BizyDad
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Goal: Build a brand new site from scratch, rank it, monetize it, using as little of my own time as possible, and sell it in 2 years for 6 figures.
Why: Why not? Because I can? Because for the last 3 years I've gone thru many ups and downs to build an agency and now my guys have a certain amount of available time to devote to something other than client work. So it is better to say, because WE can. This is intended to very much be a side project. An experiment even. But if it works well, it opens doors and possibilities
How: This is at least partially inspired by the writers thread. While reading that, it occured to me that I have a team of writers and we can produce high quality content, aided by AI. We will leverage our SEO tactics to get rankings. I have only the vaguest idea of how we will monetize it, but for starters we aren't focused on that. I want to build traffic first.
Initially, the vision is to produce on online publication. That may be all this ever is until I sell it. But it is flexible enough an idea to become an ecom store, a forum, a brand, a manufacturer, who knows? I may not even sell it, if it's spinning off sufficient monthly revenue. We'll see...
The Journey So Far: It was important that my team be on board with the game plan and have a sense of ownership of this project. So the first step was a brainstorming session. I had them read a few Authority Hacker articles to get the juices flowing. Then we all brought ideas for different niches we could target, and out of a list of roughly 60 we narrowed it down to the top five. That was 10 days ago.
We did keyword research around these five niches, and one was a clear winner. We bought a domain. We put up the basics of a site. That was last Friday.
I can't believe how excited my team is about this. Usually I'm the super excited one in the office, I'm surrounded by a bunch of laid-back dudes.
I won't reveal the niche or the website. Maybe I'll give some hints later, but for now I'll just say that we chose it because we found a host of solid keyword phrases that indicated people were definitely interested in the kinds of articles we want to produce, and we identified that there were actually very few articles of this type being produced.
In other words the interest level is high, and the competition level is low. An SEO's dream.
But my sense is we need to be moving fast in order to become an authority in this arena. This won't stay noncompetitive for long. It is an area that none of us have expertise in but we all find interesting.
I gave one writer a week of playing around with Jarvis to get really comfortable with it. That's still a work in progress, but we've got our first two articles written.
Next steps: put some finishing touches on the site. Get email/tracking/CRM set up.
Do a lot more keyword research. I have a team member working on this part.
Create 10 to 15 informational, educational type articles for the site. This is also in process.
Create a media list. I have a third team member working on that part.
Other Goals/Benefits:
1. I do have a content strategy in mind, and I'll be sharing more details on that later. My goal with this thread is to share different ideas and tactics that work. Or even what doesn't.
To date, this real estate thread is the closest I've had to a progress thread. Now I want to do one for real.
2. I also want to experiment and learn new skills. For example, I suck at emails. But this thread got my wheels turning again, and I'd like to use this new site as a way to improve my/my team's skills.
3. Frankly, having a site like this will open other doors and sales possibilities for our agency.
4. If it doesn't make a dime itself, I can always leverage the idea that we built a site that gets xx,xxx visitors per month into new client types.
5. Along the way will be testing various SEO theories that I don't feel comfortable using a client's site to test. So there's at least a small chance that this project might go nowhere because I only kinda accidentally blew it up. That's not likely, I am definitely interested in selling this site, but since as it is our own site from scratch, I'm not afraid to break my own conventions and share the results of that with you Fam.
6. Honestly, there's so many people on this forum who are just spending their wheels trying to figure out a way to make money. I'm hoping I can prove that producing a quality content for a website in an intelligently chosen niche is a way to get yourself to a sustainable income.
7. Prove "them" wrong. You know, the people who will inevitably think this idea is trash. If someone else was writing this progress thread, I would probably be one of "them".
I learned SEO tactics a decade ago by getting a blog/store to 50,000 visits a month in a low margin industry. I guess here I am 12 years later crazy enough to think that I'm going to do it all over again, but I'm telling myself that this time I'm going to be smarter about monetizing it and smarter about how to prioritize time.
To be determined...
Time tables: other than the preliminary goal of selling this at the 2-year mark, which may or may not change, I'm not putting timetables on this project. We are in the business of serving clients, and this is intended to be a side hustle of sorts for our agency, not something that distracts us from our bread and buttah.
Is It Fastlane: No. It doesn't need to be. But for all the reasons I listed above, it brings a lot of value to my agency, and we can bring value to a tens of thousands of readers a month.
But if this works, not only can you do it, my guys will be able to do it again and again. And that thought excited me enough to document this journey.
The forum has given me so many ideas and friendships, this is one way I want to give back.
One rule: Don't discuss "hidden" niches or ask what niche you should choose. These tactics are relatively easily duplicated. I'll answer most any questions as I'm able, but if you have a good idea for a niche with untapped potential, don't bring it up on a public forum. Use some common sense.
