Diving into Weird Niche Sites and Hustling for Profit

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! 

Come join Spencer and Jared as they take on the latest news in SEO, AI, Google, and beyond.

This week’s episode kicks off with some big news from Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, who talks about the future of Search. 

The main pivot he focuses on in the interview is the shift to AI, which he expects to serve the company well over the coming decade. He notes that AI has been working behind the scenes for a long time now and that Google has to evolve to meet the changing needs of users.

What does he say about chatbots? And what does he say about websites? Are they going away and is SGE going to take over? Tune in to hear what Spencer and Jared think about his comments.

Moving along, they talk about a LinkedIn post from Lily Ray on the SEO visibility growth of Reddit and the mindblowing statistics she shares. 

What theory does she share that Spencer doesn’t agree with? How does this all play into Google’s antitrust lawsuit, problems with Gemini, and its declining share price? 

And what about Reddit’s poor-quality results in Search? Listen to the episode to hear the ridiculous Reddit response to a weight loss query.

Spencer then shares a tweet from a series by Glenn Gabe on the March Core Update, talking about whether the update has finished or not, the role played by the HCU, and the lack of recoveries from these updates.

What did John Mueller say about the core update? What do Spencer and Jared think about the updates and when they’ll finish? Check out the episode to find out.

The last topic is that Bing usage is on the rise, having gained some footing recently, and Spencer and Jared note from the article that Bing actually powers several other search engines, including DuckDuckGo and Yahoo.

What do they recommend when it comes to optimization? Who uses Bing and why does it matter? What’s happening with desktop search?

As for their Shiny Object Shenanigans, Spencer highlights two of his side hustles, the Amazon Influencer Program and his Facebook traffic project, neither of which rely on search engine traffic at all.

Jared then announces the Alt G Online Conference: Unleash Your Content’s Potential Beyond Google, which will bring together people earning money on alternative platforms. It will be held on April 25th, and both Spencer and Jared will be speakers.

In line with the conference, the Niche Pursuits Community is welcoming a series of expert speakers each week who are also talking about using alternative traffic sources.

Jared talks briefly about his Amazon Influencer Program side hustle and then teases a new side hustle he’s about to launch. Come back next week for all the details!

As for the Weird Niche Sites, Spencer reveals iScrap App, which reports local scrap prices. They’ve got a blog and a directory and they’re doing well in search: 300k visitors per month according to SimilarWeb.

They monetize with display ads, they have a store, they sell directory space to scrapyards, and the owner probably has a nice little side hustle with this weird niche site.

When it’s Jared’s turn, he reveals Live Oasis, which lets you research the toxicity of many water brands and rates the water quality in different municipalities. It has a subscription model, which provides access to more information and research, but is it earning money?

Beyond that, this brand-new website is doing quite well and ranking for lots of keywords. What does Jared discover when he digs into the backstory? And where is all of the data coming from? And what if they were to change the model a bit? Hear Jared and Spencer’s recommendations.

We hope this episode helped bring you up to speed on the latest happenings in the SEO and content creation space and gave you some new ideas when it comes to your own businesses.

See you next week!

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