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

This week, Jared Bauman sits down with Morgan McBride, a previously successful content creator who was first highlighted as a Google Success Story and then crushed by its HCU.

She was invited to the Google Creator Summit, but her experience and interview contrasts sharply with Jake Cain's, who also attended the event.

Morgan holds nothing back as she talks about growing her portfolio of websites, getting hit by the update, and everything that did (and didn't) happen at this special event for creators.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week? Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast!

This week Spencer and Jared break down the latest news affecting SEOs and small publishers, they share their side hustle progress, and they talk about some weird niche sites for inspiration.

They discuss Sam Altman’s tweet - https://x.com/sama/status/1854238332534108188

They go over Dharmesh Shah’s tweet - https://x.com/dharmesh/status/1854307883304792294

They talk about how AI Overviews is rolling out to more countries - https://searchengineland.com/google-expands-ai-overviews-to-over-100-countries-447832

They discuss how AI Overviews impacts publishers’ traffic - 

https://community.mariehaynes.com/posts/traffic-down-as-aios-launch-globally-forbes-seeing-declines-chatgpt-search-is-live

They reveal that traffic is up for HCU-hit sites - https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.seroundtable.com/google-helpful-content-update-recovery-data-38358.html&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1731069165137684&usg=AOvVaw1-h6THpgh8jvp1VR5d5YjX

Spencer shares a weird political map - https://electoralvotemap.com/

Jared shares a calculator tool - https://charactercalculator.com/

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

This week Jared Bauman sits down with Jake Cain, a long-time blogger with a portfolio of sites, a former Niche Pursuits employee, and an attendee at Google’s recent Creator Summit.

In this interview, Jake shares his experience at the event, his thoughts on the topics discussed, and the main takeaways he left with.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week? Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Welcome back to the latest episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! 

This week Jared and guest host Brooks Conkle take on the latest headlines revolving around Google, large and small publishers, and SEO. They also talk about what's working and what's not for their side hustles, and they share some (successful and not-so-successful) weird niche sites.

They discuss the couple that took on Google - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr431lr72jo

They discuss how to get your brand to appear in ChatGPT -https://sparktoro.com/blog/how-can-my-brand-appear-in-answers-from-chatgpt-perplexity-gemini-and-other-ai-llm-tools/

They talk about Google AI’s inaccuracies - https://www.searchenginejournal.com/googles-ai-fails-at-43-of-finance-queries-study-finds/530542/

Jared shares a weird niche site called Spotto - https://spottogame.com.au/

Brooks reveals a very successful site called Omni Calculator - https://www.omnicalculator.com/

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Taegan Goddard’s been in the blogging game for a long time, launching his first website before WordPress even existed. 

He went on to create his current website, Political Wire, which has been not only running but growing consistently for the last 25 years—no easy feat.

Taegan has built “the anti-website,” using non-SEO strategies to win over his political junkie readers and convert them into diehard fans while using several different business models.

He has a different approach to how he treats readers and how he thinks about content compared with a “normal blog,” and in this insightful interview he shares it all.

Links & Resources

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week? Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! 

This week Jared and guest host Thomas Smith talk about the latest news revolving around Google, large and small publishers, and SEO. They also share their (lucrative) side hustles and a few very weird niche sites.

They talk about the changes at Google - https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-search-has-a-new-boss-prabhakar-raghavan-steps-down/530361/

They share some thoughts on Raghavan - https://www.wheresyoured.at/requiem-for-raghavan/

They talk about site reputation abuse - https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/a-nightmare-on-affiliate-street/

They reveal that SearchGPT refers more brands - https://searchengineland.com/searchgpt-referrals-vs-perplexity-claude-447604

They share a weird niche site called Select Aquatics - http://selectaquatics.com/

They share a second weird site about election equipment - https://electionsource.com/

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Mads Singer has a passion for management and for helping companies increase their revenue exponentially by tweaking and improving their business practices.  

This Danish entrepreneur travels the world, speaking publicly and consulting privately with businesses and individuals to help them think creatively and “do more with the same.”

He has grown his own business from 0 to 200 employees in just a few short years, and in this interview he talks about his own online experiments, how he sets up funnels, and how he’s been able to increase his revenue per visitor. 

Don’t miss Mads’ expertise, especially if you want to increase your earnings without increasing your traffic.

Links & Resources

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week? Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. 

This week Jared and guest host Morgan Overhold discuss the latest news as it relates to SEO, small publishers, and Google. They also share their side hustles and talk about a few weird niche sites.

They talk about the repercussions of Semrush buying Search Engine Land 

They discuss a tweet about that acquisition

They share a video about the quality of Google Search

They talk about AI Overviews and HCU-hit sites

They share a weird niche site about rollercoasters

They talk about the cult following at Wait But Why

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Jamie Northrup is no stranger to the “make money online” scene. He’s been doing it for almost 20 years with varying success, depending on the strategy. 

For years he has been developing different income streams, focusing particularly on side hustles with no customers, with considerable success. When he was laid off, he was lucky he didn’t have to worry, because he had a solid hustle or two to keep him afloat.

Fast forward to today, and Jamie runs the Minimalist Hustler brand, where he teaches people to develop their own side hustles. He has several different income streams, from products to newsletters, and is on track to hit six figures in 2025.

Links & Resources

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week? Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. 

This week Spencer and Jared discuss the big news related to SEO, small publishers, and Google. They also share updates on their side hustles and more than a few weird niche sites.

The big news is that Google might be sanctioned  

They talk about severe sanction scenarios 

Google responds to the ruling 

They discuss the WordPress vs. WP Engine drama 

They talk briefly about Automatic’s role

Syed Balkhi’s tweet of support

Spencer’s weird niche site is Spaghetti Models

Jared shares more info about McBroken on Reddit and elsewhere 

He also shares his weird sites: Bridesmaid for Hire and Groomsman for Hire

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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After close to 2000 podcast episodes, Joe Saul-Sehy knows a thing or two about growing an audience. 

In fact, his finance podcast, Stacking Benjamins, has amassed a massive following of 180k listeners, with shows averaging around 40k listens/episode.

Joe’s no stranger to awards, either. 

Stacking Benjamins was named Best Personal Finance Podcast 3 times by the Plutus Awards, it was called Best Personal Finance Podcast by Kiplinger and Bankrate, and it was awarded the Best Business Podcast title by the Tim Ferriss Show, Startup, and others from the Academy of Podcasters. 

Joe shares the details of his journey in this interview: how he initially struggled, what he did to grow the audience, and how "hockey-sticked" his results.

He talks about his recent struggles in podcasting and the events driving his decision to diversify with a view to serving his audience in multiple ways.

He also discusses standing out in a crowd, his ideation process, and why following his “north star” has served him well.

Links & Resources

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week? Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. 

This week Jared and guest host Thomas Smith discuss the main news affecting small publishers and SEOs. They also share their side hustles and some weird niche sites.

The big news this week is that the Forbes Advisor parasite SEO scandal  

They talk about Forbes Advisor getting a penalty from Google

They share a Lily Ray tweet on Reddit 

Jared shares a weird niche site: MCBroken

Morgan shares the site Starbucks Melody

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

When Dave Chesson was in the US Navy, he would spend lots of time away from his family. And he hated it. 

He decided to create a portfolio of niche sites in an attempt to earn enough to quit his job, but his path took a different turn.

He got the idea to turn one of his websites into a book and self-publish it. As it turned out, it was the start of something big, and it allowed him to eventually quit his job to be with his wife and kids.

Today, he’s the author of 10 books which have earned him +$750k to date, and he also created a tool and a website to help others publish their books using the Kindle Publishing Platform.

In this interview, he shares the details of his journey as well as lots of tips for getting started with—and succeeding—with self-publishing.  

Links & Resources

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week? Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. 

This week Jared and guest host Morgan Overholt discuss the most important and recent news for small publishers and SEOs. They also share their side hustles and some weird but useful niche sites.

The big news this week is that we’re seeing a reversal in traffic gains from the Google Core Update

They share another open letter to Google and talk about some of the important points the author, Cyrus Shepard, made

Their thoughts on Google’s decision to update its spam policies

Jared shares a weird niche site: Best Hashtags

Morgan shares the site Thread Reader

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

This week, SEO expert Brie Moreau doesn’t share his business results but, rather, the results of an incredibly in-depth study he did analyzing 260k search results to find an answer to a major question: what does Google want exactly?

Using SurferSEO data and a data scientist, he and his team set out to use a data-driven approach to understanding how Google evaluates content and they were able to draw many interesting conclusions, which he shares in this episode.   

He talks about a wide range of topics, from the most important thing you can focus on right now to rank better to the advantages the “little guys” can have over authority sites.

The first half of the podcast is about the findings and the details of his research while the second half includes actionable recommendations.

Don't miss this interview if you want a fresh perspective on SEO, content creation, and ranking in the SERPs.

Links & Resources

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. 

This week Jared and guest host Brooks Conkle take on the latest SEO news and break it down for listeners. They also share the side hustles they've been working on and dissect a few weird niche sites.

The big news this week, OpenAI’s launch of its most sophisticated AI model

They share an open letter to Google and talk about the position of small publishers after the updates.

Takeaways from a study on data from Google’s August core update

Jared goes first with a tool called URL Opener

Brooks shares the site The Useless Web

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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While Mike Heroux worked professionally as a financial planner, he always had a financial blog side hustle.

It took some time to finally make the decision to go all-in, but he eventually dove headfirst into blogging. In fact, he grew his portfolio to about a dozen sites. 

And then the Panda Update came along. Suffice to say, Mike’s multi-year journey into entrepreneurship has had its ups and downs.

Today, he runs a membership website—Dividend Stocks Rock—with almost 4,000 members earning over $500k per year. And he grew it without using any SEO. He also built up a newsletter to nearly 25,000 subscribers.

Mike has a ton of great insight to share in this interview, so get ready to take notes!

Links & Resources

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. 

This week Jared and guest host Morgan Overholt take on the latest SEO news and break it down for listeners. They also share the side hustles they've been working on and dissect a few weird niche sites.

The big news this week, an interview with Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan

They talk about an article in Moz claiming that the HCU was not what we thought it was.

Takeaways from a recent podcast by Lily Ray

The last news item they cover is Mediavine’s decision to ban publishers who overuse AI content. 

Jared goes first with a DR71 site called Nuclear Secrecy

Morgan shares the site Lipsum

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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When Adam Rosen founded his first tech startup, he learned a lot of important skills before he eventually sold it. One of those skills was using cold email as a sales technique.

Fast forward to today, Adam has his own cold email outreach agency that sends more than a million emails and schedules over 300 meetings each month for his clients. He’s earning more than $100k a month.

Adam's able to run his business from anywhere in the world, which has allowed him to live and work in places like Lake Como, Hawaii, Montenegro, and Switzerland.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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This week Spencer and Jared are at it again, breaking down the latest news items in the SEO world, sharing their progress with their side hustles, and analyzing some weird niche sites.

The big news this week is that the August Google Core Update has finally finished rolling out, after 19 days, and overall it was a pretty impactful update. 

they talk about a site that Google has shown considerable favor to in recent times: Reddit.

The last news item is again about Google, and how the antitrust trial is targeting its digital ad business. 

In the end, he gave that page away as part of a contest to a new member of his exclusive Niche Pursuits Community, where growing a Facebook page is the main focus for members for the next 6 weeks. 

A recent guest on the Niche Pursuits Podcast.

He also talks about his side hustle on Medium, also inspired by another podcast guest

Spencer shares the interesting story of how he came to find Cool Works

Jared then shares I Got Standards, Bro

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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When Thomas Smith started publishing articles on Medium back in 2019, it was just a side hustle.

Over the years, however, he’s been able to develop a strategy to succeed on the platform, and today Medium is extremely valuable for him, providing a large part of his monthly income as well as countless business opportunities.

Although he did peak at $17k in a single month, his recent earnings are in the $2k to $5k neighborhood and has had several 5-figure months.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

This week Jared and guest host Thomas Smith take on all the latest news on this episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. 

Yelp is suing Google - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/28/technology/google-yelp-lawsuit.html

Yelp's gripe? https://www.searchenginejournal.com/yelp-sues-google-over-local-search-dominance/525687/

A new Lawsuit - https://searchengineland.com/google-adtech-antitrust-judge-business-practices-446086

HCU hit sites - https://x.com/glenngabe/status/1828798317960061090

recipe sites - https://x.com/lilyraynyc/status/1828768199057522967

Retro Dodo - https://shorturl.at/d4jJ3

Niche Pursuits Podcast. - https://www.nichepursuits.com/my-local-email-newsletter-makes-over-200k-year-heres-how/

Sportern - https://www.spotern.com/en

Backyard Chickens - https://www.backyardchickens.com/

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week? Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

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Tony Hill is a digital marketer with decades of experience, but when his sites’ traffic started to tank, he rolled up his sleeves and started looking for an alternative traffic source. And he found Pinterest.

Tony has gone deep into the rabbit hole on Pinterest, studying how it works and poring over its data, to come up with strategies that work. 

Currently, he’s getting a million clicks a month on the platform, and he’s constantly experimenting with new sites and new tactics. 

Tony talks about how he believes Pinterest works, how Pinterest SEO is similar to Google SEO, and how he tailors his content to his Pinterest audience.

Links & Resources

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Welcome back to the latest episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast!

This week Jared is joined by Brooks Conkle, a member of the Niche Pursuits Community as well as an entrepreneur with many, many income streams, lots of experience in the industry, and plenty of insights to share.

There’s some interesting news for publishers this week, so get comfortable!

The first order of business is the recently released Google Core Update, for which there is now some data available. Jared and Brooks talk about the absolute winners so far.

Who’s benefiting the most from the update? Are you surprised by the results? 

Then Jared shares a particularly exciting promising news item: signs of life after the HCU. 

They also share information about sites that are recovering, and Jared asks some important questions and talks specifically about HouseFresh and RetroDodo. 

Then he and Brooks share their thoughts about the current landscape and suggest that there are greater questions to be answered, about Google, the future of search, and AI.

Moving along, they talk about Google AI Overviews and where they’re pulling their information from.

Then they move on to the Shiny Object Shenanigans, and Jared talks about his focus on earning money from projects he’s already working on. 

First, he shares his experience to date with Creator Connections. 

Then he shares a new side hustle he recently started: publishing the content he’s already written on Medium. He talks a little bit about how it works and his future plans.

When it’s Brooks’ turn, he talks about a new side hustle: domain name investing. He shares all the interesting things he’s discovered about this world and some of the domains he’s purchased. Listen to the full episode to hear more about it.

Then it’s time for some Weird Niche Sites, Jared shares his site first: All 8, a very strange DR47 site with just 3 links on it related to square dancing and beat measurements. Surprisingly, this site gets 30k visitors per month while only ranking for 1k keywords. 

Brooks then shares a weird site he found called The Pet Psychic, which gets 11k pageviews per month. 

And that concludes another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. We hope you feel better informed after listening to what’s happening in the industry, motivated by the stories about our side hustles, and inspired by the weird niche sites people are creating.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Dylan Jahraus started working in corporate e-commerce, but eventually had to quit while trying to climb that ladder.

She tried her hand at Etsy as a side hustle, and was pleased to see that she could apply her extensive e-comm experience to the platform. 

She’s been killing it on Etsy for years now, selling $1.5 million to date.

In this interview, she shares some of her best strategies and tips, explains best practices in everything from product pricing to thumbnails, and walks us through the process of going from $0 to $10k. 

If you have an Etsy store, you simply can’t miss this episode; if you don’t have an Etsy store yet, this may very well inspire you to open one.

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast!

It’s been a very big week in the news, with Google taking center stage for several different reasons. This week, Jared and Morgan break it all down for us, and they also share the progress they’re making on their side hustles, and some weird niche sites!

Let’s jump into it!

The first order of business is Google’s announcement about its August core update, which the company has been teasing for some time.

Moving along, they talk about an article in the New York Times about how the US Justice Department is considering several scenarios after deciding that Google is a monopoly, including possibly breaking up the company.

Jared shares the timeline and the opinions of Duck Duck Go, and Morgan talks about what happened in the EU when Google was forced to give users a choice when installing their web browsers. It’s pretty surprising what she reveals!

They also talk about the ways this ruling could change the internet and which of the scenarios they’d prefer to see. Is Google really resting on its laurels, as Morgan says?

The next topic up for discussion is that Reddit investors are concerned about what all the traffic is doing to its stock price, as company shares have plummeted by 26%. 

Why are they complaining about the traffic? Why are “logged in” users more valuable than “logged out” ones? How does Reddit’s current situation contrast with its attitude just a few weeks ago? 

Then Jared and Morgan tie the Reddit news to Google’s announcement about its current core update. What do they predict might happen? Listen to the full episode to hear what they say!

When it’s time to talk about their side hustles, Jared comments briefly about the course he recently launched on the Amazon Influencer Program, but then dives into the newsletter he recently acquired, The Slice.

He shares his stats, such as open rates, ad earnings, and affiliate income, and his future plans for the side hustle.

He also talks about Creator Connections, in the Influencer Program, and shares his latest earnings.

Morgan then talks about her Amazon Influencer side hustle and shares her experience creating more polished videos for the program and the impact on her video clicks. She also shares a strategy she’s going to experiment with in the coming weeks.

Jared’s weird niche site comes with its own personal story this week: San Diego Sandcastles, which he discovered while at the beach with his family. 

When it’s Morgan’s turn, she shares This Person Does Not Exist, which generates AI images of people who don’t exist.

This site has been around since 2021, and she shares some of its stats. 

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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If you didn’t get into paid media before Google changed up the traffic game, you can still get into it now. That’s what Alex Goldberg is showing us on this week’s podcast.

Alex started a site as a side hustle, but it eventually grew into a portfolio of sites. Organic traffic was abundant, but he decided to experiment with paid media arbitrage.

In the end, he built up a portfolio of sites earning $20k/month and then sold it for a hefty sum.

For people who are generating a lot of traffic from SEO or social media, Alex outlines a great strategy to diversify, and for people who aren’t getting as much traffic as they used to, they can also diversify.

Don’t miss this episode where Alex shares a lot of great advice and tips for getting started and succeeding with paid ads.

Alex starts with a brief introduction of his background, talking about how he always wanted to be an entrepreneur, how he started side hustling, and how he eventually exited one of his main projects, a portfolio of health and wellness sites.

He starts by talking in more detail about his initial site, which he started in 2018 as a side hustle with a colleague. They were reviewing fintech companies, but pivoted to health and wellness when they sensed there was a better opportunity in that niche.

In 2021, he quit his job, eventually bought out his business partner, and went on to create a portfolio of related sites. He also shifted his focus from organic traffic to paid media arbitrage before he eventually sought out, and found, a buyer.

Alex goes into more detail about switching from SEO to paid media arbitrage and why he decided to diversify. He talks about the challenges he faced setting up a paid arbitrage strategy, but claims that once you have a roadmap, it’s easier than SEO.

He discusses the types of keywords he bids on, how to meet the demand of underlying queries, and future-proofing your business.

Alex had experience before he started using this strategy, but for people who don’t usually use paid ads, he shares tips and tricks and challenges people generally face.

