Recently I came across a site that I really liked and thought it would be a good case study to discuss. The site is HowLifeWorks, which is not my site, but I’ve built sites in a similar manner to this myself, which make me great commissions daily.
This style of site goes against what most affiliate marketing training would tell you to do, which is to find a specific niche and become an expert in that area and get your slice of the larger niche by targeting the micro niche.
This approach does work, and I also have quite a lot of sites that make me money with this approach, so I’m not saying either is better, but each style does have their advantages.
The style that the How Life Works site is employing, is a very general site, with no specific focus on any one niche or product, but rather has content on many niches. The domain allows them to pretty much discuss anything they want on the site, as the topic has something to do with life then it fits!!
You’ll notice that on that site they have many categories, such as business, finance, beauty, relationships, shopping, technology etc…and they run a lot of CPA offers on these pages.
With the CPA offers they can just swap them around at any time they like as long as the keyword phrase 
targeted is not a product specific one.
On that note a good network I have started with recently is Never Blue, they have loads of great offers and fantastic metrics for their affiliates.
The advantage of building a site that is not targeting any one specific niche is that you get a choice of topics you can write about and adding content to your site is endless. This is a great, because if some of the pages you build and do your SEO on don’t work out for you, then all is not lost, as you can just find more keywords and add more content and carry on.
If you build niche specific sites, you can run the risk of choosing a dud of a niche and struggling to be able to repair the site if it’s not working and be forced to start again with a new site. The problem with starting again with new sites all the time, is that they can take some time to gain trust with Google, whereas adding content to an older site with history in Google doesn’t have this problem as much.
Just to be clear though I do build niche specific sites also, as they do still work well, I’m sharing some ideas for other approaches in this post.
When I build sites I employ many different styles, depending on the potential I can see in a niche, and also with more affiliate marketing experience, I tend to be able to know if a niche will work or not, although not all sites work out as well as I had hoped, but that’s just business.
Hopefully sharing this website style helped sparks some ideas for you all!
Regards
Matt Carter
Related articles
You know when you say ‘find a specific niche and become an expert in that area’ this is the most important aspect of any IM campaign, most of the newbies just get into affiliate marketing and they hope that they will start making money from the first day only!
Sileena Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 2:35 am
A huge reason for this is most of these supposed guru’s tell people that they will start making money within 27 minutes….or something to that effect.
They don’t make this stuff up in their own minds, without help.
I feel Matt has the right take on things as he tells us, this takes work and it does NOT happen overnight. The HONEST internet marketers out there (and there are some), will tell you; this IS a job, and like any job, it takes work, time and patience to reap the rewards of your labor!
Have a great week!
Sileena
Jackie Stenhouses Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 8:55 am
I completely agree with you Sileena. New internet marketers are led up the garden path in being told that making money online is easy and it will happen straight away. That is why a lot of people give up after a short time as they don’t make money with the first week.
Great example Matt. With a site like this the sky is the limit with what you can do as far as affiliate promotions go. It looks like “How Life Works” gets a ton of traffic to boot, so I can imagine that they are doing quite well.
Anthony
I’ve had a broad website since the start and only in the last year started with more niche targeted sites. I like the freedom to be able to rank a page on any topic I want and not always be stuck in one niche. Thanks matt!
The “How Life Works” site is born out of the Google News model where you build a site that gets accepted by Google as a site with content that gets syndicated through their News network…much like a press release.
Once the site has been accepted, you hope for first page rankings (even top spot rankings) for new posts created around niche topics that link to money pages or have related Adwords/CPA offers on the page.
This IM model was hot for a while, with a lot of IMers jumping on the band wagon. I believe the “News” traffic model has calmed down because Google stopped giving such high priority to news content in their “Web” search. But I believe it’s still a great compliment to any traffic campaign…just like Press Releases but easier to execute.
Matt Carter Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 8:04 am
Hi Brett
Thanks for you comment, however this is not a news style approach, this is still a regular content based site that you can focus SEO on, and rank pages in Google as usual. It does work, because I do it and I make great money with my sites like this.