Why: Why not? Because I can? Because for the last 3 years I've gone thru many ups and downs to build an agency and now my guys have a certain amount of available time to devote to something other than client work. So it is better to say, because WE can. This is intended to very much be a side project. An experiment even. But if it works well, it opens doors and possibilities
How: This is at least partially inspired by the writers thread. While reading that, it occured to me that I have a team of writers and we can produce high quality content, aided by AI. We will leverage our SEO tactics to get rankings. I have only the vaguest idea of how we will monetize it, but for starters we aren't focused on that. I want to build traffic first.
Initially, the vision is to produce on online publication. That may be all this ever is until I sell it. But it is flexible enough an idea to become an ecom store, a forum, a brand, a manufacturer, who knows? I may not even sell it, if it's spinning off sufficient monthly revenue. We'll see...
The Journey So Far: It was important that my team be on board with the game plan and have a sense of ownership of this project. So the first step was a brainstorming session. I had them read a few Authority Hacker articles to get the juices flowing. Then we all brought ideas for different niches we could target, and out of a list of roughly 60 we narrowed it down to the top five. That was 10 days ago.
We did keyword research around these five niches, and one was a clear winner. We bought a domain. We put up the basics of a site. That was last Friday.
I can't believe how excited my team is about this. Usually I'm the super excited one in the office, I'm surrounded by a bunch of laid-back dudes.
I won't reveal the niche or the website. Maybe I'll give some hints later, but for now I'll just say that we chose it because we found a host of solid keyword phrases that indicated people were definitely interested in the kinds of articles we want to produce, and we identified that there were actually very few articles of this type being produced.
In other words the interest level is high, and the competition level is low. An SEO's dream.
But my sense is we need to be moving fast in order to become an authority in this arena. This won't stay noncompetitive for long. It is an area that none of us have expertise in but we all find interesting.
I gave one writer a week of playing around with Jarvis to get really comfortable with it. That's still a work in progress, but we've got our first two articles written.
Next steps: put some finishing touches on the site. Get email/tracking/CRM set up.
Do a lot more keyword research. I have a team member working on this part.
Create 10 to 15 informational, educational type articles for the site. This is also in process.
Create a media list. I have a third team member working on that part.
Other Goals/Benefits:
1. I do have a content strategy in mind, and I'll be sharing more details on that later. My goal with this thread is to share different ideas and tactics that work. Or even what doesn't.
To date, this real estate thread is the closest I've had to a progress thread. Now I want to do one for real.
2. I also want to experiment and learn new skills. For example, I suck at emails. But this thread got my wheels turning again, and I'd like to use this new site as a way to improve my/my team's skills.
3. Frankly, having a site like this will open other doors and sales possibilities for our agency.
4. If it doesn't make a dime itself, I can always leverage the idea that we built a site that gets xx,xxx visitors per month into new client types.
5. Along the way will be testing various SEO theories that I don't feel comfortable using a client's site to test. So there's at least a small chance that this project might go nowhere because I only kinda accidentally blew it up. That's not likely, I am definitely interested in selling this site, but since as it is our own site from scratch, I'm not afraid to break my own conventions and share the results of that with you Fam.
6. Honestly, there's so many people on this forum who are just spending their wheels trying to figure out a way to make money. I'm hoping I can prove that producing a quality content for a website in an intelligently chosen niche is a way to get yourself to a sustainable income.
7. Prove "them" wrong. You know, the people who will inevitably think this idea is trash. If someone else was writing this progress thread, I would probably be one of "them".
I learned SEO tactics a decade ago by getting a blog/store to 50,000 visits a month in a low margin industry. I guess here I am 12 years later crazy enough to think that I'm going to do it all over again, but I'm telling myself that this time I'm going to be smarter about monetizing it and smarter about how to prioritize time.
To be determined...
Time tables: other than the preliminary goal of selling this at the 2-year mark, which may or may not change, I'm not putting timetables on this project. We are in the business of serving clients, and this is intended to be a side hustle of sorts for our agency, not something that distracts us from our bread and buttah.
Is It Fastlane: No. It doesn't need to be. But for all the reasons I listed above, it brings a lot of value to my agency, and we can bring value to a tens of thousands of readers a month.
But if this works, not only can you do it, my guys will be able to do it again and again. And that thought excited me enough to document this journey.
The forum has given me so many ideas and friendships, this is one way I want to give back.
One rule: Don't discuss "hidden" niches or ask what niche you should choose. These tactics are relatively easily duplicated. I'll answer most any questions as I'm able, but if you have a good idea for a niche with untapped potential, don't bring it up on a public forum. Use some common sense.
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