Podcast 124: Niche Site Beginner to Expert – How Nick Hasche Built a $10,000 a Month Site Portfolio

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Today, Iโm excited to bring you a guest interview with Nick Hasche, a niche website builder.
Nick started building niche websites just a little bit over a year ago. He actually started right alongside Niche Site project 3.0, which is why Iโm really excited about this interview because he learned how to build niche sites by following along with that project and implementing the things that I was teaching.
Nick has taken what we taught and implemented some of his own unique angles as well. His portfolio of sites has reach revenues of $10,000 a month.
If youโd like to hear how Nick has done that, go ahead and listen to the interview. We go through his entire process from keyword research, content creation, and of course, link building as well. He has some very unique strategies to consider. Overall, I hope you enjoy the interview.
Read the Transcript
[expand title=”Click Here to Expand the Full Podcast Transcript”]Spencer:Hey everyone, welcome back to the Niche Pursuits Podcast. Iโm your host, , from nichepursuits.com. Today, Iโm excited to bring you another really great guest interview. I do an interview with a niche website builder. His name is Nick Hasche.
He is somebody that started building niche websites just a little bit over a year ago, a year and maybe a few months. He actually started right alongside Niche Site project 3.0, which is why Iโm really excited about this interview because he learned how to build niche sites by following along with that project and implementing the things that I was teaching Samara and other coaches were teaching, Colleen and Ryan, along the way.
Of course, Nick, heโs taken what we taught and implemented some of his own unique angles as well. Heโs done really well. Heโs been able to give a portfolio, believe it or not, that at its peak was earning $10,000 a month. I say at its peak because there has been a slight change and Iโll let Nick share what that change is. But able to build up a very significant portfolio of websites in just over a year.
If youโd like to hear how Nick has done that, go ahead and listen to the interview. We go through his entire process. From keyword research, content creation, and of course, link building as well. He has some very unique there to consider. Overall, I hope you enjoy the interview.
Hey Nick, welcome to the Niche Pursuits Podcast.
Nick:Hey Spencer, thanks for having me.
Spencer:Yeah, absolutely. I thank you for joining us all the way from Thailand, if Iโm correct.
Nick:Yes, Iโm in Koh Tao right now, which is an island in Thailand.
Spencer:Weโll dive into your travelling a little bit here but youโre in Thailand, obviously. Youโre not from Thailand, as your accent sort of discloses there. Youโre from Australia. I wanted to bring you on because youโve had some success with your niche sites and we want to dive into some of those strategies. Before we do, can you give us a brief background on some of your business and work experience previous to building websites?
Nick:Yeah, sure. My previous website experience is pretty nonexistent. I actually studied mining engineering and also finance at university. That lasted six years, which was good fun. After that, I went to work for a pretty big mining company in Queensland. I did that for a year and then pretty quickly realized that the lifestyle was definitely not for me.
Not only is mining lifestyle pretty specific and pretty average, in my opinion, but the 9:00AMย to 5:00PM regular lifestyle didnโt appeal to me. I could already see what the next 5 to 10 years looks like and thatโs boring. I quit.
That was in 2013, at the end of 2013. Then, I went travelling for two years. For the second year, I was in Koh Tao, where I am now and I worked as a scuba diver. It was during that time when I started to look into long term options, SEO, internet business, things like that.
Spencer:How are you able to afford just quitting your job without, I mean it sounds like without any regular employment? How did that work out?
Nick:I was very fortunate in Australia. At least, at that time, the mining industry was doing very well. The specific degree I had, I think it was getting the highest graduate salary out of any university degree in Australia. Straight out of the university, I was earning very good money and been also living in a mining town where thereโs nothing to spend money on. You can save money pretty easily so I had some savings.
Spencer:Good. Is it safe to assume no children to take care, that sort of thing as well?
Nick:Yeah. Iโm 29 so no kids yet. I have a girlfriend but no kids.
Spencer:That does make it a little bit easier to travel. No obligations, easy to save up some money, and when youโre in a place like Thailand, Iโm sure itโs not very expensive so you can get by for a couple of years, right?
Nick:Yeah, I mean Thailand is definitely not expensive. It helps.
Spencer:Cool. You worked as a scuba instructor. Any other interesting sort of gigs that you had as youโve been travelling around?
Nick:No. Really, the first year was just travel and the only place I stopped to do some work was here, as a scuba diver. That wasnโt planned. I just did my open water course as a lot of people do here on Koh Tao. If you meet people from Koh Tao, itโs a very typical story that for a few days and they end up staying a year or longer. Itโs just one of those places you get stuck.
