How Michael Donovan Makes $20k Per Month From A Tech Niche Blog

Today's guest on the Niche Pursuits interview is Michael Donovan. Michael's journey started by listening to Pat Flynn and Spencer Haws on podcasts and watching videos from Income School on KZbin during his commute.
Once the Income School guys simplified SEO, it gave him the confidence and motivation to start a blog in January 2020; and just last month, it received 500k page views and just shy of $20,000 in revenue.
The blog is in the tech niche, focuses on solving problems, and has gone from strength to strength, specifically in the past 12 months.
During the chat, Michael talks about the steps he took to create the blog without link building and drops information value bombs for those building niche websites.
His site has 235 posts, primarily written by himself, and it's super interesting to hear his thoughts on keyword research and his process for writing content.
In addition, he tells us why he chose the tech niche and how the pandemic helped him progress.
Things discussed during the interview include:
Putting yourself in the searcher's shoes when creating content
Having an interest in the topic
The importance of competitor research
Writing content himself after struggling to find good writers
The volume of posts produced each month
How he writes content that gets backlinks naturally
Why he chose the niche topic
How he makes money on the site
Duplicate content
Keyword research approach
Display ads
Spreading revenue through multiple posts
Researching for content
Why he doesn't build backlinks
Plus much more
Michael has a common-sense approach to the things he does on the blog; his approach is inspiring, engaging, and in some ways unique - as always, take notes and enjoy.
And since recording this podcast, Michael started a new blog with his twin brother! You can follow along with their niche site-building journey at NicheTwins.com.
LINKS AND RESOURCES AISHA PREECE MENTIONS IN THE INTERVIEW:
Michael Donovan Twitter - @nichedown - / nichedown
Adthrive - adthrive.com/
Ezoic - www.nichepursu...
Mediavine - www.mediavine....
Ahrefs - ahrefs.com/
SEMRush - www.nichepursu...
This Episode is Sponsored by: Rank IQ - www.nichepursu...
-You can learn more about me at and get additional website tips at: www.nichepursu...
-You can learn about optimizing your site with internal links using a WordPress Plugin I created right here: www.linkwhispe...
-And finally, if you are interested in buying or selling content or affiliate websites, my partners and I may be interested here: www.nichepursu...
Thanks for watching and please subscribe to my KZbin channel by clicking here: www.nichepursu...

[@isaac2k2]

Very motivating. I started a tech site 10 years ago, sold it for 3000 dollars 5 years ago and now that site is worth over a million dollars. Now that I know a bit more about seo I started a new site 5 months ago in different niche and so far hit over 30K page views. I will apply same cluster strategy you mentioned here. If I may ask how many words per your article you go for.

[@dinorossi6611]

That is amazing. Can you disclose the name of the site ?

[@ismailk9458]

One of the best interviews among many great ones on this channel. You guys have a great rapport.

[@troooooper100]

can you please summarize it?

[@AlexAlcyone]

great success. Doing this is so hard now.. back in the day had 300k traffic days, but in the last couple of years I have blogs with hundreds of articles, and literally some of the best content in existence on their topic. Traffic? barely any.

[@workwithjoshua]

Powerful episode this one 👌 And I’ve listed to the last 50 too. Well done Michael!

[@Sebastian0391]

so many valuable nuggets in this one, great interview

[@danmwathi]

God bless Michael! Just what I needed to hear. I have been writing for 3 months now but still no traffic. I felt like quitting but listening to this gave me hope for a brighter future for my website.

[@braimahjake]

Hey! Same here. We should connect and share tips.

[@danmwathi]

@@braimahjake We should. What's your favorite social media?

[@danmwathi]

@Games Hunter I believe him. I have heard the same advice from other sources. I write every day.

[@kamez123]

Micheal thanks for the insights. Was an pleasure listening to you. Keep up the good work 👍🏻 greetings from the Netherlands

[@dailylifetips8174]

Congrats! I was also thinking of building a troubleshooting blog, but it seems super competitive, so you did a great job. Again congrats.

[@callmeeugenius_official]

your youtube channel is better than every Netflix series I've ever seen

[@TheRetroInsider]

Extremely insightful and inspiring. Keep up the good work!

[@sanu1231000]

Income school guys indeed made SEO super easy to understand and implement!

[@flaviumircea4012]

Awesome interview!

[@thesoloentrepreneur07]

Creating cluster also helps in building authority on a specific keyword

[@vipsingh232]

well as always great interview and amazing growth story! congrats Michael and well-done niche pursuits in finding these amazing people and featuring them in your podcast. Learned a lot from it!

