First of all, by “make money online” I mean all the Internet marketing niches, including blogging, social media, SEO, affiliate marketing and so on.
The question I am asking is: should someone who is getting started online enter the Internet marketing niche directly?
Many people seem to think so, judging by the amount of blogs and websites we see popping out in this niche every month.
In my opinion, however, this is a mistake.
Why? Because entering a mainstream niche (e.g., health care, education, finance, travel and so on) can be easier, because there might be less competition there, and more profitable, because the size of the potential audience is much larger. That is why they are called “mainstream” after all, because they appeal to the majority of the population, while Internet marketing has a really small audience in comparison.
Given these facts, why do people insist in entering the Internet marketing niche? I think for one main reason: the Internet marketing community is more vocal about its earnings, strategies and what not, so people get the idea that talking about making money online is the best way to actually make money online.
This is clearly not true.
There are many people out there making a killing in mainstream niches, the only difference is that they don’t blog about how much money they are earning, about the strategies they are using to achieve it and so on.
Now don’t get me wrong. Internet marketing is a profitable niche. I am not arguing otherwise. I am just saying that, in comparison, mainstream niches can be even more profitable.
At this point you might be thinking: “It is easy for you to say Daniel, but you have a blog about blogging and a course about making money online.” This is true, but I also have many other online properties in mainstream niches. Want one example? My other blog, DailyWritingTips.com, was launched after this one, and despite that it receives more traffic and makes more advertising money.
Here are the numbers to give you a better idea: DailyBlogTips.com has around 5,000,000 backlinks according to Google, and it generates around 300,000 page views monthly. DailyWritingTips.com, on the other hand, has only 150,000 backlinks according to Google, yet it generates over 500,000 page views monthly (according to Google Analytics. as you can see in the image above).
What is the explanation? It is simple, the “writing tips” niche has less competition and a larger potential audience. Most of my new projects these days are on mainstream niches as well, exactly because I think there is more money to be made there.
The bottom line is: You don’t need to enter the “make money online” niche to have a profitable website. If you learn the Internet marketing principles and apply them to mainstream niches you might end up making more money.
I agree with you totally. I started in this area sort of accidentally, with a famous fitness product, and I’ve made lots of mistakes but learned lots of things in the meantime. There are a lot of home run hitters out there in the “make money online area”, but there are also, like you said, some consistent base hitters in other niches. My problem is finding that exact niche and making it work! I bookmarked your blog – thanks for the good read!
Yes, i definitely agree with your statement Daniel.
Two months ago my friend asked me
My Friend : “What Niche should i start to write about”?
Me : “It’s up to you”
My Friend : I’m going to write about make money online.
me : No! My advice is you should write something like Health Niche, because MMO is really hard competition.
My Friend : It’s okay. I can handle it.
Until now he can’t dominate his target keyword, then desperate and stop writing. Poor him…
i just think dont enter niche that you don’t have any experience about it, dont enter niche just because other people make money from it.but, look at yourself, what your passion is, your hobby, or your interest.start from that.start from niche that make you comfortable
I think with all the competition present in the internet marketing niche,the one who knows about internet marketing should go for the same niche.What the use if one starts a niche which he is not sure about.This is my view.And about the niche make money online is the best one as one can understand it with ease.So people are going for it.
Sometimes there are people who don’t even understand how to make money online and there you can find them creating a blog about how to make money in the first place. It sounds ridiculous to me.
And, you can even find people in forums asking simple novice questions and on the signature, you will find something like “follow me on my journey to make 100 per day”.
You make a very good point, but a lot of people (myself included) have chosen to approach it from a standpoint of educating people. I remember spending a lot of time and effort to build my first site, just something that takes me 5 minutes today like installing WordPress, so I use this blog to talk about online business because it is enjoyable, and since from personal experience I know it can be hard to find this type of information, then hopefully people will find it, like it, and find it helpful. If it accomplishes this, then hopefully it will also make some money.
But the bounce rate is so damn high ! My blog has a bounce rate of around 50-60% only !
Daniel, even though you know the kind of blog I have, I wholeheartedly agree with your view.
You can have as many page views or visitors you want, but if you’re not converting them into sales of some sort what difference does it make?
Unfortunately Google analytics will never be able to tell us this. It’s all relative…let’s just keep it real!
Stay inspired!
Michael
You are forgetting advertising money.
You can always put CPM ads around, and if the traffic is there you’ll make money, as you don’t need conversions at all.
