Authority Adsense site

[Mikeyheu]

Hey guys,
I'm a member of the KWA where the focus is starting to shift to authority sites for longer term.

Since I'm starting from scratch I'll be starting a brand new site with the long term perspective to generate hundreds of keyword targeted posts and back links.

I have a question, however. I found a decent niche with high PPC but I'm wondering if certain niches are just too competitive (i.e. credit card, etc) and if I'm better off going for something that has less competition.

Or is it just a matter of slogging away, regardless of the niche? These are keywords with less than PR four in the top 5 slots of Google search results.

Thanks,

Mike

[BenK]

Having authority sites is key -- it's my strategy now. However, I don't recommend you go for credit cards, especially if you are new to this game. You certainly can make a sucessful credit card site, but you have a long uphill battle and you won't see money for a long while.

The reason is that ultra competative niches have a huge penalty for ranking, especially when it comes to high CPC niches. If you have site in the niche that has already been around for a few years and has googles trust, then you certainly can make inroads faster -- but don't make a brand new site about CC's and think you'll see money in a couple weeks or months (short of getting some powerful high PR/trustrank backlinks). If you don't mind at cracking away at the niche for a year or two and slowey build it up, then go for it.

Niches with far less competition are easier to get traffic and money -- you can make money much faster. You can go after competative terms, certainly -- but you better have a long term focus, because it can be disheartening making nothing for a long time before seeing something.

my .02

[Mikeyheu]

Thanks Ben.

I'll be looking for an aged domain with indexed pages for this one if I do pursue. And I'll have to keep in mind this may be a very long term project...

In the meantime I guess I'll also start another less competitive niche authority site...

[Phillip]

Having authority sites is key -- it's my strategy now. However, I don't recommend you go for credit cards, especially if you are new to this game. You certainly can make a sucessful credit card site, but you have a long uphill battle and you won't see money for a long while.

The reason is that ultra competative niches have a huge penalty for ranking, especially when it comes to high CPC niches. If you have site in the niche that has already been around for a few years and has googles trust, then you certainly can make inroads faster -- but don't make a brand new site about CC's and think you'll see money in a couple weeks or months (short of getting some powerful high PR/trustrank backlinks). If you don't mind at cracking away at the niche for a year or two and slowey build it up, then go for it.

Niches with far less competition are easier to get traffic and money -- you can make money much faster. You can go after competative terms, certainly -- but you better have a long term focus, because it can be disheartening making nothing for a long time before seeing something.

my .02

BTW. Where you decided to go for the content to your authority sites?

[kiddlattimer]

The reason is that ultra competative niches have a huge penalty for ranking, especially when it comes to high CPC niches.

Ben,

I had a question about this... are you saying that you think there is a penalty (similar to the impact of a manual penalty) if you target a niche like credit cards or are you referring more to just being thrown in to the box?

[BenK]

I wouldn't say sandbox. Sandbox happens when you get traffic for a bit and then you get slammed back to nothing. It's just the niche is sooo competative that google won't give you any traffic and it will be a long long time before you can move up in the serps. Really, you don't want anything to do with credit cards or the like unless you are prepared to put some real link building effort for a few years.

[kiddlattimer]

Gotcha, I was just curious if G was slapping on a penalty for certain niches. It would make sense for them to protect their high profit advertisements.

Yeah I'm with you on the credit card niche, I definitely wouldn't work that niche in a million years. There's plenty of money in easy niches and trickle traffic.