He reveals the percentage of campaigns that are generally successful and talks about how to talk to brands about using this strategy, what kinds of niches it would work in, and he compares it to SEO, content creation, and organic traffic.

Alex explains social whitelisting and then goes into a lot of detail on conversion tracking, and he also talks about scaling the business and reaching $20k/month in profit while providing immense value for his clients, which was very important to him.

Towards the end of the interview, he talks about being hit by the HCU and how diversified his sites were, and he also shares some stats: how much his business was earning and how much he sold it for.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast, where Spencer and Jared talk about the biggest news in the SEO and creator industry and what it means for you. They also share their inspiring side hustles and some weird niche sites they've discovered.

Today they tackled the biggest news item we’ve seen in a while: Google’s antitrust lawsuit.

Google has been in the news for a while now as the courts have been trying to determine whether or not it’s a monopoly and a decision was finally handed down, stating that the company does have an illegal monopoly on search.

What did the company say on Twitter and how did others respond? And what are the potential outcomes? 

Spencer and Jared talk about how Google got here, what it might be asked to do in the future, and what they really think about Google’s claims.

Moving along, they head into the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion of the podcast, and Spencer goes first. He talks about his experience with the Facebook Bonus Program, of which he has been a member for the last 2 months.

His first month in the program, he earned $3k, and he was on track to surpass that in his second month. What happened at the end of July? How did it all play out? 

When it’s Jared’s turn, he talks about the Amazon Influencer Program. 

Although he had a few complicated days, his monthly earnings were in line with his usual performance. He also announces the release of his new course, which walks you through the process of getting started in the program.

He shares some interesting data, comparing his performance with Spencer’s and another member of the Amazon Influencer Program, who recently joined. He looks at how much they’re all earning and how many clicks each of their videos are receiving per month.

He also talks briefly about his experience with the Creators Connection program.

Then they move on to their Weird Niche Sites.

Spencer goes first with Spot the Difference which, as the name suggests, shows users two photos and they have to find 4 things that are different. It’s monetized with a lot of display ads and gets around 23k organic visitors a month.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he’s excited to share Where Is My Milk From, indubitably a weird niche site that helps you locate the origin of your milk.

And that brings us to the end of another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. We hope you’re feeling informed and inspired.

Don’t forget to catch Spencer and Jared next Friday when they tackle the latest news and provide updates on their projects.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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This week on the podcast we have a familiar face! 

Spencer Haws comes on to talk about a very interesting, and surprisingly lucrative, side hustle both he and Jared have been working on for the last year: the Amazon Influencer Program.

In this episode, Spencer and Jared talk about their experience with the program, discuss the different strategies they used to grow this side business, and share some insider tips for succeeding.

Jared also reveals that he teamed up with Authority Hacker to create a course that helps people through the entire process.

They begin with a brief overview of what the Amazon Influencer Program is all about: creating shoppable videos and posting them on Amazon’s product pages. By doing this, you get a sliver of Amazon’s massive traffic.

But before you can participate, you need to get accepted into the program. 

Jared gives a rundown of the primary requirements, and then he and Spencer talk about the path they each took to get accepted into the program.

Spencer even shares an Amazon Influencer Program secret he hasn’t shared before!

They talk about making the first three videos for your account, and why they’re important. If your videos get rejected three times, you won’t be able to participate in the program.

With that in mind, Spencer talks about what makes a great first video and lets listeners know what not to do. 

He and Jared also talk about whether or not you need to show your face in the videos, what type of product features to discuss, and how to approach Amazon’s long list of rules when making videos.

They also share some of the mistakes they made, which got some of their videos rejected.

Then Spencer shares his personal journey on the program, which he joined in January 2023, and talks about adding videos gradually. By December of that year, he peaked at $6k for the month. 

To give an idea of how passive the program is, now he’s earning an average of $1500 a month and hasn’t added any videos for the last 7 months.

Jared shares his story, too.

He got accepted in May 2023 and frontloaded a lot of the work, publishing +200 videos in his first month, which led to earnings of $1000. 

He continued to gradually upload videos, and he’s currently earning around $3k to $4k consistently per month.

Then they move backwards slightly, and Spencer talks about how he got his videos done. The first ones he did himself, and then he outsourced the next 1000. 

He shares where he found people to create the videos, how he paid them, and how much he paid them. He also shares some of the pros and cons to this approach.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he shares his strategy for growing his Amazon Influencer account. Jared did the bulk of his own videos, reviewing products that he had around his house, his neighbors’ houses, and his parent’s house. 

He even shares a cool hack for accessing even more products for videos.

Equally importantly, he talks about how long he spent doing his videos and how he became super efficient for the best possible ROI.

To close out the interview, they share some important insights they’ve gathered about slightly over a year in the program. 

These revolve around reviewing higher priced products, showing lots of close-ups, skipping long winded introductions, seasonality, creating SOPs, among others. 

All in all, this is a fantastic, information-packed episode if you’re curious about the program and looking to get started, or if you’re already using it and want some fresh ideas.

Links & Resources

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast. Jared hosts this week’s episode, along with Morgan Overholt, who’s standing in for Spencer.

They kick off the news portion of the episode talking about Reddit and how it has blocked Bing Search. Microsoft has confirmed this news and is respecting Reddit’s decision, but the plot thickens when Reddit’s CEO speaks out.

This leads them to another article that talks about how the traditionally mutually beneficial arrangement of web crawling is breaking down, referencing Google and Reddit’s relationship, Reddit’s decision to block Microsoft, and how these moves are really hurting the internet.

The conversation then shifts to SearchGPT, and they look at and dissect a sample query.

As for side hustles, Morgan talks about an idea that came to her through her graphic design agency, where she has consistently designed ebooks for clients.

Now she wants to try her hand at it, publishing her own book with the content she had originally  published on her website, which was hit by the Helpful Content Update.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he explains the Creator Connections program inside Amazon Influencer and how it's been going since he started participating. 

Then the conversation moves on to their Weird Niche Sites. Morgan goes first with Chirper AI, a site that looks like the Sims meets ChatGPT. In this wild little AI virtual reality world, you create characters that interact with others created by different users.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he shares an image-to-text converter which, as the name suggests, takes pictures and converts them into text files. 

That concludes another episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast, where you can hear about the latest and most important news in the SEO, online business, and blogging world as well as feel inspired by the hosts’ side hustles and get ideas from some weird sites.

Catch you next week!

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Brian Nagele has had a lot of success building online businesses, but nothing could have prepared him for what he has been able to achieve on Facebook.

You can join Brian's Social Growth Mastery to learn how his exact Facebook strategies here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/socialgrowthmastery

After his niche sites were hit by Google's Helpful Content Update, he fully understood the importance of diversifying his traffic, and he turned to Facebook.

He started building Facebook pages, and some of his posts started going viral. Once Facebook noticed the engagement he was getting, he got invited to the platform's Performance Bonus Program. After one of his new pages in the program earned $11k its first month, he was hooked.

Today he's earning $20k per month posted viral content on his Facebook pages.

Don't miss this episode, where he shared a ton of his secrets and gives listeners the tools to get started earning money on Facebook.

Topics Brian Nagele Talks About

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Welcome to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast, where Spencer and Jared offer their thoughts on the latest news in SEO, Google and AI; talk about their side hustles; and share some funny and weird niche sites.

They kick things off by talking about the SearchGPT announcement. Spencer talks about how the tool looks like it will work and whether it will include links to sources.

They reference an article on Wired and talk about how SearchGPT’s initial search functionality would be limited, but what will it look like when and if it eventually expands? 

What type of approach will SearchGPT eventually be based on? How does this impact publishers?

Tune in to hear Spencer and Jared’s initial thoughts on this bombshell news item!

Moving along, they talk about how Google is planning to scrap its plans to kill 3rd party cookies in Chrome. This news is quite shocking, as Google has been talking about killing those cookies since 2020. People have been preparing for it for years!

Why does Spencer think they made this decision? And what trend does Jared highlight and question? How’s this going to play out in other countries? 

And what’s likely driving this decision by Google? Is this good or bad news for publishers?

Next up is more Google news. Google recently released its Q2 earnings and revealed some interesting data, such as growth in its search revenue.

Although the company beat some of its estimates, where did its projections fall short? And where does its stock price stand? What does Jared point out about CEO vs public perception? And does this performance suggest that there’s room for SearchGPT to get a piece of the pie?

Also, what’s the status of AI Overviews, according to Sundar Pichai?

It’s on to the Shiny Object Shenanigans, and Spencer kicks things off talking about his experience in the Facebook Performance Bonus Program.

After just 2 months, things are going very well. In the first month he earned slightly less than $3k and this month he expects to surpass that.

How often is he posting? How has his strategy changed? What does this mean for the niche website associated with the Facebook page?

For Jared, he talks about a side hustle within a side hustle: Creator Connections inside the Amazon Influencer Program.

He recently discovered higher-paying opportunities within the program. How did he find out about them and how do they work? And why did he and Spencer describe them as “free money?”

Check out the episode to hear all the details!

Spencer shares his weird niche site first when the time comes: Test My Thumbnail, which allows you to upload a sample of a thumbnail and see what it will look like alongside others on YouTube and tweak it accordingly.

The site offers lots of other features and functions, such as a/b testing thumbnails and YouTube revenue calculator.

What does the traffic look like? What do Spencer and Jared have to say about this site?

When it’s Jared’s turn, he goes pretty weird with Gift Wrap My Face which, as the name suggests, lets you print your fact on wrapping paper.

This DR27 site doesn’t get a lot of traffic and isn’t ranking for a lot of keywords, but what’s so interesting about it, according to Jared? What’s the story behind the brand?

Jared also checks back on a weird site that was featured previously. Find out how that site is doing!

And that takes us to the end of another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! 

Don’t forget to come back next week for some more insight, inspiration, and fun!

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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What do you do when you can’t find a shirt that fits right? Well, if you’re Tanya Zhang, you launch a business.

Tanya and her partner Wesley identified a gap in the market: a lack of nice-fitting dress shirts for slim men. So, in 2018, they launched a very niche business called Nimble Made.

In this interview, she talks about how she validated the idea and spread the word initially about the company. She shares details on finding the right supplier, identifying the company’s core demographic, and using SEO to expand its footprint.

Tanya’s story is very inspirational. She quit her day job before she was profitable to go all-in on her dream, and with its current 6-figure revenue, it looks like it’s all working out.

Tanya kicks off the episode by sharing her background and her experience in creative roles, and then she shares how she decided to jump off the corporate ladder and launch a company.

She noticed that her partner and the people around her were struggling to find slim dress shirts for work that fit properly. After validating the idea, she created Nimble Made, in 2018.

She had no experience in the fashion industry, but she dove right in. Tanya shares the initial steps she took to launch the business, which included getting samples from a supplier and finding someone with a low minimum order and good communication.

Tanya talks about developing their marketing message and working to validate their idea and create a community, and how they quit their day jobs after just six months to dedicate themselves entirely to the company, even though it wasn’t yet profitable.

Nimble Made is earning a 6-figure revenue and the website had 90k+ pageviews in the last month.

Tanya shares how they pushed their brand story and got the word out initially about their company, with many features in leading publications.

Once it took off, she speaks about how they scaled the business and were able to offer more than 40 different types of shirts to their customers, and how they used their marketing budget with paid ads on Facebook and SEO.

Tanya then talks about their SEO efforts and how she used ChatGPT to accelerate growth, and also shares how the creation of customer personas and pinpointing the core demographic were really key in successfully marketing their products and determining exactly what content to write. She also discusses how she uses AI to produce content for the blog.

In the last portion of the interview, she talks about diversifying the company’s revenue with a YouTube channel, display ads, and affiliate marketing, and the use of email marketing.

She also shares her thoughts on quitting her job to go all-in on the company, her worst-case scenario, and the way she planned to explain the experience to future employers had it not worked out.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Welcome back everybody, to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! 

This week Jared and guest host Colin Ma tackle the most recent news in the SEO world affecting creators and entrepreneurs, they inspire with their successful side hustles, and they highlight some unique ideas being used by some weird niche sites.

The first item up for discussion is that Brandon Saltamacchia, the owner of Retro Dodo, whose website was crushed in the Helpful Content Update and he has been very vocal about it. 

He was invited to meet with Danny Sullivan at Google’s office in London, and although the Google Search Liaison couldn’t share any actionable advice, he was hopeful that website owners would see an improvement in the coming months.

Jared highlights a few important sentiments from the article. What did Google say? And what is Danny’s actual role? Tune in to hear what they are!

Moving along, Jared and Colin tackle an article on The Verge which details a complex but fascinating story involving fake authors, BestReviews, Sports Illustrated, and link schemes.

What’s the juxtaposition Jared points out? Should Google just reveal its ranking factors? How would it all play out? Listen to the full episode to hear their thoughts.

And lastly, they talk briefly about the impending Google Core Update. 

When is it coming? Will it bring with it a recovery to battered sites? And what has Danny Sullivan said about it?

In the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion of the podcast, Jared talks about his performance on Prime Day as part of the Amazon Influencer Program and how that affects his overall earnings.

Then he talks about the newsletter he recently acquired and the recent stats, which are very interesting. He also talks about working towards potential sponsors.

When it’s Colin’s turn, he talks about his inspiration from speakers in the Niche Pursuits Community inspired him to try out the side hustle, and he’s already earning money from it.

What are his initial thoughts about the program? What’s his ROI? What are his future plans? 

Tune in to hear a strategy he’s considering and some additional creative ideas from Jared.

Jared shared his weird niche first: Calculate Aspect Ratio, which allows users to check dimensions when resizing images. The DR58 site, which has been around since 2015, recently saw its traffic jump and ranks for 58,000 keywords even though it’s just 6 pages in total.

This simple site is monetized with ads and is probably making a couple of thousand dollars a month. What other simple ideas can you think of, using this site as inspiration?

It’s Colin’s turn next, and he shares a weird site called National Nail Fungus.

This DR20-something site has seen its traffic decline considerably, it hasn’t done much to improve its initial design from 2012, and the content is written by doctors and other experts.

Colin did some digging into the site and he made a surprising discovery. What was it? Is it something you could do for your own business? And what do they have to say about the site’s traffic over the years?

And that brings us to the end of another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast.

We hope that you feel informed about some of the latest happenings in the SEO world, inspired to start your own side hustle, and curious about how you might replicate the strategies we identified among our weird niche sites.

Catch you next week!

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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According to financial blogger Sammie Ellard-King, Instagram is one of the biggest opportunities right now because of the way the platform allows for exposure and brand awareness.

In fact, he has developed several strategies that are allowing for the exponential growth of his brand, Up The Gains, on that platform.

Last month, Sammie earned $40k from Instagram alone.

In this interview, he offers a close-up look at some of the strategies he’s using, which can be applied to Instagram as well as other social media platforms.

This chat is chock-a-block with golden nuggets, so grab paper and a pencil as you’re going to want to take notes!

Sammie begins by sharing his background and talks about how he got into the finance niche and started his business.

Although he wasn’t hit too badly by the HCU, a subsequent Google update did affect his traffic, but the fact that he takes an omnichannel approach to the business and was able to pivot so easily has allowed him not only to stay afloat, but to thrive.

He became laser-focused on social media, in particular on Instagram, and he talks in detail about growing his business on that platform. 

First, he shares his main strategy and highlights the importance of developing customer avatars, understanding their problems, and creating content buckets.

Then Sammie shares his current Instagram metrics (134k followers, 150 million views since January) and how the platform contributes to his business. 

He earned $40k from Instagram alone last month with affiliate links and digital products, using automation software.

He dives deep into his video content creation process, touching on the use of different types of hooks and the importance of getting viewers to watch the video until the end. He talks about the different kinds of content you can create and how to validate your niche for social media.

Sammie then shares how he creates mobile-optimized funnels, the tools he uses, and some of the low- and high-ticket items he sells. He also shares his thoughts on what makes a successful product and talks about growing his email lists through quizzes.

He concludes the podcast with a 30-day action plan anyone can implement to get started on Instagram, full of invaluable tips and insight.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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This week’s Niche Pursuits News Podcast features Jared and guest host Morgan Overholt, who dive directly into the latest news stories, share their side hustles, and talk all about some weird niche sites.

The first thing they dig into is news that AI Overviews is only appearing for 7% of queries. Jared shares a helpful summary of how this Google feature has evolved over time, and he and Morgan share their opinions.

How big has the decline been? What was their personal experience with AI Overviews? And which industries have been the most affected? What kinds of queries saw growth and declines?

And how did AI Overview citations from Reddit fare? And what do they think is going to happen down the road? Tune in to hear the discussion.

Moving along, they talk about Google and Meta’s investment splurges in AI, according to interviews with people from leading investment banks who essentially expressed shock.

But how much are Google and Meta planning to spend? What do the financial analysts liken the situation to, and do Morgan and Jared agree? Do you think we’re in a bubble?

Then they move into their Side Hustle Shenanigans. Morgan talks about how she was inspired by Spencer’s Facebook page project and decided to try it out herself. 

She created a brand new Facebook page for her freelancer brand and hit 7k likes and followers after about 30 days.

How did she do it? What are her plans for the group? And how will it be different from her previously successful niche sites?

She also shares her experience in the Amazon Influencer Program. She shares her journey: how many videos she has, how much she’s earned, and how she’s doing it.

The conversation then shifts to Jared and his Amazon Influencer Program side hustle. He recently released a video about his experience after completing a full year in the program.

He shares his processes, talks about crossposting, and divulges some of his “editing” secrets. 

Then it’s time to reveal their weird niche sites. Morgan goes first with My Instants, a site with funny sound buttons. 

How much traffic is the DR58 site getting? And where’s the traffic coming from? As Morgan says, it’s a great reminder that sometimes the simplest of ideas can be the most profitable.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he shares Bored Teachers, a DR56 site that gets 55k monthly visitors. But he reveals something really interesting about it after he consulted the Wayback Machine.

What did he find back in 2016? And what about during Covid? What does the site teach out about pivoting? Tune in to find out.

That brings us to the end of another great episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. 

We’ll catch you next week when we explore the latest happenings in the space and share our ideas and inspiration for all you entrepreneurs.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Mo Mullah is an entrepreneur with an impressive track record. 

Back in the day, he was orchestrating 6-figure exits and bringing home up to $75k per month from email marketing campaigns. 

In the middle of it all, he started his own agency, Niche Website Management.

After the HCU, like many others, Mo decided he didn’t want to be a slave to Google, so he started testing out strategies on alternative platforms.

Today he’s killing it on Pinterest.

In this interview, he shares his Pinterest tips and tricks, how he's combining Pinterest traffic and email marketing, and other strategies he's using to make money online.

Mo begins by talking about his experience with email marketing back in the day, the success he was having, and how he came to start his own agency.

At the moment, his main focus is Pinterest.

He talks about his 3 content sites at the moment, how he’s growing traffic, and how it’s different from SEO, and he shares why his sites do well on Pinterest and what niches he believes will succeed on the platform.

He talks about his clients’ accounts and he works with them on Pinterest. He talks about the amount of pins he creates, the general idea behind them, and where they get the ideas.

He also shares his strategy for seasonal content and talks about how he monetizes his Pinterest traffic: through email marketing. Then he goes into detail about connecting with email subscribers, understanding where they are in the buying journey, and they key to getting them to buy from you.