Thanks
Matt
Hey nice site, the howlifeworks, It makes sense, so when certain offers lose roi, you can rotate them out. And you can also always add new offers when there is some big event, or certain holidays, it seems like it allows endless opportunities. GREAT POST!!!
Thanks Matt! Love the layout, but the content is very subpar at How Life works. It looks like basic plr articles – nothing that really wows me. Would be interesting to see how much traffic it gets, and, more importantly – how much the site makes.
You can’t be an expert in 50 fields – and this site proves it. Maybe the layout takes it over the top, but I do wonder how much income it generates.
Boris C. Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 2:26 am
Site has Alexa Rank of 7474 and according to Compete does not have Compete Rank but gets 1603415 visits per month.
Kent F Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 6:37 am
Thanks Boris – that is amazing on several levels! I agree with the comments on the Panda update, but apparently not.
Matt Carter Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 7:35 am
Hey Guys
You don’t have to be an expert though to make good money, that is my point, and I know this as I have sites like this example one. It is a different approach but it works, trust me I know. As for the content I think it is ok, could be better but ok, and better than a lot of substandard affiliate sites I come across.
All the best
Matt
Susan Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 8:22 am
I looked through the site myself and was curious about how they drive traffic, etc. and I found that HowLifeWorks is part of a larger company that developes websites and drives traffic, etc. for other companies. So, now I’m wondering if HowLifeWorks is just a vehicle for getting traffic for their customers?
Anthony Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 12:41 pm
Hi Kent,
Downlaod the Alexa tool. Although not a exact measure of how good a site is, it does give you an IMMEDIATE rough idea of how popular the site is.
The site that Matt speaks of is obviously a big earner – it has a ranking of 7474 which sort of means that it it’s ranked 7474 out of all the web sites online (all serious online businesses have submitted their site to alexa and are therefore are ranked). Anything under 100 000 is a serious website and should be a good money earner. For example this site of Matt’s is 8677 (very high). One of my little sites is over 1 million.
The little alexa tool bar sits (for me) in the bottom right hand corner next to my Seo Quake button (thanks Matt).
It works on the firefox browser (not sure if works on chrome & does not work on IE) Kent, get on it!
Great idea. I have a site that follows the “many niches” setup. It actually gets great traffic and the posts rank well and I haven’t even done much backlinking. For a site like this, do you just build backlinks to the posts?
Thanks for this Matt – I’ve just spent a day culling people from my email accounts who constantly hit on me day after day for affiliate sales without offering any advice whatsoever.
Here is a really class post about something I’d never even thought of.
This is what should be happening when someone joins an opt in.
Whoever said ‘the money is in the list’ should change it to “You’ll only ever sell to people who trust and like you – and sell to them subtly, or your unsubscribes will show a serious upward spike”
Thanks for the heads up on Never Blue. I am starting out with the niche market then expanding from there. You have been a tremendous help! I started with a getting rid of lice website which is funny to my family. It helps serve a niche market(LOL). Take care Matt.
Sileena Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 3:02 am
That it does! When we lived in the country in Southern Oregon, my two youngest daughters, with really long hair, had quite a prob with lice….came to find out after we moved out of that house….they had to be in the carpet or hiding somewhere because we finally got rid of them and they NEVER came back! Thank you God! We fought with those little critters longer than I like to admit! ;+( So when you say…there is a niche, believe me…THERE IS!)
Have a great week and awesome SUCCESS with your business!
Sileena
Thats is indeed a great way to do affiliate marketing…. I’ve been doing a couple of site like these, however if I’m not sending PPC or PPV traffic to them I get no traffic…. How would you go about building organic traffic to these, since Im targetting many different keywords etc…
Matt Carter Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 8:02 am
Hi Daniel
I would choose a few keywords at a time and build my SEO up slowly.
Matt
Optimal Life Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 11:52 pm
Matt, How do you do this? Considering all KW research is done and included in post titles, All in One SEO Plugin used, etc., do you build backlinks to each post and to home page/other pages?
Thanks. That’s very nice. A little eye busy to me, though. I’m wondering if you know is this built on a WP theme and if so what theme? Looks complicated.
