The Three C’s for Niche Website Success

I have been operating a few websites since 2007 which makes me pretty experienced in the “website world”. BUT, everything is constantly changing so I have chased many shiny objects along the way. The one thing I have learned that works has not changed at all since the start. It is the three C’s for niche website success – CONTENT, CONSISTENCY, COMMUNICATE. Let’s dive deeper in the three C’s for niche website success.

CONTENT CREATION FOR NICHE WEBSITE SUCCESS

One thing that works and continues to work is content creation. When I first started my website, I would blog about 2 times per week. Whatever I felt that my audience would benefit from I wrote about. There was ZERO research about whether it would be a popular topic or highly searched terms. I just wrote!

It was FUN! I shared ideas and reviewed research to help other professionals in my field. I did this for over 10 years. Slowly this brought in hundreds of thousands of pageviews to my website and ecommerce sales of digital products.

Then I started to learn about SEO and realized I might need a more focused plan to grow bigger. So I have become more thoughtful about what I post and how I write it. BUT, I still will create content that I think is important for my profession whether it will rank or not. I have a large email list and want to keep my readers engaged.

The one thing that has never changed is the content creation piece. On average, I post three times per week. Does it feel like a hamster wheel at times? Yup, but when each post gets done I am always satisfied at what I created.

CONSISTENCY FOR NICHE WEBSITE SUCCESS

I believe the real key to success is consistency not just content creation. When you show up every week, you are showing Google your website is still active and relevant. I run several websites and my most profitable one, is the website that I have been the most consistent with by posting weekly for close to 15 years!

Recently, I have had more time to work on my other websites. I have been posting on those websites on average two times per week. The uptick in Google Search Console results is started after a few months of this consistency. It is super exciting to see that graph line trend up. My goal for those websites is 50,000 pageviews per month.

COMMUNICATION FOR NICHE WEBSITE SUCCESS

After I create consistent content, I have to communicate to the world what has been written. This helps get more readers and email subscribers. From the start, I have always been building an email list where I email my readers 1-2 times per week. When I am in a productive zone, I also share on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. For certain posts or topics I create YouTube videos as well.

This communication helps to make it clear to my readers and Google that I am showing up to serve my audiences.

WHAT HAPPENS IF I CAN’T KEEP UP WITH THE THREE C’S?

Truth be told, I can’t always keep up. We have six children and life at home can get BUSY for sure. Summer time work hours are at a minimum – we go camping a lot at Lake Champlain which I love. My lifestyle is not always conducive to creating that much content. Here is what I do when I can not keep up:

• decrease content creation on my smaller websites but I always post 3 times per week on the biggest one.
• don’t waste time communicating on social media.

The first option is out of necessity. Sometimes you just can’t get everything done that you want to get done in a day. The second option is based on years of data analysis on Google Analytics with eCommerce enabled. Social media traffic from Facebook, Pinterest, and especially Instagram has a ridiculously low conversion rate. YouTube’s conversion rate is much higher and my email list has the highest conversion rate when I send direct traffic. (More on that in a future post).

So when I have to blow off social media due to time constraints, I know it probably won’t affect my websites that much.

BOTTOM LINE FOR NICHE WEBSITE SUCCESS

After close to 15 years of experience publishing niche websites that have earned millions, follow the rule of the three C’s – CONTENT, CONSISTENCY and COMMUNICATE. Remember 90% of life is showing up!