Mo also talks about using AI in his email campaigns and on Pinterest and the AI tool he uses the most.

He shares some alternative traffic strategies as well as some of the ways he’s making money online, such as through the Amazon Influencer Program.

Then Mo talks about what he would do if he were to start a business today, which includes website creation, digital products, and Pinterest and Facebook.

To wrap things up, he shares some of his best efficiency tips.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast! As always, Spencer and Jared break down the latest news about Google, SEO, AI, and beyond for listeners.

They kick things off this week by diving into a zero-click search study by Rand Fishkin on SparkToro, talking about where clicks go and the difference in what happens after someone in America clicks vs. someone in Europe.

After the spam update finished rolling out at the end of last week, someone reported seeing a slight recovery. 

The author of the report is seeing almost a 50% rebound in traffic on her affiliate marketing website since March 2024, and she details the 4 main steps she’s taken since her traffic tanked, which included disavowing spammy backlinks and upping her internal linking game.

Moving along, they talk about Google Search Console’s data freeze which, at the time they recorded the podcast, was 87 hours long. 

It’s then time for Shiny Object Shenanigans and, as usual, Spencer goes first with an exciting update about his first 30 days in the Facebook Bonus Program. 

When it’s Jared’s turn, he reveals that he bought a newsletter! The Slice, which is geared towards solopreneurs, seemed like the perfect fit.

When it's Weird Niche Website time, Spencer shares a site that’s doing really well. In fact, year-to-date it’s earned 4 million GBP. Car Mats is an ecommerce site that’s gone very niche as it focuses on a single car part: floor mats.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he reveals Keybr, a weird and quirky site that offers typing tests and helps you improve your typing skills. 

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Seth Williams is an entrepreneur with a passion for land investing.

After he got a few years of experience under his belt, he decided the time had come to share his expertise, so he created his website, REtipster.

He went on to create some digital products, including a course, to diversify his income. He peaked at $60k in one month, but he normally brings home $20k-30k a month.

In this interview, he talks about building his brand and creating his course and podcast, but perhaps most importantly he talks about leading with value and giving priority to creating great content that helps people.

Seth Williams begins by sharing his backstory and talking about how he initially got into real estate investing and land investing.

After his initial success, he decided to launch a blog, REtipster, and with it, a brand.

He shares the story behind his first digital products and what led him to eventually create what was probably the first online course in land investing. 

Seth talks about diversifying his business as well as the challenges of staying on top of the best techniques in an industry that is constantly changing.

He shares what he thinks it takes to be successful in the industry today, which is totally different from what it looked like when he started.

He then shares more about his brand, from the blog to the podcast, his metrics, and the type of content he creates.

Seth also talks about the surprising thing that happened when he lost 40% of his traffic overnight.

He shares how he knew it was a good idea to create and market his land investing course and, importantly, how he decided to price it.

He also shares advice for other people interested in creating their own course, along with his plans for the future.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Welcome back to the latest episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast, where Spencer and Jared share everything that's happened related to Google, SEO, and publishers in the last week.

Spencer and Jared kick off the episode talking about the Google Spam Update, which has concluded after a week. They share the chatter on Twitter, where people are seeing positive results and upticks in traffic. 

What do Spencer and Jared think is going on?

Moving along, the conversation shifts to AI Overviews and a change in Google’s strategy where it’s posting the link cards above the AI answer. As Spencer says, this is great news for publishers, and Jared agrees that it’s a best-case scenario in the current situation.

Although this is a test, Jared makes a great if not sad point. Tune in to hear what he says.

And last in the news for this week, they talk about Google’s decision to drop the continuous scroll in search results. 

This feature originally launched on mobile in October 2021 and on desktop in December 2022, so it hasn’t been operational for that long. 

Spencer shares why he thinks the continuous scroll might have been advantageous and how he feels about this change, and Jared shares his opinion as well. What did Google say about it?

Before you know it, it’s time to move on to their Shiny Object Shenanigans.

Spencer goes first, and admits he can’t stop checking his Facebook stats. 

He talks about a Facebook page he’s had for about a year, with 65k followers, in a far-out niche. On June 3rd, he got accepted into the Facebook Bonus Program and started to post 15 times a day in an effort to get more engagement on the platform.

Since he got into the program, his earnings have exceeded his expectations and he’s had about 3 posts go viral.

How much did he make and how many people saw his posts? How did he come up with the ideas for the posts? He shares a lot of details, but if you want the whole scoop, consider joining the Niche Pursuits Community!

Spencer offers some great advice and also offers an update on a site that recently got accepted into Mediavine Journey.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he talks about incorporating Pinterest into his strategy. He shares what he’s doing, where he’s getting the images, the templates he’s created, how he’s testing pins, what he’s doing with boards, etc.

He shares his stats to date, even though he just started, and also gives an update on his newsletter.

Both Jared and Spencer highlight something important to remember when building a business. What mistake do most people make?

Then it’s time for some Weird Niche Sites. Spencer goes first and shares Get YouTube Thumbnail which, as the name suggests, lets you see the thumbnail for any YouTube video. He explains how and why he has used the site in the past.

The site has tons of display ads, has 9k organic visitors per month and, most interestingly, has a ton of competitors.

How much do they think the site is making per month?

When it’s Jared’s turn, he gets ready to share what he believes is the weirdest niche site ever featured on the podcast. That site is One Million Checkboxes, which is totally fascinating and indeed very, very weird.

Jared shares the backstory about the creator, some of his funny tweets, and shocking stats behind this viral site, so tune in to hear all about it.

And that concludes another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! Let us know your thoughts in the comments. See you next Friday!

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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This week, Jared interviews local newsletter expert Ryan Sneddon, who shares a ton of great information. 

He shares the strategy he used to get his newsletter, Naptown Scoop, off the ground and he offers a ton of valuable tips for anyone thinking about starting a business like this.

He talks about everything from validating his idea and growing his subscribers to connecting with advertisers.

Ryan’s goal at the moment is to reach $400k in revenue (he’s already surpassed $300k) and to extend his local newsletter concept to other cities across the US.

Ryan begins by talking about his life prior to creating his local newsletter and how he got started in the newsletter industry.

After quitting his job and taking a leap of faith, he buckled down to try to figure out what he wanted to create.

When he saw someone else was building a very successful local newsletter for several different cities and he figured out how much they were making, he dove right in and launched his own in his hometown of Annapolis, Maryland.

Ryan talks about how he got Naptown Scoop off the ground, and details the first steps he took to get started, which involved a combination of Mailchimp, Instagram, and Facebook ads. 

He also shares the steps he took initially to grow his subscribers and how he maintained that growth while finding sources of information for his newsletter.

Ryan discusses the changes in his publishing schedule, and why he decided to publish daily. 

He shares his thoughts on lead magnets and talks about how he narrowed down his ad campaigns, how much he spent in total on Facebook ads, and his current subscriber numbers.

When Jared asks him about evaluating a local market to see if there’s a viable opportunity to create a local newsletter, and Ryan shares a lot of insight and the characteristics he deems as important for a newsletter to be successful.

Then he walks us through the content he includes and where he gets all of his information, and he explains how he knows what type of content his audience wants.

Moving onto monetization, Ryan talks about ads as the primary method he uses to monetize Naptown Scoop and shares information about who buys the ads, how much they pay, and package deals he’s working on.

When Jared asks him about advertisers, Ryan offers great advice as he explains what kinds of businesses he looks for to advertise in his newsletter.

To conclude the interview, Ryan shares his final words of advice about the value of showing yourself as the face of your brand and the importance of networking and attending events in your city.

If you’re considering starting a local newsletter, or you already have one, it would be a crime to miss this episode!

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Welcome to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! 

This week, Spencer’s flying solo so we’ve got a shorter episode for you. It may be shorter, but it’s still packed with the news, some side hustle shenanigans, and a weird niche site.

He starts by talking about Google’s 2024 Spam Update, which was just released on June 20th, and unsurprisingly, Google doesn’t offer a lot of information about the update, except that the rollout will take just 1 week.

What implications could this update have for your site if you were hit by a previous update? Is this part of the site reputation abuse update? And what did Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan say about it?

Keep your eye on your rankings (as you probably are) to see how this all unfolds!

The next topic on the agenda is Lily Ray’s article about how SEO visibility is shifting away from review sites to eCommerce and UGC sites.

Google says that it has worked to “reduce unhelpful content by 45%,” although many small publishers would disagree.

Spencer takes a look at Amsive’s study, which compared the SERPs from May of 2023 and May of 2024 for various queries. What did they find? What other results does the article share? What does this mean for review sites?

Spencer offers some advice if you’ve been affected by this. Tune in to hear what he says!

Then he gives a quick update on his Facebook challenge side hustle, in which he’s trying to make $1000 from a brand new Facebook page.

He shared his recent stats on Twitter, sharing his number of followers, his current earnings, and his current costs.

How many clicks has he got to his website? What’s his new strategy going to be moving forward? How much engagement is he getting? How often is he posting? Check out the episode to get all the details.

When it comes to his weird niche site, he shares For Eternia, which is dedicated to He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, which Spencer admitted made him feel slightly nostalgic.

The site covers the latest news (there’s a new movie coming out) and has an official podcast, an official late-night show, a YouTube channel, and a community with a forum.

Spencer talks about how niche the site and topic are. How well is it doing? How are they making  money? Where is its traffic coming from? 

Does this site give you any ideas that you can apply to your own site or business? What can you learn from this successful and weird niche site?

And that wraps up this week’s solo episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. We hope you’re up to speed on the latest events in the space and feeling inspired by Spencer’s side hustle and weird niche site.

See you next week!

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Andy Skraga, also known as The Facebook Traffic Guy, has had massive success driving traffic to his websites.  

He currently manages 9 Facebook pages and 5 websites, driving millions in traffic to those sites.

In this interview, he shares a ton of strategies, offers advice on how to get started, and explains his exact approach to getting page likes, creating content, going viral, and much more.

His interest was originally inspired by a site called ViralNova.

All in all, Andy offers an absolute ton of value in this interview and it’s a must-listen to anyone looking for an alternative traffic strategy and a lucrative side hustle.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Welcome back, everyone, to the latest episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast!

As always, Spencer and Jared offer a quick overview of the most important news items affecting content creators, publishers, SEOs and entrepreneurs.

On this week’s podcast, they decide to lead with positivity, kicking things off with potentially good news for sites pummelled by the HCU. 

Recent comments from Danny Sullivan and John Mueller suggest that sites may see a recovery with the next core update, whenever that may be.

Should we believe them? Find out what Jared thinks about all of this. 

Also, Spencer has some very interesting insider details about this, so check out the episode to find out what he knows that may or may not affect you and your site!

Moving along, they talk about Google usage over time. 

Studies show that people are spending more time looking at search results compared with 5 years ago. So what does that mean exactly? Are people dissatisfied with the initial results, or are they more savvy? Or, is this a strategy from Google?

Spencer and Jared have a few theories about this. And Spencer shares some stats that are completely shocking to him. Tune in to hear it all.

The next news item is about the site The Wirecutter, which is owned by the NYT and has come to be an example to follow in affiliate marketing over the years. 

Spencer reveals how the site has seen its visibility decline following the HCU, potentially losing half of its traffic. 

According to Jared, they are seeing a very slight uptick recently, according to Ahrefs, which could be a sign of hope for others.

As for Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer goes first and talks about the challenge he announced last week where he’s trying to earn $1000 from a new Facebook page in one month.

He’s currently 10 days in and nowhere near $1000 in earnings, but he does highlight some positive results of his experiment so far.

How many followers does he have? What’s his ad spend so far? What interesting and potentially profitable advice does Jared offer him? Tune in to hear all the details!

When it’s Jared’s turn, he talks about a strategy he’s using to try to revive traffic to a site hit by the HCU with a newsletter and a Facebook page.

He also shares his stats and progress from the last 7 weeks: Facebook followers, ad spend, email subscribers, cost per lead, etc. 

He’s also working on a digital product that he wants to sell to his audience. What’s going well and what’s not? Check out the full episode to find out.

Then it’s time to discover some weird niche sites. Spencer shares Million Dollar Homepage, which was created by an entrepreneur in 2005 with the goal of selling pixels on the homepage to earn a million dollars. 

As it was an unusual idea at the time, the creator got some press coverage and was able to sell out all the pixels and he did, in fact, earn a million dollars. 

What happened after he reached his goal? How is his site doing now? What did he go on to create? And did his success streak continue or did it die? Check out the podcast to find out.

Jared then shares his site, US Beer Labels, a DR19 website created in 1999 by a guy who collects and trades vintage beer labels. It only ranks for 242 keywords and gets minimal traffic.

What’s Jared’s theory about this very niche website? What’s so fascinating about it and what can we learn from it?

And that concludes another episode of Niche Pursuits News. Thanks so much for tuning in! We hope you feel informed and inspired, like every week.

See you next Friday!

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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What do you do when the job market looks bleak and you’re tired of waiting tables? You move to China!

Well, that’s what Robert Schrader did. He set off on a giant adventure that would eventually lead him to create 4 successful websites earning more than $10k per month.

After being in the business for 15 years, Robert has a wealth of experience to draw on and offers a unique perspective. In this interview, he shares his blogging strategies and philosophies, some clever monetization techniques, and much more.

He begins by offering a great overview of how he got started traveling and writing travel-related content, and how he came to create his very first site, Leave Your Daily Hell, back in 2009, although it was not a travel blog at that time.

He talks about his fortuitous participation in a blogging contest that helped him realize the business potential of blogging, and his unconventional route to monetization.

Robert initially resisted niching down but eventually took the plunge. It’s a good thing he did, because his first niche site, Japan Starts Here, is currently his most profitable venture.

He has a unique approach to content that he talks about, even sharing the exact formula he uses for his articles along with his anti-keyword research strategy.

Robert talks about his reasons for starting his two other niche sites, Thailand Starts Here and Taiwan Starts Here, and reveals some of his productivity hacks for managing 4 different sites. 

He shares his strategy for planning his trips as well as his thoughts on updating content.

Robert has a somewhat unconventional philosophy when it comes to blogging, and this interview will absolutely provide some great food for thought.

Links & Resources:

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Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast!

This week, like every week, Spencer and Jared dive deep into the latest news affecting SEOs, publishers, and entrepreneurs relating to Google, AI, and beyond.

The call kicked off with AI Overviews and a letter from Google’s VP/Head of Search, Liz Reid, in response to pushback from the public about the crazy answers users have been finding.

In the last few weeks, the amount of queries for which AI Overviews has appeared has dramatically dropped, and Spencer and Jared share a graph that shows the niches where it has the largest and smallest presence.

Moving along, they return to a popular topic of late: Google’s API leak, confirmed by Google themselves. 

Spencer and Jared share some of the latest and most interesting discoveries from the leak, like how YouTube comments are a ranking factor for YouTube, whether or not small personal sites are really being torched, and how baby Panda is not the HCU.

They also share tips on how to approach SEO going forward, such as author authority and a focus on short, original content vs. longer, regurgitated content.

If you want to hear their thoughts on what you should do differently in SEO, knowing what we now know, check out the episode!

Moving along to their Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer goes first and talks about a challenge he recently revealed where he’s trying to drive traffic from a brand new Facebook page to his website to earn $1000 in just 30 days.

Listen to the episode to find out these details, and if you want to see the actual Facebook page, join the Niche Pursuits Community!

When it’s Jared’s turn, he teases the success he’s having with his newsletter side hustle, but ultimately talks about Amazon Influencer. He reveals how many videos he’s uploaded recently and how much he earned in May.

He also did some digging into a drop he experienced in his earnings and made a funny discovery. Check out the episode to hear what he discovered.

As for their Weird Niche Sites, Spencer reveals r74n, a site with lots of mini-games. He plays around with the most popular one and talks about monetization and the site’s unique features.

He also reveals that it gets 180k organic visitors per month, and in some months over a million organic visitors. 

When it’s Jared’s turn, he shares Green Screen Memes, the largest memes download website for green screen video templates. This DR27 site ranks for 6k keywords, gets some good branded traffic, and has done particularly well throughout all the updates.

He talks about how it works and how it would be relatively easy to set something like this up.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Chris Panteli takes us into the fast-paced world of linkbuilding in this interview packed with tons of actionable tips. Chris, who runs the agency Linkifi, is on the front lines and shares a wealth of knowledge that nobody looking to build a brand should miss.

In this interview, Chris brings us up to speed on everything new in the linkbuilding world and covers a range of topics, from new platforms and what journalists want to winning strategies for 2024 and beyond.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast, where Spencer and Jared offer their interpretation of the most recent events in the SEO, content creation, and online marketing space.

It’s been a big week with a massive leak coming out of Google, so get ready for a jam-packed episode where Spencer and Jared break it all down.

They kick things off by giving a bit of the backstory behind the leak and the scope of the leak before diving into the details of the leak.

That being said, what strategy does Spencer think could be useful for ranking going forward? And what do they think about Google’s spokespeople?

If you want to hear their thoughts on Twiddlers, small personal sites, baby panda demotion, and site radius, and also catch Spencer’s advice to Google, check out the full episode.

Moving along, Spencer talks about an experiment he’s working on: a site where the traffic comes from Facebook and Reddit. 

With 50k followers on his Facebook page and 11k visitors in a single day from Reddit, his site got 55k pageviews in the last month. He’s currently with Ezoic but his goal is to get into Mediavine or Raptive, start earning $1k per month, and build on that.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he talks about his Amazon Influencer side hustle and how he has had success creating videos about the products he uses when he stays at Airbnbs. Then he shares a fantastic hack for making those videos.

Moving onto some weird niche sites, Spencer shares Search Craigslist, a search engine for Craigslist. He shows how it works and shares a funny story about his own personal experience with this kind of site. This site gets over 100k visitors a month, a mix of direct and Search traffic. 

Are there any other sites you could create a search engine for or make other websites easier to navigate? Why does Jared call this idea brilliant?

Jared then reveals his site, Tree.fm, which lets you enjoy the sounds of random forests and stunning photography. This DR50 site doesn’t rank for a lot of content, obviously, but they do have a clever monetization strategy.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

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What does it take to build a million-dollar business? Just ask Dawson Botsford, the developer behind Earnifi.

Dawson is a crypto entrepreneur who leveraged a unique opportunity in the space and turned it into a highly profitable company. He built it in a day, started out with no following, and used some counterintuitive strategies to grow his audience.

In this fascinating interview, Dawson tells the story behind building his business, “an overnight success 10 years in the making.” 

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast, where Spencer and Jared bring you the most important headlines in the SEO space.

Spencer wastes no time this week and dives headfirst into an important video published on The Verge. 

Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai is interviewed by Nilay Patel, and he asks him some very direct, hard-hitting questions and comments, including ones about the future of niche sites.

He also asks him directly about Google using publishers’ content for its AI answers and talks about the catastrophic loss of traffic for independent publishers.

He discusses two sites that Spencer and Jared have discussed on several occasions: Housefresh and Retrododo, and he asks him about the availability of data from AI Overviews in Google Search Console.

Moving along, Spencer shares a supplemental article about Google’s Ads VP being asked about the impact of AI Search on publishers. 