Hi Matt,
How would you do SEO on this kind of site since there are so many keywords to target.
Matt Carter Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 8:01 am
Hi George
For SEO just pick a few keywords first and focus on these and when they rank then move onto some more and slowly build up your SEO over time
Thanks
Matt
Hi Matt, thanks for this.
If you work on sites on your own, site like this one would take ages to build up. Imagine all the research, writing, linkbuilding and additional promotion you had to do. It would take ages if you have other projects to look after too. However, if you decide to solely dedicate to one big monster of a site I think it’s a worth while idea. Especially if you have a dedicated team to help you out as well.
As for Neverblue, I have mixed results with them. 70% of my campaings have been discontinued. Imagine spending months working and tweaking sites to receive simple email saying that “this particular offer has been discontinued” and see you later …Just my share….
Cheers
Alex
Matt Carter Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 7:39 am
Hi Alex
Thanks for you comment. A few points I would say though, first thing is this kind of site isn’t going to be much more work really, the reason being is that you don’t have to backlink every single page, just set up 15 pages and then target 2 or 3 with backlinks until they rank and then go for more, so it’s really no more work at all, and also the key to CPA offers being removed is the keywords you choose, if you target keywords that are general, such as :best car insurance, then you just find a new offer that matches if the one you are running closes down.
Matt
Hi, Matt-
I tried signing up for Never Blue a few months ago and was denied. Is there a trick to getiing accepted by this network? Do you have to have a long time presence online?
Thanks!
Cindi
Bryan Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 2:07 am
Neverblue, like many other CPA networks don’t want to have a bunch of inactive accounts, so like they’ll most likely accept people that either have some affiliate marketing or some kind of related experience such as web design and have used some traffic methods.
As an affiliate you are basically a traffic broker, so they usually only bother with affiliates that have some potential in driving traffic. There is no “trick”, in fact the best thing to do is be completely honest with your experience, for you’ll have a better chance. If you don’t have a website start there.
A lot of CPA networks will deactivate your account if you are not active, so affiliates need to start building some sites and getting some traffic before jumping aboard on CPA networks expecting to make big money. If you don’t generate a decent amount of traffic, you can’t make a lot of money with offers. There is a lot of hype about using different affiliate networks, but the truth is you can monetize a site in many different ways, but people usually don’t spend enough effort in creating sites and actively promoting their sites.
andreas Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 4:26 am
True, same goes for Amazon, CJ and many other networks. They don’t want to be bothered training affiliates. Although it wouldn’t hurt… The only direct acceptance is Clickbank, Tradebit, RAPbank. If you know how ton get commissions with these networks you will probably get accepted in any other network.
it is a good idea, do you think it will require alot more work to maintain though if you have multiple niches?
Matt Carter Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 8:00 am
Hi
I don’t find this style of site takes more work to maintain, remember its still just content, so its no different than any other site, just that it grows larger over time.
Matt
Hi Matt!
So far I’ve focused on single niche, multi product sites but I have put some thought into this other model for the very reasons you mention. Your Rapid Profit Formula has really helped me improve on my existing site and give me tons of ideas for more…Thank You!
I revamped my anti snoring pillow site with your help and am now moving on to the next one. Very exciting!
My question is regarding Neverblue. Unfortunately they did not accept my affiliate application. I know that isn’t uncommon and I was wondering if you have any advise on how I might get them to accept me.
Thank you again!
Lesley
Matt, thanks for pointing out different concepts.
To Cindi, same experience with Never Blue, some Aff. networks are difficult to get accepted.
To Kent F.: I checked their stats, – PR2 with Google, Alexa Trend/Rank: #7,546: for the last three months, domain created 2004,
I agree that a site like this takes time, and I still prefer deep niche development of a site. Ten individual sites instead one do-it-all, when a few don’t work, I replace them, when I have a top one, I can sell it for a good profit. With a all-in-one you cannot sell individual parts, only delete the non performing ones….
Income control of this Lifeworks site would require total tracking codes for each category and page.
Hi Matt, thank you for sharing how life works, it could be a good idea, although it appears to be a bit of a wishy washy tyoe of site with no focus at all.