Spencer:Cool. Go ahead. What was your first online venture? What lead you to diving into building niche websites?
Nick:Like I said, during that time I started to look in the SEO and I had some very basic understanding on what it was and I sort of toyed around a little bit with blog posts and on page SEO and things like that, but nothing serious.
But then, when I went home, the end of 2015, back to Australia, I knew it was time to make something happen. I really resisted the idea of going back to a regular mining job. The most logical course of action seemed to be internet business because of the lifestyle that it allow.
Basically, the first thing I did was I Googled how do you make money online, which I know is ridiculous, but Iโm sure everyone has done it at some point in their life.
Spencer:Sure.
Nick:One thing led to another and I ended up on a blog called Niche Pursuits, believe it or not. I started to play along and I learned from you. After reading all about it, I thought, โYeah, this is probably something I could do. It sounds not overly complicated. I could see the potential for the scalability,โ which excited me. I decided to just give myself a 10 day test.
Basically, what I did was I had a series of goals which was to go through the process: selecting a niche, doing keyword research, doing hosting website build, creating content, basically, everything up until link building. I had very specific goals like I must have five posts published, blah, blah, blah. I actually gave a friend of mine $200 and said, โLook, if I donโt have this done in 10 days, you can keep the $200.โ
Spencer:Nice, I like the incentive.
Nick:Itโs just a bit of accountability because I wanted to take it seriously. I did that for 10 days. The theory was that would give me some exposure to most of the aspects of niche websites and it would allow me to then decide whether or not it was something I wanted to pursue. After those 10 days, I decided, โYup, this is something I want to do or at least try.โ And I decided to commit to it for the entire year.
Spencer:Wow. I love that you found out about niche websites from nichepursuits.com. Thatโs awesome.
Nick:Itโs the only destination.
Spencer:Yeah.
Nick:Where else?
Spencer:Thatโs all you need. Do you remember was it around Niche Site Project 2.0 or was it doing a case study?
Nick:No, it was right at the start of 3.0.
Spencer:Okay, so thatโs only been just a little over a year ago, a year and few months maybe.
Nick:Correct. It was January 2016.
Spencer:Yeah, perfect, alright. That gives us a timeframe of when you started, just a little bit over a year ago. How did the year go? Tell us about your business right now.
Nick:Sure. It was an interesting year, as you noticed, a lot of delayed gratifications. I didnโt see results for a long time. I struggle with patience so it was a tough year in that way. Basically, what I did was I built five websites including that first 10 day website which I did later expand as well, so five websites.
I should say the reason I chose 5 was because you had sort of said that a reasonable goal was to hit $500 a month from the website, in like 6 to 9 months. So I thought, โAlright, Iโll do 5 and if I can get $2,000 a month, then I can go travelling next year on that money.โ That would be a win to me.
I built five websites. The first half of the year was basically doing a lot of keyword research and writing the content. I wrote approximately the first 100,000 words, myself, which required a lot of persistence. The second half of the year, I spent doing link building and preparing for this year because I knew I wanted to scale this year.
I thought that by spending a lot of time automating all the stuff that I do, systemizing all the tasks, automating them, that would allow me to hit this year running and scale fast. Thatโs what Iโm doing now. Iโm doing what I did last year but on scale. I call last year a year of validation and this year is a year of expansion.
Spencer:Awesome, tons of things that I want to dive into with how much youโve just shared of what youโve done over the past year and your plans going forward as well. We are going to go into that but just to give us an idea about earnings, to give people an idea of how well youโre doing out of those five sites or however many you have now, what sort of income numbers are you seeing month to month?
Nick:Thereโs been a bit of a change recently. January and February, the 30 day window, I was making $10,500 a month.
Spencer:Wow.
Nick:It was doing well. I was also creating a lot of new content so I was actually projecting to hit about $15,000 within a few months. I was very confident I was going to get there within three months or so.
Spencer:Thatโs quite impressive for just about a year.
Nick:It worked out.
Spencer:I will say that it worked out very well. Letโs dive into what worked really well for you. I know you said thereโs a little bit of an update. Weโll dive into what that update is a little bit after you give people an idea of what your strategy was, getting to this point, if thatโs okay.
Nick:Yeah, sure.
Spencer:In terms of content, you now have content that youโve done. You said you wrote 100,000 words, yourself, to start. How many articles is that on a website? Give us a breakdown of how many articles now are on your best performing sites?
Nick:The very first two websites are those I pretty much, I wouldnโt say deserted, but after about 20 posts, I moved on from them because I sort of felt I have learned a lot from those two websites and then I focused more heavily on the next three, which is where the 90% of income came from.