And lastly, they discuss an article on the recent results from AI Overviews. 

Moving on to their Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer talks about an experiment he’s conducting with one of his sites where he received 11k visitors from Reddit in a single day.

Neal.fun is full of absurd and entertaining games which have likely gone viral, and it’s monetized with display ads.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he reveals Caffeine Informer, a DR73 site with 818 pages, a lot of helpful blog content, and organic traffic of 141k per month.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Blair Williams is an experienced developer who has been in the membership site game for well over a decade, so he knows his way around the space. 

Back in the day, he looked at existing membership plugins and was unimpressed, so he decided to scratch his own itch and create his own. He called it MemberPress.

As of today, his plugin has generated more than a billion dollars in revenue for his customers, of which there are thousands.

Over the years, he has built it up to become one of the best, most powerful membership plugins on the market.

Don’t miss this interview with Blair as he shares many of ways to incorporate a membership component into your business, how to get started, and many other tips and tricks for adding an additional income stream.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast, where Spencer and Jared offer an overview of the week in news related to SEO, AI, and Google.

As is usually the case, this was a news-heavy week, especially in terms of AI. 

They kicked the episode off by talking about Google’s O/I event, where the company revealed everything it has been working on, much of it revolving around AI.

The biggest announcement was that SGE has now been renamed AI Overviews, which will be available to users in the US immediately.

What’s the full impact of these AI Overviews? How often do they show up in search results? Does the change in name mean it’s going to work differently?

AI was definitely the theme of the presentation, but how does Google’s offer measure up with that of OpenAI?

Jared highlighted information about AI Overview as it relates to publishers and content creators. What interesting (and promising) data did he share? 

And what happens if you don’t want Google to use your information for its AI results? Why does Spencer call this a “frustrating state of affairs?” Is this really what users want?

And is anyone fighting for small, independent publishers?

Moving along, Spencer and Jared talk about their Shiny Object Shenanigans. Spencer talks about his experiment getting Reddit traffic. 

He shares a bit of his strategy, talks about Reddit and RPMs, and his efforts to join Mediavine’s Journey program.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he talks about growing his Facebook page, his current cost per like, his cost per lead, and his plans for video ads.

Moving along to the Weird Niche Site portion of the podcast, Spencer breaks all the rules (which is okay, because he also makes them) and reveals a weird YouTube channel, Tiny Cakes. 

With more than 6 million subscribers, their videos are getting millions and millions of views. According to Social Blade, the site has received 960 million lifetime views, he and Jared talk about the thumbnails, 

Jared shares the site Famous For A Day, which allows you to hire a paparazzi for the day. He talks about the packages available on the site, whether this is real or a prank, and how it might be used by people.

He also talks about the keywords it’s ranking for and potential marketing techniques it’s using.

And that concludes another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. We hope you’re feeling more informed about recent events in Google’s sphere and feel inspired by the side hustles and weird sites and channels we covered.

See you next Friday!

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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From working remotely while traveling around the world - to acquiring a business for 43% of its asking price and 4x'ing its revenue within a year, Mike Swigunski has a lot of cool insights on deal-making, delegation, pricing strategies, and more.

In short, Mike is an inspirational example of a remote worker turned entrepreneur.

Drawing from his time working at Empire Flippers, Mike gained valuable insights into the intricacies of the acquisition process for a software business.

A key takeaway from Mike's experience is the importance of understanding seller motivations and using factual data to structure deals for effective negotiation.

The acquisition he gets into was structured to enable a quick return on investment.

Again, thanks to his experience brokering several big deals with Empire Flippers, he has a deep understanding of monetization opportunities in the online space.

Pricing psychology and benchmarking were crucial in the immediate aftermath of acquiring the business. As he outlines, he prioritized testing prices, optimizing the pricing page, optimizing customer service, and ensuring mobile-friendliness for enhanced user experience. 

He also chose to add a free trial of the full suite of tools, remove a free basic plan, translate the site into multiple languages, and focus on improving its conversion rate optimization.

His success is also attributed to his focus on lean operations and strategic outsourcing for important tasks like code auditing.

And he stresses the importance of hiring the right talent, mastering delegation, honing managerial skills, and possessing marketing and sales expertise.

All of this helped the site go from $10k in monthly profit to nearly $40k per month at the time of recording—all within a period of approximately 14-15 months!

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and hear from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast.

The first news item they cover is Google’s move to enforce site reputation abuse, also known as parasite SEO.

He also shares a tweet from Glen Allsopp with early insights into these measures. 

In positive news, Spencer and Jared talk about a potential correction from the recent Google updates. 

Still talking about Google, it looks like the company’s market share has taken a dip, and Spencer shares some of the recent stats.

By how much did its share of the global market shrink in the last year?

Speaking of a declining market share, Google may see itself up against a new search engine, launched by OpenAI. Although it’s not official, rumors suggest that it’s in the works.

In the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion of the podcast, Spencer shares an experiment he’s doing with a small website trying to drive traffic from Reddit.

He talks briefly about some of the things he did to get that traffic and what he plans to do moving forward.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he talks briefly about his newsletter side hustle but goes into more detail on a YouTube side hustle he’s working on.

One of his channels has seen a boost in traffic thanks to the Amazon Influencer videos he uploaded there; in fact, it now has reached the threshold for monetization.

As for Weird Niche Sites, Spencer goes first with James Bond Lifestyle, a DR57 website that provides exhaustive information about all things James Bond—clothing, accessories, gadgets, etc. 

According to Ahrefs, it gets 20k monthly organic visitors, and according to SimilarWeb, 200k. Spencer also takes a look at its keywords and its optimization opportunities and reveals if it was impacted by the HCU.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he reveals his weird site: This Is Why I’m Broke. 

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Looking to grow your email list?

Liz Wilcox is here to help. She's worn many hats:

But above all - she's an email growth expert joining us with awesome tips and tricks to help you connect with your target audience and make good money doing it!

And she's an absolutely great example to learn from - she was featured as a Niche Pursuits' success story in 2023 (link below), making $20k per month, and has since "doubled that!"

Email marketing helped revolutionize Liz Wilcox's business.

Over the years, she's scaled her email marketing efforts, refined her lead magnets, and boosted conversions.

During this process, she developed her innovative "email staircase method." This is a strategic approach to converting followers into friends by building authentic and lasting connections with subscribers and, ultimately - lasting customers.

Infusing personality and relatability into email content is crucial for fostering these connections with an audience.

She has lots of practical tips to help, like crafting effective welcome sequences and evaluating performance to enhance engagement and conversion rates.

This not only helps with connections and authenticity but also with finding your own niche.

She also discusses the importance of setting clear expectations, sharing values, and offering a mix of free and paid products in welcome sequences to nurture a loyal subscriber base.

Tripwire offers transparent communication and strategic sales placements within newsletters to help her nudge subscribers from passive to paid. And she prioritizes products that address the needs she's found interacting with her audience.

Check out the episode to learn all about the transformative effects of starting with a well-crafted welcome sequence, engaging newsletters, and more!

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast!

This week Spencer and Jared cover all the latest happenings in the SEO and content creation space and share their opinions and insight. Then they share some very interesting and inspiring side hustles they’re working on, and they wrap things up with some weird niche sites.

They jump into things with the news that Google’s March Update is finally complete! 

It finished rolling out on April 19th, and Spencer and Jared discuss the update in general, how long it took, and why its conclusion might not have been announced by Google until later. 

They talk about Google’s original ambitions with regard to the update and the feedback form they created as well as the site reputation abuse update that’s going to get underway.

They also discuss why nobody has recovered from the Helpful Content Update, whether Google even knows how someone might recover, and what this all means.

They move on to discuss the winners and losers from the March 2023 Core and Spam Updates, looking at different types of traffic losses and naming some surprising sites on the list as well as looking at some of the winners.

Of course, Amazon, Reddit, and YouTube come up, as do dictionary sites, Etsy, and Quora.

Moving on, they share an article on HouseFresh about how it no longer appears in Google Search and how Google is killing independent review websites. 

They show the article’s graph, which reflects a giant 91% decline in traffic, and discuss interesting topics it covers, such as the rise of Forbes in Search and keyword swarming.

Spencer and Jared then share a public plea from Marie Haynes for Google to help publishers hit by the update. 

Why is this unusual? How does Jared summarize the situation?

As for their Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer talks briefly about his Amazon Influencer Program side hustle. 

He shares his earnings for the last 30 days and talks about his future plans for it. Although this project provides passive income, Spencer actually gave a highly detailed presentation as part of his Niche Pursuits Community program where he talked about all the work that went into the side hustle in the beginning. 

Jared then goes on to talk about his Amazon Influencer side hustle, talking about the new videos he’s uploaded in 2024 and his total earnings for March and April.

How did he do? How do his stats measure up to Spencer’s?

He also talks about his most recent newsletters side hustle, which of the 2 is getting the most traction, his Facebook page lead generation strategy, and his current number of email subscribers.

Tune in to hear more about his strategy.

As for their Weird Niche Sites, Spencer goes first with Secret Fan Base, which takes a closer look at the story and clothes from well-known brand Banana Republic. 

As the clothes are now more mainstream and mass produced, the site covers its original safari style and is created by a group of original fans.

Although it doesn’t get a ton of traffic, the site has a unique story and is a true labor of love.

Jared shares his site, Passport Waiting Time, and shares some of the site’s interesting aspects, like a forum. This DR27 site is ranking for 2k keywords and gets 3k in organic search traffic per month.

They discuss potential strategies the site could use, its current monetization, and why they think the site wasn’t impacted by Google’s updates.

That concludes another great episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. 

We hope you learned about the latest events in the space and that you’re feeling inspired by the conversation.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Today, we're being joined by Brian Winum, a long-time digital marketer who started affiliate marketing in the late '90s...

He runs a marketing agency in New York and specializes in building websites as sustainable and valuable business assets - specifically focusing on securing Google News approval and executing effective monetization strategies.

And he's got a lot of tips on the topic and others that may interest you, including:

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! Are you ready to hear the latest news affecting Google, SEO, AI, and web publishers?

As always, Spencer and Jared will break everything down into digestible pieces and share their thoughts, concerns, and predictions.

They kick things off diving straight into a particularly spicy topic: who’s killing Google Search.

They maintain that it’s an inside job, and talk about the news that came out this week about an internal meeting at Google regarding the division’s “new operating reality” and the decline in search queries and engagement.

Word on the street is that the man who heads the Search team is the man who killed Google Search.

Spencer and Jared talk about this possibility as well as a little bit about the history of Search, the results of updates over the years, why results have gotten worse over time, how ads have been redesigned, and how Google is trying to squeeze more money out of Search results.

What incredible irony does Jared point out? What’s Spence’s takeaway for bloggers? Is Google going to implode?

Spencer and Jared then move on to a related topic: how product recommendations have broken Google. They reference the Housefresh debacle from a few weeks ago, and talk about how the search for products has changed over time. 

How do we know if the reviews are honest, or if they’re sponsored, or if they’re authentic? And what does the future hold for product reviews?

The last article they discuss is how Google has become defensive when it comes to its Search quality and forum results.

Experts are pointing out that the results being delivered by Google on Reddit offer very poor and misguided advice, especially when it comes to health queries.

How has Danny Sullivan responded? Why do Spencer and Jared talk about the difference between “trust” and “like?”

Moving on to their Side Hustle Shenanigans, Spencer talks about his Amazon Influencer videos going live on YouTube. Before his channel got shut down, he was getting between 100 and 200 views per day, peaking one day at 250.

Now his biggest day has been 11 views. He and Jared talk about why this may be as well as his process for getting his videos live on YouTube.

What program does he recommend using to automate the process?

Jared then talks briefly about his Alt G Conference, which was held just a few days earlier, and he shares some interesting stats and stories from that online event.

When it’s his turn, he talks about his email newsletter side hustle. 

He recently launched a second email newsletter using content from one of his sites that was crushed by the HCU. He goes through many of the steps he took to get the project off the ground, so tune in for some great ideas!

When it comes to Weird Niche Sites, Spencer shares his, which is Brick Economy, on the economics of Legos.

The site offers the current value on lots of Lego sets as well as annual growth of certain themed Legos, and the ability to track the prices of your own Legos. It’s monetized with affiliate links and display ads, and according to SimilarWeb, it’s getting over a million visitors per month.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he shares his site, Tractor Data, which is a small, family-run business that has been tracking data on tractors for the last 20 years. This DR61 site includes a news section and a directory and gets almost 400k pageviews a month, according to Ahrefs.

What keywords is it ranking for? Does it rank first for any terms? Is it making any money? And what kind of potential does Jared see in the site?

As both of these sites are doing well in Google, what can we learn from them and their strategies?

And that brings us to the end of another informative and inspiring episode. See you next Friday!

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

What better way to respond to a time of uncertainty and transition than to share a true success story of change. Joining the podcast is a truly hopeful example of growth and evolution.

Ben started off as an IT and web development guy and now runs of the SEO plugin All-In-One-SEO (AIOSEO) since it was acquired in 2020.

Over these years, both he and the plugin have experienced massive change and transformation to be in the positions they are today. And we're gonna learn some of the key takeaways of how this was possible. 

Links & Resources AIOSEO - The World's Best All-in-one SEO Plugin for WordPress: https://www.nichepursuits.com/aioseo 

Benjamin Rojas | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminprojas/

Benjamin Rojas (@benjaminprojas): https://twitter.com/benjaminprojas

Use coupon code “podcast” to get $15 off Link Whisper to build smarter internal links fast: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

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This Episode is Sponsored by Search Intelligence - https://search-intelligence.co.uk/

Welcome back to a new episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast! 

Jared and Spencer, as always, offer an insightful take on the latest happenings with SEO, publishers, Google, and AI, and give a peek behind the curtain at their latest projects. Stick around for a laugh when they reveal the weird niche sites they found.

The first order of business is to mention that the March Core Update has still not finished rolling out and Spencer and Jared decline to guess when that might be.

Moving along, they jump into the first big news item: The Verge trolling Google, once again.The Verge published a new article for 2024 “reviewing printers,” when in reality the article is just mocking Google for how they rank articles.

Did The Verge actually test the printers? What outbound links did they include? What did John Mueller have to say about it? 

And most importantly, how’s the article ranking? Find out the amusing, and depressing, story behind this news item.

Moving along to another article in The Verge, Spencer and Jared talk about how Google is experimenting with a small subset of news publishers, removing their links from Google News. It’s doing this because California is thinking about forcing Google to pay its news publishers.

What are the implications for publishers? Is there any precedent in these types of situations? What happened in Australia? And will Google extend this to other areas?

In other Google news, the company is launching a new ad product whereby ads appear inside your content, as hyperlinked text, which takes users to advertisers’ products. This is optional for publishers within Google AdSense.

What does Spencer think? Would he enable this on his own websites? What scenarios does Jared share where this might work? Tune in to find out.

The latest news item is that Brave Search has released an Answer with AI feature. 

What do Spencer and Jared think of it and its impact? What does it remind them of?

Moving along to the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion of the podcast, Spencer talks about his Amazon Influencer side hustle and his decision to publish those shopping videos on YouTube.

Incredibly, his channel disappeared! What happened? How did it turn out and what’s happening now?

When it’s Jared’s turn, he announces a new side hustle: an email newsletter. He talks about how he plans to build it, why he decided to dive into this project, and his experience in this area.

When it comes to Weird Niche Sites, Spencer reveals Pets or Food, a very entertaining tongue-in-cheek website that does get some traffic, according to Ahrefs. It doesn’t have a lot of ads but it does have merch, which may be a source of revenue.

Jared then reveals Line Rusher, which allows people to hire someone to wait in line for them at places like the DMV, Apple, and at restaurants and amusement parks.

They offer some interesting services and are constantly hiring line sitters, which may be an interesting option in the current gig economy.

What do the stats in Ahrefs reveal? What spin would Jared put on this service?

And that brings us to the end of another episode! We hope you learned from the latest headlines in the space, felt inspired by our side hustle projects, and got ideas from this week’s weird niche sites.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Stephen Regenold is a true digital media success story.

Around 2010, when print media was starting to really feel the effects of the Internet, he decided to start his own outdoor blog.

Early in his online journey, Steven made wise decisions in the site's revenue model for direct ad sales, affiliate commerce, and SEO strategies.

These, combined with some viral luck when a term they helped coin was being considered for the Oxford Dictionary, helped the brand become a massive success.

(He also touches on how video content, from shorts to documentaries, played a crucial role in their strategy.)

Gear Junkie's achievements led to multi-million dollar revenue and partnerships with major brands, positioning the site and its editors as an influencer proposition. They engaged audiences through influencers like YouTubers and Instagram personalities, along with their SEO success.

In 2018, acquisition offers started pouring in, and Gear Junkie eventually sold to Lola Digital in 2020. Post-acquisition, the company rebranded as All Gear Digital, raising $40 million, making eight additional acquisitions, growing into an outdoor media conglomerate, and bringing back Stephen to help them grow.

This was well-timed as the outdoor industry saw surprising growth during the pandemic, with a surge of interest in outdoor activities and gear.

Stephen discusses how All Gear Digital's brands are doing today, providing numbers and sharing strategies for adding value to conversations and maintaining a unique voice in a competitive space. As a result of all this, you won't believe how long their dwell time on site is.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! 

Come join Spencer and Jared as they take on the latest news in SEO, AI, Google, and beyond.

This week’s episode kicks off with some big news from Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, who talks about the future of Search. 

The main pivot he focuses on in the interview is the shift to AI, which he expects to serve the company well over the coming decade. He notes that AI has been working behind the scenes for a long time now and that Google has to evolve to meet the changing needs of users.

What does he say about chatbots? And what does he say about websites? Are they going away and is SGE going to take over? Tune in to hear what Spencer and Jared think about his comments.

Moving along, they talk about a LinkedIn post from Lily Ray on the SEO visibility growth of Reddit and the mindblowing statistics she shares. 

What theory does she share that Spencer doesn’t agree with? How does this all play into Google’s antitrust lawsuit, problems with Gemini, and its declining share price? 

And what about Reddit’s poor-quality results in Search? Listen to the episode to hear the ridiculous Reddit response to a weight loss query.

Spencer then shares a tweet from a series by Glenn Gabe on the March Core Update, talking about whether the update has finished or not, the role played by the HCU, and the lack of recoveries from these updates.

What did John Mueller say about the core update? What do Spencer and Jared think about the updates and when they’ll finish? Check out the episode to find out.

The last topic is that Bing usage is on the rise, having gained some footing recently, and Spencer and Jared note from the article that Bing actually powers several other search engines, including DuckDuckGo and Yahoo.

What do they recommend when it comes to optimization? Who uses Bing and why does it matter? What’s happening with desktop search?

As for their Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer highlights two of his side hustles, the Amazon Influencer Program and his Facebook traffic project, neither of which rely on search engine traffic at all.

Jared then announces the Alt G Online Conference: Unleash Your Content’s Potential Beyond Google, which will bring together people earning money on alternative platforms. It will be held on April 25th, and both Spencer and Jared will be speakers.

In line with the conference, the Niche Pursuits Community is welcoming a series of expert speakers each week who are also talking about using alternative traffic sources.

