Niche Pursuits Podcast: Find Your Next "Niche" Business Idea!

Over the last little while, I've come to the realization that I need to make a major shift in how I blog. All thanks to Google.

Unlimited WordPress development? WPTangerine is a service I had never heard of until recently. I was a bit surprised when I heard they had been around since 2015 and came highly recommended by someone in my network. In my podcast, I interviewed Marcus, the co-founder of WP Tangerine. We dive in and talk about how he built his business and how WPTangerine has grown to nearly 600 paying clients with 60 full-time employees.

I started a case study to try and revive a dead email list of about 20,000 subscribers. However, it turns out my domain reputation is bad for this particular domain (my other email sending domains are excellent). So, my emails have primarily been going to people's junk folders, leading to terrible open rates. As a result, I'm PAUSING this email case study UNTIL I can improve the domain reputation. I'm working with an email expert and using a tool called "Mail Warm" that will likely take 2 to 3 months to show significant improvements to my domain reputation. However, there is a silver lining! My highest open rate (of 14%) was an email related to side hustles / making money online. This shows me that this audience might be very interested in much more than coupons and discount codes. I think I have a clear path to monetization moving forward. But, I want to do it right. I need to take the extra 2 to 3 months to stop sending email broadcasts to the list, so that I can systematically improve the domain reputation. Give me another 3 months or so, and I'll be back sharing updates.

MarketMuse uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to analyze content, suggest topics to cover, and create better content. It works best for SEO writers who want to develop highly effective content marketing strategies not based on gut instinct. I've also recently been hearing all the news about GPT-3, robots writing articles, and wondering how all of this will impact content generation for bloggers and SEO's in the future. I wanted to dive more into the subject and could not think of a better person than Jeff Coyle to explain what's going on. I'm excited to share this interview I did with Jeff to get his take on artificial intelligence as it relates to SEO, how these changes will impact us humans, and the latest advancements that Market Muse has made in machine learning for content creators.

Learn why Bart MacDonald of BloomVP.com left the previous company that he founded and raised $10 million for. + Bart previously founded and help raise funding for the SaaS company, Sapling HR. However, he recently stepped down from the CEO role at Sapling to found Bloom VP, a venture firm focused on SaaS. Listen in to hear Bart's strategies and why he is so bullish on SaaS.

Matt Diggity is someone that has been buying, building, and growing affiliate website for a long time. In fact, I had him on the podcast about a year ago to discuss some of his background. Since then, I've stayed in touch with Matt and he started sharing more and more about the recent success of a couple of websites that he purchased. These 2 sites have gone from making less than $1,500 a month combined to nearly hitting his goal of $100,000 per month (combined earnings) before the end of this year! And all of this growth has happened in less than 2 years. How did he do it? Well, that's the focus of this brand new interview that I'm releasing today. We dive into tons of SEO strategies, but we focus mostly on E.A.T. (Expertise, Authority, and Trust) and Link Building.

Mark Webster and Gael Breton are from AuthorityHacker.com and have been in the authority website space for a long time. Listen in as we discuss how they took a website from scratch to a mid 6 figure exit. We dive into how they: Sold a niche site for over six figures they built in 18 months Negotiated affiliate deals three times higher than the public rates Develop their trademarked Shotgun Skyscraper strategy Create successful frameworks to identify keywords and much more. Full blog post at: https://www.nichepursuits.com/shotgun-skyscraper-link-building/

Dave Chesson has self-published nine books on Amazon that now have a combined revenue between $7-9k a month. How does he do this? He describes it as the "Long Tail Pro" of Amazon. Finding undervalued Amazon keywords that drive traffic to the book. He uses his niche sites to drive traffic to his books. We also discuss how he's built a $40k/month niche site by partnering with a true expert in the field.

​Substack is a platform where independent publishers can easily earn money from their writing with paying subscribers. Substack allows publishers to collect payments from subscribers and publish their content online and in email format. If you do some googling or twittering, you'll see that Substack is pretty hot right now. They got some $15 million-ish from Adreessen Horowitz and it feels like publishers are flocking there.

