Niche vs General

[dannyx]

In today's gambling world, it seems that in order to make a name for yourself (without having significant resources and a team) you have to be as niche as possible. Of course, we are talking about a niche that has an audience of some kind, and not such a small niche that has no such audience.

It seems that making a good site for general slogans like
-casino
-bookmaker
-slots

And many other strong slogans, is not easy.

Question: if you were starting out again in gambling affiliate marketing, or if you were starting out today, you would choose to create a generic site in a generic online casino type domain. Or would you choose a narrow niche such as a site exclusively about roulette, one type of slots or for example soccer betting, litecoin casino, surebets and hundreds of other more or less niche topics (these are, of course, only examples).

My personal opinion is that it is better to focus on a niche being alone. I can see from myself that choosing a site that is too general, there is no time for other work besides writing because it is hard to exhaust the general topic.
By choosing a small niche we have time for other things, we have a chance to be authoritative and exhaust the topic comprehensively.

[eenzoo]

In online gambling even the smallest niche makes something between a living and a fortune.
An old marketing slogan is "the money is in the list". Which is still true, but even more money is in the niche.

I'm in affiliate marketing for 15 years now, in casino almost 8. I started with a general German slots site, did US focused stuff, and live dealer sites.
I've sold web property for about $320k and putted all my "early sins" on hold.
Now I have chosen my new weapons much more wisely, but time will show

On your question, but it depends on your personal preferences, I would alway prefer niches like:

Live Roulette (India, Turkey)
Cricket Betting (India, Pakistan)
Live Blackjack (USA, Germany)
Forex (Asia )
... and xxxx options more.

[kod]

The site should be as general as possible. This will give you much more flexibility with switching niches.

[wonderpunter]

General sites you will be going up against megasite.. so yes you would need massive resources to produce something better and also there is the time factor, some of these sites have been around decades

[PaulEchere]

Being "as niche as possible" seems to summarize a good and reasonable approach pretty well. Probably the best way to use your resources (especially if they are in most cases your time) is to find a niche, where you can realistically compete.

[statsdrone]

Do superniche unless you have the budget to rival the big players that can afford link building budgets of 5k/month or more per website.

[pokeraussie]

Niche marketing 100%

[casinoportal]

Definitely niche, you may think you can but trust me, you just won't be able to compete with the big guys. The same affiliates have been around for years, have invested in networks and have big monthly seo budgets.

Start small with a carefully chosen niche, and you might just be lucky and earn an ok living from this.

[chaumi]

I think you said it all (or at least a highly relevant part of the whole discussion) right at the start, Dannyx...

"I can see from myself that choosing a site that is too general, there is no time for other work besides writing because it is hard to exhaust the general topic. By choosing a small niche we have time for other things, we have a chance to be authoritative and exhaust the topic comprehensively."


So, based only on one-person efforts (with a team and/or significant funds, different perspectives clearly apply)...

For anyone starting 5+ years ago (that 80% knew what they were doing) that's not particularly true, of course. But most likely they earned the position they're in now with fairly or extensively hard grafting.

Starting 2-5 years ago, very likely still battling and desperately trying to do everything but failing in some areas.

Starting within last couple of years/very recently/not yet started, no chance unless going narrow. With a broad subject, it's highly likely to be crushingly difficult to make any real headway and would need supplementation of other forms of expertise and knowledge (and even then, still tough tough tough)

[dannyx]

I have also come across an opinion here on the forum that it is useful to have, for example, one sub-page for other topics off the site.

For example, we have a site about betting on baseball. And we give one sub-page about casinos.

I have seen such an opinion here several times and I don't know if I agree with it. If such a sub-page was to be in a prominent place then definitely not. On the other hand, if, for example, just a link to this sub-page in the menu then it can already definitely make sense.
Although I think the casino is a bit too far off topic and you can lose some authority as a bookmaking site. If instead of a casino it would be a separate one page about e.g. esports, bitcoin bookmakers or e.g. betting exchanges or something similar then yes. However, casino, poker probably do not fit even if they were to be small invisible subpages.

What do you think about such a solution?

[Pokerface]

Definitely Niche. Find the right topic and focus and do it very well rather than spreading yourself too thin.