The best website, I think right now, there are about 60 posts. I think about 10, 15, maybe even 20 of those are quite new. Roughly, Iโd say a ballpark of 40 posts on there around the New Year, and the other two have roughly 15 and 20 each.
Spencer:Roughly how much is your top website making versus the other couple of websites?
Nick:The best was making roughly $6,000 and the other two were on the same level.
Spencer:Okay, awesome. Thatโs really good. What would you say is the reason for the success so quickly? Most people maybe build one website in a year arenโt seeing similar numbers as you. Letโs maybe just focus on your top website since youโve got a few. Why was that website so successful?
Nick:Honestly, I think the biggest reason was it was an obsession. Itโs not very marketing, I was really obsessed with making it happen last year, I was extremely determined. It was an obsession to the extent that I got up everyday at 5:30AMย and worked for 12 hours. Iโve worked 10 days straight with 1 day off. I dreamt about Amazon keyword research, thatโs fun stuff. Good times.
Iโm a big believer in the 80/20 principle. A lot of people waste a lot of time doing things that donโt really give great results. I focused specifically on what I thought would work.
Spencer:That makes a lot of sense. People donโt have that level of obsession that theyโre going to put in 10, 12 hours a day on a niche website to make it work. What were those things that when you say you try to 80/20 your task, what were those things? Is that writing content? Is that link building? Anything specific?
Nick:In this case, in this example, itโs the type of keywords. I didnโt spend too much time worrying about informational posts. On that side, I had about 10 also, around the year. I definitely wrote some but the only purpose of those 10 posts was really to give the perception of it being a normal blog which helps later when it comes to link building.
Mainly just focusing on what was going to work and what was going to make money which is, for the most part, best keywords. I think something else that really helped was that I didnโt just set it and forget it. I was constantly tracking everything. Iโm a big data person, probably because of my experience in engineering, I love date.
I track everything and I look for differences like why is one post doing better than the other. I analyze all the on page SEO. See whatโs the difference, why could it be different, why isnโt is working out as well. Iโm tweaking things all the time. Just little things like tweaking keywords, adding keywords in, always adapting. It just worked out in the big part. I think the link building that i did also had a big influence.
Spencer:One more question on content. Iโm sure people are curious, again, the length of the articles that youโre writing there, are these 1,000, 3,000?
Nick:Itโs interesting because at the start I aim for 1,000, for a money post. Now, I do 3,000. To be honest, I have ranked just as well for posts that are 1,000 words. It really just depends on so many things. There is no definitive answer to whatโs the best length. However, I will say that as you obviously know, thereโs a huge amount of value in long tail keywords.
Spencer:Yup.
Nick:The longer your content is, the higher chances are of ranking for long tail keywords that youโre not even trying to rank for.
Spencer:Exactly.
Nick:The more content you have on the page, even if your on page SEO isn't that great, you will just rank for more really random, obscure, longtail keywords.
Spencer:Yup, that makes sense. Iโm sure listeners were curious about that. Before we dive into link building because I do want to spend some time on that, letโs talk about that update that you said. I know recently youโve shared that thereโs been some changes in your sites a little bit. Why donโt you tell people whatโs going on and maybe what you think you can do to fix that or what the issue is?
Nick:I think it was around the 9th or the 10th of March. A Google update has allegedly occurred. No one really knows 100% for sure. People are calling it Fred. Interestingly, on the very same day, one of my sites was hacked, which apparently does have a good chance that led to all my sites being infected because they were on the same hosting account.
Spencer:Yup.
Nick:Since that time, Iโve seen a pretty large drop off in traffic. It varies, each website is slightly different but on one website, itโs 90%, on one website, itโs got 50%. Itโs very significant. At this stage I donโt know if itโs the hack or the Google update, or a bit of both.
Certainly, a little disappointing. Honestly, I think itโs the best thing that could have happened to me, which sounds crazy. If youโre in internet marketing long enough, this is going to happen sooner or later so itโs great that this has happened one year in so that I learned now. Going forward, I can adjust and improve and become better. Itโs a good thing.
Spencer:Thatโs a positive outlook. I think thatโs a good outlet to have. Iโve been building sites for over 10 years now and Iโve had tons of ups and downs. Iโve had sites that were de-indexed and I didnโt know why. Iโve had my Google AdSense account banned and I didnโt know why. Iโve been victim to the Google Panda, Penguin and other updates.
