I’m back into building new niche websites.
After selling 7 sites at the end of 2020 and early 2021, I’m working hard on growing a total of 4 sites (not including Fat Stacks). Three of these sites pre-existed my recent selling spree. One site is brand new.
My biggest niche site (cleverly referred to as Site 1 in my income reports) is my main revenue source among my portfolio (not including Fat Stacks). All I do is add new content and update old content. It’s about as simple as it gets.
As for one of the smaller sites, I thought it would be fun to pour a little gas on growth with some link building. I didn’t want to go all blackhat though. I’ve always thought the skyscraper model is good. It’s similar to what I do anyway except incorporates some outreach to get more links. I publish plenty of linkable assets. Skyscraper model revolves around publishing a linkable asset (epic blog post) followed by contacting other websites inquiring about linking to it. Pretty benign stuff that I’m hoping will yield big results.
I hunted around checking out services. I settled on Niche Website Builders (NWB). They advertised in my newsletter which is how I became aware of them. I liked the sounds of their methods so ordered the 4-month BALLISTIC skyscraper service. I also liked working with them. They know this stuff and are nice, personable guys. That goes a long way IMO.
Why did I go with the Ballistic package?
For me it’s simple. If I’m going down this road, I might as well go all in.
That was 5 weeks ago.
STATUS: The linkable asset article is published on my site. I believe they just started the outreach process.
The Niche Website Builders Process
Article Topic Ideas: Once you pay for the skyscraper service and provide info about your site, NWB reaches out pitching article ideas. This article is intended to be an informational beast designed to attract links from other websites (resulting from outreach).
They pitched 5 topics. One stood out so I went with it.
The Article Itself: It’s 5,100 words. Purely informational. The included 17 images. One massive table. It’s well written. All in all, it’s a good article. The images used are basic. The writing is quite good. It’s definitely something I’m more than happy to publish on my site. The issue is whether it’s good enough to attract links. I’m leaving that to NWB. After all, that’s what I’m paying for. It’s up to them to ensure the article does what I’m paying to do.
Formatting: The formatting is decent. They wrote it in Classic Editor then converted it in Gutenberg. The table was created with the WordPress table maker which is fine with me. The table is only 3 columns so it works on mobile as well.
There are many headlines and no walls of text.
Clearly the folks publishing content for NWB understand how to publish for websites.
Links: I’ve not received links at this stage as far as I know. Stay tuned for updates. This is where NWB earns the big bucks.
Service: Their level of service is awesome. I’m impressed and I’m not easily impressed. When I drop thousands for something I have pretty high expectations. NWB’s team communicates enough so that I know what’s going on but they don’t inundate me with pointless emails. The update emails are succinct. NWB knows how to assemble teams and systems because the process and service is very good.
Assuming they hit Ballistic level inbound links, the service is well worth it.
NWB Skyscraper Timeline
That’s where we’re at. I don’t expect updates any time soon since outreach is a long, multi-month process.
Inside 30 days, NWB achieved a lot. Their service advertises that the first month is dedicated to getting the linkable asset published. They did that with time to spare despite my delaying the team a full 7 days.
Stay tuned for updates.
Jon runs the place around here. He pontificates about launching and growing online publishing businesses, aka blogs that make a few bucks. His pride and joy is the email newsletter he publishes.
Hyperbole? Maybe, but go check it out to see what some readers say.
In all seriousness, Jon is the founder and owner of a digital media company that publishes a variety of web properties visited and beloved by millions of readers monthly. Fatstacks is where he shares a glimpse into his digital publishing business.
Very cool! Hope you get a lot of links. I wrote up my own case study experience with NWB too. Interested to see how the rest of your experience goes. I went with the Budget plan and was happy with the results all around.