It is not hard to find networks paying $1.5 or $2 CPM for banners above the fold, so any site getting 100,000 monthly page views could easily make some $600 monthly (3 banners above the fold).
This is still a theory But will be applying this as I launch my new self-hosted blog soon (hopefully within next month). These is where you can out do most of the competition. Thanks for your post
Daniel,
You are right in with this post. There is way too much hype going on and people searching for a pot of gold that isn’t there. The best thing for any entrepreneur to do is to build a niche business, develop a strong position in that market and work to build a loyal customer base.
There are so many profitable niches with more money and much less competition, that it seems crazy to go after the “make-money-online” niche… it’s similar to the lottery. Everyone wants the easy way out.
-Joshua Black
The Underdog Millionaire
Good points Daniel.
First of all before entering in to MMO niche, every one should ask a question ‘ Am I really making good enough money from online, before teach others?’. The honest answer will give a correct idea.
Visitors should trust the blogger before they read, buy or follow steps recommended in MMO blogs, I feel.
Yes, great point … I do agree… in fact, I have been running a blog about spirituality and is doing a fair job. For me, I do believe that in whatever niche you are in, there is still a potential income that you can get. Rule of thumb, deliver a good high quality theme based content.
However, on the other hand, I would say that engaging on money make online niches are still profitable.
Just come to think of this, there are probably thousands of blogs out there that talks about money and making blogs right? But just how many of those blogs have been successful?
But what is the key?
Though the competition is high, there are still several things that lacks to most bloggers on these money make online niches. You just have to out do all other bloggers. Do what the successful one says which most bloggers will never do.
This is still a theory… But will be applying this as I launch my new self-hosted blog soon (hopefully within next month). These is where you can out do most of the competition.
#1. Building high content theme based blogs – just how many blogs have this??? Now if you can do this, you can belong to the top.
#2. Ethical Monetization – Just how many bloggers do this? Only a handful….
#3. Perseverance and hardwork – MOST bloggers on these niches engages in get rich quick schemes. But if you can outdo them if you persevere. No problogger will ever say that blogging is a get rich quick scheme. It is hardwork and perseverance in reality.
Hope this contributed well. Blessings!!!
You might be right as MMO niche is not covered by most of bloggers and competitiveness is very high while advertisers are not paying well for this niche too.
However, there have been several concerns that most of newbie bloggers are hesitant to start with new niche is knowledge and experience. Some of them choose autoblogs instead and it is that worse than starting with internet marketing to make their leg wet first. Nice head up on this. Thanks
This is a great post Daniel. I have run successful ecommerce businesses online for about 6 years now and I started my blog last year to help anyone interested in online businesses. While blogging tips can get in my posts, I have found that I am making much more money with specializing in business principles and marketing in general. You can’t be an expert in something if you never have done it.
You have To really Be Focused To Make Money In The MMO Niche and Have A passion For It as Well.It Requires alot of Time and patience.I Have Been part Of The Internet Since it Began and Have Trouble From Time To Time with SEO Stratergy.Google Changes It Mind From Time To Time.What Fasinates me is The Hundreds of ways To Drive Traffic to Your Website or Blog,Stills Requires Great Original Content.
Don’t you think MMO niche is a secondary step for any blogger? You cannot start out wanting to teach people about how to make money from blogs?
I guess most if not all bloggers successful in MMO niche have had experiance running a blog in a different niche. What do you think?
Yes this should be a requirement, but unfortunately it is not 🙂 .
Excellent analysis there. I think one good step before deciding which niche to take is to look at many web sites in different niches. This will give you a clear idea of what you really want.
Thanks for this great and timely post. I was just about entering this niche and wondering whether I should, when I read this. Thank you.
But I still have on idea what mainstream niches mean. Can you explain more on this?
Seems to be a lot of sites out there. Maybe if your content is better than everyone else’s you can rise to the top and get crazy traffic like the chart you show.
Thanks for your thoughts and encouragement. While my niche is not a huge money-maker (I don’t think so anyway-but maybe someday people WILL pay for my wit and charm, I am keeping my day job just in case). In the meantime I just plug along sharing my ‘wacky & insightful wisdom’ with the world and hopefully people will find that they just need to get away from all the ‘madness’ of life for awhile and drop by my blog for some good old fashioned ‘R&R’. (I am writing about trying to live in this crazy wacked-out world without losing your mind in the process if you were wondering). If I make a few bucks along the way, hey all the better. For now, it’s all fun and games (till someone gets hurt of course-lol).