Iโve been through all of these things but each time, Iโve come back and either built new sites or improved my old sites. Iโm still kicking, as they might say. Itโs actually funny that you mentioned that your site got hacked at the same time that a Google update occurred because one of my sites, the same thing happened, not with this thread update but people donโt really know but theyโre calling it a mysterious update. I think it was about a month and a half ago that it came out. They didnโt really name it. There was an update but we also noticed that my site was hacked. There was an update but we also noticed that my site was hacked at the exam same time.
Nick:Interesting.
Spencer:We didnโt know and I guess we still don't know what caused the traffic to dip but we went in, we obviously fixed the hack. We also went in some things to improve the site speed and just did everything that we could to improve the on page SEO of the site overall and I will just say that over the past month, itโs taken about a month but the traffic is right back up to where it was before.
Nick:Thatโs awesome.
Spencer:I offer that as hopefully some encouragement, that maybe itโs the hack that caused a lot and it can take Google a few weeks to recrawl your site, reindex it the way it was before. Hopefully thatโs the case for you. Do whatever you can to speed up the site, improve any on page or if thereโs anything else that you think might be off, try and fix that and hopefully it comes back.
Nick:Itโs interesting because I actually had a theory as to why itโs happened and how I can fix it. Of course, itโs speculation, I donโt know. Google hasnโt even confirmed as far as this updated occurred but Iโve been reading a few blogs and there seems to be some consensus that itโs mainly websites that are revenue focused that are being hit.
That just gave me the idea that perhaps thereโs some relationship between the number of links on a post or per website is going to create links and a keyword rank drop. What I did was fortunately because I have a few websites, I counted the number of affiliate links on every money post and then I looked at the drop in rank before and after this event, whether itโs the hack or the update. I canโt say definitively because itโs possible that the algorithm is still running and some ranks havenโt been hit yet. I donโt really know. Iโm speculating.
But it seems like thereโs a relationship. I feel like itโs something I can potentially fix and Iโve also noticed that some of the websites that are now ranking above me have less far affiliate links or none at all. It seems like to me Google is trying to give more emphasis on value to the user, which of course makes sense. Thatโs what people want to. I donโt know if thatโs really whatโs going on but itโs nice to have some hope. Basically, proceeding with that assumption, Iโm going to be taking corresponding course of action to fix that. Weโll see.
Spencer:Really, all you can do is get as much information as you possibly can. Make some tweaks and hope that Google recrawls your website and the rankings improve. I think thatโs a smart move on your part. After we post this interview in a month or two, if you start to see some improvement, maybe let us know and I could post an update after the interview.
Nick:Happy days. The good news is Iโm still scaling, Iโm still going ahead of my plan. I still plan to build 10 to 20 websites this year so even if this websites stay hit, I still think I can get back to where I was a couple of months ago. If not, much more. Iโm confident about it.
Spencer:Go ahead and dive into what your plans are over this next year. You mentioned last year was validation and this year is scaling. Thatโs the plan to essentially build 10 to 20 sites over this year that are very similar to the previous sites that youโve done?
Nick:Yeah, thatโs the plan. I guess I should specify what type of website I am building because when people hear that Iโm building 20 sites, they probably think a micro niche website or a website targeting maybe one to five keywords or something. Thatโs definitely not the case. Iโm doing what I call authority niche websites with a bit of a twist. Theyโre big websites.
Before I make each website, I have a very specific goal as to what monthly revenue I want it to hit and I have a whole process of determining which keywords result in which value. And so how many keywords do I have to target to get that value, that goal, right?
Spencer:Right.
Nick:Theyโre not massive authority sites but theyโre definitely not the tiny sites. Theyโre going to have roughly 30 to 50 posts each. Thatโs the plan. At this point, I built an entire system thatโs automated so right now the only two things that I really do are keyword research and thatโs just an 80/20. Keyword research is the task that results in the best results. The other thing I do is maintaining the whole system and managing the As and things like that.
Spencer:A couple of questions there as well. Tell us what kind of keywords you target. You mentioned, I guess the best survival knife or best product. Those type of affiliate keyword is what youโre targeting but what sort of search volume are you looking at, that sort of thing?
Nick:I donโt specifically look at search volume. Of course, I consider it and I do have a filter that I want to have a minimum of say 200 but what I do most specifically and what I think is more important is I calculate the value of the keyword or the value of the post assuming the post got keyword ranks.
Basically, what I do is I consider the monthly search volume of the primary keyword. I use an estimated SERP position, whatever I feel confident I can rank it. I feel a conservative putting 5 for that. Iโve been using the search volume together with the long, potential volume of the primary keyword with the click through rate of the estimated position.