Jared talks briefly about his Amazon Influencer Program side hustle and then teases a new side hustle he’s about to launch. Come back next week for all the details!

As for the Weird Niche Sites, Spencer reveals iScrap App, which reports local scrap prices. They’ve got a blog and a directory and they’re doing well in search: 300k visitors per month according to SimilarWeb.

They monetize with display ads, they have a store, they sell directory space to scrapyards, and the owner probably has a nice little side hustle with this weird niche site.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he reveals Live Oasis, which lets you research the toxicity of many water brands and rates the water quality in different municipalities. It has a subscription model, which provides access to more information and research, but is it earning money?

Beyond that, this brand-new website is doing quite well and ranking for lots of keywords. What does Jared discover when he digs into the backstory? And where is all of the data coming from? And what if they were to change the model a bit? Hear Jared and Spencer’s recommendations.

We hope this episode helped bring you up to speed on the latest happenings in the SEO and content creation space and gave you some new ideas when it comes to your own businesses.

See you next week!

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

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Michael Dinich has had tremendous success with Flipboard as a traffic source for his site Wealth of Geeks.

Thanks to this focus, he gets about one-third of his traffic from the platform and avoids much of the pain and stress felt about Google updates.

Flipboard is described as a less time-consuming Pinterest and offers a broad approach suitable for diverse industries beyond strictly visual-centric ones.

It's platform that caters to a diverse demographic, slightly leaning towards males, and supports a wide range of niches such as finance, muscle cars, and video games.

And he's got tips on how we can follow in his footsteps.

For starters, he emphasizes the importance of participating in the community, and optimizing content for the platform. Things like:

Success on Flipboard hinges on strong headlines, engaging images, and community interaction to drive high-quality traffic and engagement rates.

And strategies like cloning posts with seasonal variations and maintaining SEO titles on website URLs can enhance visibility.

He also suggests following influencers, and adding a Flipboard button to your website are recommended for growth. And highlights how consistent effort and experimentation are key to seeing significant gains on Flipboard, with the process taking around six months.

He gets quite a bit deeper into the specifics though and if you're in the market for a new traffic source you won't want to miss this one!

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Welcome to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! This week's news podcast is brought to you by Jared Bauman and Thomas Smith, who’s filling in for Spencer.

As always, they’re bringing you all of the latest news related to SEO, Google, and AI, along with their analyses. Stay until the end to hear about their side hustles and weird niche sites!

The first item up for discussion is the fact that Google is thinking about charging for its AI-powered features, such as the Search Generative Experience (SGE). 

Jared and Thomas talk about SGE and the reasons why Google may consider this path, and if they do go ahead with it, what it might look like. They also discuss a Tweet from Glenn Gabe, sharing his predictions about where this is headed. 

Moving along, they discuss how Google’s search engine market share has declined by around 2%, which may not sound like very much, but it is, and it most likely has Google worried. It looks like Bing’s market share is growing, and Jared and Thomas talk about potentially optimizing for the platform.

The conversation then shifts to Microsoft Start, which is Microsoft’s version of Discover, and its  recently-announced and very interesting AI policy. Thomas shares his experience using Microsoft Start and his interpretation of their stance on AI. What do he and Jared think about this policy? And how is it different, or similar, to Google’s?

Moving to a lighter topic, Thomas talks about a musician named Matt Farley, who essentially mined Spotify for keywords and created songs around them. Today he's earning $200k a year. Tune in to hear his excellent advice around this story as well as the stats behind Matt’s “business.”

When it comes to Shiny Object Shenanigans, Jared starts by talking about his Amazon Influencer side hustle. In March, his earnings totalled almost $4k and, inspired by this progress, he uploaded another 66 videos. He shares some of his stats and talks about how passive this business model really is.

Thomas shares his Medium side hustle, explaining how the platform works, its stance on AI, and how he makes money from it. Last year he was earning $500 or $600 per month from it, and last month he made $3k. 

Listen to hear him explain his thoughts on that growth and what Medium is doing right.

He also recently started an Etsy store for fun? Find out what he’s selling!

As for Weird Niche Sites, Jared shares his first: MeetWays, which helps you find a spot in the middle when you’re meeting up with someone. This DR34 site has seen its traffic grow from 15k last year to 30k this year and ranks for 188k keywords.

They talk about how the site is monetized, how it was potentially built, and whether or not it’s helpful.

Thomas shares the site Antipodes Map, which lets you see what’s on the exact opposite side of you on the earth. 

He plays around with some locations to show how it works, and then shares the stats: DR52, 4k organic search traffic according to Ahrefs, and 113k searches per month according to SimilarWeb. 

Is it monetized or is it a passion project? Listen to find out!

That brings us to the end of another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! We hope you enjoyed this episode with Jared and Thomas and feel informed and inspired in your own business projects.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Want to escape the 9 to 5 rat race but struggle to come up with good business ideas?

This episode is for you.

Peter Askew got into the internet business working for .com startups in the late 90s. Due to a series of bad experiences though, he was pretty much forced into entrepreneurship (his words). Thanks to this, over time, he developed an awesome ability to create opportunities by acquiring strategic aged domains.

This is what he dives into today which you don't want to miss!

Peter's strategy is really cool and the interview covers a lot of interesting stories and insights from his journey.

It all started when he acquired the domain duderanch.com, which became the cornerstone of his success.

And while growing it - he learned a lot of lessons about diving into a niche that have continued to help him in all sorts of ways. He talks about attending industry conferences and fostering relationships with ranch owners. And how these real-world relationships translate to online business growth.

Over time, Peter continued to grow his site's directory-style business by improving rankings and revenue. And he discusses some key insights from various metrics, regarding his site's design, imagery, and brand reputation.

It hasn't been all successes though.

He also shares how important the niche is for success with this model - highlighting the expensive lessons he learned after acquiring 'birthdayparties.com'.

Peter also discusses the growth of his job board in the ranching industry, and his DTC onion project.

These are projects that highlight his ability to compete with comparatively massive companies thanks to his domain strategy.

Overall his story is really inspirational. And one that highlights the sometimes overlooked techniques that can be used to grow nearly any business. And is an episode that is absolutely worth watching.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast, where Spencer and Jared break down the most recent news in SEO, AI, and content creation into smaller, digestible pieces.

Let’s get started!

Spencer first digs into Glen Allsopp’s recent report on almost 50 companies’ SEO performance, sharing some of his research for companies like NextDoor and Chegg, which are publishing massive amounts of AI-generated content and answering questions with AI, respectively, with a lot of success.

On the flip side, they share how many large content sites are also seeing a decline in traffic following the updates, just like smaller sites are experiencing.

They talk about the lessons we can draw from who’s really winning in affiliate marketing these days, the Asia-focused version of websites that are killing it, and more, but you’ll have to tune in to hear what they think.

Moving on, they talk about how Google has offered advice to those people affected by the HCU. 

What kinds of things are people doing to show Google they’re legit, and should they keep doing it? What does Danny Sullivan say? Were the penalties delivered really at page level or site level, and why do people think Google’s response to this was contradictory?

The next article they address is from Glen Gabe, featuring hundreds of websites that Wikipedia has deemed as reliable or not, and what we can take away from this information as website owners and content creators. 

What popular sites did they find on the list and what was surprising about their standing? Listen to the episode to find out!

Moving along to their Shiney Object Shenanigans, first Spencer talks about growing his Facebook page, which currently has around 60k followers. 

Is he able to achieve his goal, which is to drive traffic from the page to his website? He shares the stats, as well as a unique strategy he’s using that is starting to bear fruit, albeit just a little. He’s still in the weeds with this one, so stay tuned to hear how it evolves.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he talks about a new experiment to grow 2 TikTok channels, one in the fashion niche and the other in the travel niche. 

How did they do? How did he promote them? And what can we learn from this? And what does it have to do with the Amazon Influencer program?

Moving into the Weird Niche Site portion of the podcast, Spencer goes first with 1920s Fashion and Music, which dives into the 1920s celebrity fashion industry. 

What’s especially surprising about this site is that it got a traffic bump from the HCU and has been doing better ever since. Spencer shares the site’s very interesting and inspiring backstory. What can we learn from this?

When it’s Jared’s turn, he shares Box Cycle, a platform for buying and selling used boxes. It has a Craigslist-esque look to it, but is it ranking at all? How popular is it? And how is it performing? It’s a DR40 site with several number 1 rankings, but is this an actual niche? Listen to the full episode to find out!

This brings us to the end of another great episode full of information and inspiration. See you next Friday for more of the same!

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

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Originality.ai founder Jon Gillham joins the podcast to help online publishers better understand the dynamic world of AI and SEO! Learn more at: https://www.originality.ai

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week? Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter 

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative 

 The episode covers a range of topics, including:

List of Resources:

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast, where Spencer and Jared talk about the biggest news over the last week in Google, SEO, and AI. 

They also give an update on some of their side hustles and top it all off with some very weird and entertaining niche sites.

They kick off this week’s call by announcing big news: Google has just finished rolling out the spam update, although the core update will continue to be rolled out for another two weeks.

The spam update targeted three types of abuse: scaled content, expired domain, and site reputation (also known as parasite SEO), though the latter will technically be targeted in May. 

They share a tweet from Lily Ray, where she details the winners and losers from the update, and then Spencer looks at a handful of their data in Ahrefs. 

If you take a closer look at the “winners,” you can see examples of sites that are crushing it and do your own deep-dive analysis. They also look at sites that were absolutely crushed in the update, as we can learn from both. 

Listen to the full episode to see their analysis and which sites are doing well and poorly.

Moving along, the next news item is that Google is shaking things up a bit internally, replacing the Head of Search, among other roles. 

What do Spencer and Jared make of this? And what does the new head, Liz Reid, talk about primarily in her announcement? What does she see as the future of search? And what’s motivating these changes at Google? Tune in to hear what they think!

During the Side Hustle Shenanigans segment of the podcast, Spencer goes first and talks about his Amazon Influencer business. He reveals his current earnings and reports that his earnings have become almost entirely passive since he hasn’t really uploaded videos since December.

Jared just finished his call with the Niche Pursuits Community, where he talks in detail about his business and how he’s grown it. Spencer did a call the previous week where he shared all the details behind his Amazon Influencer business as well.

If you want to see those videos and enjoy many other aspects of the Community, you can join right here! 

When it’s Jared’s turn, he talks about deleting 18% of the subscribers to his Weekend Growth newsletter. He shares the process for culling the list and trying to re-engage with disinterested subscribers, and the resulting open rate after the process.

Spencer then shares his process for managing the people on his list who are disengaged. Which approach resonates the most with you? Check out the episode to hear how their strategies differ. 

When it’s time to talk about Weird Niche Sites, Spencer goes first with Ling's Cars. From the psychedelic background to Ling’s bobbing head, the site definitely leans into its weirdness.

The owner also uses some unique real-life marketing strategies but doesn’t have a very strong SEO game. Most of its traffic is direct or comes from social media, reaching 84k visitors last month.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he shares the personal website, Tyler Vigen. The section that has gone viral is called Spurious Correlations, where he shows correlations between two completely random things, like Amazon’s stock price and the popularity of the name Stevie.

There’s a very entertaining AI component to this DR74 site, although it’s not ranking for a lot of keywords or getting much traffic, and the owner is not monetizing in any way.

And that brings us to the end of another episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast, where Spencer and Jared break down the latest important news in the sector and seek to motivate listeners with their side hustles.

See you next Friday! 

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week? Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com 

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter 

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Want some help understanding what content and site features Google seems to reward in today's SEO landscape?

Friend of the show, Kyle Roof is back on the Niche Pursuits podcast to help us all make sense of it all.

The last time he was on, he talked all about EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) but now there is also the added E for Experience factor to account for.

And the obvious elephant in the room where recent Google updates have wiped out traffic to tons of sites overnight.

So Kyle brings some much needed insights into what Google prioritizes and timely recommendations for how we can adapt accordingly.

Kyle stresses the importance of showcasing genuine human experience and expertise on our websites, advocating for:

He also discusses how the use of user-generated content (UGC) through site blog comments can potentially be a helpful tool to demonstrate experience and trustworthiness - with a focus on curated blog comments and discussions to validate expertise.

The rise of UGC platforms like Quora and Reddit are also referenced as helping you build a digital footprint of experience as well as enhancing your overall credibility and trustworthiness in your niche.

And there is significant time spent on highlighting the "E" for experience in the HCU update has influenced website rankings, favoring tangible businesses and eCommerce sites that complete transactions on-site rather than acting as the standard 'doorway pages' of the standard affiliate and content sites.

And with Google favoring these websites that facilitate on-site transactions, building Trust becomes a significant challenge for these affiliate sites.

Another important topic discussed is building authority - not necessarily in the standard way of links - although that certainly doesn't hurt - but rather in growing the number of keywords your site ranks for.

Along with this is the importance of updating content and monitoring SERP changes, with tools like Page Optimizer Pro (POP) for their watchdog feature playing particular importance.

This is another excellent interview with Kyle Roof. Don't miss it!

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! Dig into the latest news in SEO, AI, and content creation with Jared and Spencer!

They kick off this week’s episode talking about Google’s March Core Update.

They talk specifically about scaled content abuse and how Google is going in and manually deindexing sites, sharing a study that looked at 79,000 websites on certain ad networks, of which 1146 were deindexed.

Could this be a scare tactic by Google? Is it doing this manually to save its crawl budget? What exactly is going on?

Google updated its quality rater guidelines to ensure that they ding those sites that don’t disclose which articles were written with AI, describing AI-generated articles as the lowest form of content when ti comes to EEAT.

Spencer offers some advice for content creators using AI and says that Google is going after sites with AI-generated content. He does make an important distinction, though. Tune in to hear what he says.

Then they discuss how Google put out an FAQ on “pure spam” manual action notices, but as Jared notices, there is one important thing missing from the post. What is it?

They then move on to a funny news item. John Mueller, one of Google’s Search Liaisons, saw his site get dropped from Google, although it was recently reindexed. It’s not clear why this happened or if it was a stunt, but it’s definitely news!

Spencer and Jared have some encouraging words for listeners about the core update overall, so listen to the episode to hear what they have to say.

Moving along, they announce Mediavine’s new program, Journey, for sites getting around 10k sessions per month. This is a great alternative for people with smaller sites to allow them to get monetized with Mediavine.

As this is a new program, Spencer and Jared have a lot of questions about it and about how it will run, and why it’s being launched now.

Things take a “nerdy” turn afterwards as Jared talks about how Google Search Console has rolled out the new core web vitals. What changes have been made, and what is INP all about?

Moving along, they share that Reddit has announced a new tool for business growth, allowing companies to spot trends, track mentions, monitor post performance, etc. 

The goal is to help brands promote themselves organically, and it could be a good platform to use as people consider diversifying away from Google. Tune in to listen to what Spencer and Jared think about this idea.

And the last item on the agenda is the news that the Associated Press has launched an e-commerce site with product reviews. 

What is so unsettling about this headline for Spencer? What do they say about presidential campaigns, blenders, and multivitamins?

As for Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer gives an update on his Amazon Influencer Program side hustle. He reports that his earnings are steady this month, at $1,600, with no major dips but also no major growth. Jared chimes in with his earnings this month, too!

He also talks about his new premium Niche Pursuits Community, for which he just did an expert call to talk about the program, sharing all of the juicy details about how he built this income stream. 

When it’s Jared’s turn, he talks about adding a new, professionally edited video and thumbnail to his Weekend Growth YouTube channel. 

He also talks about how he’s using SparkLoop to grow his newsletter subscriber list, and after spending +$200, he has acquired +200 subscribers. Tune in to hear all of the details and learn more.

As for their Weird Niche Sites, Spencer goes first and reveals Horse Name Ideas. This weird website has hundreds of categories as well as a name generator, and perhaps what’s most surprising is what he reveals when he looks at Ahrefs.

But when Spencer and Jared discuss the site owner’s photo, the About page, the mission statement, and the contact phone number, what happens? Listen to find out.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he shares Healthy Wage and even reads from its Wikipedia page. This DR60 site is only ranking for 3.6k keywords, but it does have social proof and is very popular.

How can the principles of this page be used by other site owners? Check out the episode to hear what they say.

And that brings us to the end of another episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast. See you all next week for another hour of inspiration and information from Spencer and Jared.

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Wouldn't it be nice to use SEO to grow businesses to 6-7-figure exits within just a year or two?

That's what our latest guest on the Niche Pursuits podcast does.

His name is Dmitry Dragilev, and over the years, he's refined a repeatable process he's used to sell an app, SaaS, and affiliate site to companies like Google and Semrush.

To accomplish this, Dmitry stresses the significance of employing a well-thought-out exit plan and a consistent approach to business growth - particularly through SEO strategies - keyword research, and backlinking techniques.

Dmitry candidly discusses his SEO mistakes over the years, such as targeting incorrect keywords and underestimating the ongoing efforts required to rank high in Google.

He shares some good general advice, like starting with low-volume keywords and gradually progressing to more competitive ones. And emphasizes the importance of niche authority and recommends steering clear of broad topics for enhanced SEO outcomes.

A particularly interesting insight is how he looks for weaknesses in the SERPs - thin pages and those lacking any helpful content for the desired search term.

Drawing from his experience of selling businesses to major companies, he underscores the importance of fostering connections and relationships in achieving business success. And some of the value propositions online businesses should target for better sales terms.

Dmitry also provides valuable insights on pitfalls to avoid when building a business.

Overall, this is a discussion on good practices for SEO and even business more generally. And it's certainly interesting to hear from someone who has experience like his!

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com

Welcome back to the Niche Pursuits News Podcast, everyone! 

This is the podcast for SEOs, content creators, webmasters, and entrepreneurs looking to understand the latest events and get inspiration for their businesses.

It’s been a crazy week in SEO news, so let’s get right into it! And, as Google suggested, you better buckle up as it’s going to be a wild ride!

The first (and only) topic Spencer and Jared dig into is Google’s very big news.

It’s rolling out the March 2024 Spam Update, which will take 2 weeks, as well as its March 2024 core update, which will take about a month. It’s also worth noting that the Helpful Content system is now part of the core updates.

Spencer and Jared discuss this news at length, covering the main aspects: scaled content abuse; site reputation abuse, or parasite SEO; and expired domain abuse. Google’s stated goal is to reduce the amount of low-quality, unoriginal content by up to 40% and send search traffic to helpful and high-quality sites.

What does this all mean? And what does it mean for AI content? Who is Google targeting specifically? 

What cryptic sentence from Google’s announcement does Spencer consider the most interesting? What sort of behavior is Google cracking down on in particular? What types of penalties is Google doling out, and who’s getting hit?

What step did Google announce that leads Spencer and Jared to suggest Google is biased? And what kind of practices are they cracking down on when it comes to expired domains?

They also talk about how Google might start to use a page classifier as opposed to a site classifier. What implications would this have?

Tune in to hear Spencer and Jared discuss Google's latest news and share their thoughts on what's going on.

The next portion of the podcast is Shiny Object Shenanigans. 

Spencer goes first with an update on his Amazon Influencer side hustle. He reports a rough number of his videos and his earnings this month to date. The good news is that he is officially in the black.

He also announces that he’s going to do an in-depth presentation about his Amazon Influencer side hustle for the Niche Pursuits Community, his new, premium membership group, which launched at the beginning of March. 