Did you know that more large sites (over 1,000,000 pageviews a month) use Ezoic when compared to Mediavine or Adthrive? Tyler Bishop is the chief marketing officer for Ezoic and during this interview we discuss how Tyler got involved in Ezoic and what the company does. We also dive into some of the common misconceptions about Ezoic; such as how it compares to Mediavine and Adthrive (or other ad shops). Does Ezoic slow down your site? You might be surprised at Tyler's answer. How does artificial intelligence play a role in Ezoic display ads? If all ad shops (like Mediavine and Adthrive) get ads from the same place (primarily from Google ad exchange), why would someone choose one platform over another?

Matthew Allen is no stranger to online side hustles. He has been dabbling in online business for about a decade now. He even started a blog over at DumbPassiveIncome.com. Despite driving a delivery truck full-time for FedEx, he's still managed to find time to create AmaLinks Pro; an all inclusive Amazon Associates WordPress plugin. Amalinks Pro allows you to quickly create professional-looking call to action buttons, showcase boxes, product comparison tables, and much more. Today, we'll discuss Matt Allen's story and how and why he created AmaLinks Pro.

I started a case study about a month and a half ago to try and revive a dead email list. This is an email list that has been collecting dust for a "Mom" blog that I own. The site makes several thousand dollars every month from Ezoic display ads and Amazon associates. However, I wanted to see if I could monetize the email list that had been ignored for over a year. My earnings since the project started? $11.15! Well, the numbers don't lie...I still have work to do. Listen in to hear the update and plans moving forward.

Artificial Intelligence for article writing is getting much more advanced. Tools like GPT-3 and First Draft by MarketMuse.com are making quality content production much easier. Will this eliminate the need for human writers? How will this impact the Niche site space and blogging in general?

Matt Paulson has grown MarketBeat.com to $10 million in revenue through SEO, email marketing, and much more. Listen in to hear how he uses email sponsorships to monetize his audience and SEO strategies used to grow his traffic (now at over 15 million visitors a month).

Almost exactly a year ago, my partners and I launched Motion Invest as a new way to buy and sell content sites. We've delivered on being a fast and easy way to buy or sell content sites. Our original plan was to buy sites ourselves, so we would only buy sites that we felt strongly enough about to put money behind. We still buy sites directly if you are looking for a quick, all-cash deal. However, over time more and more people wanted to see if they could get a higher price on other marketplaces than what we were offering. Rather than "lose" out on good sites, we recently turned Motion Invest into a true marketplace. In other words, you can now list your site for sale on Motion Invest marketplace instead of selling the site directly to Motion Invest. As a result, we have gotten an increase in listings...which is great news if you are looking to buy a site. But today we want to shake up the website brokerage business for small content sites just a little bit more.

How does someone with a full time job as a construction worker and a small child find the time to build an online business? Adrian Diaz has enthusiasm that is infectious. Listen in to hear how he stays motivated to build his affiliate business and youtube channel.

Brand Builders has come a long way. If you were familiar with Brand Builders 1 or 2 years ago, what you see today is drastically different. Today, I hop on a call with Brady Cargle, the manager of Brand Builders and talk about the evolution that Brand Builders has taken over the past 2 years and why it's become a very interesting business. In full disclosure, I am now a part-owner of Brand Builders, but I'm not involved at all in the day to day operations (so don't send me a customer support email :)). I'll share the story of how I became a part-owner in Brand Builders and how they've truly risen from the ashes as a business.

Listen in to learn how Clarence Cheang has built a successful Amazon FBA business, despite all the competition. Amazon is getting more and more competitive each year, but Clarence shows that new FBA sellers can still make it as his business is less than 2 years old.

In this second update on my recent case study update, I discuss what I've been up to so far and my plans to improve my domain reputation.

Danny Brooks is the founder of AMZtableassistant.com a chrome extension that allows you to quickly insert code snippets for AAWP, AMAlinksPro, and other Amazon associates tools. Danny shares his entrepreneurial journey and why he building his tool on existing platforms.

Listen in to hear the Word Agents founder story. Vincent D'Elleto has focused on providing customers high-quality SEO content at scale. By focusing on this niche, he's been able to grow it to 7 figures and beyond with a goal of hitting 8 figures a year very soon.

Listen to Mukesh tell his story of how he got started in digital marketing and is now making $10,000 a month between his agency Monk Metrics and his portfolio of sites. And it all really started with a typo domain name.

