Think in verticals not niches and a new website
October 28, 2007
Over about the past year or so, since I started creating multiple websites the advice has always been to create a website based on a particular niche. The theory goes that it is difficult for new players to break into highly competitive markets.
I think niches are still a good way to make money, but once you have discovered a successful niche, I think you then need to start thinking in verticals. One thing that has stuck in my mind was something which Darren of Problogger.net said in an interview. The question was if he had to start again, what would he do differently if he had to start again.
He replied that he would stick to the camera or digital camera vertical. He has run various blogs on a wide variety of topics, but it seems like his camera review site, his newly launched digital photography site and of course problogger are his main areas of of interest.
If you have one successful website it is much easier to piggyback off this website to launch a new website along a similar theme or vertical. For me the Tokyo/Japan vertical has worked well for me. From my Tokyo website, I have created a Japan job site and a Japan hostel booking site, both of which are doing nicely.
After coming to China I found ChinaRant.com and thought the idea was a good one, so I launched JapanRant.com. It has only take a couple of hours to put together, but if I spend some time marketing the site, I think it could work.
I have been out of Japan for nearly a year now and was thinking perhaps there isn’t much for people to complain about there, but read how the government is getting all foreigners living there and entering the country to be finger printed.
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This is something I am starting to understand better, In the begining the idea of creating a large site focusing on one topic with complimentry sites was not to apealing, easier to throw up a whole bunch of unrelated sites & see what took. Now I have seen what has taken so to speak my experience tells me which ever way you slice & dice it a successfull site will need a lot of work & attention but if you do this it is more likely than not going to succeed, also its worth noting 10% of my sites make 70% of the monthly combined income
Yes it makes a lot of sense to keep to a successful niche. I have a lot of popular sites in the Legal Highs niche. But as I get old I am trying to break into the News sector.