The mainstream return of the micro-niche?

Google’s May Day update and the caffeine shift has now completed and with it come challenges and potential shifts in strategy for affiliates who operate huge data feed driven sites relying on their authority for rank.

According to recent blogs Google will no longer take the authority of the root into consideration when ranking internal pages that are more than a few clicks away from the homepage. Matt Cutts cites that these pages often serve duplicate content and offer limited value for the consumer.

This could be bad news for large ecommerce sites but also for affiliates, and could cause headaches and a huge shift on how affiliates embrace the long tail through SEO.

The adoption of data feeds by merchants has given affiliates the opportunity to create large scale value-add sites. So this change, without adaption could be seen as a kick in the teeth for them; however, the change could mean that we see the return or greater embracement of high quality, affiliate led micro-niche sites that are both very niche in nature and that embrace the long tail.

Micro-niche site examples

• Large Wooden planters
• Buddha head water feature
• Men’s white dinner jackets
• Childrens Hunter wellies

Taking any of these, if we used any network data feed we could easily incorporate around 500 products into the site. Coupled with some decent editorial and a link building strategy we have a micro-site which could be replicated on a mass scale and managed by either a lifestyle affiliate or a larger team.

Importantly this would be seen by google as being relevant, targeted and of value-add to the user.

Perhaps we should just ignore Google and build your site based on a combination of online marketing strategies. However you can’t deny that for the cost conscious affiliate, Google still provides the beef of the traffic for free.

If your interested in creating a new micro niche site a simple copy of wordpress alongside a datafeedr subscription will get you on your way.

Additional reading: Official Google Blog Vannessa Fox