That gets me the theoretical traffic to post per month and then I use my average click through rate to Amazon, for all my other websites. I have an average for that.
Spencer:Sure.
Nick:And then, also, the average Amazon conversion rate which then gives me the number of purchases. Using the price of the products Iโm promoting, I also adjust it for random purchases because about 50% of the purchase of the items you sell are completely random so I adjust the price to account for that. Sometimes, that means it moves up, sometimes it down.
And then, I use the Amazon category commission rate to determine basically what my total commission would be per month for that keyword. Itโs a lot of information but itโs straight forward. Itโs a spreadsheet and itโs not perfect by any means. From what Iโve seen, itโs a fairly accurate rough estimation. Itโs good enough, basically.
Spencer:Yup.
Nick:Basically, thatโs why I donโt use just the volume. I consider that value as well because sometimes thereโll be a keyword with an [00:28:32] 200 but the products youโre going to promote have really great sales and the price is high. That could be a lot more lucrative than a really high search volume keyword where the average price is low. Thereโs a lot of things at play, itโs not just volume.
Spencer:I love it. That makes a lot of sense. Hopefully, people listening can follow along. It made sense to me. If people want to rewind and listen to your explanation, I think that was good.
Nick:Once you have the spreadsheet, itโs very easy to understand.
Spencer:Exactly. Letโs dive into link building a little bit. First of all, would you say thatโs been critical to your success or is the keyword and content more important? If link building is important, letโs talk about a couple of your best link building strategies.
Nick:I do think itโs important. In those first two websites where I basically didnโt do any work once the content was written, I have ranked for some of those keywords with no link building. Theyโre fairly long tail. I think in general you definitely need links. If anything, it just speeds up your ability to rank. Instead of taking a year to rank, you might rank in nine months or something. It definitely speeds up and Iโve definitely seen that with each website. The earlier I start the link building process, the sooner the uphill exponential growth happens. I definitely think it should be done.
Again, I donโt think itโs necessarily difficult if you can create a system for it and automate a lot of the processes, it can actually be quite straight forward.
Spencer:I do want to talk about how youโve automated things after you give this next answer. Letโs give a couple of your best strategies and then weโll dive into how youโre actually automating that.
Nick:Last year, I did run three scholarships on three of the websites but Iโm not continuing that anymore because first of all, itโs not sustainable in the long run and itโs really not great for the anchor text distribution, especially if you donโt have any other links, it makes your anchor text distribution very heavily orientated towards the scholarship. I donโt think thatโs great.
Itโs hard to say whether the scholarship links had an impact on the overall SEO or not. In total, Iโve got about 30, 35 universities linking to each of those websites. I think it was fairly successful. I did see an increasing rank at some point after that but itโs impossible to say whether it was from the scholarships, or just time, or guest posting, which is my other main strategy.
Spencer:Iโve talked to a number of people about doing the scholarship link building on the podcast so maybe you can give us an idea of how youโre doing guest posting. How are you finding people, how are you contacting them.
Nick:Iโve got a pretty specific strategy for it but before I delve into that, you could say that itโs pretty all outsource, the only thing that I do for it is I give my VA certain keywords and from there itโs all automated with the VA doing a lot of the work. And then, my content manager dealing with the emails and then outsourcing the writing of the guest post to a freelance writer.
Spencer:Youโve got three different people youโre using to do that process?
Nick:Yes. Itโs very hands off, which is nice, because it gives me time to focus on keyword research for some other things. Basically, the first thing is I use the same pen name on my websites. That has some advantages. I have one central Buzz Stream account and I use the same email address with this personโs name.
First of all, itโs easier to manage one email and Buzz Stream account when you have several websites. The nightmare to try and deal with 20 different emails, itโs just not right.
Spencer:Right.
Nick:Itโs a lot easier but also it has the advantage that it allows me to build relationships for websites under the one name. This can be really useful whenever I start a new site because I can look through the context with whom Iโve successfully guest posted before. If thereโs any overlap between their site and my new site, I just reach out and say, โHey, Iโm now also editing this new site and a guest post could make sense.โ
Spencer:Itโs awesome.
Nick:A lot of the new websites, I donโt even need to do any prospecting. I already have a list that I can reach out to. Thatโs nice.
The other thing is thatโthis is an advantage of building multiple sites at onceโis that I try and squeeze in a link to one of my other sites in every guest post. That double the results per guest post and halves the cost per link. Diving in further into that, whenever Iโm building a new website, Iโm creating the informational post for the new website and Iโm aware that down the line, Iโll be trying to get a link from one of these future guest posts.