Spencer will be sharing just about everything, from his storefront to his earnings to his secrets for hiring people. If you want to check it out, join the community before Monday!

When it’s Jared’s turn, he provides a brief earnings update on his Amazon Influencer side hustle, and then digs into another project: using paid ads to drive subscribers to his Weekend Growth newsletter.

He explains how he set it up through ConvertKit, how he’s going to try different ad ideas, and how he is about to go live with the ads. He will be providing more details and results as they come in, so watch this space!

As for Weird Niche Sites, Spencer reveals that his site is getting 2 million organic visitors per month and 6 million visitors in total. Random lets you generate random things, such as numbers, and they do it using a very unique method. Listen to hear what it is!

This DR83 site is making some money. Tune in to hear how they do it.

When Jared’s up, he shares the website for the Stinky Candle Company, which sells unique candles with scents like chlorine, gasoline, and bacon. 

This DR30 site is not getting much traffic, but Jared does reveal a few interesting tidbits about it. It looks like they could be getting 30k visitors a month. With targeted traffic like that, how much might the site be earning? Tune in to hear what they think.

And that concludes another episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast. 

There’s a lot going on right now in Google’s world, so come back next week to hear Spencer and Jared break it down all over again.

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Sean Markey is back on the Niche Pursuits podcast after a few years, to discuss all things newsletters, aged domains, community, partnerships, and more!

Sean's been working in SEO since 2011, initially focusing on affiliate sites before transitioning to agency work. And despite facing challenges due to Google updates impacting his traffic, he found success in the CBD and cannabis niches.

Aside from the actual writing aspects, his expertise lies in using aged domains to scale affiliate sites effectively.

But around 2020 Sean shifted his focus to writing an SEO newsletter called Rank Theory, offering strategy consultations as his primary income source.

And he shares a lot of helpful tips on what he's done to grow it into an actual business.

For one he shares how starting a successful newsletter requires the basics like unique content that resonates with readers and improves over time. And for this, consistency and the value of uniqueness in newsletter content creation are particular keys.

Thus he advises against relying on AI-generated content for newsletters and breaking traditional best practices to stand out.

Sean also shares how he acquired the newsletter TheWeeklySEO.com and integrated it into his own, learning from the experience and discussing it as a growth strategy - similar to acquiring an aged domain.

Sean also discusses the evolution of aged domains, emphasizing quality domains with brand value, sharing how redirect chains may be a thing of the past in today's SEO landscape.

He's also involved in building a community and other partnerships, including discussing some of the keys for making partnerships successful.

With this Sean talks about partnering on a lucrative domain project with high authority and traffic potential, aiming to white-label a product as opposed to taking the traditional affiliate route.

He plans to stay focused on current projects and avoid distractions, leveraging opportunities that target like-minded site builders, entrepreneurs, and SEO enthusiasts and it's definitely interesting to hear his strategies to accomplish this!

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits Podcast!

This week Spencer and Jared turn things up a notch and cover many, many news items in the SEO and content creation space. After that they share their latest side hustles, and finish everything off with a weird niche site analysis. 

You won’t want to miss this one! 

They kick things off by talking about Google Gemini and issues with its image-generating capacities. It turns out that the platform is not very accurate, which has led its stock price to drop recently. 

The core of the problem is that users found that the race of the people it was depicting in its images was not historically accurate and people are asking if the programmers behind the program have anything to do with it. Does Google have an agenda behind its search results? This has led to a lot of debate and controversy and, as a result, Google shut it down temporarily. One person who has been extremely vocal about the Google Gemini debacle is Elon Musk. Spencer and Jared talk briefly about how Musk is leveraging this opportunity to talk about his AI chatbot, Grock, and how he's going very hard against Google on Twitter. The next news item up for discussion is the fact that Google is paying publishers to test out a new, unreleased Gen AI platform. As part of the Google News Initiative, there's a tool that beta testers are using during the next year to publish their stories, and Google is paying them five figures over the course of the year to publish 3 articles a day. What does this reveal about Google’s feelings about AI content? Do the articles need to be labeled as AI-assisted? And does this fly in the face of its antitrust lawsuit?

Moving along, Spencer and Jared report that Vice has announced lay-offs and its plans to stop publishing on Vice.com in search of new traffic sources. Its authors and journalists are scrambling to back up all of their articles in the event that the website disappears. 

Is it letting writers go to replace them with AI? What does their new studio model entail? Why are they giving up on their own website? Tune in to hear Spencer and Jared’s thoughts.

Moving on, it looks like Google is finally rolling out some new Generative AI features for Chrome. Now you can customize Chrome with themes, organize your tabs, and get help writing. What do Spencer and Jared think of these new features?

They talk very briefly about how the NYT filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for revealing the content behind their paywall, and now OpenAI is claiming the NYT hacked the system.

In the next news item, they highlight an article by Glenn Gabe talking about what could happen with the Helpful Content Update.

They highlight another article that did a big study of Google sites and the effect of updates, including the HCU. Spencer reads some of the website attributes that are considered very positive for websites, but check out the article for a more in-depth look.

Lastly, developers are looking into the possibility of adding micropayments to the Chrome browser so users can pay websites or publishers when they browse their content. 

Although this is just an idea and there are no plans for implementation, it does raise a lot of questions. What do Spencer and Jared think? Tune in to hear what they say.

As for Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer talks about his new project, the Niche Pursuits Community, which will be live and open to the public as of March 4th. 

He talks about some of the features, including calls with experts, small mastermind groups, a private Discord channel, and ongoing challenges with monetary prizes.

When it's Jared's turn, he talks about how he recently monetized his weekend growth YouTube channel. He reveals the earnings from the channel: $11.14. 

Although that's clearly not very much, Jared shares a few caveats as well as a positive outlook, since his YouTube channel is generating client work for his agency. 

When it's time to talk about some Weird Niche Sites, Spencer goes first with Next Episode, which lets you keep track of the TV shows and movies you watch and see when the next episodes are. 

This site was going really well, almost reaching 1 million organic visitors per month, but it got hit hard by the HCU and is now averaging less than 200k, according to Ahrefs. 

However, Similarweb shows the site is getting about 3 million visitors per month, in January for example, and the traffic is mainly direct.

When Jared’s up, he shares Jedi Temple Archives, a comprehensive resource dedicated to not just the movies, but also to toys and collectibles. This DR43 site is ranking for over 13k keywords and just 3k in organic traffic, according to Ahrefs.

It’s monetized with ads and affiliate links and a lot of the traffic is direct, and they talk about how much it might be making and what strategies appear to be working.

And that brings us to the end of a jam-packed episode of the Niche Pursuits Podcast. Tune in next week for another thorough run-down of all the latest news, and more.

James de Lacey is a great example of what you can accomplish in the online business space in just a short time.

He's a rugby and strength and conditioning coach who, thanks to Covid, got into SEO and online business out of necessity.

Now he has 2 successful fitness brands, multiple side projects, and is working his way towards 6 figures per month.

He joins us on the podcast to share lots of important insights into brand building, monetization, and more!

A key takeaway from James's insights is the emphasis on creating valuable content to establish authority in the industry.

Thanks to his sports science background, James produces informative and engaging content across writing, podcasts, and videos - including reaction videos and detailed reviews.

He highlights the necessity of demonstrating expertise and trustworthiness in the fitness niche, stressing the importance of outbound links to reputable sources and in-depth analysis as integral components of his content strategy.

In terms of E-E-A-T and the HCU update, he shares strategies that helped him enhance his site's visibility and expertise and shares tips on changes in review titles to improve rankings and create unbranded mentions on other platforms for brand recognition.

James also shares insights into the membership model for stable revenue, highlighting some of the challenges he's experienced along the way. And touches on social media and how Pinterest SEO can still be used to boost impressions.

Overall it's an inspiring discussion with James showing an impressive ability to juggle multiple projects while still managing to maintain quality and consistency.

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast, where Spencer and Jared break down recent events in the SEO, publishing, and niche site space. 

It’s been a very busy week and there’s a lot going on, so sit back, get comfortable, and get ready for a packed episode!

They get things started with a report from Glen Allsopp, which takes a closer look at who’s ranking for affiliate queries at the moment. 

He goes into great detail in his article on Detailed, for which he handpicked product review terms to look at. Who’s dominating organic search for these very valuable affiliate keywords?  

But it’s not as straightforward as that! 

Jared reveals a twist to the plot that’s affecting search results, rendering the results from the dominant ranking website full of spam. 

But what is the definition of spam, exactly? And when a spokesperson for that website denied that the results were poor quality and offered an example of quality search results, what happened?

Is this an overcorrection by Google? Are they aware of what’s happening? Check out the episode to find out all the drama!

Moving along, Spencer and Jared discuss an article that seems to have gone viral about how Google is killing independent sites. 

The article was published on the website Housefresh, which reviews air purifiers and was hit hard by the HCU, and looks at how large publishers are ranking for affiliate keywords with less in-depth content and without actually putting in the work to review the items.

If this trend is glaringly obvious and offers a poor experience for users, why isn’t Google doing anything about it? How did Danny Sullivan respond? 

Is there a silver lining on the horizon? Jared and Spencer have a lot of thoughts on this, so check out the episode to hear more.

Moving along, but closely related, they talk about how Housefresh’s article about Google killing independent sites is, ironically, being outranked by everyone, from Search Engine Land, Twitter, and Reddit, for its own article!

Hear what they have to say about it!

And along the same lines, they share a tweet from Glen Allsopp with the same problem: not ranking for his own article. In short, the smaller guys are getting beat by the bigger guys, for no good reason.

For their last story, Spencer and Jared talk about the big deal that went down between Google and Reddit. Google has agreed to pay Reddit $60 million a year to train its AI models. 

Why is this an important moment for Reddit? By how much would this increase their revenue? But what makes this situation so incredibly ironic? Jared gives a great breakdown of recent events.

When it’s time to talk about their Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer goes first and reveals he’s launching a premium Niche Pursuits community. 

His goal is to create a community where users can connect with each other, discuss what’s happening in the industry, and learn from and bounce ideas off one another.

The group will include weekly expert calls, mastermind groups, group challenges with monetary prizes, among other elements. It will open to the public on March 4th, so check it out!

Jared talks about his Weekend Growth newsletter side hustle, which is now1 year old. He set an initial goal of getting 1000 subscribers in the first 3 months, and 1 year in he has 4600+ subscribers. 

He’s earned slightly less than $40k during that period, from newsletter ads, affiliate earnings, and the services he offers. He offers some great motivational advice for listeners and talks about what has worked for him when building up this side hustle.

Spencer then shares his weird niche site, Let Me Google That, and shares a funny story about how he found the site. He gives a demo of how the site works and recommends sharing the link when someone asks a “silly” question.

Not only does the site sell merch, but Ahrefs says they’re getting 111k organic visitors per month while SimilarWeb calculates a million per month. How much might they be earning per month?

When it’s Jared’s turn, he shares Throx, the cure for the missing sock. What started out as a pitch on Shark Tank many years ago has actually grown to become a popular brand with tweens and teens making $1 million a year. 

That being said, his SEO could be improved and his website is kind of sparse. Are his products expensive? Is this a gag-gift type of product? Hear what Jared has to say.

And that brings us to the end of another great episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast. As always, we hope you’re feeling informed and inspired by today’s jam-packed episode, and we’ll see you next week for more!

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Behdad Jamshidi is a former engineer turned marketing consultant. A few years back, he decided to adapt his problem-solving skills to vet over 700 marketing providers and joins us to share his findings.

Why is this helpful?

He helps businesses understand marketing and marketers understand the business side of things.

In other words, his insights give those looking to hire - helpful tips to make better decisions.

And on the flip side, he helps service providers gain a competitive advantage by better understanding where businesses are directing their marketing budgets.

For those looking to hire, he stresses the significance of understanding business goals before hiring out to an agency's services.

When vetting agencies, he suggests inquiring about their growth story, longevity, and team structure, recommending stable agencies with 5-15 employees or niche agencies with strong pod structures. And he highlights the importance of passionate team members for ensuring quality work and advises building relationships with the team members you'll be working with.

He also explains how marketing trends are shifting toward building brand presence and customer connections. And shares great insights for agencies on how key investment areas are trending toward email marketing, SEO, and influencer marketing. He also highlights content repurposing and social media as increasingly attractive marketing strategies for businesses.

Another interesting area Behdad discusses both for businesses and agencies are the red flags he highlights.

Things like:

Overall, he shares how successful businesses exhibit long-term thinking, have a dedicated marketing budget, and possess internal staff who understand marketing language.

As he covers, marketing is a journey where we need to test strategies and continuously improve over time, and with advice like what's shared in this episode, we can have the confidence we're heading in the right direction.

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter 

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Welcome back to another episode of The Niche Pursuits News podcast, where Spencer and Jared break down the latest and most relevant news for SEOs, content creators, and business owners.

They kick things off by talking about the Helpful Content Update, which was rolled out in September 2023.

There has been lots of chatter of late—in Twitter threads, in Facebook posts, and beyond— where people are looking for signs that recovery from the HCU is possible. 

Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan explains a little bit about the helpful content classifier and how it works, although his explanation certainly gives rise to more questions. 

How does Spencer interpret his explanation? Does he think it’s possible to see a recovery in the short term? Have Jared and Spencer seen any sites make a full recovery? 

What interesting statistics does Jared reference in terms of HCU recoveries? If the classifier is constantly being updated and tweaked, what does that mean for content creators? 

Since no one can truly define what is and isn't helpful content, the big question remains: Is there hope? Listen to Spencer and Jared’s predictions.

The next order of business is the fact that web stories are no longer visible as Google is deprecating the carousel view of web stories in Discover.

What are the two takeaways from this brief news story?

And last but not least, Spencer and Jared talk about the recent news of an upcoming Google algorithm update.

Lots of people have noticed an uptick in traffic as well as volatility, and suspect there might be an update brewing. Have Spencer and Jared noticed anything going on with their sites or the sites they manage? 

Next up on the podcast is the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion. Spencer goes first, but instead of talking about one of his side hustles, he shares an update on the AI content competition underway on Niche Pursuits.

This competition was launched after the HCU and the goal is to grow a new site with AI content. He shares the 4-month leaderboard, and there’s no shortage of interesting things to talk about!

The person leading the pack is getting 24,000 organic visitors to his site with around 7 million articles, and after just 4 months, the top 10 people in the challenge are getting more than 1000 organic visitors per month, which is impressive considering these are fresh domains.

If you want to hear the backstory, check out the full episode and also the Niche Pursuits community.

When it's Jared's turn, he provides an update on his public speaking side hustle, reporting that he has reached out to more than 50 different conferences to see if he can speak. How many did you hear back from? And what did they say? 

He also gives an update on his Weekend Growth YouTube channel, which recently reached the thresholds for monetization. Jared shares his stats as well as some useful advice for YouTube content creators, and reports on how much he's earned to date from that channel. 

When it’s time to reveal their weird niche sites, Spencer goes first with Snow Day Calculator.  This site, which does have a social media following, allows users to calculate the number of snow days according to their zip code and type of school. It also offers predictions of future snow days. 

The DR42 site is monetized with display ads and has a relatively strong backlink profile, thanks to links from news outlets. As it's a seasonal site, the traffic spikes in winter but dies during the rest of the year. 

How much money might it be making during those peaks? And what other clever strategies are they using to earn money? Listen to the episode to find out what Spencer and Jared discover as they poke around.

Things take a morbid turn when Jared reveals his weird niche site, Aerial Ashes, a company that uses drones to scatter people’s ashes over land and sea in the UK.

The site, which is clearly for a local company, is a DR8 and is ranking for just 45 keywords, so it's difficult to say how successful it is. 

However, Jared makes a great point about this section of the podcast: Every day, people are executing on their business ideas and using their skill sets, passions, and hobbies to create something unique. And you can too!

Well, that brings us to the end of another interesting episode! join us next week for a look at all the latest news, and updates from the hosts, more weird niche sites and, above all, lots of inspiration.

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Appsumo founder Noah Kagan joins the podcast today to remind us that we all start small.

Noah's own path to success began by experimenting with various small online niche ventures, a few of which eventually led to the creation of several multi-million dollar businesses. 

He shares his process of experimenting with different ideas to find product-market fit, highlighting some failures along the way, and the valuable lessons they taught him.

But as he mentions - business is the one game where you only need to win once. 

You just need to start to have a chance. 

He acknowledges the importance of time though and urges the rapid validation of ideas, offering solid examples of how to do this efficiently. 

He also shares invaluable advice on generating business ideas and stresses the importance of interaction with people throughout the process.

A key part of his message is the power of asking for what you want, exemplified by starting with small acts like requesting a 10% discount on coffee to help build resilience. 

Some other key takeaways are:

To focus on basics,

Revisit successful tactics,

Employ an experiment mindset,

And persist with what actually works.

By experimental mindset, he means running short experiments, identifying problems as opportunities, and validating ideas through quick tests - offering up concrete examples

He discusses learning the "language of making money" as a skill that fosters financial success over time and underlines the importance of self-belief and action to achieve your goals.

Overall, persistence and consistency are major themes, and Noah advises you to give an idea with potential at least 100 tries before considering quitting.

He also highlights optimism, intelligent risk-taking, and pitfalls to avoid when starting and growing a business - with personal experiences and insights from tested strategies to help you on your journey. 

And don’t forget to check out his book The Million Dollar Weekend for more in-depth insights into his awesome and inspiring success. 

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast!

This is the place to hear the latest news in the SEO and content publishing industries and it’s where Spencer and Jared break it all down. This week, as always, they also share progress on their side hustles as well as two very, very weird niche sites.

The first topic up for discussion is Google’s decision to rebrand Bard as Gemini. Google certainly is putting a lot of effort into building out AI tools, and this will be one of their flagship products. 

What do Spencer and Jared think of the company's decision? And what new features will this tool have? 

The next topic is how Google's updated its SEO Starter Guide.

The guide originally dates back to 2008 And is a guide specifically for beginners. Although there's probably nothing meaty there for people that are familiar with SEO, Spencer and Jared did highlight a few interesting items, in particular, from the section on things you should not do.

What kind of advice did they share? What does Google say about article length? And how about PageRank and EEAT? And what about business cards? 

The last news item they discuss is how Google won't be able to proceed with third-party cookie deprecation. This means that the phasing out of third-party cookies may or may not be delayed as Google has been asked to comply with additional safety requirements in the UK.

This is big news because it could potentially affect content creators’ earnings, Although it's true that advertising is Google's bread and butter and it will likely do everything it can to maintain it, this is definitely a topic you'll want to keep an eye on!

In the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion of the podcast, Spencer goes first with an update on his Facebook traffic side hustle. He was able to reduce the cost of his likes campaign to grow his page. He shares a lot of the data behind the campaigns, but the real question is whether those likes are driving traffic to his website.

Is it working? What does his Google Analytics reveal? And what is he going to do moving forward?

When it’s Jared’s turn, he provides an update on his Weekend Growth YouTube channel, which officially qualifies for monetization. He shares the stats behind his growth and reveals that the site is less than a year old. 

He also offers an update on his public speaking side hustle with an exciting announcement. Check out the episode to hear what it is!