Today, I'm happy to share the success story of Systeme.io founded by Aurelien Amacker. Systeme.io is an all in one landing page, funnel builder, and email automation software platform. The best part? Aurelien was able to build up the business targeting the French market (where he is from). He has only recently started focusing more on the US market and he's doing quite well there as well. How does a non-software developer build a software tool that has tons of competitors to $3 million a year in revenue? Well, you will find the full story below and I feel like there are a ton of tips that you can apply to your own business. You can check out the tool right here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/systeme.io

In this episode, I share my plans to try and monetize an email list that hasn't been emailed in over a year. I have 22,000 people on an email list that have been neglected. Let's talk about my strategies to revive this list - a 90 day case study has begun.

Kevin Jourdan saw a need for a brokerage in the French Market, so he built DotMarket.eu. He is now on track to sell over $1 million worth of sites on his new brokerage. He shares his background that includes building, buying, and selling niche websites and also how he's gone about growing a successful startup brokerage.

Learn how Niche Website Builders launched their digital agency to nearly $800k in year 1 revenue by using 2 small facebook groups that they had started. In addition, you can get an exclusive deal for content and link building services by going to https://www.nichepursuits.com/nichewebsitebuilders

I'm all FIRE'd up! FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) is a movement that is all about making and saving enough money at an "early" age so that you can live off your investments for the rest of your life. I'll be honest that I've thought about this subject a lot. In fact, I quit my job in 2011 (in my early 30s) and have been building online businesses ever since. I sold my software company a few years ago for 7 figures and have had some other successful ventures. I've thought, "I might be able to just stop working and live on what I've saved for the rest of my life". I wanted to see what others have been able to achieve and see if this FIRE lifestyle was something I should pursue. However, the more I researched the bloggers and influencers that say they have "retired early" thanks to their savings, the more I got annoyed. And even a little upset! Today, I want to share my thoughts on the FIRE Movement and why I think most of the influencers are lying to you.

Affiliate marketing can be a lucrative business. In fact, it's how I was able to quit my job over 9 years ago and I've been building sites, products, and running various online businesses ever since. However, when it comes to building a site like OwnTheYard.com (my Niche Site Project 4 site), it can be extremely risky. An affiliate site that is reliant on Amazon for its earnings and Google for its traffic really is at the mercy of businesses that are out of your control. Today I want to take a look at both the upsides and downsides of affiliate marketing and then what I think you can do to eliminate some of that risk.

Would these behemoths of the internet make up their minds? Do they love my site...or not?! Google and Amazon appear to be all-powerful and that power has been on full display over the past couple of months. First, Amazon decreases their commission rates...during a pandemic...because...Bezos money? Next, Google rolls out a core update near the end of May, and I'm not gonna lie, my niche site took a hit. Not a fatal blow, but a hit nonetheless. So, after all this fire and brimstone from the internet "gods", I thought it was time to assess the carnage for OwnTheYard.com. You know, my Niche Site Project 4 site. I basically said that last time I did an update post, it was potentially going to be my last update post. But I wanted to be transparent and share the bad that sometimes comes. Affiliate marketing is hard, with lots of ups and downs. But as you'll see in this full income report, it's not all bad. I mean I still did make about $3k a month without really doing much :). It just could have been...oh, what could have been!

Jon Dykstra is back on the podcast to share more of his story and an update. He's now making over $50k a month with his niche sites and avoids link building.

Listen in to hear what happened to OwnTheYard.com when I did an internal linking case study. I built over 100 internal links to various pages and tracked the Google position over time.

Listen in to find out why I closed blog comments on Niche Pursuits and perhaps why you should consider doing the same.

Learn how to create content groups in Google Analytics so that you can better track the performance of certain segments of content on your site.

One of my sites recently cracked 10,000 visitors a day. How much did it make that day? I'll dive into where it's getting traffic, how much it earned, and overall discuss how much money you can expect to make with a site at these traffic levels.

I'm excited to have Doug Cunnington back on the podcast! Doug and I connected back during the first Niche Site Project (2013) and he enjoyed my project so much, he started his blog and stole the name for his domain from my project! : ) NicheSiteProject.com is where you can follow along with what Doug is up to these days. Even though Doug has been in the niche site game since at least 2013, he's now gotten heavily involved in Youtube and growing a significant channel. With about 20,000 subscribers, he's definitely gained some great traction there. Today, Doug shares how to grow a Youtube channel. He shares his journey and the strategies that have worked well for him. And of course outside of YouTube, I had to ask a few hard-hitting questions related to KGR and his project "go white hat" that had mixed results. If you want to get access to Doug's Trello board for content creation, a Google Spreadsheet process doc, and a case study on publishing 60 videos in 30 days, you can get those right here. Overall, I hope you enjoy the interview!