Matt Carter Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 7:42 am
Hi Wolfgang
Well that is my point really, you don’t have to be super targeted in a niche to make money, which is what most people teach in affiliate marketing, this style is different but I know first hand that it works, because I do it!
There is BIG advanatges of this style, the main one being the flexibilit to promote anything you like, and if you are not that experienced then this is great because like I mention in the post, if you get a keyword or niche wrong you don’t have to start all over again, just add more pages to the exxisting site, which is better than starting a new site in google.
Matt
@Kent F – This site gets its lion’s share of traffic from paid sources… most of which are from media buys. I’d say at least 80% but more like 90% of their traffic is paid for.
I’ve seen this exact site as well as many like it being advertised on big traffic sites like Yahoo News, MSN, Huffington Post, CNN etc.
Just look at it’s compete traffic stats:
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/m/profiles/site/howlifeworks.com/
Like you said, the PLR traffic is subpar, but it’s the copy they are weaving in with the PLR content that is making all the difference.
It’s more like a presell than anything.
They are mearly driving traffic to specific posts that have the CPA/Affiliate offer in the article/presell.
——–
@Cindy – the trick to getting approved in these networks is to speak to someone directly (go for the account rep or affiliate manager) via email or even by phone and state your intentions on how you intend to promote their products. Obviously you want to know what you’re talking about, so I recommend you go through Matt’s free course so you sound knowledgeable when you are talking to these people.
This has never failed me.
Hope this helps 🙂
Jason
P.S. I meant the PLR content is subpar.
Maybe Matt or whoever is moderating ocmments will edit that for me 😛
Many of the comments seem to be touting the mantra “become the expert in your niche”. I couldn’t agree more.
I see matt’s suggestion as an alternative to having multiple-individual-sub-niche sites within your main niche. When matt’s idea is viewed within this context, your principle niche site shows more depth (translated knowledge) and helps to further establish you as THE expert in your main niche.
Additionally, this type of site would allow you to safely explore numerous supporting niches ,and track the results, without much effort. This would make life soooo much easier and you’d be able to easily discover multiple responsive sub-niches within your main niche.
This would present you as the most knowledgable source and expert within your “field” (read main niche). Isn’t this just the type of thing that SE’s are now looking for?
Hey, Look what it did for Dr. Phil!
Thanks Matt…. I’m lovin’ this idea!
Interesting website, I have often thought of doing something similar and this gives me a great reference.
I did notice that they left the dates in the blog posts. I am not sure I would do that and make them a little more timeless. In particular, I liked the “todays date” feature in the top center. This implies that the data is timely which makes the post dates unnecessary.
-rs
HowLifeWorks – Love the clean theme. Is this WordPress, Drupal, Joomla?
Thanks Matt for all your great posts!
Matt Carter Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 7:57 am
Hi Rose
Not sure what they are using, but something like this could easily be made with WordPress.
Matt
Hi Matt,
i agree with you. I have tried some of each type of sites. Some very niche and some very broad. Both work, but the niche ones can take a long time to get onto the front page.
A very interesting blog. I am reminded of the saying ” a knowledge of all but a master of none” and in building a site as the one you talked about, where the site covers all kinds of product and subject matter I would think you could not master all the subject matter, however, a small niche site covering one subject matter, with several sub niches in the same field would give you a chance to be recognized as a master of that niche, which could lead to a wonderful reputation and a chance at a lot of viral sales.
In my opinion, I would think that in due time there is a strong possibility that Google may not look upon those sites with a variety of subject matter as sites not to be ranked so highly simply because it is virtually impossible to master all the subject matter you are trying to sell.
There is a big difference in building a site that has subject matter or products in all different fields where the purpose is bent specifically on making money in any way you can, whereas building a small niche site to meet the needs of people looking specifically for that subject, and you being a master of that subject, or product, so that you can speak to them with authority would be a huge difference in Google’s eyes.
Matt Carter Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 7:44 am
Hi Paul
Yeah there are advantages of both styles, but looks at Wikipedia for example, that site is not about any one topics, neither is ezinearticles, squidoo and 100’s of other sites, so I don’t think Google dislikes them, as long as the content is good content, which it should be.