I was explaining this to my husband just last night. He was comparing getting into the MMO niche to selling shovels to gold miners. I explained to him that it really doesn’t work that well and is actually one of the harder niches.
I think it would be easier to make sales if a newbie starts off in a totally different niche, rather than the “make money online” niche.
It takes some experience and knowledge to make sales in this niche. You gotta remember most of the people in the “make money” niche know about affiliate links and are internet savvy.
Another thing, if you’ve never made much money online, how the heck can you blog about it?
Then again, being in the “make money online” niche is very profitable right now. 🙂
I would definitely agree with what you had to say.
I tried (like an idiot) and failed in 2007 to enter the niche. Then I branched out did other things and started making enough money to quit my day job.
Then I decided to come back to the niche because most of the people in it are spewing out misinformation and only make money by talking about the money they are making. (It’s like a pyramid scheme almost because those at the bottom by the products those at the top suggest and then wonder why they don’t make money).
In the end since relaunching the blog I have a couple thousand RSS readers now and am still growing much faster than I ever did in my first attempt since I actually have been earning legit money online.
Almost every person I know that is in the money making niche and making money, is is other niches also.
I think the mistake is believing one niche or one blog is going to make you tons of money.
I am not saying it isn’t possible and that it can’t be done but I would recommend finding multiple streams of income online.
No they should not. I had a personal blog for about 6 years before I decided to stop posting MMO related posts on it and create a second blog soley for that niche.
Make money niche very profitable, people will buy again and again because knowledge is vital to success. They must go deep into the niche to make real success.
Daniel, Thanks for the great article.
I noticed that your bounce rate is in the mid 80’s on DWT. Did you find that your bounce rate increases with the amount of traffic you get from Google searches?
My bounce rate has been in the 70s and 80s, and I’ve tried so many things to get it down, but I think I’ve come to the conclusion that when people Google something then come to my site and find the answer, they probably don’t care too much about reading my other articles…
Yes organic traffic tends to increase the bounce rate. Over 85% of my traffic on DWT comes from Google, so that affects it.
Hey Daniel,
I agree that there are so many other niches that you can make a killing because the competition is low or non-existence. If someone has been attempting the internet marketing niche and had some success. By starting another business in a niche that is not competitive…Be prepare for another level of success!
Chat with you later…
Josh
Hi Daniel,
Great points you’ve made above, I actually started a blog about blogging not too long ago,to add to my other 2 blogs, but realized it wasn’t worth trying to get into such a competitive niche, instead I decided to focus on my other sites and try develop them more
This just confirms that I did the right thing
I do all sorts of stuff online.
What is a popular thing today may be gone with the wind tomorrow…
Looking at your Analytics snapshot: 89% bounce rate, 1.43 pages per visit, and an average of 43 seconds per visit. Is that the norm for your niche? I’m wondering because, even though I’m in a different niche, my averages are around there as well.
These numbers are a bit high to be honest, and I am working to lower them down for that blog.
Very good advice. Also I don’t understand why would somebody who just started blogging immediately start blogging about how to make money? Isn’t it required to get more experience in online world first and actually earn some money.
Yeah that is another point.
I completely agree with you. Make Money Online niche is going to work only when you have sufficient knowledge and you are successful yourself.
I agree with you in some sense, other mainstream niches has a higher chance to make more money. However if you are interested and have the passion why not? You can still go ahead and enter “make money online”niche, just don’t have the mis-conceptions of its quicker and easier to make money by blogging about “make money online”.
this makes a lot of sense, putting more effort in a crowded niche will bring less results even if a person is doing well
Hi Daniel,
Great point you make above.
I agree with you. Actually, I think if someone is passionate about some other niche, he should be going for that, and not just think about the IM niche.
You are right about other niches having less competition than the IM niche. The IM niche, is arguably, the toughest niche.
Your stats clearly tell that you can have success in other niches too, and they might have less competition.
Kindest,
Nabeel
Well it really depends upon 1 single factor:
Do you earn decent money yourself online??
If you do then go ahead and start a blog about Make Money Online niche 😀
If you don’t then stay away from it 🙂
You’re right. It’s hard to enter the “make money” niche if you, yourself, hasn’t made any money online yet.
But if you are able to earn just a small income online, then you can enter the IM niche, as long as you know the basics, and in the future, that basic skill will be developed.
Regards,
Gary