Hi Reader,

I was a niche website publisher for a few years.

It’s a popular online business model to make money and online gurus praise it as profitable and passive.

If you’re unfamiliar with niche website publishing, here’s how it works.

Pick a topic you know or can stomach creating content about for a few months.

Hobbies like brewing coffee, quilting, or yoga work great.

Think of your niche website as an online magazine that people enjoy reading.

Use a keyword research tool like AHREFS or SEMRush to track what your audience is searching for.

Then, write and publish as many SEO-optimised articles as you can each month, answering their queries.

These SEO tools have handy metrics for seeing what your website can rank for.

Informational content like round-ups, how-to articles, listicles, product reviews, and guides can all work.

Usually, you’ll publish them on a WordPress website.

When your site gets traffic, say 10,000 page views per month, set up display ads with Google AdSense.

If you’ve more traffic, apply to an ad network like Raptive or Mediavine.

Don’t cash out, just yet. Job number 1? Scale.

Invest earnings from your ads into commissioning content from freelance writers.

Use marketplaces like Fiverr or UpWork or source better writers on Writer Access.

Or build a team of writers and editors.

Some say niche website income is passive, but that’s a big myth about this business model.

If you’re in the niche website business, you’re selling eyeballs. More readers or traffic means more ad revenue.

And you’ll either invest sweat equity or cash.

A few variations on the niche website model exist.

You can swap or complement Google traffic with Pinterest, X, or Facebook traffic.

You can also earn more by promoting affiliate products and software.

You can flip a niche website on a marketplace like Flippa, Empire Flippers, or FE International for an x27-x47 multiple of monthly profits.

I built a content publishing system like this.

I published hundreds of these articles a month with the help of freelancers and, later, an editorial team (not AI).

I earned multiple five-figure monthly incomes from this model for a few years.

Why I Quit the Niche Website Business

Running a niche website is like gladiatorial combat.

Every week, competitors jumped my content and published something 1% better.

So, I’d rewrite my content and improve it by 5%. We’d vie for positions 1, 2, or 3 in Google search results.

That’s doable when you have a few dozen articles on your site, but not with a few hundred.

Reverse-engineering affiliate content is fair game.

I did the same, but I lost count of the number of times I was plagiarized word-for-word. That’s theft.

It didn’t help that Google pushed down content from publishers further down the fold with its shopping cart, ads, People Also Ask box, and later, its AI-generated results.

Good luck competing with big-name publishers like Forbes, Business Insider, and Dot Dash Meredith.

They employ entire teams dedicated to creating affiliate and informational content.

Bigger brands have a domain authority and link profile that the rest of us can only dream of.

That may explain why publications like Forbes rank for articles far outside their wheelhouse, like cats, while smaller publishers must publish content within a particular niche or face the Google hammer.

Link builders are a plague, too. I still get dozens of emoji and GIF-packed emails daily from plucky little outreachers armed with send-tracking software.

They want to know if they can slam their “great resource” into my article because “readers will love it.”

Then, they get annoyed because their email “got lost” and demand to know who they should follow up with.

Attention link builders and outreachers: better ways of earning a living exist.

Publishers don’t like hearing it, but the passive income gold rush is over.

AI slammed a nail in the coffin of the niche website model last year.

It’s easier and faster for casual web users to type “How to brew a latte” or “Best marathon trainers” into ChatGPT or Claude than wade through a recipe or listicle with a boring pre-amable slammed with ads, buttons, and email opt-ins.

Casual web users don’t consume much content on websites and blogs anymore.

They’re too busy swiping madly on Instagram and TikTok.

You’re killing it if a visitor spends more than 60 seconds reading an article on your site.

Google screwed over smaller publishers, too. For a few years, they lauded rewarding creators who published “helpful content.” Then, they changed the algo.

Like many niche website owners, traffic for some of my sites dropped by 90% over a few months.

That translated into letting writers and editors go.

Today, the Google algo rewards user-generated sites like Reddit and big-name brands who need the traffic!

It also scrapes niche website content for Google’s AI tool.

I’m pragmatic.

Google doesn’t owe niche website owners ANY traffic. If you play the SEO game, expect to get burnt.

It’s your job to create a traffic insurance policy.

I’m still in a few niche website communities.

Some niche website publishers earn five figures a month from the Facebook Bonus program and Pinterest traffic.

Profitable yes, but it’s even more risky.

The Future of Niche Websites

The niche website model can still prove profitable, with a few caveats.

Search traffic will continue to tank for many publishers.

Google has bigger problems than creators griping on X about their traffic stats, like its ongoing antitrust case and competition from ChatGPT.

The publishers that succeed will diversify far beyond search.

AI has raised the bar on what counts for “quality content”.

It’s priced many publishers and content farms out of the market.

The winners will create and publish higher-quality content than anything generative AI (or a lousy ChatGPT wrapper) can spit out.

Rather than renting eyeballs or promoting someone else’s product, smart publishers will create products or services of their own, instead of relying solely on the mighty display ad or affiliate revenue.

That’s more valuable than a generic niche website packed full of best X for Y articles, round-ups, and lousy listicles.

They’ll earn more on their personal brands, too. It’s much harder for a competitor, a content farm, an AI bot, a VC-backed media company, or a Google algo update to take down a personal brand.

I sold most of my niche websites and all but quit this business model at the start of 2024.

Now, I write and publish content under my name online.

I coach other content creators and business owners who need help with their content strategy.

I’m doing it under my personal brand. It’s not passive, and I’m more accountable.

But then, that’s what most businesses are like.

I’m helping creators add $10k to their businesses each month, and you can follow along.

Write on,

Bryan Collins