At the end of the day I have both specific and general sites, and I make more money with the general ones, and it is much easier on the SEO also.
Thanks
Matt
Thanks for the post Matt!
That is an interesting idea that I never thought of but I can definitely see the potential with a site like that as it could become huge with lots of content
Neverblue is a really good network so I second that recommendation
Hope all is well with you…look forward to talking with you again soon
-Mark
Matt Carter Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 7:45 am
Thanks Mark!!
Thanks Matt,
This post gave me another big idea of building a great site.
Could you please give a sound advice how to get accepted into CPA networks? Look like this is quite hard for many people.
Matt Carter Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 7:47 am
Hi Wariya
Getting accepted into CPA networks is all about the application, the last thing you want to get across is that you are a newbie, and you also need some form of website up too.
The next step is either calling them yourself or atleast making sure you accept their phone call, as the good networks will not accept you if you don’t answer their questions on the phone. When they call make sure you tell them what offers or verticals as they call them, interest you and how you intend on driving traffic to them.
At the end of the day make sure you come across as a pro and know what you are talking about!
Good luck
Matt
Interesting, HLW seems to have encoded their meta keywords? How do they do that?
Have been struggling to get accepted on Neverblue. I heard they accept people via referrals. Can someone please help me out? Thanks Matt.
Matt Carter Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 7:55 am
Hi Shehu
I have provided a response on this post to someone else about getting into Neverblue that might help
Matt
I do like the idea of a multi-niche site. Content for the site is endless.
the link to howlifeworks.com appears dead in ei, ff and chrome… apparently, the site is offline or something
I can’t help but think about the latest Panda update to google when I look at this website and wonder Panda what. I agree it is beautiful and really easy on the eyes but like Kent stated the content is 100% duplicate and makes no attempt whatsoever to be unique. The google indexation, traffic and Alexa rankings are phenomenal. Am I missing something here? Anyone have any input on this? Matt, what do you think?
Matt Carter Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 7:49 am
Hey Cecil
No I don’t think the Google Panda update will cause any problems with a site like this, the reason I know is because I have one and it didn’t get hit at all. You just need to make sure you have good content, use video on your pages etc…I did a recent blog post on this actually and not one of my sites got affected at all by Google
Thanks
Matt
Great example, Matt. With such a broad site, it is much easier to find keywords with lower competition and rank individual pages for them.
Matt Carter Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 7:50 am
Hi Viviane
Yes with a broader site your options are wdie open and finding keywords can be way easier!
Matt
How Life Works is nice indeed for “looks” , kind of hard to navigate, especially when you click on the rotating images top left, they never seem to go where the title says it will?!?
Still a lot of work went into it for content creation…over 500 words per article/post…wow.
Any idea what WordPress theme is used for this layout?
Thanks again for all you provide Matt.
Much appreciated.
Regards,
Francois
how are you people finding http://www.howlifeworks.com ??? i’ve clicked on that link and it is dead! either there is no such site on the internet, or the site has gone offline! go ahead and try to find it! also, seo spyglass says it doesn’t exist! w/e…..
i notice that people are coming on here after me, and they are commenting about the site… idk what site it is that you all are commenting about. will someone please click on the link that matt has up above, then reply to my comment, and tell me what i’m doing wrong!
-rich-
Francois Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 5:35 am
Hey Rich, don’t know what you’re doing wrong?
I even clicked on the link in YOUR comment and it worked just fine?
Maybe clear your cookies and write the URL (not copy and paste) on a new window.
I use firefox, are you?
Hope this helps
All the best
Francois
Matt Carter Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 7:51 am
Hi Rich
Not sure why you can’t see the site as it loads for me, perhaps try a different browser. Also I think this site gets most of it traffic from paid avenues
Matt
richp Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 10:07 am
i finally found the reason:
just this morning, in my email, was a notice from No-IP, asking if I wanted to continue my dormant, ready-to-expire free domain, and I figured what the heck, sure, and I clicked to reactivate it… well, what I didn’t realize was that all of my browsing (my home ip address is an open one) goes through their filters, and for some reason http://www.howlifeworks.com is on the block list (i had gone through a similar thing with another free domain service last year). the thought came to me to try a proxy, and it worked! so i’m not going crazy after all (well, in large ways anyway)…
I very much hope that this software program being discussed is not the AFFILIATEX software that is available Supposedly you just add a small snippet of code to the Main/Menu/Header.php of blog sites to increase their monetization.