For example, letโs say Iโm building a new website about mattresses. I make one of my informational posts kind of like a list about something related to mattresses. An obvious example is sleeping tips. And then, I mention the kind of things that later will provide the overlap I need to also link to that post from a guest post Iโm doing from an entirely different website.
Letโs say I wrote in that post that drinking coffee is bad before going to bed, or maybe pet hairs in bed can cause sleeping trouble or whatever it is, or exercise is great for sleep. You provide these opportunities that later it makes it justified to link to that post as well. Letโs say three months down the line, Iโm guest posting one of these other websites. Letโs say some fitness related site. It then make sense to include a link to that sleeping tips post in that guest post as well.
Spencer:Thatโs awesome. A good strategy, I like it.
Nick:It doesnโt always work. It depends who youโre guest posting for. Sometimes, itโs not really an option but often it works.
Spencer:Very good. Letโs dive just a little bit more. If you have anything in addition to share about how youโre automating a process, you gave us a good idea there, using VAs and content manager and those sorts of things. Are you doing anything else to automate the business?
Nick:The business as a whole or the guest posting?
Spencer:The business as a whole. Maybe give us some idea of what your team looks like, whoโs involved. Of course, thereโs a lot of pieces there so maybe just sort of broad stroke.
Nick:Sure. Currently, I have two VAs and then also a content manager, heโs also the editor. Of course, I outsource all my writing to writers that Iโve found on Upwork. Like I said, the only thing I will do is a keyword research and then I manage it all.
Basically, last year, when I was spending time automating everything, every single task that relates, that is included in this overall system, I would make a one or two minute video for. I have a wiki of video instructions so that every task can be automated and outsourced because I say, โOkay, this is the task. First you do this, then you do this, then you do this. Here are the video steps for each of that.โ Itโs very easy that way to outsource things.
Generally speaking, especially with this kind of work, thereโs always a system. We all have habits so it doesnโt matter what task youโre doing. In general, thereโs a system to it, thereโs a routine to it and if thatโs the case, then in theory, you can compartmentalize that process into smaller steps and then you just create a video for that step, very easy to do. And then you give it to VAs.
It takes a lot of work setting it up and I spent three months doing that last year but once itโs set up, youโre good to go.
Spencer:Yeah.
Nick:Itโs great because now I spend about 20 hours a week on this business and then I also freelance for an ecommerce website. I spend about 20 hours a week doing that. Iโm travelling around the world at the same time. Itโs possible to build a business this way with minimal time investment.
Spencer:I think itโs super smart. Obviously, itโs working well for you. We do something similar in my business. Weโd record videos and have templates and things like that that we can hand off to writers with nice writing instructions. It really does help to improve the business and help it grow without you directly involved in every piece of that.
Nick, youโve shown a lot of great tips here already. Do you have any sort of final tips for building niche sites that youโd like to share, that we havenโt talked about already?
Nick:I think the main thing is to try to be smart about what youโre doing and focus on the 80/20 because people get overwhelmed by the amount of things that should be happening in this kind of website and for the most part a lot of those activities are just a waste of time, in my opinion. A lot of them arenโt. It really depends on what youโre trying to achieve but I think you need to hone in on where the results are going to come from, at least in the short term.
You need to outsource as soon as possible. If you donโt have the money to outsource, as soon as youโre generating income from the business, outsource, just reinvest. You need to be testing all the time. Iโm constantly split testing everything to basically try and improve click through rate and other things as well. Like I said last year, I was always checking why is one page ranking over another. You need to test things, tweak things, and see if you can iterate your way through. Focus on click through rates. Thatโs important for optimization.
Spencer:Great tips. If anybody wants to stay in touch with you, is there any way that people can do that?
Nick:Iโm on Facebook. I donโt have a blog or anything. I have toyed with the idea in the past but at the moment it would be too much for a time investment. Iโm happy to answer any questions and I love nerding out on this stuff so anyone feel free to hit me up, for sure.
Spencer:Very good. Weโll leave it at that. Nick, I appreciate your time very much and all the tips that you shared.
Nick:Thanks, Spencer. Itโs nice to be on the show one year after learning from you. Itโs very nice.
Spencer:Yeah, itโs really cool to be able to share your success that you learned through Niche Site Project 3.0. Iโm super happy that youโre able to come and share your story. Itโs been great. I appreciate it.
Nick:Thanks a lot.
Spencer:Thanks a lot and thank you everybody for listening.
