blog?”
If for instance, I want to know how to build a rocket. I have no idea about how to build a rocket. I decide to search on any search engine about how to build a rocket. Then during my search, I see a site about how to build a rocket. How will I know that the person doesn’t know anything about rocket building when the site has over 50 articles about rocket building?
I would be thinking that the person is an expert.
3. If you have a niche site called “cheap credit cards”. And you have written articles like cheap credit cards for students and cheap credit cards for workers. It is better to SEO the home page, cheap credit cards, so that when people visit your site, they would can read the 2 articles you have written. If you decide to SEO the home page and the article, cheap credit cards for students, you have to almost do the same amount of work twice.
4. “What about on page keyword optimization, HTML/CSS code optimization. etc?”
I was talking about getting backlinks and not the on page optimization. You can read the 2nd paragraph.
5. I never said you should not optimize other pages.
But with a niche site, you can pass some internal link juice from related pages.
6. “There are many longtails that absolutely useless for making money online. ”
I can agree with the long tail money making keyword. I missed the money making in it. Not all long tail keywords are profitable. In PPC, nobody know which keywords are profitable. That is why advertisers have to experiment or do trial and error.
Sorry, “not equal” signs are missing. Syed, it would be great if you can edit my comment.
Lesson #1: Niche writer (not equal) Niche expert.
Lesson #3: SEO (not equal) Blogging, never mix them.
Lesson #4: SEO (not equal) Link building.
Lesson #5: SEO (not equal) Homepage optimization.
Lesson #6: Longtails (not equal) Money making keywords.
Thank you
Absolutely agree with the point. The niche blog is more profitable
When I was starting, I always thought I dont need a niche to be successful but as month passed by, I started realizing that being into a certain niche can keep you in the business for the longer run.
You have let the cat amongst the pigeons Syed. I suspect that this post will generate a great deal of traffic and I look forward to some nice exchanges. Some of the comments already here cry for some response from you and I hope that you will obolig.
Hehe … Just gave an opportunity for a guest author to blog. I hope they respond back. I don’t necessarily have to agree with everything the post is about in order for it to appear as a post.
People can have different opinions that is their right.And it is very difficult to agree.And on the other hand it is difficult to disagree.But the discussion make people think and seek for better solutions to have proggress in their work.
It was a bit of a mixed bag blog when I started but now it’s becoming clear to me to focus on Technology and *hopefully* be treated as an expert
Technology is a very competitive niche and if you want to make some good money via AdSense it will be quite hard!
@PS3 I agree that the technology niche can be quite competitive, although the earnings are high, another thing to consider in the technology field, is that usually that market is very Ad-blind. So you’re CTR is naturally low.
Till then,
Jean
Very well written. When making a blog, owner should always think about niche that he is interested in. That is the only path that should be followed and that will give results. All others will be waste of time.
I definitely agree that a blog should have a fairly tight niche to really do well. If you cover too many topics you are bound to lose the interest or some readers. Covering too many topics also shows lack of specific expertise. A strong niche is good for your visitors and marketing efforts.
Niche website has great advantage over non niche website, with competitors around every corner, a unique niched blog will get noticed among others.
that’s great tutorial material on the seo aspect here alot good points have been given i know these are very good for both newbie and expert
I would definitely agree with this, if you don’t know what direction your headed, how can you expect to get there?
Seo is very important now thank you for sharing this useful info.
niches are good, make choose your niche wisely if you want to make money.
You’re not going to get any cash from a website for people who hate websites and have phobias of buying on the internet.
I agree with going with a niche blog. That way, you’ll get more targeted traffic that are more interesting in what your blog is about.
Very good advice in this article! Pick a niche besides MMO as it is a waste of time if you don’t have the right resources.
This is great advice, having a niche blog is always better because than people know what your site is about and can know what each article is going to be about. But if it is not niched than it can become confusing.
to start blogging you should think about good niche ” the niche you know about ” so you can add your magic into this blog. and we should know that some niche is profitable than the others .
Blog does not mean static content. The most successful blogs such as Techcrunch or BoingBoing have several posts per day. You can’t start a blog and limit it only 20 articles and expect to earn from Adsense
You need constant fresh content and you need to get relevant traffic to it. Your posts don’t need to be long but rather informative or something to keep people coming back.
If your site was to get tens of millions of hits per month,trust me that would not go unoticed. People would contact you becase companies are always trying to bring more traffic to their website.
The most successful blogs such as Techcrunch or BoingBoing have several posts per day. You can’t start a blog and limit it only 20 articles and expect to earn from Adsense
Yeha………..
It is absolutely clear that a succesful blog needs much work,much time and investment.
Not only is a niche blog better for making money, but it is also much easier to stay focused and create a valuable resource. When you are not concentrating on one specific niche, it is easy to get sidetracked covering every topic that interests you. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that your readers like all the exact same topics.
I think the result depends on many factors-knowledge and experience,time and efforts,technical aspects and human qualities and HEAVEN’s LUCK!