Niche Pursuits Podcast: Find Your Next "Niche" Business Idea‪!‬ Spencer Haws: NichePursuits.com

Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast.
The first news item they cover is Google’s move to enforce site reputation abuse, also known as parasite SEO.

He also shares a tweet from Glen Allsopp with early insights into these measures. 

In positive news, Spencer and Jared talk about a potential correction from the recent Google updates. 

Still talking about Google, it looks like the company’s market share has taken a dip, and Spencer shares some of the recent stats.

By how much did its share of the global market shrink in the last year?

Speaking of a declining market share, Google may see itself up against a new search engine, launched by OpenAI. Although it’s not official, rumors suggest that it’s in the works.

In the Shiny Object Shenanigans portion of the podcast, Spencer shares an experiment he’s doing with a small website trying to drive traffic from Reddit.

He talks briefly about some of the things he did to get that traffic and what he plans to do moving forward.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he talks briefly about his newsletter side hustle but goes into more detail on a YouTube side hustle he’s working on.

One of his channels has seen a boost in traffic thanks to the Amazon Influencer videos he uploaded there; in fact, it now has reached the threshold for monetization.

As for Weird Niche Sites, Spencer goes first with James Bond Lifestyle, a DR57 website that provides exhaustive information about all things James Bond—clothing, accessories, gadgets, etc. 

According to Ahrefs, it gets 20k monthly organic visitors, and according to SimilarWeb, 200k. Spencer also takes a look at its keywords and its optimization opportunities and reveals if it was impacted by the HCU.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he reveals his weird site: This Is Why I’m Broke. 

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com
Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter
Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper
Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Looking to grow your email list?

Liz Wilcox is here to help. She's worn many hats:

A former Survivor contestant (yep, the reality TV show) RV blogger Virtual assistant
But above all - she's an email growth expert joining us with awesome tips and tricks to help you connect with your target audience and make good money doing it!

And she's an absolutely great example to learn from - she was featured as a Niche Pursuits' success story in 2023 (link below), making $20k per month, and has since "doubled that!"


Email marketing helped revolutionize Liz Wilcox's business.

Over the years, she's scaled her email marketing efforts, refined her lead magnets, and boosted conversions.

During this process, she developed her innovative "email staircase method." This is a strategic approach to converting followers into friends by building authentic and lasting connections with subscribers and, ultimately - lasting customers.

Infusing personality and relatability into email content is crucial for fostering these connections with an audience.

She has lots of practical tips to help, like crafting effective welcome sequences and evaluating performance to enhance engagement and conversion rates.

This not only helps with connections and authenticity but also with finding your own niche.

She also discusses the importance of setting clear expectations, sharing values, and offering a mix of free and paid products in welcome sequences to nurture a loyal subscriber base.

Tripwire offers transparent communication and strategic sales placements within newsletters to help her nudge subscribers from passive to paid. And she prioritizes products that address the needs she's found interacting with her audience.

Check out the episode to learn all about the transformative effects of starting with a well-crafted welcome sequence, engaging newsletters, and more!

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com
Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/newsletter
Want a Faster and Easier Way to Build Internal Links?  Get $15 off Link Whisper with Discount Code "Podcast" on the Checkout Screen: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper
Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast!

This week Spencer and Jared cover all the latest happenings in the SEO and content creation space and share their opinions and insight. Then they share some very interesting and inspiring side hustles they’re working on, and they wrap things up with some weird niche sites.

They jump into things with the news that Google’s March Update is finally complete! 

It finished rolling out on April 19th, and Spencer and Jared discuss the update in general, how long it took, and why its conclusion might not have been announced by Google until later. 

They talk about Google’s original ambitions with regard to the update and the feedback form they created as well as the site reputation abuse update that’s going to get underway.

They also discuss why nobody has recovered from the Helpful Content Update, whether Google even knows how someone might recover, and what this all means.

They move on to discuss the winners and losers from the March 2023 Core and Spam Updates, looking at different types of traffic losses and naming some surprising sites on the list as well as looking at some of the winners.

Of course, Amazon, Reddit, and YouTube come up, as do dictionary sites, Etsy, and Quora.

Moving on, they share an article on HouseFresh about how it no longer appears in Google Search and how Google is killing independent review websites. 

They show the article’s graph, which reflects a giant 91% decline in traffic, and discuss interesting topics it covers, such as the rise of Forbes in Search and keyword swarming.

Spencer and Jared then share a public plea from Marie Haynes for Google to help publishers hit by the update. 

Why is this unusual? How does Jared summarize the situation?

As for their Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer talks briefly about his Amazon Influencer Program side hustle. 

He shares his earnings for the last 30 days and talks about his future plans for it. Although this project provides passive income, Spencer actually gave a highly detailed presentation as part of his Niche Pursuits Community program where he talked about all the work that went into the side hustle in the beginning. 

Jared then goes on to talk about his Amazon Influencer side hustle, talking about the new videos he’s uploaded in 2024 and his total earnings for March and April.

How did he do? How do his stats measure up to Spencer’s?

He also talks about his most recent newsletters side hustle, which of the 2 is getting the most traction, his Facebook page lead generation strategy, and his current number of email subscribers.

Tune in to hear more about his strategy.