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43 Comments
Conversation
Awesome!! Really enjoyed the podcast, Spencer.
Thanks Cooper!
Hey Nick!
Really inspirational…
Can you please share some tips about writing content for niche websites? Like how to research for the articles for the niche you don’t know much about…
I really appreciate if you share some tips that how you write articles for your niche websites ๐
Thanks
Hey Jori!
These days I don’t do the writing myself, but you need to put yourself in the shoes of the person who would be the reading the post. Ask yourself what would they want to know. What’s relevant to this topic. Try and split the article into subheadings and write one section at a time.. that’s easier and less daunting ๐
How did your websites get hacked and what did you do to fix them?
Hey Steve,
No idea how they got hacked. But it was a good lesson – make sure you protect yourself by using a plugin like WordFence. I had to pay a few hundred to get it fixed. There’s many services out there that do it but I used WordFence
On e takeaway from this story I wish more younger people would take to heart. If you want to get something good going for yourself as Nick has, think strongly about “taking a sabbatical” from the USA, similar to what Nick did in leaving his job and the high costs of Australia.
One can go to a great, economical destination like Thailand (or the Philippines, where I have been for many years now, it’s a GREAT place for online entrepreneurs)) and live on so, so much less than what it costs to “keep the lights on” in the USA.
Free of the burden of working 40 plus hours a week for “the man” (which contributes nothing to your own advancement), you will have tons of time to apply yourself to your niche sites or whatever else you are trying to get launched.
You can even get rid of a lot of your debt load, and once you start making money the tex advantages to earning overseas can be huge.
So many younger guys I chat with say their goal is to move overseas “someday”. For many, “someday” never comes. I came to the Philippines $40,000 USD in debt. Now that’s all paid off, i bought a new car and paid that off, and my house will be paid for in two more years. I could NEVER have done this working for the man in the USA … and I don’t make anywhere near as much as Nick has been able to achieve. Greta podcast, great story, Good on You, Nick.
Thanks Dave! And absolutely agree with you.
Great interview! Thanks!
I guess you’re making most of the income of Amazon?
You talked about you had 10 info articles combined for the 5 sites? So the rest of your content are all like product review type of posts?
Hi Viktor,
Yes the income is 100% from Amazon.
The 5 sites that make up the existing income have more than 10 info posts. I build new ones with 2 info posts which are mostly for the perception of a normal blog to help with my guest post outreach. The rest are ‘Best XYZ for ABC’ style posts
However since we recorded this podcast I have changed this and now aim for a 50/50 split between money and info posts. This is to reduce risk in the long run.
Thanks for answering the questions Nick.
It’s really inspirational and motivational for me and a lot of others I’m sure!!
Good interview. I read the transcript.
Awesome! Good to know people are reading the transcripts. Thanks!
I also read the transcript. It’s more convenient for me ๐
Awesome!
yeah me too easier to read while at work, also good to “search” on.
As usual, this is an excellent interview! I particularly appreciate the commentary on outsourcing and automation. Does anyone have any suggestions on fair pay for these contract workers? Of course we all want to keep the costs down, but I think it’s only right to be fair…if they do good work, they should be paid decently.
can we get links to some of these websites you built?
This is really a nice, Complete Guide. Your site is very helpful to me as it help me to make my blog better then before.
Thank for sharing this article.
Awesome Nick,
This is very nice interview. It’ll help me too much to improve my blog.
Thank you very much.
Deann
Great interview as usual Spencer, would love to see Nick in upcoming podcasts, I got some great advice to improve my blogs.
Thanks Brad, glad you enjoyed the podcast!
Really inspiring podcast. Sounds like Nick knows his stuff! When he said about his lack of info articles I assumed that was the reason he got hit. Was this the case or was it the original theory?
Either way, good to see that Amazon affiliate sites do work if you follow the advice given on here!
Hey Mike,
Yeah it’s still unclear what exactly caused the Fred penalty. Since this interview was recorded I’ve adapted slightly and now aim for a 50/50 split between info posts and $ posts. Even if that wasn’t the issue with Fred, it will be an issue in the future so it makes sense to be a little less aggressive ๐
I love these podcast! Seriously, I drive across Wisconsin twice a week and its great to be able to pop in an episode as inspiring as this one! Please keep it up : )
And Nick, wow man, how the heck did you have the confidence this system was going to work? You give me hope!
Awesome…thanks for listening Bob. Enjoy the ride to Wisconsin this week ๐
Hey Spencer,
I’ve launched 50+ fitness apps in the last year, generating 2M+ downloads. Some apps I’ve partnered with fitness influencers (400K+ followers). I’ve also launched some FBA products.