First of all there is no support for this product as the auto-responder has been shut down. second in order to get it to work you require the Pro system which they don’t tell you is a membership site. As far as I am concern its a scam as i am having a lot of trouble getting a refund or getting any support for this stuff.
Hi Matt,
do you know what WP theme they use at How Life Works? I agree with the person who said that you can’t be an expert in everything. One could create a site similar to this one, but with a more narrow focus, rather than such a broad one. The site looks very nice, however, and I would love to know what theme they use.
Thank you,
Robert
Matt Carter Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 7:33 am
Hey Robert
I don’t think the theme is a free wordpress one, this looks like it has been purposely designed.
Matt
The site does exist I have it open in Firefox at http://www.howlifeworks.com/
I think the principle of attracting multi interest readers is quite good but I would imagine that for a newcomer writing good content on so many disparate subjects is somewhat daunting.
I have tried something similar on one of my sites http://pathwaytocyberwealth.com but despite trying to promote a number of products the result is quite poor, probably 1 out of 10 and needs a lot more input. Thus for us newbies better to stick with one idea and develop this fully before moving on to something new.
Matt Carter Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 7:32 am
Hi Russ
Yes an email list would not suite this style of site and you don’t need to always do email marketing, some people so caught up with list building, but I can tell you from experience that it’s not always needed.
All the best
Matt
I am astonished at some of the comments. Do some of you really think you need to be an expert on everything you write about? Do you really think you need to even know much about what you are writing about?
My goodness!!! Some of you are never going to make much money on the internet. If the site provides information that the visitor likes or thinks helps them then it is fine!!!!! This idea that you have to be an expert on the field you write about is ridiculous!
Have any of you actually taken Matt’s course? Apparently not.
The site given as an example is not the kind of site that I would like to build, but it probably does more than fine for the owner and I am pretty confident that this site could sell for a very good price.
The idea is to get people to your site, give them some information that is useful and then get them to hopefully click on your affiliate links or CPA offers.
Why do some of you seem not to understand this concept?
Matt Carter Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 7:53 am
Hi Todd
Thanks for the comment, and yeah I think some people don’t realize how easy it can be to make money with websites and often overcomplicate it.
I am still an advocate for good content, but like you said as long as you give the reader what they want and send them where they need to go, your job is done.
Thanks
Matt
All Matt was saying in this post, was there are many ways to build a site and make money.
How Life Works is a great site and would bring the owner a ton of cash!
I have a similar site, but the layout is different I have been building since April 2009. Mine is about everyday living and is my own personal blog. It leaves you wide open to discuss and promote what you want. I also have very targeted Niches. My blog leads people to my other sites, PLUS allows me to target what I want when I want. VERY SUCCESSFUL.
I find it is all in the promotion, keywords chosen and copy. Don’t kill the messenger open your eyes to what is available.
As for traffic, following to the letter Matt’s Traffic Blue Print course, you cannot go wrong.
When it all boils down to it, it is about traffic and getting people to click your links – nothing else.
Michael Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 7:34 am
Lots of you guys and dolls are getting het up about this post. I agree with Maggie. See it for what it is or what Matt is saying. Its just as we say “Another string to your bow” Even if you took this concept and provided content you could end up with an authority site and monitize through Adsense or something similar and flip the site one day!
Yep no doubt about it Matt the information you provide and the responses from readers make for excellent and authoritive reading. As for howlifeworks.com it looks great and the layout is easy to follow. I think it demonstrates a step towards diversifying as the market changes. It also means more effective time at the helm as opposed to less efficiencies found managing a lot of sites and depending on digital software to manage these. A question of right or wrong comes down to an executive decision. For me it is back to first principles and always consider what our audience want and to make their experience that much better with a simple click.
