How Do You Know If a Niche Is Too Small And More
December 28th, 2010 | 
Author: Hi everyone! Welcome back – it’s time to work again 
I took some days off to veg in front of the TV (okay the computer) watching Netflix – I’m addicted to 30 Rock and am on Season 4. I also spent time playing board games with my kids and husband, laughing and experimenting with all my Christmas goodies.
The hubby got me some cool stuff – an HDTV DVR (I didn’t know my TV could have HDTV lol – I was all confused about LCDs and Plasma etc.) so it’s so awesome to have sharp TV now! He also got me a Sony Bloggie to replace my Flip (but see what I have to say about that in my vlog).
And he got me an iPad but we returned it so I can upgrade it to the 3G version. I also got some awesome vegetarian cookbooks because I need more diversity in my meals, all the rest of the Jodi Picoult books I didn’t have, the Ally McBeal series, and other “stuff.” It was a fun Christmas!
Watch today’s vlog here or read below:
Okay I know you missed Honey. Here’s a quick video of her making God-awful sounds. My husband is sitting there – whenever his hand is out of the blanket, she growls very mean at it and bites it (playfully) but whenever he hides it under the blanket, she whines and it drives her insane:
In today’s video I talk about how I’ve been jotting stuff down in my spiral notebooks and I show how I organize everything – a spiral for my PLR Mini Mart, a spiral for my info products, and a spiral for my affiliate sites. I’ll jot down what tasks need to be completed so I can go through and mark them off.
So my affiliate sites, for instance, I have a page for “get sites set up” and it lists all the sites so I can scribble through them when it’s done (I see progress that way and it boosts my ego lol). Then the next page will say, “keyword research” and again, list all the sites.
My info product spiral lists the 6 courses I’m planning to create this year and each page has the name of the product and tasks I need to be doing for it.
My PLR Mini Mart spiral lists the next 5 packs or so I’m working on and what type of pack it is – articles, eBook, etc.
My kids are excited about helping with my review sites – sucksorrocks and wasteorworthy but I’m still waiting on graphics. Hope I get them before January 1st. For my kids to be involved, I’m going to record them carefully. Like if Scarlett wants to review a toy, I’ll shoot it over her shoulder, so her face isn’t shown. I’m very careful about that with today’s pedos crawling the ‘net. But she’ll be able to give her perspective as a child, and I can add mine as the parent.
I’ll share some of those with y’all so you can see how I do it later.
My middle son is excited to do a review of his new Kinect (it IS cool) and my oldest is into biking, running and technology – both can contribute to games.
This year we may be doing Sharing on Sundays a bit different – either 1 question, or a simple check in about life. I’m running out of questions but I love the community we’re creating here. People helping each other out, etc.
Now on the niche being too small – someone asked me that in an email. Here’s the deal – there are $800 a month niches and $20,000 a month niches. You won’t know until you test it. For example, I make many sales doing a Gymnic Rody Hopping Horse site but the commission is low, so it’s not like I’m gonna be able to support my family on that alone. But it’s a nice addition!
I like the approach of having many types of income that all add up to a nice salary. It’s too scary to have just one income stream – anything could happen! And it’s fun to have multiple sources. Someone asked me which business model is most fun to me. I chose Amazon. I don’t know why – it’s just exciting waking up to see if one of my sites made a sale to a stranger.
Most fulfilling is my own info products – because I know what it was like to need information and not know what to do. So it’s rewarding helping people. And the PLR is profitable to me. But there’s a hint of personal satisfaction there in that I know how bad it is to have a low budget and not be able to afford $20-30 per page writing. So PLR lets people get good content for a tiny cost.
Hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate!
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Posted in Career
And there’s another thing I found out by accident with a very small niche. It can lead to bigger niches or other small ones. That’s what happened to me when I started a niche site in a VERY small niche, grew a small list and realized that they were also interested in info products outside the niche. Plus, they have spouses, kids, friends who are looking for info products and they can point them to my other sites for products.
I don’t make a fortune from this, but it’s growing and has given me ideas for growing other bigger niches from small ones.
It sounds like you had an awesome Christmas, Tiff! I didn’t get an iPad, but I’m very happy with my new iPod touch – although my son keeps stealing it to play games on!
I like your notebook idea to keep things organized. I’ve been using Google docs so my husband can help me if he ever feels the urge – I just keep track of keywords that I target for each site, and the backlinks that I build. I just started using my iPod to create To Do lists for each project as well.
Speaking of niches…I have one which is very narrow and one which is quite broad.
