Topic Sites

iam_mine

iam_mine

Joined
Apr 21, 2015
Messages
70
Likes
9
Degree
0
I wonder if it's still worthwhile to build a topic sites i.e micro niche sites.

The idea is to find long tail keywords with low competition and medium search volume and to rank high on this topic, then to get revenue through affiliation and Adsense.

What you guys thinks?
 
It certainly can be worthwhile, it can also be a huge waste of time...

I think the way to go these days is to make sure the site has room to grow. You can start hyper-focused, but why not do that on a domain that will also allow you to expand into other areas of the niche later on?

An exact match domain doesn't carry the same weight as it used to, so instead of...

www.your-keyword.com (Domain is avail haha... Reminds me of the guys who would register clickbank ID's like "yourIDhere" and get sales from affiliates who copy/pasted the hoplinks without adding in their id.)

You could think about doing something like...

www.brand.com/your-keyword

Which leaves the door open to branch out further. You could still treat that section of your site like a micro niche site, pretend that the /your-keyword category or page is actually the homepage and build links to it accordingly.

If you do this for several micro niches within your main niche, you'll be building up the strength of the domain as you go, and the rising tide will lift all ships, so to speak.

If it flops, you haven't put in all the work of building out a huge authority site, you still did just as much work as you would have for the micro niche site... If it takes off, you can expand it and turn it into something bigger.

My 0.02.
 
That's brilliant, didn't thought about this strategy so it's great direction.

So let's have an example let's say I want to target the keyword:[cheap razor blades]
Then I'll create a site with a more general domain and target the keyword as a section within the site, this way I can add to the sites more niches at the future, right?

Now in terms of content amount at first stage I will have around 2 pages? One for the index and the other for the specific niche, would that be enough to gain taking and traffic?
 
So instead of doing cheaprazorblades.org, you would do something like...

ShaveLand.com/cheap-razor-blades

Whatever you were going to do on cheaprazorblades.org, doing it there instead.

The links you would have built to cheaprazorblades.org will instead point to shaveland.com/cheap-razor-blades, and so on and so forth.

That way, once you start to rank for "cheap razor blades", you aren't hitting a ceiling like you would if you went with the .org. You can then go ahead and make...

ShaveLand.com/rust-proof-razor-blades
ShaveLand.com/cheap-shave-cream
ShaveLand.com/shaving-techniques
ShaveLand.com/whatever-else-you-want

It just gives you a lot more freedom imo. I don't imagine you will get too far with a two page site... But that applies to the exact match domain strategy too, and there's a whole lot more to be written about "shaving" than there is about "cheap razor blades".

This strategy allows you to basically start the same way that you would with the EMD micro niche site, but without limiting yourself.

Also let's talk actually building an audience and a social following down the road... A hell of a lot easier to do that with a brandable name than with a site about cheap razor blades, yeah?

LeanDomainSearch.com is your friend for finding the brand name.

I know how helpful it can be to actually have things laid out visually for you, so here's a bit of a roadmap, hopefully you find it useful. I don't know how experienced you are so I don't want to make any assumptions, if any of this is obvious to ya - it's still here for the benefit of others, I don't mean to condescend at all.

Quick and dirty content plan for your first 10 posts...

1) ShaveLand.com - Homepage
2) ShaveLand.com/cheap-razor-blades/ - 1st KW, "money page", this will have your aff links or opt-in or whatever you want people to do when they find you after searching cheap razor blades. This is the page you're hoping to rank for "cheap razor blades".
3) ShaveLand.com/is-it-a-bad-idea-to-use-cheap-razor-blades/ - 1st KW, links to /cheap-razor-blades/ page, sends relevancy up the chain....
4) ShaveLand.com/my-dad-taught-me-that-cheap-razor-blades-are-just-fine/ - 1st KW, links to /cheap-razor-blades/ page again, sends relevancy up the chain...
5) ShaveLand.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-cheap-razor-blades/ - 1st KW, links to /cheap-razor-blades/ page again, sends relevancy up the chain... These pages may rank for some terms too and get traffic, they're definitely more "shareable" than your /c-r-b/ money page...
6) ShaveLand.com/cheap-shave-cream/ - 2nd KW, "money page", same deal as #2...
7) ShaveLand.com/which-cheap-shave-creams-to-avoid-at-all-costs - 2nd KW, links to /cheap-shave-cream/, sends relevancy up the chain...
8) ShaveLand.com/TIL-cheap-shave-creams-are-basically-the-same-as-expensive-ones/ - 2nd KW, links to /cheap-shave-creams/, sends relevancy up the chain...
9) ShaveLand.com/the-modern-gentlemans-guide-to-shaving/ - Not targeting any of your previous KWs, just a super-solid guide that will contain info about (you guessed it) "cheap razor blades", "cheap shave creams", and whatever other target KW's and money pages you come up with. You can also treat this as a money page, you'll be promoting it and trying to drive traffic to it because it's a hell of a lot more interesting and sharable than the other articles.
10) ShaveLand.com/10-things-your-dad-never-taught-you-about-shaving/ - Same idea as #9.