Harsh Argawal is a well-known blogger in the WordPress and digital marketing space. Shout Me Loud gets over a million pageviews a month, which is really high for a blog in just about any space, but especially the Wordpress and Blogging niche. Not only has Harsh built a significant business, but he's also found a way to a have a proper work life balance. Listen in to hear how Harsh has grown his blog, how he finds content ideas, how he runs his business, and how he makes time to travel, meditate, and more.

I'm excited to welcome Richard Patey onto the Niche Pursuits podcast! Richard is well-known in the buying and selling websites space and has a lot of experience. You can check out what he's been up to lately over at RichardPatey.com. During today's episode we talk about Richard's background and how he got involved in building, buying, and selling websites. We also dive into some "meaty" subjects like the best places to buy online businesses, what are some red flags when doing due diligence on deals, how long you should hold an asset for, and much more.

Today, I'm excited to have Kyle Roof on the podcast! You can find some of Kyle's work at Internet Marketing Gold and Page Optimizer Pro. Kyle has been involved in SEO for a long time and is well known in the industry. In particular, he is well known for performing SEO tests to see what actually works for ranking in Google as opposed to just taking other people's words for it.

I had the opportunity to site down and interview Jaryd Kraus from BuyingOnlineBusinesses.com. Jaryd is a big believer in skipping the "failure" as he puts it and just jump to the success by buying a business that is already making money. During this podcast we discuss why Jaryd (and how) went from being a plumber to making 3 website acquisitions that led him to investing in websites full-time. The first acquisition really allowed him to quit his job. He's now build a portfolio of sites and helps others do the same. We discuss the best places to buy websites, including EmpireFlippers.com and MotionInvest.com. We also dive into how you asses risk when looking at a potential site to buy.

Today, I'm happy to have Jesse Lakes of Geni.us Links on the podcast! We discuss his entrepreneur story of starting and growing Genius. In addition, we chat about his recent acquisition of Kit.com. Then we dive deep into Amazon Associates' compliance. If you want to make sure you are following all the rules that Amazon has given us, including some recent changes, this is the interview for you.

Ryan Kulp is the founder of MicroAcquisitions.com and ForkEquity.com. In today's interview, he shares how he's acquired 10 small SaaS companies in the last 3 to 4 years. Those companies include Fomo.com and others. Fomo alone has grown from $10k in MRR to $100k. Listen in to hear what types of companies he looks for, how he acquires them, and how his team grows the businesses.

Listen in to this episode to hear from Matt Diggity, a well-known SEO expert. We discuss his business model of buying, growing, and then flipping affiliate websites. In addition, we dive into some very specific link building strategies. Overall, it's a great discussion on SEO and building successful online businesses!

Pat Flynn from smartpassiveincome.com is back on the Niche Pursuits Podcast! Pat and I have known each other for about 10 years now and he was a guest of my podcast over seven years ago. Listen in to hear what's going on in his business right now and what decisions he has made that have led him here. We specifically talk about his decision to start selling online courses and you can hear how well that has turned out for him. Where does he envisioned Smart Passive Income in 10 years or 20 years? Will it ever exist without Pat? Could he ever sell the business or walk away completely? We also dive into what his next venture might be that he's considering after he is "retired" from Smart Passive Income. Overall, Pat shares lots of great tips about big decisions, how his team is helping him reduce stress and get more done, and figuring out your "why" beyond just making money.

Walker Deibel is an entrepreneur that has made a number of acquisitions and he's the author of the book Buy Then Build. You can check it out at buythenbuild.com. He definitely is an entrepreneur in the trenches: building, buying, and selling (large) businesses. During this interview, we are going to dive into why he thinks acquisition entrepreneurship is the way to go and why it's so much better than starting a business from scratch. He shares some examples from his own experience. In addition, we talk about how to use leverage in buying businesses, the things to look for when you're buying a business, how to leverage your strengths, and more. I think that you're going to enjoy the interview.

