In this study, nickel nanorods were grown in nanoporous alumina templates using electroplating method. An N-doped titanium dioxide thin film was then coated on those nanorods by atomic layer deposition (ALD) to form photoelectrodes. The aggregation of nickel nanorods however resulted in a non-uniform coverage of titanium dioxide film. A two-step ALD was proposed to solve the nonuniform coverage issue. Photoelectrochemical measurements revealed that the photocurrent response of N-doped titanium dioxide film in the visible region was significantly improved by the core-shell nanorod structure. As compared with the flat electrodes, its visible photocurrent was enhanced by almost 37 times.