You can use something like SerpWoo (They have a free trial, too) to check out the competition, again not sure how experienced you are or what's in your toolbox, but there are a lot of ways to research your competition but being able to actually track the entire search engine results page is a big win.

So you've got those articles in place, time to build some links. Here are some easy wins...

- CreativeCommons.org. You can search for keywords like "Shaving" or whatever, seems like this guy already had some fun with it in the CC Wiki (Don't do what he did lol). I can't remember if their comment links are nofollow or not, but I'd still take a link from CreativeCommons regardless. (Disclaimer: This was always a go-to for me, I haven't used it recently for no other reason than just the fact that I haven't, so it might not still be viable.)

- Sites that let you post articles. You can create accounts on these platforms, post a couple of articles while dropping a couple of links to your site. Don't even link to your sites from every single post you make on these. Make sure you link to some other relevant sites too. Here's a quick list (Again, haven't gone through all of these too recently, so some may not still be viable choices...)
Some of these sites allow you to "interact" in various ways (commenting, following people, liking, sharing other posts, etc...) Essentially what that does is puts your username in more and more places, and the username is often clickable, which takes somebody to your profile, so you're able to wrangle all that link juice to point to your profile and ultimately to ShaveLand.com. A lot of people like to spam these types of profiles, personally I find that a little interaction can go a long way. There are soooo many of these types of sites, and you should be able to bang out about 1.5 accounts per hour (signing up, filling out your profile, posting 2-3 articles / some images / embedding a video or two, then interacting, following people, liking and sharing stuff...)

If you hit up each of those platforms for two or three links, you've now got 20-30 backlinks pointing to your articles.

- Good old fashioned blog commenting. You can use Scrapebox to find good places to leave blog comments too, a lot of them will be nofollow but I personally think that's still part of a complete backlink profile. I would do this manually, Scrapebox just helps you find good targets and sort them, then you hop in and leave a quick comment on your own. Maybe aim to get 20 of these approved.

- Profile links. You can create profiles on forums that are about men's stuff, fashion, style, grooming... Post a few normal messages, don't start dropping links aggressively or anything. Most forums will allow you to enter a "homepage" in your profile. (Here's a little trick... With VBulletin, people's profiles display "Most recent visitors", so anytime you visit someones profile you'll have a link to your profile from theirs. Remember what I said about harnessing the link juice from these sites and pointing it towards your profile by interacting on the sites? For dead or not-very-active forums, this can really add some gusto to your profile links.)
Forums aren't the only sites that let you create profiles, you'll have to look around. (Disclaimer: I haven't done the "visit every member's profile on a forum" thing for ages, I don't know if it's still a thing and I don't know if I'm going to get yelled at for sharing that if it is... :D)
I won't list a bunch of forums, but I'm sure other people have done so if you give it a quick Google.

- Media sharing sites/galleries. There's all sorts of sites for uploading and sharing different kinds of media where you can pull some easy links. Get someone on Fiverr to make some goofy song about shaving or something, and a designer to toss your logo into some different templates and photoshop actions, and you're off to the races.
There's an endless amount of these sites, and services like http://thecssgallerylist.com/ that will make it easier than manually submitting, but they also provide you with a useful list if you're on a budget.