Today I'm talking with Ron Stefanski from OneHourProfessor.com. Ron talks about a site that is making $18,000 a month and he shares the exact things that help the site take off. We cover his keyword research strategies and link building strategies. Then we talk about his overall business structure, how he has a full-time virtual assistant, an editor, writers, how much content he has on his sites, and so much more. Overall, this is an awesome story about a "normal" person who has had enormous success building niche websites. Hope you enjoy.

It's official, Niche Site Project 4 is a year old. What started just as another idea for a case study has evolved into a full blown website making money each and every month, it's a good thing. Obviously, I've been very happy with the fact that owntheyard.com has earned over $1,000 a month for the past few months now. Today, I'm going to do another regular monthly update with earnings, traffic, and more. Then, I'll discuss the future plans of the project, how often you can expect updates from me, and more.

Welcome back to the Niche Pursuits Podcast. I'm your host, Spencer Haws from nichepursuits.com. Today, I've got a great interview for you. I've got Adam Steele from loganix.net. Adam is somebody that's been around the affiliate marketing and link building world for a long time. He actually started back in an affiliate network called Neverblue. He started working there and that's how he got introduced to a lot of people doing online business. That led him down the road of link building services that he could offer. I'll let Adam tell his entire story. It's really interesting and he's built a really solid business. In their best year, they've done $3 million in revenue. He's got 14 full-time employees and a large remote team behind him. We'll talk about how he's able to achieve that success. Overall, it was great to have Adam on the podcast and interview him. If you want to check out Loganix, his link building company, you can use my affiliate link which I would be very happy if you did. That's at nichepursuits.com/loganix.

Welcome back to the Niche Pursuits Podcast. I'm your host, Spencer Haws from nichepursuits.com. Today, I've got a returning guest. Matt Giovanisci from moneylab.co is back, and we talk about quite a few things. If you remember the last interview we did, which actually, as I look back, was an entire year ago, which is really hard to believe. We dove into a lot of his SEO tips and how just writing great content, trying to have a little bit better content, and specifically not doing a lot of link building has led to a lot of success for Matt with his swimuniversity.com site. Today, we talk about a little bit more about Swim University and specifically, his dive into using YouTube and how his YouTube videos are doing quite well. But then we spend the bulk of the interview talking about his new software product called Lasso. Lasso is a product that manages your affiliate links and specifically, it does work well with Amazon affiliate links, although it works for any affiliate links. It helps you to better monetize your site and also has really cool product boxes that you can insert into your post that will help you sell more Amazon affiliate products—a product box for the product you're selling on Amazon—really cool looking, with a nice button, and can help you monetize those posts. It's a cool product. If you're interested in checking it out, you can use my affiliate link at nichepursuits.com/lasso.

My guest today is Adam Preiser from wpcrafter.com. Adam is best known for his YouTube channel WPCrafter where he shares all kinds of WordPress tips and tutorials. In fact, Adam currently has over 124,000 YouTube subscribers and is definitely crushing it there. However, Adam has also done something that very few businesses will ever achieve. He's launched a new software product called CartFlows and it's already on pace to do over $1 million in revenue in its very first year. During the interview, I spent quite a bit of time asking Adam about how he came up with the idea for CartFlows, why and how he found a partner, and how he has grown this WordPress plug-in business so quickly. CartFlows is a sales funnel builder for WordPress. You can build beautiful sales pages and one-click up-sales and much more. If you want to check out CartFlows, you can go to nichepursuits.com/cartflows. Overall, I hope you enjoy the interview with Adam.

I'm excited to give you an update on Niche Site Project 4. I'm actually going to give the monthly income report for July 2019. Sorry about the delay in this episode. I'm already about three weeks into August as I'm recording this, so if you've been waiting anxiously for this report, I apologize. I published the blogpost on the blog. Maybe you've already read that with the monthly report, but due to some vacation time and other things, it's taken me a little bit to actually record this episode. With that, let's go ahead and jump right into it. Now that the Niche Site has been revealed, I'm happy to share that the site has continued to grow and progress. In full disclosure, I didn't focus very much on my site, owntheyard.com, because of things I was focused on during July. I launched Link Whisper in early to mid July, which took a lot of time, then I was on vacation at the end of July. Despite my lack of focus, it was great to see that the site achieved another record month in terms of both earnings and traffic.