When it comes to creating niche sites it is important to write about a niche you love or even better write about your own experiences. Besides these two there are actually another alternative where you get someone else to create the content and maintain your niche site for free.
How it works
It is all about finding the right people. Instead of advertising for people to create content for niche sites you decide on a topic within your niche and register a domain. Then you contact people who writes about this topic and ask them if they would like you to create a site for them on your domain.
An example
If you have a network with niche sites about celebrities you can simply visit Wordpress.com or a forum like FanForum.com and try to find people who writes a lot about one specific celebrity. In this case Allison Scagliotti.
Then you register a good domain, if possible the name of the celebrity. If that is not possible just add fan or fansite. As soon as you have the domain registered and paid for you should contact everyone you found interesting and tell them that you own this domain and are trying to create a fan site about this specific celebrity. Since the person you contacted wrote a lot about her, she might be interested in writing on the site together with you.
As soon as you have one or more people interested you install Wordpress and hook them up with a user account. Help them in the beginning by creating a few posts and have regular contact with them.
After a while when you have some visitors you add advertising and offer to pay her or him a share of it so they will make money of their work. By doing so you will have a growing income without spending a minute on it.
What to think about
Remember there is a difference between helping people without any knowledge about Wordpress and taking advantage of them. Make sure they get something in return for all their hard work.
Since it could be difficult to pay salary because of several reasons a good idea for both of you are to have your own advertising. Convince them to register on Google AdSense and then show your ads half of the times and their ads half of the times. By doing so you will truly share the income even.
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
This is an interesting suggestion. However, will it not jeopardize the uniqueness of a blog?
I’m not sure if I follow you Walter. Why would it jeopardize the uniqueness by getting someone to create the content for free?
You could have them use their adsense on every post they write meaning they get the full amount giving more incentive to contribute content.
I’m not sure if you could convince someone to take on the challenge, but then you’ll never know if you don’t give it a go.
I personally prefer to show my AdSense half of the times and their AdSense half of the times. By doing so you make sure you split the income in half, even though it might differentiate a few dollar.
When it comes to convincing people I have actually already a few people doing this for me and it works great. The secret is to find someone who really loves the niche.
Thats not a bad idea, I was going to suggest offering them equity of the blog in return for their content, but this way you can keep the entire blog to yourself.
Excellent Post!
Thank you Brad. I personally prefer to be in charge and instead pay others instead of offer equity of the blog. With that said it could be a good idea sometimes if you spend as much time and effort. Feel free to put in a good word for me in your blog.
I would think it would be hard to find others, but you say you already have people doing it. Congrats to you Stefan.
I might try this at a later stage, not right now. It was an interesting read.
I highly recommend you to do so. As soon as you have it up and running there’s no more work for you.
It seems a good idea but it will need hard work to manage so everyone will happy.
Well, I wouldn’t say there are more work than if you had to create the content by yourself. As long as you stay helpful and help them as soon as they get any problem you will be all right.
very interesting post you have written and the idea of installing wordpress and user account is good to seetle it . nice man
That’s a very unique idea. As you point out, the important thing is to make sure you don’t take advantage of someone.
A Very Nice Tip… Better than hiring a FreeLancer!
Stefan,
It’s indeed better than hiring a professional writer. However, there would be few things people taking this advice to implement to take care of:
1. Have a control over content
2. Decide the financial details before you start
3. Be careful about consistency in the initial era.
I am sure it can work out fine when you work on the principles of give & take instead of take & take.
Good addition Chris. I did not mention this in my post but it is a good idea to take regular backups since the author might go by the board if you have a dispute.
As you say it is important to work on the principles of both giving and taking. If you do not give something back the author will either be upset with you or simply quit.
Somehow, I know it is kinda understanding we are expected to have. But I thought it might be worthwhile just to mention it for readers as the simplest of unmentioned principles of success are the differentiating factor between the wanna be & a really successful one.
I hope it helps your readers.
Nice thought Stefan. I have a bollywood celebrity blog and I guess I should stop commenting here and try to get my hand on some die hard fan
You should never stop commenting here. How would I else get the energy to keep up and deliver great content like this?
Good idea to having a Celebrity Blog in their own Name! We can really make a lot of profit then!
The best thing is without doubt when you are able to win the race before anyone else by predicting who will become famous and buy the domain directly. This is actually something you should try to do within all niches.
Ahah, Stefan you just gave me a lightbulb on this one
ha ha … nice thought.. better to start a blog on my favorite actor and start searching for my fellow buddies..