Niche Content Site Idea
I recently stumbled across a very niche site with a content-creation funnel that was very appealing to me, and I has prompted me to create a couple of my own to experiment with.
Content creation is hard. Having a pipeline of good topics to write about is one thing, but then sitting down and doing the writing is another. I've tried and failed many times.
The main premise is to find a narrow, popular, high-ticket item commonly listed on Craigslist or other auction/seller sites and "curate" some of the nice examples. Each one of these becomes a new post on the blog. While current visitors will have access to nice examples of items available for sale, the site also creates a backlog of sales history. And the SEO juice here is the detailed descriptions and images that are otherwise lost to the void when delisted from Craigslist, eBay, etc.
Enough suspense ... I am trying this with porsche944forsale.com and whalersforsale.com.
Vehicles and boats are an easy one, and something I have at lease some interest in, especially Boston Whalers. The Porsche 944 is a good example. Its production history was less than 10 years and has some minor model variations. Porsche in general has a strong following, and there is a cult/niche audience with a particular interest in the 944 model.
Boston Whalers are similar in that they have a loyal following with strong demand from devotees to the classic models.
Buyers are willing to pay big money and travel long distances for these items, which means buyers will have some interest in finding sources that do some curation of the many selling sites. And as fans of these items, visitors just enjoy the experience of browsing what's out there, whether they are looking to buy or not.
I have some automation built in to aggregate very specific Craigslist posts, but also plan to continue more detailed posts of nice examples with helpful details about the models, years, options, etc., of the featured listings.
I will also look to add more pages that have helpful links, articles, etc.
As for monetization, the site I was inspired by made money from ads and Ebay affiliate links. I believe there is also some potential to charge for user-submitted classifieds and maybe even some merchandise sales.
But I suspect it will take six months to a year of consistent posting before there is a regular flow of traffic. I will update with more as I go ...