Hi Matt,
bought your course and have a question on “time to gain trust with Google” you mentioned.
How long typically must we wait for this to occur for brand new niche domains for exact match keywords?
Ballparks?
Thanks
Greg
Interesting article. I always think in develop a website like this. A lot of “gurus” and experts talk about specific niches, but, a webpage like this, is a very good idea. Did you watch the stadistics?
Thanks for share it Matt
As you say Matt this is a very interesting site, in fact there is quite a lot going on in the background.
First thing I noticed, the site doesn’t mention “Home page” in fact it’s nine little interlinked websites.
The site is using WordPress more as a CMS than a blog. I would also think that a theme package is being used that adds features like the slider menu.
I noticed that some of the other comments are negative about the site – personally I found it rather innovative and an interesting model to work on.
Thanks Matt for sharing this site. If I landed on this website I would certainly browse a few of the pages as howlifeworks website looks really inviting and pleasing to the eye. I think this is built on WordPress. Not sure what the theme is. You could create the same look using http://WWW.catalysttheme.com which is a powerful (paid) wordpress theme that allows you to create any theme design you want and add hooks and custom pages without knowing CSS or HTML. Its given me some inspiration for one if my websiites.Thanks again karen
Thanks Matt for the tip and another method for creating opportunities to build our businesses. The great thing about your tips is that you make them concise and easy to follow with real examples, not unusable fluffy, theoretical garbage.
Hi Matt, this is exactly what I have been looking for. I have a niche site, and recently started a general site which is
focusing mostly on Amazon and CPA products. Do you know what theme this site is using?
If you had the money behind a site like How It Works, you, too, could probably pull in the same kind of numbers no matter what was on the site. ASN.com, the parent of HIW, handles large advertisers. The articles on the site are from major advertisers like Lending Tree. There is some big money behind this site. So, you have to concentrate on the idea of the site, not the site itself. I suspect part of their strategy is to get every advertiser with an article to offer a backlink to the HIW site as maybe a discount for the service.
ARAlifestyle.com is another example
They share ad space all over the web with fake news and flog sites, and have titles like “shocking auto insurance secrets exposed”.
Anyway, the point being I think most of their traffic is from paid banner ads. There are a few networks that cater to this (I believe AdBlade is one of them)
hey Matt, great Post. I have a few general sites as well. I have them set up on separate hosting from my niche sites and I use them as a combination to do some huge content sites with some direct monetization as well as to build some good links to my niche sites.
Thanks for your post. You allways have good ideas. Probably the best idea is to have a niche site that you can build on and become an expert in that field.
Great advice as always.I have in the past joined many cpa companies including Neverblue,which I feel is one of the best cpa companies to use-however never did real well making much money-
Now after looking at your post Mark realize especially viewing How life works that my sites were just blatant pushing people to buy without any content-things have changed now mostly by following your advice,I shall now incorporate Neverblue back into the game play.
As for building niche sites on products one knows about does work better for me-I love rc helicopters and planes and have heaps of them-so put a blog together on one heli that sells for around $30,not much proffit you might say from Amazon,but hey get over 11,000 visits a month and sold over the 100 mark this month,small dollars add up. Get heaps of emails with people wanting help on their rc helis,as know a lot the replies are helpful and they buy from my site as have trust-
Thanks again-for anyone thinking of cpa join Neverblue,takes a little effort but a great company.
OK. Have to admit something – I’m one of those newbies who bought Matt’s Rapid Profit Formula hoping to cash in fast. As I go through the videos, I was shocked to hear Matt said that in the beginning, you can expect $25-50 a week (something to that effect). Huh? All that work that needs to be done and that’s the expected result?
I stayed away from that video for a while to do some thinking. Luckily, rationale gets the better of me and have to admit – Matt’s right.
I seem to forget – this is a business. You don’t do anything, you can’t expect anything. Just a little hard to swallow the reality that success takes time:(…Not to mention the frustrations sometimes!
I did some research on HowLifeWorks and found out that most of their traffic is brought in through ppc.
So what that says to me is that they are making money from that site because it gets a very large amount of traffic it is ranked 7,474 in the world and 2,788, that is a ton of traffic.
So from that it seems that the strategy is working and thanks for pointing out this strategy to us Matt.
Matt Carter Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 5:42 pm
Yes they do get a lot of traffic, and its from media buys!!
Hi, Matt! Thanks for a great post here. I have purchased your RPF and RR programs and have been contemplating start of building my website. From the start, I have been interested in building a multi-product affiliate site, which you touch upon in RPF. I have one question: in developing such a site, where should the SEO emphasis be: on the products or the domain name? The latter cannot possibly cover the content of the site. Where is the happy medium? Thanks so much for your consistently great output, and for your reply. Stay well and best regards!
Hey there,
This is awesome. I think we’re at the same course Internet Marketing. I can share some of my knowledge about it and so we can connect.
Thanks,
Domo
i think it’s a great plan to have a multi niche, multi product site – for the reasons already commented on… but another reason is something to consider also: a customer may have found your site while searching for one product or solution, but then once they’ve landed, they see everything else you’ve got there, which could very well lead to additional sales – or at least maybe a bookmark to come back later or show to a friend. You just can’t lose when you’ve got lots and lots of products on the same site… it’s like doubly free traffic – just something to chuck around… anyway, that’s the way i’m seeing it! 🙂
-rich-
rich Reply:
April 27th, 2011 at 12:19 am
just an add-on to my post: with such a site, you can have items that you can’t rank for (super-high traffic broad terms) along with the ones that you do rank for… so in that way, you’ve opened a “door to Narnia”, where customers suddenly find themselves inside your “off-the-beaten-path” store, where you’ve got really popular stuff… 😉
Hi Matt this is a great idea may I have been thinking about not just submitting articles but to also to go get some articles and make a larger site with fresher wider content. I was just wondering would my pages be better if under my articles I let people comment and leave a link or should I do like How life works and only have my own links of the page with no comments.
Hey Matt great post. I have been following your blog for a while now, And your insight’s to affiliate marketing is second to none…
I’m from Brisbane myself 🙂 We are getting plenty of rain.
On a quick note your course Rapid Profit formula has really taken me to the next level..
Your way of teaching and outlining the material was fantastic.
And it surely has improved and my way of keeping it simple and
following instructions to the key.
Keep it rocking
Jamie
Hi Matt,
You have opened my eyes again. Now I’ve found that I’ve already a little applied this different style, as you call it, on my site. And it really works well. Now I’m going to multiply this. And I wait your new ideas giving me energy and optimism so much.
Hi Matt,
The ‘How Life Works’ site does look quite busy. They must have more than one person behind the scenes on a site like that. I think a site that covers so many topics would have to know what they are doing to be able to generate so much traffic and popularity. Basically it would be called an authority site rather than a niche site, correct?
I don’t think a newbie would be wise to start out with a site like this, not until they have a bit of experience 🙂
Everyone should become an expert at something they like rather than another wannabe – the world would be a better place then. If you look at most top marketers, they may use many techniques but they position themselves as an expert in a particular area.
ie. Jeff Johnson – traffic, Jeff Walker – product launches, Frank Kern- list building, Dan Kennedy – copywriting, Matt Carter – SEO.
How Life Works sells virtually all the ads you see on their site. You need to be a serious player to advertise on their site. Their traffic is huge. I spoke with a super affil today and they are basically a broker of ad space.
Thanks for this nice tip. As always a great idea that you present to your subscribers 🙂
Thanks for the great information, Matt. I had this idea floating around in my head but did not know if it really worked. I think I will give it a try to see first hand. Thanks for the post, I am looking forward to seeing more from you.
I disagree I think you pick a some good keywords in your niche and become an expert. I would not waste my time being all over the road like that. Poeple want information and it organized so the content is easily found. If you have no keywords to center your site around you have no direction to go in.
I created my blog http://www.easysixfigureincome.com/ and now I write about all areas within the topic of six figure income.
Lisa
The question I have is that if the site is so general how do you target keywords to gain enough notice with google to get ranked. Every post would have a different set of keywords