- Social media sites. - Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram... they're some of the most powerful domains out there, take advantage, it's a good look for your site to have. You can also hit up all the lower-tier social sites too... This list will keep you busy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

This is just the VERY tip of the iceberg for some easy, very pedestrian links that don't require any outreach, are all free, and that you'll essentially have total control over (The profiles, blogs, and upload sites at least...) This should get the ball rolling.

Make sure you don't over-do it with your anchor ratios, make sure you keep everything looking as genuine as possible, spread some love to your homepage too...

Now that you've got a good foundation in place for your content, and your backlink profile, you can look at some more guerilla methods of generating traffic so that you aren't sitting around waiting for Google to feed you.

I'd start here.

Oh, and let's not forget about...

Social media.

Inviting everyone to poke holes in this strategy and to offer up better suggestions, too. I'm going off the top of my head and haven't started a new project for a while so some of this could very-well be a bit off.
 
Last edited:
Amazing post, two main points:

1. Isn't it too clear for Google that you build this site only to deliver traffic? Similar to EMD site.

2. I'm not agree regarding the link building methods isn't it a bit out of date? I thought you need to provide a unique and useful content that people would like to link to and share, am I missing something?
 
iam_mine said:
Amazing post, two main points:

1. Isn't it too clear for Google that you build this site only to deliver traffic? Similar to EMD site.

2. I'm not agree regarding the link building methods isn't it a bit out of date? I thought you need to provide a unique and useful content that people would like to link to and share, am I missing something?
Click to expand...

*rolls eyes* Moz... *sigh*

1. Give me a single 'legit' site out there that isn't built for traffic? What @MetaData is suggesting is not going for the SEO-minded domain name and going for something brandable that you can later expand on.

2. I don't think he said to not create 'useful' content, most folk around here advocate the Skyscraper Technique which is solid. These techniques he's suggesting do still work, you aren't ever going to rank on Google by just providing unique/useful content unless the SERP is weak as piss. I actually think a lot of people just don't like the answer he's given because it involves some hard work... You will get links to good content, but this is where the marketing comes in... The content quality itself means nothing without starting off the momentum right.

It's clear you're trying to learn so really read and re-read everything he said and stop reading all those Moz-like blogs for a while until you can decipher the good info from the crap! :smile:
 
I'm not afraid from hard work, in fact I'm looking for it because this how you can get long term success.

What's wrong with MOZ?
 
iam_mine said:
What's wrong with MOZ?
Click to expand...

mTz2l47.gif


Let's just say it leads beginners down a potentially hindering 'mindset' path. Which you displayed some signs of in point 2 earlier.

What's your biggest SEO success to date following their advice?
 
Last edited:
1. False. (Every website is created to get traffic, I must be misunderstanding you...)

2. If a tree falls in the woods...

Here's the big stick in the mud: It doesn't matter how good your content is if nobody sees it.

The other stick in the mud is that most people aren't capable of creating niche-leading content.
 
Last edited:
1. Why would there be websites that aren't built for traffic? That's like creating televisions that are not built to be watched.

iam_mine said:
What's wrong with MOZ?
Click to expand...

MOZ...

fTiCd7Y.gif


Lets just say we are a bit more liberal with our thinking - that's allowed users like @built to generate 100K in a single day (https://www.buildersociety.com/threads/6-month-journey-to-1mill-views-per-month.876/) and others to generate upto 20K in a single day (https://www.buildersociety.com/threads/cc9-sasha-grey.365/) - techniques you will not find being talked about on Moz. Most people on MOZ are not generating anywhere near even 500 visitors a day, yet they regurgitate nonsense from other whitehat bloggers - as if it's perfectly acceptable for a serious business to wait 3-6 months to generate revenue or profits online... that's crazy.
 
Aloha,
(first post here, so hello).

I have to admit I went from ultra-underground-h4xxor kid in my early internet days to a MOZ-whitehat-google-romeo to fuck it, I'm going to make cash on my own terms. BuSo gave me the final push into the right direction and to stop being a sheepseo.

My newest project will be a topic site build like a blog from a Mommyblogger. So this thread (+ the crashcourse) is very valuable for me right now.

So thanks for all your advice!

Dani
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back