As for their Weird Niche Sites, Spencer goes first with Secret Fan Base, which takes a closer look at the story and clothes from well-known brand Banana Republic. 

As the clothes are now more mainstream and mass produced, the site covers its original safari style and is created by a group of original fans.

Although it doesn’t get a ton of traffic, the site has a unique story and is a true labor of love.

Jared shares his site, Passport Waiting Time, and shares some of the site’s interesting aspects, like a forum. This DR27 site is ranking for 2k keywords and gets 3k in organic search traffic per month.

They discuss potential strategies the site could use, its current monetization, and why they think the site wasn’t impacted by Google’s updates.

That concludes another great episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast. 

We hope you learned about the latest events in the space and that you’re feeling inspired by the conversation.

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pursuits Community here: https://community.nichepursuits.com
Be sure to get more content like this in the Niche Pursuits Newsletter Right Here: https://www.nichepursuits.com

Today, we're being joined by Brian Winum, a long-time digital marketer who started affiliate marketing in the late '90s...

He runs a marketing agency in New York and specializes in building websites as sustainable and valuable business assets - specifically focusing on securing Google News approval and executing effective monetization strategies.

And he's got a lot of tips on the topic and others that may interest you, including:

Authority stacking, Tips for using AI-generated content, Adhering to Google Quality Rater guidelines, And taking a strategic approach to digital marketing.

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! Are you ready to hear the latest news affecting Google, SEO, AI, and web publishers?

As always, Spencer and Jared will break everything down into digestible pieces and share their thoughts, concerns, and predictions.

They kick things off diving straight into a particularly spicy topic: who’s killing Google Search.

They maintain that it’s an inside job, and talk about the news that came out this week about an internal meeting at Google regarding the division’s “new operating reality” and the decline in search queries and engagement.

Word on the street is that the man who heads the Search team is the man who killed Google Search.

Spencer and Jared talk about this possibility as well as a little bit about the history of Search, the results of updates over the years, why results have gotten worse over time, how ads have been redesigned, and how Google is trying to squeeze more money out of Search results.

What incredible irony does Jared point out? What’s Spence’s takeaway for bloggers? Is Google going to implode?

Spencer and Jared then move on to a related topic: how product recommendations have broken Google. They reference the Housefresh debacle from a few weeks ago, and talk about how the search for products has changed over time. 

How do we know if the reviews are honest, or if they’re sponsored, or if they’re authentic? And what does the future hold for product reviews?

The last article they discuss is how Google has become defensive when it comes to its Search quality and forum results.

Experts are pointing out that the results being delivered by Google on Reddit offer very poor and misguided advice, especially when it comes to health queries.

How has Danny Sullivan responded? Why do Spencer and Jared talk about the difference between “trust” and “like?”

Moving on to their Side Hustle Shenanigans, Spencer talks about his Amazon Influencer videos going live on YouTube. Before his channel got shut down, he was getting between 100 and 200 views per day, peaking one day at 250.

Now his biggest day has been 11 views. He and Jared talk about why this may be as well as his process for getting his videos live on YouTube.

What program does he recommend using to automate the process?

Jared then talks briefly about his Alt G Conference, which was held just a few days earlier, and he shares some interesting stats and stories from that online event.

When it’s his turn, he talks about his email newsletter side hustle. 

He recently launched a second email newsletter using content from one of his sites that was crushed by the HCU. He goes through many of the steps he took to get the project off the ground, so tune in for some great ideas!

When it comes to Weird Niche Sites, Spencer shares his, which is Brick Economy, on the economics of Legos.

The site offers the current value on lots of Lego sets as well as annual growth of certain themed Legos, and the ability to track the prices of your own Legos. It’s monetized with affiliate links and display ads, and according to SimilarWeb, it’s getting over a million visitors per month.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he shares his site, Tractor Data, which is a small, family-run business that has been tracking data on tractors for the last 20 years. This DR61 site includes a news section and a directory and gets almost 400k pageviews a month, according to Ahrefs.

What keywords is it ranking for? Does it rank first for any terms? Is it making any money? And what kind of potential does Jared see in the site?

As both of these sites are doing well in Google, what can we learn from them and their strategies?

And that brings us to the end of another informative and inspiring episode. See you next Friday!

Ready to join a niche publishing mastermind, and here from industry experts each week?  Join the Niche Pu

What better way to respond to a time of uncertainty and transition than to share a true success story of change. Joining the podcast is a truly hopeful example of growth and evolution.
Ben started off as an IT and web development guy and now runs of the SEO plugin All-In-One-SEO (AIOSEO) since it was acquired in 2020.
Over these years, both he and the plugin have experienced massive change and transformation to be in the positions they are today. And we're gonna learn some of the key takeaways of how this was possible. 
Links & Resources AIOSEO - The World's Best All-in-one SEO Plugin for WordPress: https://www.nichepursuits.com/aioseo 
Benjamin Rojas | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminprojas/
Benjamin Rojas (@benjaminprojas): https://twitter.com/benjaminprojas
Use coupon code “podcast” to get $15 off Link Whisper to build smarter internal links fast: https://www.nichepursuits.com/linkwhisper
Get SEO Consulting from the Niche Pursuits Podcast Host, Jared Bauman: https://www.nichepursuits.com/201creative
This Episode is Sponsored by Search Intelligence - https://search-intelligence.co.uk/