I worried for a LONG time as to whether my niche was too broad. Eventually, I went with it as there was only “competitor”. That was late 2009.
Since July of this year, I’ve witnessed an explosion of sites based on the very same premise as mine – a local guide – and barely 6 weeks ago, one site virtually built upon the base I used. In fact, I am finding the very same categories, even the same topics ( barely re-written or re-organized) and naturally the same “news”.
Where does this leave me? Should I fine tune to a particular topic? I can always put a personal twist to the information but it will eventually look like more of the same. IT is not quite as easy to re-design.
To say the least, I am seriously bummed that such a blatant move has been made to basically copy the very premise for my site.
Any suggestions?
Contact them and use a cease and desist letter telling them they’re infringing on your copyrighted content.
Tiffany,
Do you speak directly into the Flip when you’re recording?
Some people like the Kodak Zi8 because it contains a external mike jack to use.
Any opinion about the Kodak or is it an overkill with the mike?
I don’t personally need it but I guess if you were recording far from your Flip you would.
Buying an aged domain named Grape Facts was a mistake I thought at first. I’m still developing content and am using anything in the color grape.
Hopefully some year I’ll make some money. I’ve gotten a little AdSense and that’s about it.
Hi Tiff – I’m a spiral notebook freak, too. It’s the easiest way for me to grab and write. Organization is not my longest and strongest so I have to keep it as simple as possible.
Thanks for all the great ideas and products you have created to help us become more successful.
All good things to all of us in the coming year.
Me too Nancy – I’m a slob normally. lol
Tiff:
You are my idol! How in the world do you get all of this accomplished? My hat goes off to you. I love the way your are organizing your business. Love the idea of using the spiral note books. Do you use the the ones that are divided into sections? I think the dividers would make it easier to stay on task? Just an idea.
I must ask, hope I am not out of line with this question. Do you have an assistant or do you out source a great amount? You are doing a huge amount of work for a one person operation. I just want to know your secret.
I think you are the greatest and look forward to your emails.
Kindest Regards,
Peggy
I use separate spirals, not divider ones because I want them color coded. lol I don’t have an assistant – but I do outcourse stuff – sometimes writing, sometimes backlink building. Everything else I just do myself. I’ve gotten faster over time. I just don’t trust an assistant to handle my business.
Hi Tiff, glad you had a great Xmas!
I use spirals too, I much prefer that than having an excel file or something, I get more organized with a spiral notebook than with a spreadsheet. I like to be able to have it beside me and refer to it whenever I want.
Looking forward to seeing your review sites up and running
Take care
Have a Happy New Year
Sheryl
Me too Sheryl! I like flipping open the spiral beside me on the couch so I don’t have to flip around on my computer screen. lol
It’s great that your kids want to help you. They don’t know it but they are learning some great life skills from watching and helping Mom.
On small niches – I know for a fact it’s a lot easier to make money from small, underserved niches with low competition. You do have to build multiple small mini-sites that each make a little money monthly, but it’s not hard to do with WordPress and your own hosting, and all the small monthly amounts add up.
They’re excited Ally
And yes, small – but lots of them – add up 
Good grief – are you sure Honey isn’t a cat? That’s exactly what my cat does when you wriggle fingers and toes under the sheets or blankets!!
LOL She may be Janet!
I love seeing how people organise themselves so its great to see you using notebooks Tiff.
I use a ring binder for planning and a A4 lined book for general notes – I have to do my thinking and planning away from the computer – I like being very low tech whenever I can.
Me too Alex! Paper and pen relaxes me I think.
I love notebooks with dividers- I started using notebooks when my girls were in school and we had so many activities going on. It really help keep things organized. I do the same with my IM stuff – everything is in one place!
If you or any of your readers have an idea for a dot com you’d like to purchase, GoDaddy has just released their monthly 99 cent discount code. It’s NEWYEAR11. I just got mine for $1.67, including the ICANN fee. Just remember to check your cart for all the add-ins they like to drop in for you. It’s usually good for the first 10,000 uses, one per account. Best of luck to you and everyone else in the New Year.
thanks Anthony!
I was going to say I don’t know how you get so much done Tiffany, but you gave the game away at the start, you write lists.
This is going to be one of my New Year resolutions, to make a weekly plan each Sunday. I want to be able to tick off my achievements as you do.
Wishing you a happy and prosperous New Year.
John
Happy New Year John! Lists – I don’t always stick to them but they keep me somewhat on track
Random question – can and should we combine plr and ghostwriting? Meaning, mentioning it on our sites or linking one to the other?
yes good idea Danielle! I’ll talk more about that today in the vlog