Connor Brooke
I’ve recently been hearing about a number of major players in the AdSense and Niche blog business losing their Adsense accounts.
The consensus of opinion seems to be that one of the reasons for the AdSense accounts being closed is that google doesn’t like people who set out to earn lots of money from AdSense revenue by creating hundreds of niche blogs.
For a change I can actually see their point, from experience I know that once you start getting a lot of sites you struggle to keep them updated and fresh. That’s not to say that Micro sites don’t have a place, after all I still have a lot of 3 , 4 and 5 page sites but I do think that maybe you should carefully consider what you build in the future.
What I want to discuss today is which is better Micro Niche sites or Authority sites, … I say discuss because I want your views on this.
I wan’t to be as impartial as possible and I’ll put forward the pro’s and cons for each type of site. For the purposes of this I am going to call any site with less than 10 posts a Micro Niche site.
What is a Micro Niche Site?
Essentially a Micro Niche Site is a site that is quick and easy to create, You build it , get some backlinks and then move on to the next site the process is as follows
- Find a keyword with 1000+ searches a month.
- Find & buy exact match domain.
- Create or outsource some content
- Build backlinks
- Move on and repeat 100′s of times
- After that you sit back and hope that it makes a few dollars a day on each site
Micro Niche sites are quick and easy to build and you can take a shotgun approach if you wish. Generally speaking they will make you money and you’ll generally recover your costs in a few months. They can be easily scaled up, by outsourcing all the processes to cheap overseas workers.
Nobody should ever pretend that that Micro niche sites are built for any other reason but to make money and I think that this is why google doesn’t like them. Micro Niche sites should be looked on as a short term strategy, they still work but I do feel that they may soon struggle to be as effective as they were.
What Is an Authority Site
An Authority site is a site that has a lot of content, is frequently updated and focusses on a much broader niche than micro sites (think of the difference between a pamphlet and a magazine). You need to regularly update them and you should try to connect with your readers.
Find a group of 3-10 keywords with a large number of searches these are your main categories.
Find a generic domain name or brand type name you can use
Launch the site with 10 or more pieces of content in place
Post Content regularly and target every keyword in that niche
Build links to each post and have a social media strategy that you apply to each piece of content
Focus on a core of 5 -10 sites.
Authority sites are a long term strategy and take time and effort to get established, with a low number of sites you do run the risk of being more affected by any algorithm changes. However by building a list of subscribers and a strong Social media presence for each of your authority sites you can eventually become pretty much immune to Googles changes.
Building Authority sites does give you the ability to target every keyword in a niche over time, the main difference between them and Micro niche sites is that you would build a Micro niche site around “Dog Training Collars” but an Authority site around “Dog Training” and within the authority site you would plan to have 1 or 2 articles about Dog Training Collars at some point.
Authority Or Micro Niche Sites?
From a personal point of view I am now focusing on authority style sites, some of which are former Micro sites that I am upgrading and expanding. But I really want to hear your views on this debate as I do feel it’s extremely important and something that we all should be paying attention to.
Do you think that Google wants to kill off Micro Niche sites either now or in the Future
Should you have a Mix of Authority sites and Micro niche sites?
Is Authority Sites the best way forward?
Should we just do what we want and ignore Google?
Let me know what you think?
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Connor Brooke.
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Hi Mark, thank you for writing this. I went on an internet marketing bootcamp last July where the guy running it makes about $100K online each month. He took us through the process of creating NICHE AUTHORITY SITES – I just didn’t realise it until I read your post! From another course I’m on right now, they agree totally that the real money is in the backend of the marketing system and so, in the list. I agree with what you say about micro-niche sites being a short-term solution – it’s good to think about the long-term potential of the site so that it can be a source of income for years to come. Cheers.
David, You are 100% correct the backend is what makes an online business profitable
Hi Mark, thanks a lot for this great article about MNS Vs AS. Tweeted! I am also going to curate this if you don’t mind. I do prefer AS nowadays but MNS are good too. There is no reason why you cant turn your MNS into an AS later on if you wanted to. I have a tutorial on how to build MNS on my blog: http://www.get-money.org/how-to-build-micro-niche-websites/
I happened across this interesting page after searching for ideas for speeding up the process of creating an authority site. In my view any site is a “niche” site, whether it’s authority or not, simply because unless you are FoxNews you can’t possibly be an authority in everything! So the question you are asking with this article is a good one and I tend to agree with your leaning towards Google’s decision as being reasonable and understandable. I feel the same way, that millions of sites about tiny micro niches, purely designed and built for making money, are not what Google’s core business model is about, and therefore it makes sense that they would delist or punish those sites as time moves forward.
After all, Google wants to present the BEST QUALITY content to its users, and by definition a MNS (which I had never heard of til I read this page!) is not designed to be USEFUL, nor to offer unique genuine and heartfelt comment on a subject for readers.
To my mind, if you want to offer people REAL value, REAL quality information, Google will gladly send visitors your way since it is fulfilling its goal of connecting search traffic with usable results they are looking for.
Interesting debate, but I would have to vote for authority site every time, and this means a real understanding and involvement in the niche concerned, which needs to have a long term approach too.
That’s my 2 cents :)
Thanks for this analysis. Been debating this for the past three days as I begin selecting a niche to start with and depth/breadth of it for my first site. I did Adwords with direct linking before and would like to use my expertise in Sales/Communication, etc. to create high quality videos with added text posts and visitor comments and feedback. Your article here cements my inclination to move forward a bit more general–with a lot more great original content and only 3 to 5 sites TOTAL. Thanks again,
TJ Detwiler
If you are up for a bit more research, one of my guys took part in a debate about authority Vs Niche sites, it makes good reading http://adsenseflippers.com/internet-marketing/debate-niche-sites-vs-authority-sites/
mark
Thank you Mark.
I have been focusing on my Authority websites over the last year and have found them to make more money (for me at least) than my Micro niche sites.
I have never heard of the term authority niche site before. So all of that time, this is what my blog is.
this is great, i’m start to learning about micro niche sites, but i think im going start to mix AS and MNS… But mark, rather than adsense, what should i do with the MNS site? ad networks maybe? or affiliate?
This is very interesting article as I was looking for MNS’s prospect. What about if we make the MNS for a long term by updating the content as unique as possible and stick to it . I have just stared setting up the authority web and still working on it.
Thank you Mark for the wonderful explanation. Just wanted to ask you one question. If one is planning to build authority sites, how many such sites he should focus on building them simultaneously? I know you have written 5-10, but don’t you think the number 5-10 is on the higher side. With these number of authority sites, you won’t be able to devote proper time to even a single blog.
Looking for your reply.
I have 2 niche sites and i am worried about Youtube’s “Categories” section growing and swallowing up the use for niche sites. Users at some point may only need to use the category menu to find niche subjects, this terrifies me because most of the videos on my sites are youtube embeds.
What do you think?