When it comes to weird niche sites, Spencer takes the lead with a very weird site called Is It Friday Yet. According to Ahrefs, the site doesn’t get any traffic, although there is a very entertaining video on YouTube that reviews the website, so tune in to hear more about that.

When it was Jared’s turn, he revealed a 1-page weird niche site: The Office Stare Machine, which lets you input an emotion and it will show stares from Office characters conveying that emotion. They test it out, and the results are pretty funny! 

This DR30 site ranks for just 28 keywords, but it does have 49k likes from Facebook. It doesn’t get a lot of organic traffic, and Spencer and Jared talk about the potential strategies the owner might be using on Facebook. Where does it have the potential to do well?

And that brings us to the end of another great episode of The Niche Pursuits News Podcast. We hope this weekly dose of the latest news has brought you up to speed in the SEO and content creation space and you’re feeling inspired by Spencer and Jared’s side hustles.

See you next Friday!

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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You can probably list loads of reasons why starting a community could be valuable.

And Chris Yates, the founder of Rhodium, is on the podcast to share a BIG reason with his awesome success story.

He talks about his journey of transitioning from owning a digital marketing agency to buying online businesses and eventually founding Rhodium to connect with others in the industry.

He emphasizes the importance of building a community and the benefits it brings:

Chris also highlights the value of community in providing tactical ROI for businesses - like how engaging with a core group of customers with direct feedback can lead to valuable insights and improvements on everything from pain points to pricing.

He gives lots of examples but the stand out is definitely his own experience.

He was offered to buy a business from a Rhodium member for 5 figures thanks to the inherent trust from shared beliefs. He then grew it with help from the community and sold it to another Rhodium member for a multi-7-figure exit.

Overall, this is a discussion that is both a great success story and guide to the benefits of building and nurturing a community of like-minded people in your niche.

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter 

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Welcome back everybody to the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. Join us as Spencer and Jared tackle the latest headlines about Google, SEO, AI, and content creation. 

Get inspired hearing about progress with their side hustles, and learn about some weird niche sites and the unique strategies they’re using.

The first news item up for discussion is Google's own reporting on the future of SGE during its recent earnings call. Although Spencer and Jared have hypothesized in the past that SGE might hit a dead end, this call confirmed Google leadership's commitment to, and belief in, this new tool. 

The company is investing heavily in SGE and expects it to be extremely useful and popular in the future. Spencer underlines the diversity of results using this feature, where the first 10 SGE results are different from the first 10 organic search results, and Jared shares a few highlights from the article about the breadth of search and Google Assistant.

How do Spencer and Jared interpret the CEO’s comments on SGE? What do they think about his comments about long tail searches? What did the company have to say about publishers? And how did its ad revenue perform?

Check out the episode for their take on these questions.

The next topic up for discussion is Google Bard’s ability to now create images. What happened when Spencer played around with it? What happens if you use them on your website? And how good are the photos it generates? See the images it created for Jared and judge for yourself!

The last article they share features a podcast guest, Brandon Salt, who asked for help on Twitter when his traffic tanked. Surprisingly, Danny Sullivan from Google Search Liaison answered him directly and their exchange was highlighted in an article on Search Engine Roundtable.

What do Spencer and Jared think about Danny’s response? Is his feedback useful and do they agree with his comments? What do they say about embedding videos? And what advice do they give to publishers who like to update their article dates each year?

As for their Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer once again spoke about his experiment where he’s to grow his Facebook page and drive that traffic to his website.

How does he run a Facebook likes campaign? What does it cost and entail? He recently launched several campaigns and he shares the results and a little bit about the strategy. 

How many likes does he have at the moment? And how would he use this strategy to get into the Amazon Influencer Program? Listen and find out!

When it's Jared's turn to talk about side hustles, he shares the latest on his efforts to land public speaking gigs. He has discovered that there are more opportunities than he had anticipated and he talks about his plans going forward. 

Both he and Spencer share an update from their Amazon Influencer side hustle. How did they do in January? What do they expect in February?

Moving on to their Weird Niche Sites, Spencer shares his site which, unlike the usual sites he shares, is not a content website. Weather Embed is a SaaS tool with a very simple website that is very niche as it’s specifically for embedding in newsletters. 

Who might use this type of tool? Who might have built this tool? And can it be used beyond newsletters? How do Spencer and Jared think people could use this for their businesses?

He doesn’t know how much they’re making and it barely gets any traffic from Google Search, but it is a very cool, very niche website.

Jared then shares his Weird Niche Site: IMCDB, an internet cars movie database. It’s essentially a Wikipedia of every car that was ever used in every movie.

Although the site is not very user-friendly, it is extremely extensive and includes information and photos about all the cars.

It’s a classic, old-school directory with a DR of 68, it ranks for 95k keywords, and it gets around 32k organic sessions per month. Which keywords are getting the most traffic? What kind of affiliate program is it using? Listen to find out!

And that wraps up another episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast! Thanks for joining us, and we hope that you’re feeling informed and inspired to keep on building, creating, and publishing. See you next week!

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Ready for a masterclass on how to survive and thrive with an AI site in today's Google?

Casey Botticello joins us on the podcast to share how he took an AI site from zero to $21k+ monthly in under a year.

To explain his approach, he dives into all sorts of interesting topics:

Casey shares that AI played a role in content ideation and the generation of article drafts, but how extensive editing and fact-checking were essential before publishing.

He highlights the importance of maintaining high-quality content and strategic planning to avoid appearing AI-generated.

As well as the increasing dangers of obvious optimization and over-reliance on popular keyword research tools.

There's also a discussion on multimedia with some advice that seems to work even in an age where Reddit and other forums are seeing an advantage on Google.

Overall, this is an excellent and actionable look into how to successfully harness

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Welcome back to this week’s episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast, where Spencer and Jared report on all the latest news in SEO. 

It was a busy week, so tune in to hear what’s new at Google and how changes there effect content creators and webmasters. Stay for the latest updates on their side hustles, and don’t miss the weird niche site discussion at the end. 

The first news item is a big one. Based on a post on LinkedIn, there's speculation that Google's SGE might not be rolled out now, or maybe not even at all. That’s obviously great news for SEOs.

Spencer and Jared dissect this news item and try to understand what Google’s future plans are. Are there really going to be changes? What’s behind the gradual shift in the language they’re using? Listen to the episode to hear what they think is actually happening.

The conversation continues to revolve around Google, but the topic shifts to what’s going on behind the scenes there. Another LinkedIn post gives a bit of insight into the company, suggesting that the company has no real leadership and is plowing ahead with AI while slowly killing organic search.

Is Google really done innovating? Does the company need new leadership? Hear what Spencer and Jared have to say about the situation.

The next news item up for discussion is Google’s announcement that its contract with Appen has ended and it has cut thousands of search quality rater jobs. 

Although there was confusion about whether or not Google was getting rid of all of its quality raters, the company confirmed that it’s simply cutting ties with Appen.

How did this news initially come to light? Spencer has the scoop!

The last news item today is that Sports Illustrated’s publisher has laid off most of its union staff. You might recall that SI was busted recently for using fake AI-generated personnel on its website and, as a result, the CEO got fired.

Want to hear more of the drama at SI and with AI and the world of publishing? Listen to the full episode!

In the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion of the podcast, Spencer revisits a website he started about a year ago, the goal being to drive traffic from Facebook. His Facebook page has 45k likes, and he shared the strategy he’s using to get people to his site.

How’s it doing? Does it have potential? What happened when he applied to Mediavine? He shares some Facebook page metrics, including link clicks, and he fields several questions from Jared about his strategy. 

Jared reveals a new and exciting side hustle he’s got in the works: a public speaking side hustle. He’s set a goal for the year to speak at 4 conferences, and he’s already got a few lined up. But what does he hope to earn or achieve from this new side hustle?

When it comes to Weird Niche Sites, Spencer goes first with Let’s Learn Slang, and he looks at a few of the articles and shares their stats from Ahrefs. 

How could the site have established more topical relevance? And what do Spencer and Jared think of the About page? 

Jared then shares his site: Easy Toilet Tips, the number one source for lavatory bias-free reviews. 

The site has a ton of content but hasn’t put a lot of thought or effort into UX. Although it seems like an AI-generated website, Ahrefs reveals that it’s been around longer than that. Traffic peaked at one point, but it was devastated by the HCU.

And that brings us to the end of another episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast. We hope you’re feeling up-to-speed on all the latest SEO news and inspired by Spencer and Jared’s side hustles and general insight.

See you next Friday!

Want some timely tips on how to grow an audience and brand from the ground up?

Jessica Holmes is on the podcast to share the surprisingly unique perspectives she's gained from growing a successful food blog.

Just as a sample:

It all started back in 2014 while juggling a full-time job as a copywriter. Jessica wanted a creative outlet, so she started up her blog sweetestmenu.com.

Initially, she knew nothing about SEO or turning her site into a business so it was a true hobby blog.

She'd promote her content mainly on social media until a pivotal moment in 2016 when she transitioned to an SEO strategy after an audit with Casey Markee.

But this is not your traditional 'SEO' story.

Her content strategy heavily prioritizes the actual reader over any search engine algorithm, and it seems to be working.

For instance, Jessica emphasizes the importance of creating content based on reader demand and feedback rather than the usual keyword research approach.

She looks to the reader, then her own interests, then the season, and then if necessary - a keyword research tool.

She also speaks openly and honestly about the challenges of maintaining a successful food blog, including the need to update old posts and the importance of engaging with the audience and providing excellent customer service.

And the cherry on top is that she does all of this while working 'part-time' on the site!

It really is a wonderful discussion and Jessica has a lot of great advice we could all start testing on our own blogs.

Enjoy!

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Welcome back! We’re here with another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast, where Spencer and Jared highlight what’s happening in SEO, content creation, website creation, and beyond. 

Listen in if you want to hear the latest about Google, SGE, unique side hustle strategies, and some weird niche sites.

The first news item this week that Spencer and Jared discuss is a recent report that says that Google’s results are getting worse. It’s based on a year-long study of product review queries.  

How did Google respond? What exactly did the study assess to come to this conclusion? And what do they consider “low quality?” Spencer and Jared have many thoughts on this topic, so tune in to find out whether they think it’s legit or not.

The next topic up for discussion is Google’s SGE. A recent article states that 94% of Google SGE links are different from organic search results. So now we have about 10 links in the SGE results plus another 10 from organic search and most are not the same. 

What does this mean for publishers? Is this good news or bad news? How does this affect you if you’re ranking first in the organic results but have an SGE pack ahead of you? And what does this mean for you if you’re not appearing in organic results? Are there 2 different standards at play here?

Talk about Google SGE continues when Spencer and Jared discuss an article about the impact of SGE by industry, which reveals that the sector most impacted by the SGE is healthcare as those queries have triggered the most responses. In contrast, finance is at the bottom of the list.

What’s interesting about the difference in performance between these YMYL niches? And what conclusions do Spencer and Jared come to as they analyze the SGE performance statistics by industry? 

As for Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer goes first and talks about his new YouTube channel, where all of his podcast episodes will now live. Although he was initially worried that people wouldn’t be able to find the channel, he was pleasantly surprised to see that the first episode published there got over 1200 listens in just over 24 hours.

With over 350 subscribers already, Spencer’s confident that he made the right decision to separate the channels and that people will still be able to find the podcast episodes.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he talks about a strategy he’s using for his Weekend Growth newsletter that’s allowing him to increase his agency business by providing a new service. Essentially it’s a side hustle on top of a side hustle! It’s definitely an idea that anyone with their own email list and business can adapt to their niche.

He also gives an interesting update on the Amazon Influencer Program and his family. Check out the episode to hear the latest developments.

When it comes to Weird Niche Sites this week, Spencer comes with a sub-niche of a niche with his site: The Arcade Stick. Arcade sticks can be customized and plugged in just about anywhere. The site, which is just a DR8, could be getting around 100k visitors per month, which is pretty interesting considering how niche it is, plus It’s monetized on Mediavine.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he shares a site called Emoji Combos. Although it’s in beta, it still works perfectly. This DR43 site ranks for 140k keywords and gets over a million organic visits per month. 

What unique keywords is it ranking for? How is the site monetized? And how much money do they think the site is making per month?

And that brings us to the end of another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. Now you’re caught up on all the latest SEO news and, hopefully, you’re feeling inspired and motivated to continue to work on your side hustles.

See you next Friday! 

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Amy Aitman, the COO of Venture Fourth Media, joins us on the Niche Pursuits podcast to share her journey from a freelance writer to leading a prominent media company.

Venture 4th Media manages around 150 websites with a massive writing and editing team of subject matter experts.

And Amy is an open book regarding the operational insights and challenges that have come along with this experience.

For one, over the years, she has been involved with hiring 500+ writers and thus has seen it all.

To build a quality team, she emphasizes the importance of a thorough hiring process and how advantageous, particularly in the age of AI, it can be to have writers and editors with genuine expertise, opinions, and passion in their niche to 'talk shop'.

As she mentions, it's what can separate us from AI.

She highlights her operational approach of going slow to grow fast - making rational, data-driven decisions every step of the way.

So, she also gets into Venture 4th Media's strategies for diversifying content and brand building, including adding email marketing, newsletters, podcasts, and Twitch campaigns to their sites.

And with so many sites under management, Amy has some valuable thoughts about the Helpful Content Update, including how the company is navigating the aftermath, how they're evaluating content, and prioritizing growth opportunities.

Overall, Amy is a great source of optimism. Her tips and experience are invaluable. And her insights into the evolving landscape of content creation and audience engagement are sure to help site operators of all levels. Enjoy!

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Hello, and welcome to the latest episode of The Niche Pursuits News podcast!

Spencer and Jared are back this week to bring you all the latest happenings in the world of SEO and to break the news down. There’s a lot to talk about, so let’s get started!

The first topic of discussion is the latest article in The Verge about Google. 

According to the article, content creators and website owners have essentially created their websites with Google in mind, with the result that they all look and feel the same. As a result, Google has shaped how we build our websites. 

Do Spencer and Jared believe that the article’s premise is accurate? Is there too much homogenization going on? Should we really be preparing people-first content? And what about the use of Reddit in content creation?

They also talk about the response from Danny Sullivan, sharing a particularly thought-provoking tweet from the Google Search Liaison about “chasing the algorithm,” EEAT, and the “perfect” page formula.

The last news item they cover is an article about Google's efforts to combat spam. There are still a lot of spammy results in the SERPs and Google reports that it's aware and is working on the situation. Spam is a huge problem, and it's only increasing with the rise of AI. Google certainly has its work cut out for it! 

When it's time for the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion of the podcast, Spencer kicks things off by explaining that he's going to put all of his podcast videos on a new YouTube channel going forward. 

But what are the reasons behind his decision? And is he going to move existing videos to the new channel?

When it's Jared's turn, he wants to continue to grow his Weekend Growth newsletter, but he flips the script this week. Instead of talking about his future plans, he asks for Spencer's input on new actions he can take. They have a productive brainstorming session with several interesting ideas!

As for this week's weird niche sites, Spencer shares a directory site for dude ranches. His site this week is a little bit different in that he knows the backstory because he discovered it on Twitter. 

He shares the interesting story behind the site, which has excellent visuals and branding and makes money through its paid listings.

Jared’s weird niche site is certainly a sight to behold: Dogica. This DR12 site ranks for 10k keywords, including lots of first-page rankings. He and Spencer agree that the very old-school design might be holding it back, plus it doesn’t seem to be on top of many modern monetization methods, although it does offer a dog rental service.

And that brings us to the end of another episode of The Niche Pursuits News podcast. 

We hope that we helped catch you up to speed on all the latest news in SEO, website development, and content creation. See you next Friday!

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Will Hatton, founder of thebrokebackpacker.com, shares his remarkable journey and true entrepreneurial spirit with us on the latest episode of the Niche Pursuits podcast.

At 18, he embarked on a journey, spending two and a half years in India with almost no money. This was where his entrepreneurial journey began, selling items collected during his travels back home in England.

He initially started The Broke Backpacker as an email list, later evolving it into a site in 2013 focusing on budget travel information.

Will's travel experiences in less touristy countries like Iran and Pakistan led to unique content that when combined with his outreach efforts, attracted media attention and high-profile backlinks.

He began earning income from sponsored posts and later ventured into small group tours, providing a cash injection to go all in scaling the website and team.

The site gained immense popularity, reaching 1.5 million unique users a month before COVID caused a significant setback.

But despite some struggles and his carefree demeanor, Will Hatton proves to be a wizard in his entrepreneurial pursuits.

He discusses his strategies for brand building, systematizing his content needs for maximum results, and following through to reach his goals.

He covers the importance of building real relationships with affiliates, managing the team and content creation process, updating old content, and addressing the impact of Google updates on their approach to content creation.

Will also shares his plans for the future, including focusing on the backpacker lifestyle, launching a podcast, and expanding his coworking hostel brand in Bali.

If you're interested in hearing from a truly memorable entrepreneur with a lot of interesting stories and helpful insights - this one's for you!

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Welcome back everybody to the first Niche Pursuits News Podcast of 2024! 

Jared and Spencer kick off the year with another great episode, offering a close-up look at all the news in the SEO, AI, and website creation world.

This week they start off discussing the Google update on New Year’s Eve, with people noting volatility in the SERPs and even upticks in traffic in a reversal of the effects of the HCU.

How difficult is it to gauge SERP changes that happened around the holiday period? What changes in traffic has Spencer noted on Niche Pursuits between December and January? Listen to find out their thoughts.

The next topic Spencer and Jared cover is The New York Times’ announcement that it’s suing OpenAI and Microsoft.

Millions of articles from the NTY were used to train the OpenAI model, and a lot of the content that was used was behind a paywall. Meanwhile, the media outlet spends millions of dollars to have professionals write and produce its content, and now OpenAI is using that information freely and making it available to everyone. 

Notably, this includes information from The Wirecutter, with the result that the NYT isn’t collecting the affiliate commissions. 

But what’s at the heart of this lawsuit? Could this set a precedent for how copyright law is interpreted? Does the media company have a strong case? Tune in to hear the discussion.

Still on the subject of OpenAI, Spencer and Jared talk briefly about its offer to pay publishers between $1 and 5 million in compensation for their content. They agree that it’s far less than what publishers should get, especially considering that the NYT could be earning over 2 billion a year.

What’s going to happen moving forward? Can AI be contained at all?  

Google seems to be moving ahead with, and making changes to, Bard, and now it’s going to implement its Google Assistant with Bard. Bard will power the Assistant to make it smarter and to make better recommendations. But how will this affect content creators?

In other Google Bard news, a paid version of the tool is coming, which hasn’t even been announced officially by Google. How was the move to a paid model discovered? And how might the payment plans work? Listen to hear Spencer and Jared’s predictions.

In the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion of the podcast, Spencer talks about his year-long experience in the Amazon Influencer Program. He made $6179 in December, and his entire revenue for the year is $17k+. Although he officially started in January, it took him a while to ramp up video production.

What is Spencer’s plan moving forward? Listen to hear what he has in store and why he’s approaching his side hustle in this way.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he shares some surprising stats from his Amazon Influencer Program side hustle. Although his December numbers were good, coming in at $4026, his November earnings were higher. Overall, for the year he earned $18k+ and although he started in May, he took a different approach to video production than Spencer.

