beginner’s guide to building a niche website
DESCRIPTION
In this first installment in a three part series, Jeff walks through the research behind building your own niche website and starting to make money online. Niche market research is a tool any internet marketer should have in their belt and building a niche website is a great way to pick up some easy cash on the side. See the full blog post at: http://blog.jeffreykingston.com/beginners-guide-niche-websitesTRANSCRIPT
Beginner’s Guide to Building a Niche Website
Topic & Keyword Research
By Jeff Kingston
@kingstonjeffrey
Contents
Important to Consider:
1. Your Interest in the Niche
2. Your Expertise in the Niche
3. Current Competition in the Niche
4. Volume Within the Niche
5. Ability to Monetize within the Niche
Choosing Your Niche
• There is no Formula
• Processes can help you create something repeatable
Contents
Important to Consider:
1. Your Interest in the Niche
2. Your Expertise in the Niche
3. Current Competition in the Niche
4. Volume Within the Niche
5. Ability to Monetize within the Niche
Finding Your Niche
Finding A Potential Niche
• I’ll Walk You Through One Way to find A Niche
• There are no rules
• This is not the only way to get the job done
Finding A Potential Niche
• Amazon > “Shop by Dept” > “Full Store Directory”
Finding A Potential Niche
• Search thru categories/sub-categories to brainstorm
• Add ideas as you go
• Think potential low competition, easy-to-target
Finding A Potential Niche
Example: Category – “Auto & Industrial”
Sub-Category – “Automotive Parts & Accessories”
Topics -
Floor Mats Seat Covers Steering Wheel Covers Car Covers
Deflectors & Shields Grille Guards Car Care Kits Detailing Tools Headlight
Restoration Guages Shift Knobs Visor Organizers
Finding A Potential Niche
• These are not keywords!
• They are potential topics for your niche
• You could potentially combine multiple topics
• The idea here is to build up a long list of possible topics to look into, then flesh it out with info that you can use to make a decision
Finding A Potential Niche
• You can repeat this same process on any online retail site out there:
– Newegg.com
– Costco.com
– Walmart.com
• Check out sites in broad niches you are interested in (ex. Newegg for electronics)
Contents
Important to Consider:
1. Your Interest in the Niche
2. Your Expertise in the Niche
3. Volume Within the Niche
4. Current Competition in the Niche
5. Ability to Monetize within the Niche
Checking volume
• Adwords Keyword Tool (Still the best, if used correctly)
• Paste topics in one by one
• Probably change KW Option from “show broadly related ideas” to “closely related”
• Download KW data
Checking volume
• Sort results by volume
• I like to filter & show only volume of 2,000 – 25,000 searches per month
• Remember this is not keyword research, this is topic research
• We don’t want major head terms or super low volume long-tail terms
Checking volume
• Sort topics by relevance • You should have a bunch of “lists” with search
volumes for each list • This gives you a good idea of which lists of topics
are the strongest (or too strong)
Contents
Important to Consider:
1. Your Interest in the Niche
2. Your Expertise in the Niche
3. Volume Within the Niche
4. Current Competition in the Niche
5. Ability to Monetize within the Niche
Checking Competition
• Let’s find out which topic is worth targeting
• We can assume levels of volume by the lists we made
• Which topic can we realistically tap into?
Checking Competition Let’s use an example: “floor mats”
Google Search Shows:
Checking Competition
What to Look for:
– Ads? More = Hi Comp
– Brands? Harder
– Phrase Matching? Less = Easier
– Site Duplication?
More = Easier
– Results Volume
More = Harder
– SERPS within SERPS?
Search pages
shouldn’t rank
– Links? Less = Easier
– Content Quality
– KWs in url
– Content type
Forums, Wikis = Easier
Checking Competition
Let’s use another example: “all weather floor mats”
Google Search Shows:
Checking Competition
Let’s use another example: “truck floor mats”
Google Search Shows:
Checking Competition
At this point, we:
A. choose a topic and move on to more advanced keyword research
B. continue comparing competition among the topics on our list until we find something we like.
Checking Competition
Let’s take a look at a result we like: “Shift Knobs”
Google shows:
Checking Competition
• We can see from the SERP that it will not be super high competition.
• Let’s take a look at the links pointing to our potential competition
Checking Competition
• Top 9 Results beyond #1 (Amazon)
Contents
Important to Consider:
1. Your Interest in the Niche
2. Your Expertise in the Niche
3. Volume Within the Niche
4. Current Competition in the Niche
5. Ability to Monetize within the Niche
Monetizing Your Topic
• You’ve found a topic you like with:
– Sufficient Volume
– Low Competition
• Now we see how we could monetize it
• Without a method of making money, your site will be relatively worthless
Monetizing Your Topic
Options:
• Affiliate Networks
• Independent Affiliate Programs
• Amazon Associates
• Adsense (And Other Display Networks)
• Carrying Inventory Yourself
• Lead Generation
Monetizing Your Topic
Affiliate Networks: Commission Junction
Clickbank
Shareasale
Many others
Advantages
Easy to use
Single Dashboard
Disadvantages
Mid-range payouts
Monetizing Your Topic
Independent Affiliate Programs: Work directly with manufacturers or retailers. Ex. Zappos.com, Home Depot, etc.
Advantages
Higher Payout
Longer Cookie
Disadvantages
No Standardization
Monetizing Your Topic
Amazon Associates:
Amazon’s Affiliate Program
Advantages
Higher Conversion
Disadvantages
Lower Payout
Single-Session Cookie
Monetizing Your Topic
Adsense & Display Networks/Banners:
Adsense, Chitika, etc.
Publishers are paid to show ads from advertisers through networks
(You can also set this up 1-to-1 w/ Advertisers)
Advantages
Easy-To-Use
Disadvantages
Very Low Payout
Volume Dependency
Monetizing Your Topic
Carrying Inventory:
Buy in bulk (or drop-ship) product and take payment directly through your website
(e-commerce model)
Advantages
Higher Margins
Disadvantages
Higher Investment
Higher Involvement
Monetizing Your Topic
Lead generation:
Take down contact info for potential leads and sell those leads to industry clients.
Ex. Auto Glass website sells contact info of people looking for auto glass quotes
Advantages
Higher Margins
Disadvantages
Higher Involvement
Next Steps
• More In-Depth Keyword Research
• Find a Domain Name
• Find Hosting
• Find a CMS (ex. Wordpress)
• Create Content
• Drive Traffic
All Coming In Subsequent Posts/Presentations!
Jeff Kingston
@kingstonjeffrey