[@magicianscorneruk]

Powerful stuff. Thank you for sharing!

[@gregorygaines1905]

guys I bought an electric desk...up and down at a button touch...about 180 bucks love it...greg

[@henryomofonmwan60]

He mentioned using income school. How well does the alphabet soup method work for keyword research?

[@HeadStartWeb]

Great interview. Very motivating

[@111midman]

Respect to Michael for sharing his journey and knowledge, he's got me thinking..

[@BlogSprout]

I have a very similar approach. Duplicate content is doing really well for me too.

[@kennyn.8233]

5:30 Pat Flynn got fired??? But very inspirational interview. Thx

[@HamzaKhurshidhks]

Amazing! GOld and the Host did a wonderful job as well!!!

[@junaidkaif]

I’ve come here after checking your FB post on my feed!

[@DrDianeThompson]

Great interview. Thanks.

[@noahsleep]

This is gold!

[@CoconutPete]

I've recently developed a system to reverse engineer and find sites from guests of interviews... this one was tough to crack but found it in about 2 hours. Very interesting! :)

[@motiong171]

what was it

[@CoconutPete]

@@motiong171 actually regarding what the niche is in this video I wouldn't feel good about posting it so won't... but the good news is it doesn't really matter. The next phase of blogging will be 100% pure, authentic content. Google has already hinted at it lately. Gone will be the days of outsourcing writing overseas and all that other nonsense. And this is a very good thing and makes the whole process easier. All you have to do is write down a list of everything you're good at (preferably an expert at) and pick one of those topics as your blog (assuming there's a market for it). You could also pick a topic you are not an expert in but have a passion to journal/document your way to becoming an expert. Everything the gurus have taught up until today is pretty much obsolete. Especially with AI coming on the scene, the most desirable content will be 100% pure, non processed authentic/genuine content. The difference between drinking Folger's coffee and an expensive latte at a local coffee shop. Or buying mass produced honey at Wal-Mart vs. buying from a local beekeeper. Hope that makes sense...

[@motiong171]

@@CoconutPete do you think google would be able to survive AI content, especially if it's indistinguishable. I think what AI can't do at this moment consistently is have a writing style that has certain personality to it.

[@CoconutPete]

@@motiong171 Sadly, I think what Google is going to do is be mostly AI results (from using everyone else's content) and they will slowly but surely phase out web results. Hopefully they will give creators a piece of revenue for any result generated with AI, but who knows? The only problem they might have is if they punish content writers too much, there will be no incentive to create new content and over time the AI will degrade.

[@Nalbano7]

Congrats, thanks

[@emmannweb]

Very interesting!!

[@mauwiks]

What is the domain? Congrats!

[@SB-jo4xz]

It's a secret 😁

[@mauwiks]

@@SB-jo4xz Yes, figured :D

[@CoconutPete]

I found it... took a couple hours to "crack the code" but I did find it... I'm developing a system to reverse engineer such interviews and the system is working well lol

[@rahusphere]

@@CoconutPeteany tips ;)

[@CoconutPete]

@@rahusphere Now that AI is out I might as well post it... it is the home automation niche. I may delete this comment in a little while though :)

[@amjadlaghari]

Very inspiring

[@ski9673]

This guy sells info

[@AlaskaJiuJitsu]

I beleive the ratio is 1/12 for duplicate content*

[@AlaskaJiuJitsu]

Making 20% more than enough, lol.

[@famifami5771]

Display ads future is bright or decline??

[@SakibA.Roshid]

really interesting question. but IMO I think we should stop using display ads and more focus on affiliates and hand-picked advertiser.

[@famifami5771]

@@SakibA.Roshid How to get hand picked advertiser

[@roxxxxxy]

Display ads will be dead in few years

[@sportofusa8817]

Don't cupping please

[@aarushisanah5811]

I'm celebrating a $4.5M stock portfolio today, I started this journey with 200k, I have invested on time and also with the right team now I have time for my family and the life ahead of me

[@amgengroup5352]

Impressive, do you invest yourself ?

[@aarushisanah5811]

@@amgengroup5352 No, I hired a broker Monroe Horcel look him up

[@amgengroup5352]

@@aarushisanah5811 I know him, I was at his conference this year. Thank you

[@aaravsamardh7089]

My company stock was flipped by Monroe's firm adding $2M profit in the first quarter of the year.

[@PradeePandeyy]

All many truths but should tell the domain also so people can relate to it.😐