He also talks about progress with his Weekend Growth newsletter and YouTube channel and how he has finished the year with just under 4.5k subscribers. He shares some of his monetization methods as well as his inspiration for starting this side hustle.

As for the Weird Niche Sites of the week, Spencer goes first with an Online Stopwatch, a simple website with a free stopwatch and countdown timer. It has ads everywhere and also offers a premium paid stopwatch feature. Who might this type of subscription appeal to? 

With 2.2 million organic visitors per month, according to Ahrefs, and double that according to SimilarWeb, could this site be generating around $50k per month in ad revenue?

Jared’s Weird Niche Site is National Today, which highlights the current holidays around the world. This DR81 site ranks for 1.4 million keywords and has organic traffic of 4.4 million, but what does Jared discover when he scrolls down the homepage? What type of content are they publishing? Don’t miss their thoughts on this ultra-successful site.

And that brings us to the end of another episode of the podcast. We’re hoping you feel up-to-speed on the latest happenings in the industry, excited to start your side hustle today, and inspired by some weird websites that are killing it online.

See you next week!

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Want some expert help reaching your online marketing goals?

Authority Hacker co-founder Gael Breton is back on the podcast to shed some light on the ever-changing SEO landscape.

Google's Helpful Content Update (HCU) had a big impact on many niche sites, and so Gael dove into the data to decode what is and isn't working to share some pretty surprising insights with us.

He first discusses the evolution of SEO practices, emphasizing the challenges of creating content based solely on search intent and the need for more user-friendly and engaging content.

And he has some great examples of sites doing this that have grown traffic by as much as 2000+% despite the updates.

These aren't your typical niche sites publishing 3000-word 'SEO' articles based on what existing articles say.

They're doing real reviews, including tons of visual content to be more like a 'comic book', and being rewarded for it.

The role of YouTube and social media in building credibility and trust with real people is also discussed, and Gael emphasizes the increasing importance of transparency and identity in your online presence.

Of course, the impact of user-generated content (UGC) on Google is also discussed, including probable future changes in the SERPs and potential effects on site traffic.

Overall, it's an important discussion about the online marketing business model, its ongoing evolution, and what we should all likely be doing to adapt, overcome, and ultimately succeed.

Enjoy!

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Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast! 

This week Spencer and Jared decided to do things a little bit differently. As the year is coming to a close, they decided to talk about the 3 top Niche Pursuits podcast episodes for 2023, as well as their personal favorites.

Spencer explains how he collected the data to determine which episodes were the most listened to this past year, and then they kick off the episode by talking about the third most listened-to podcast, which was the interview with Grady Hudd.

Grady grew his niche site to $9k per month in 2 years with no SEO experience. Spencer and Jared talk about why they think this was such a popular podcast. Grady’s relatability was probably key, and it’s likely that many beginners connected with his situation.

The second most listened-to episode was Forrest Webber, who talked about how he grew his portfolio to $40k a month after replacing rental properties with websites. They talk about his story, the important mindset shift that brought him so much success, and how he scaled his business.

The most popular podcast for the year was with Shelly Marmour, a travel blogger who grew her monthly income from $700 to $52k per month in 1 year with affiliate SEO. Shelly’s story was also relatable and inspirational, as many people could probably identify with where she was in the beginning and were interested to see how she grew her business so incredibly. 

Then Spencer and Jared share their favorite episodes of 2023.

Jared’s favorite was Cyrus Shepard’s episode on internal link building and he described the interview and the information shared as incredibly succinct and easy to understand. The episode was packed with actionable tips and insightful details about internal linking based on a data-heavy study that Cyrus did, and he talks about everything from Link Whisper to link sculpting.

Spencer’s favorite was how Kevin Espiritu grew his gardening site from $400 per month to 8 figures per year, which is also a story that most people can relate to. He started out like most of us, building his site back in 2016, and today he’s making over $10 million per year. 

He did it by growing his website first, then his YouTube channel and his social media channels, and then he launched his own products. What Spencer and Jared especially like about this episode is his approach to plateaus in his business and how he acquired another website and merged the two into a massively successful brand.

And that brings us to the end of this episode of Niche Pursuits News and the end of another year of Niche Pursuits podcasts that seek to motivate, educate, and inspire. 

Here’s to another year of learning from one another and to a very successful 2024!

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Kurt Schmidt is an extremely successful site owner who is back on the podcast to discuss all sorts of traffic and content-related topics.

Kurt is the owner of a portfolio of Disney-focused sites generating HUGE amounts of traffic.

He is a true expert in Google Discover and other alternative traffic sources. And with all the Google updates, there's perhaps no better time to pick his brain.

One of the big changes he's made this year is shifting focus from prioritizing page views to user engagement metrics like time on page, highlighting the importance of engaging content.

Ingrained in all of his sites is the importance of balancing tried and true, evergreen topics with up-to-date, trending, and conversational content.

His team does a great job of creating content fast for the newsy topics in the niche as well as long-term organic traffic.

There was even a period when they were publishing 90 articles a day, but at such a scale comes issues of quality control and fact-checking.

So, Kurt offers up a ton of wisdom on solutions that will interest and help site owners of all sizes.

For instance, creative ways to tackle the same topic in fresh and unique ways, tips on AI, as well as various new traffic sources to pursue.

Overall, Kurt gives us yet another insightful look into online publishing, with awesome tips and strategies to help you get more traffic and make more money.

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter 

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhi... 

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201crea... 

Welcome back, Niche Pursuits fans, to another episode of the podcast. As always, Spencer and Jared cover the latest news in SEO, AI, Google, and everything content creators and website owners need to know.

This week they kick off the show talking about how Google has been discussing its plans to get rid of third-party cookies for a long time now. The underlying argument is that consumers in the UK, Canada, Europe, and increasingly in the US don't like the idea of Google collecting all of their private data, which is then used for advertising purposes. The main issue is privacy.

But Google has finally announced its plans to really truly get rid of them and it all begins on January 4th. The roll-out is going to be gradual and may be completed by the end of 2025.

The big questions are how will this impact advertisers and website owners? Will display ads decrease? Will RPMs decline? Does this have a connection to the anti-trust suit? At the moment, it's really a speculation game, but tune in to hear what Spencer and Jared think might happen.

Then the conversation shifts to a tweet from Jake Ward, about how he stole millions in traffic from a competitor by using AI to write articles based on all of his competitor’s keywords. The tweet was essentially a marketing ploy to promote his AI tool, and it went viral.

The bad news is that his tweet was seen by Google and his site was hit with a manual penalty because of copied content. Traffic tanked as a result.

Why did Google penalize his website? What alternative strategy does Spencer suggest? Does the fact that it’s AI content factor into their decision? Has Google changed its position on AI content? What are the general takeaways from this story? Listen to hear what Jared and Spencer think.

The conversation shifts to the ever-changing landscape of artificial intelligence and offers an overview of the changes that Google has had to implement since OpenAI appeared on the scene.

They discuss spammy results and the future of spammy AI content as well as the role brands play in ranking. 

In the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion of the podcast, Spencer reports that his Amazon influencer side hustle is going really well. So well, in fact, that he has seen massive earnings in the month, including some $500 days. During the last 30 days, he earned $6800+.

Although he hasn't uploaded any videos since last week, he does have additional videos ready to go and is hoping to break $7k in the next few days.  

Jared shares his experience with the program recently, and he’s seen his 30-day rolling total at slightly under $6k and expects to be under $5k for the month of December. Although he killed it on Black Friday, his earnings have been lower this past month. 

Also, something “happened” to his star product that had been driving the bulk of his earnings until now. Listen to the episode to hear what he discovered, and hear what he and Spencer plan to do with the program next year.

Moving onto their weird niche sites, Spencer shares Elfster, Which is a website and an app that helps you conduct Secret Santa gift exchanges. It can also recommend gifts, which allows it to make money from affiliate sales and sponsored product placements.

He shares its highly seasonal traffic graph from Ahrefs, with 1.5 million organic visitors in December 2022, and appears to be trending up. The rest of the year, they’re still getting incredible traffic and are a multi-million dollar business. Listen to the episode for more details.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he shares Campsite Photos, a site he uses often. You can enter just about any campsite in the US and check out photos so you can decide if it’s the right fit. 

You can answer questions like if it’s flat or not, if your trailer would fit, etc. and is incredibly helpful if you’re into camping. This DR43 site is ranking for 119k keywords, and has organic traffic of 150k, according to Ahrefs.

The site is monetized with ads, and it offers a service where it finds you a campsite if the one you want is booked. Check out the episode to hear more observations about Jared’s weird site!

And that brings us to the end of another great episode. We hope you’re feeling inspired and informed, and don’t forget to come back next week so they can bring you up to speed on the latest happenings.

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Prolific site owner James Dooley joins the podcast to give a masterclass into the rank and rent business model.

This is where you rank a website and rent it out to a local business seeking inbound inquiries.

It's an approach that has helped him become a millionaire many times over.

And with over 14 years of experience and over 850 paying sites in 650 niches, he has lots of important advice site owners of all types need to hear.

In general, he emphasizes the importance of having a strategy for your site.

For the rank and rent model, in particular, he suggests starting with a broad domain and creating industry-related content to attract traffic and engagement.

He believes traffic and behavioral signals are key ranking factors. And with this ranking site, you can engage local businesses to understand their needs and discover the most profitable subtopics within the industry.

This strategy involves building location-specific pages targeting niche keywords, using various on-page optimization tools, creating a diverse backlink profile, and foundational links like citations, a social fortress, and internal linking.

As you can imagine, there is a lot of overlap with building affiliate marketing content sites, and the conversation covers the similarities and differences between these types of sites.

James also has a lot of important advice regarding maximizing the profits of all kinds of sites, common mistakes found, and easy solutions.

Overall, this is a dive into the rank and rent model, with valuable insights and strategies all site owners can benefit from. Don't miss it!

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

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Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Welcome back, Niche Pursuits News fans, to the latest episode of the podcast, where Spencer and Jared break down the most recent events in SEO, website development, and content creation into bite-size pieces.

Get ready for their insightful analysis and actionable tips and, as always, a good dose of inspiration for your businesses.

It’s another episode of the podcast and another opportunity to talk about Google completing, yet again, another of its updates. The November Reviews Update has officially concluded, after about 5 weeks.

Spencer and Jared talk about the extended duration of recent updates and what this might mean for sites impacted by the HCU. 

Will these updates be baked into larger updates in the future? What should content creators who do a lot of product reviews do moving forward? And what happens to you in future updates if your site has been deemed “ unhelpful?” Check out the episode to hear their thoughts.

For a bit of good news, they then talk about how Google’s How-To rich results seem to be returning to Search. Check your Google Search Console to see if you’re getting any clicks and look for ways to optimize it.

Moving along, the next topic is parasite SEO and the fact that reviews are currently appearing on Harvard University’s official website. GoogleLiaison’s Danny Sullivan recently tweeted that Google is aware of this and taking appropriate measures, but still, this raises questions.

If Google previously positioned sites based on their link profile and pagerank, the algorithm no longer works when authoritative sites start publishing review content unrelated to their topical authority and ranking on page one, so how do they fix this? Spencer and Jared discuss a few ideas.

The next order of business is Google’s new AI Studio, a web-based tool for developers to allow them to create Gemini-based chatbots. Jared turns to ChatGPT to find out more about how it works, and they both brainstorm about how they might use it. Tune in for some clever ideas! 

Moving on to the Side Hustle Shenanigans, Spencer and Jared both have exciting updates on their Amazon Influencer Program performance. Spencer reports that he’s published over 1000 videos and has already earned over $5.5k for the month.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he reveals that he’s earned over $6200 for the month so far, and shares some details about which video is bringing in the most commissions. They both talk about their ideas for strategies going forward, as well as the importance of just getting started.

When it comes to Weird Niche Sites, Spencer kicks things off with Keep The Score, a very professional-looking DR40 website that lets you keep score of any type of competition you have going on. Traffic could be between 28k (Ahrefs) and 195k (SimilarWeb) per month. 

They talk about some of the site’s unique features, what keywords are driving the traffic, and how it’s earning money.

Jared reveals his site, Belt Checker, for Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioners. You can create a profile and then enter all of your information like competition history and belt promotions, you can track your injuries, and much more. This DR46 site ranks for over 10k keywords and has over 18k indexed pages, so it’s a pretty solid website.

How many users does it have? Was it affected by the HCU? Was the site built for SEO? And, perhaps most importantly, what can we learn from it?

You get all this and more when you listen to the latest episode of the Niche Pursuits News podcast, so don’t miss this one! 

See you all next week when Spencer and Jared tackle new topics and offer even more ideas you can apply to your own projects.

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter 

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhi... 

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201crea... 

Brock Yates joins the Niche Pursuits podcast to share his journey of acquiring and growing the website AllTurtles.com.

He acquired the site on Flippa in 2012 for $3,000.

At purchase, the site was a forum with 80,000 pages with thin content about specific turtle species, generating $60 per month.

This all presented a whole new world for him, as he had zero prior SEO and site-building experience.

Fast forward to today and AllTurtles peaks at 150-180,000 page views per month, earning mid-five figures a year.

Brock attributes much of the site's success to its history, branding, well-rounded content, and some link juice from a large brand's fun little PR confusion he describes.

He's largely taken a hands-off approach to content production but still manages to produce quality content. Which he emphasizes is the result of hiring good researchers if you can't access subject matter experts.

It's interesting to hear about his mostly outsourced content creation model and his strategy for hiring writers through Upwork.

And its especially interesting to hear how affordable his writing team is, which has stuck with him over a long term.

He also shares insights on content monetization strategy, primarily relying on Mediavine and Amazon Associates, with a 90-10 split in revenue. And Brock highlights how he maximizes ad revenue through content structure and layout, highlighting the importance of ad impressions and reader experience.

He finishes things off with his plans for maintaining the site's stability and growth, including potential future strategies such as video content, email list building, and improving reader engagement. Enjoy!

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Hey everybody, welcome back to the latest episode of the Niche Pursuits Podcast. 

Like they do every week, Spencer and Jared cover the latest happenings in the Google, SEO, and content creation space so you can feel informed and make the best decisions for your business.

The first news item they discuss is a tweet from Barry Schwartz noting that Danny Sullivan and John Mueller from Google had deleted some of their previous tweets about the Helpful Content Update.

What does this mean? 

The HCU is not being rolled back, but what would lead them to delete their previous tweets? Is there a glimmer of hope for the people affected by the update? Is the potential December update actually a “rollback?” Or are we all reading too much into this? Spencer and Jared have a few thoughts to share on the subject.

The next topic is Google’s new update, Gemini Pro, which is already rolled out into Google Bard. A ChatGPT competitor, this is an advanced multimodal AI model that will be part of the Google Search experience very soon. 

Jared and Spencer talk about how Gemini and SGE are actually in conflict with what Google wants and show a few examples. What happens when Spencer pokes around to test Gemini out? What are the implications and how will this look going forward? Listen to hear what they think!

The next news item is how there are continuous leaks of information and tidbits of Google’s strategy that have been coming out as the company faces its major anti-trust lawsuit. 

Most recently, an article was published that offers a ton of insight into how Google works behind the scenes. Spencer and Jared share a few of the highlights, like Google’s many ranking signals, the use of keywords, how websites are rated and tested, and the Navboost system. 

Listen to the tidbits that surprised them in the super-detailed article.

Moving on to the side hustles, Spencer gives an update on the Amazon Influencer Program. He has 967 videos live and he shares a screenshot for over $3k in earnings for the last 30 days.

He talks about the cost of outsourcing his videos, and he and Jared talk about whether they think earnings are up because of the holidays or if this upward trend will continue.

In the ongoing competition between the hosts, Jared talks about reaching the 1000-video mark and his most recent earnings from the program, $4600. This is a great performance for a side hustle he started just a few months ago.

He and Spencer talk about the enormous possibilities of this side hustle and share an inspiring story of a podcast listener who earned $11k in November from the program and started in July!

The big picture message is that there are lots of side hustles out there that anyone can start and potentially earn life-changing money if they’re willing to put in the work.

Spencer then goes on to share his weird night site, which may very well be someone’s side hustle: Flpbk.io. 

This cool, little website lets you submit a 1-minute video and they will turn it into a flipbook and send it to you. 

Although this website ranks for 0 keywords and only gets about 17k visitors per quarter, which is probably direct traffic and social. That being said, if the traffic is targeted, the website could be quite profitable.

Jared shares his weird niche site next: Celebrity Cutouts, where you can buy masks, large heads, and life-size cut-outs of your favorite celebrities.

This DR28 site is doing pretty well, ranking for 47k keywords and getting 17.5k a month in traffic. They discuss how it’s most likely a print-on-demand business and encourage listeners to take advantage of the holiday sales to buy loved ones cutouts of their favorite celebrities.

And that brings us to the end of another episode of the Niche Pursuits Podcast. Hopefully, this episode inspires you to start that side hustle and keeps you informed of the latest SEO news.

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Today on the podcast, founder of Blackjack Apprenticeship Colin Jones shares his journey from being a professional blackjack player to building a successful online brand.

He's built both a popular website and YouTube channel for his business and combined, they help him bring in 7 figures per year.

He joins us to share a ton of actionable tips based on his own experience.

Initially, he focused on search engine optimization (SEO) for his website, but soon realized the power of video in boosting traffic and engagement. So he began creating high-quality videos for his landing pages, resulting in increased traffic and click-through rates.

Over time, Colin realized he'd have to approach YouTube differently, shifting his focus from ranking in search results to creating content that would engage and retain viewers.

Thumbnails and the first 30 seconds of a video capture viewers' attention and encourage them to continue watching. And to attract viewers, Jones split tests thumbnails, comparing the process to marketing a movie, with the thumbnail acting as the movie poster and the first 30 seconds as the movie trailer.

But he also emphasizes several times - the importance of watch time and delivering value throughout the entire video.

And maintaining quality and value throughout the entire video is essential for retaining viewers' attention.

Understanding the audience and their interests is key to creating compelling video content. Researching successful YouTube videos in the same niche can provide insights and inspiration for creating engaging content.

And Colin shares a bunch of great tips, some of which may surprise you.

For instance how audio quality and lighting trump camera quality.

Short-form content, such as YouTube shorts and TikTok videos, can also be a valuable addition to a video strategy and attract new subscribers.

Monetizing that audience isn't always easy though.

And Colin emphasizes the importance of having a valuable product and creating content that speaks to the ideal customer. Video is found to be more effective in building trust and likability compared to written word alone.

The goal is to provide value through YouTube videos and gradually lead viewers to the website (in a non-salesy way). On the website is where the more sales-focused videos can be found. Even showing how embedding videos have helped his SEO with an increased time on page and EEAT.

Colin even shares how camera-shy people can make use of YouTube to grow their business, such as using voice narration with B-roll or partnering with experienced YouTubers.

Overall, Colin Jones shares a masterclass in how to leverage video to boost traffic and engagement with your business. By focusing on watch time, delivering value, and understanding your audience, you can create compelling content that grows your audience and business.

Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter

Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links? Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper

Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative