Comment by fendale | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fendale | Hacker News Reader

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> If you want the lowest risk sure fire way to make money online though, it's certainly "Find a niche" -> "Create useful content" -> "Promote" -> "Monetize through advertising".

I keep hearing this Find A Niche thing, and I have been doing some research. It really sounds like a case of researching stuff and writing some useful articles on it. Place the articles on a SEO optimized website and wait for the adsense dollars to roll in.

If it is that easy, surely everyone would be doing it, or is it really that easy?

While I would like a passive revenue stream, the only problem I have with this strategy is that I don't really want to spend my time researching and writing articles. I would much rather find a niche market for an online software app (sort of like patio11's bingocardcreator) that is small enough to build fairly quickly and makes a difference to some market, but finding such a market if you don't already have inside knowledge is the hard part I am finding.

It IS that easy, the trouble is finding the niches that are profitable that other people haven't already found. Getting in late to the game limits your choices to either 1) Being MUCH better at SEO than the more established people working the same strategy, 2) Finding a new niche that has somehow been overlooked by all the other people doing the same thing you are or 3) Finding less profitable niches in which to fill the need and game.

The reason that everybody isn't doing it is many-part, but the highlights are that SEO isn't that easy for the lay-person, and it actually does take quite a bit of work and commitment. There is a very big initial workload to setting up a site to generate passive income, and like a fire, it needs constant stoking to maintain, and will start by making VERY small amounts of money at a time (My first attempt grossed an average of $12 per month).

Simply put, the 'easiest' way to make money isn't really all that easy... and as for 'lowest risk', I'd completely dispute that too. If Google changes an algorhythm, or categorizes you as spam, or you're linked to by an unsavory site, then that could all go away. If you're hosting 50 sites on the same IP address, and have actually managed to get them to profitability, and Google bans the IP, now what?

> If you're hosting 50 sites on the same IP address, and have actually managed to get them to profitability, and Google bans the IP, now what?

You tar the sites and move them. It typically isn't that difficult, however most of the people who run the "online niche" strategy have got little technical know-how, so if you can do this stuff you're ahead of the curve.

It's even better if you know a programming language because you can create tools that handle the dull repetitive tasks (eg, backlinking) that you need for it to work at scale.

How exactly do you do the backlinking thing? Do you literally create supposedly related sites with 'rehashes' of your same articles and place a link on one to the other?

There was a story on here a few weeks back by someone leading the 4 hour work week nomadic lifestyle and it in the comments I think it was hinted that was the case.

Shoot me an email - mark {at} marklancaster {dot} org and I'll send you a file to start going through.

I came across the gtrends tool that supposedly helps you find niche markets in the past few days - it looks like it may be helpful.

Do you care to share any example sites you have produced that bring in some amount of money passively?

I am currently employed in a decent job at a big corporation, so my goal at the moment is to do something that makes some money, so $12 a month be a start. I have in my mind a 2 year plan to some sort of independence.

As I said, I would much rather spend my spare time building Rails Apps that provide a useful function to some small set of people willing to pay something for the pleasure, but finding the niche markets is the problem.

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