Let me know if you want to collab on any (fitness) projects. I can drive a lot of traffic.
Mike
Hi,
Great Read. Thank you so much! I am trying to put together a spreadsheet for keywords (Thats a great idea by the way). I have a few questions. What is your average click through rate to Amazon. I have only one site and my click through rate is 80%. Not sure if this is the norm.
When you say the long potential value of the keywords do you mean all the other long tail keywords you can rank for? Also whatโs your average conversion rate. The reason I ask is I only have one site ranking so far so I donโt have a lot of data. Look forward to hearing from you. Thanks in advance
Hi Karen,
Good to hear and thanks for the questions.
My average click through rate to Amazon is 37%, however there is a caveat. To get this, I am using the ‘Unique Visitors’ to Amazon which you can get my downloading the tracking id reports from within the Amazon Associates dashboard. This is IMO much more relevant than using clicks as some people will go on a clicking frenzy ๐ This 37% also includes all traffic to informational posts. Why include that? I like to be conservative when estimating or projecting anything. So why not? In reality, like you, my CTR is a lot higher for most $ content.
Long tail potential – Yes. For example, if you are targeting the keyword ‘best xyz’ which has a LMS of 1000, the longtail potential is all the other keywords which you might also accidentally rank for which together might have a LMS of 5000-10000. This figure varies, so what I recommend is this: find another affiliate site ranking for the keyword you are targeting. Put that URL into Semrush and see what other keywords they are ranking for. Add up the long tail LMS (only the ones which are ranking in top 5-ish positions. Remember this is not an exact science.
Conversion rate – again here I use the ‘Unique Visitors’ metric, not clicks for the same reason above. It is roughly 18%.
Hope this helps!
Amazing Podcast, that’s what I call:
No excuses!
Quick question for Nick:
How much organic traffic are we talking about the moment you made 10k?
Best of luck Nick, I’m sure you’ll get back there after you publish more informational pieces.
Hi Ian,
Thanks mate! Roughly 65,000 organic sessions. Thats a value of $0.15 per organic session.
I read the transcripts, I think there is very important information.
Sincerely many thanks for all the information you provide.
You can tell that I learned more from your blog than anyone else.
Thank you again!
Thank you Alberto!
This is really nice read, thanks Nick for sharing some tips. Actually I’m doing the same thing with using few links in one guest post, looks like Assies think the same ))) Glad you moved to 50/50 concept as it’s more reliable, I can suggest to add some entertaining lists to get the traffic, people love this stuff.
I have a few questions:
1. How much does it cost you to write the guest post?
2. How many links do you land a month on average?
3. Do you mostly use Best XYZ for ABC posts or one product review too?
4. All your 5 sites are small or you have 1 general and 4 soldiers?
Hey Roman,
Cheers mate!
1. On average each guest post is 600 or so words. That works out at around $9 on average for the writer.
2. Hmm it depends. Honestly its capped by budget. I think at the moment roughly 30 but it hasnt been a priority over the last few months. Im now working on a system which will increase that by a a lot. Again, Ill have to cap it though for budgeting reasons. Im travelling through Europe atm haha so can’t go too crazy.
3.Yes. I occasionally do a single product review but ‘Best’ posts are where the money is.
4. Define small. I currently have 10 sites. The goal is for 6 of these to be ‘generals’.
Hi Nick
Great podcast, thanks for sharing your niches site project.
Quick question, how many articles do you start with when you build a new website?
Start with 10 or 15 great articles, then go from there (find a schedule that works for you).
Nick,
Your experience is inspiring.
Please can you tell us more about how you go about finding guest posts?
Thanks
Nick,
Your story is inspiring.
1. Please can you gives us more details about how you look for guest posts?
2. If you pay $9 for 600 words, do you pay about $45 for 3000 words?
3. What is the standard of written English that you get for that?
Thanks,
Hi Nick,
Seriously, life changing post for me. I have been slaving away with a niche site for the past 6 months, but I’ve been thinking more and more about implementing systems now that I am finally getting some cash coming back in. It was refreshing to hear how you built the systems to run 5+ sites at 20 hours a week.
If you don’t mind sharing, how much do you pay for the following:
VA’s
Content Managers/ Editors
Writers
Anyone else on your support team
Do you have any long-term contracts with any of these people or do you just send them tasks each week?
Thanks again and congrats on your success in such a short period of time!
Hello Spencer, there are a few people who not only read the transcripts but comments too. very nice post.
Thanks Ranjan!
its an awesome post, i have just inspired