How to monetize and publicize a niche site
This advice isn't tailored for Peter's site but more general advice over how to monetise niche sites; it just so happens that it was Peter's site that sparked this post.
Monetisation is easy for some topics
Sites that discuss how to make money online have an easy job monetising because most advertising networks have affiliate programmes. In the same way that websites that review things (be it cars, mobile phones, laptops) have an easy job because not only will contextual advertising work well but it's a product based website anyway. Therefore people are reading your reviews when they're thinking of buying the product - so affiliate links work really well there.
So what happens when you're in a specific niche?
What happens if you're writing about topics that don't typically have a retail presence? What if you're writing about trading stocks or maybe you run a blog dedicated to trees? There are no obvious ways to monetise that beyond the traditional "sell text links, sell reviews and use Adsense".
Monetise by selling books
You remember books right? There are books written on the most diverse of topics so it makes sense to try and make money this way. If you join the Amazon Affiliate Scheme then you can earn up to 10% of sales generated from your link. So at the bottom of your posts you could quite easily promote a book on the topic (or something that would interest your demographic) and some users might buy it. That suddenly becomes a nice passive source of income.
Promote by tailoring some content to the masses
If you run a WW2 site like Peter does then online communities like Reddit thrive on rare and interesting pictures from times gone by. If you can uncover information that most people won't know (yet find interesting) then with you could find success with social bookmarking/news sites. It may seem slightly shameless but if you're serious about gaining more readers then you do need to "mainstream things up a little".
Frequent the niche forums
Promote yourself on the niche forums (if they exist) without being too blatent about it. The trick to obtaining more users isn't blanket numbers, it's about converting users from within that niche.
You could spend £100,000 and take over the homepage of MSN for a day yet convert fewer long-term readers than 10 thoughtful forum posts within your niche. Convert the right demographic, otherwise you're wasting time and money.
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