The Niche Site Challenge: Week Ten
Another week has gone by.
Having a weekly entry into this challenge really makes me realise how quickly a week goes by. It doesn’t feel like I’ve done all that much – even though I’ve had a reasonable week in terms of workload – since the last time I wrote an update.
Either that or I’m just lazy. Anyway, it’s time to update and add some thoughts as usual.
For those of you who are new to the niche site challenge, me and some other stalwarts have taken it upon ourselves to dedicate a year to creating niche websites which will improve our income and knowledge about internet marketing. You get the idea. It’s a part time challenge of no more than a couple of hours a day, and we fill these niche sites with product reviews and sales letters in order to get paying traffic.
There’s not much else to it. Let’s get on with some thoughts.
Random Thoughts On Niche Sites: More Catalogues
Last week, I said that catalogues were a great idea for getting ideas for products. Well, I’ve been thinking about that and acting on it myself this week (see below) and it’s still a great idea.
In fact, whilst last week I said that you should look for general department store catalogues, since then I’ve found even better sources of ideas. Firstly, you should get a specialist catalogue. By that, I mean you could go to your nearest city, wander around and find something like a sports store, nab their free catalogue and then go through that. This is great if you have particular interests. For instance, you might be a tech guy or an outdoor guy.
You could probably find thirty plus ideas from a single catalogue. Then all you have to do is drop them into your keyword research and see which ones look viable.
Random Thoughts On Niche Sites: New Products
It can be pretty hard to find a good affiliate program. When you do, you should check up on the company that runs it periodically. You might find that there are all sorts of things going on that you wouldn’t otherwise realise.
For instance, I have a niche site in a tech-related field. I am an affiliate for some software. This software regularly gets new features, software updates and the like. They never let their affiliates know this, but it’s stuff that could enhance your sales letters.
Also, some companies with affiliate programs release new products without letting their affiliates know. This is stupid, but it’s worth checking. This week, I managed to write a product review for a new item – I’m the only person to have done so as of the Google Search Results today.
This brings me on to what I’ve been up to this week.
What I’ve Been Doing This Week In The Challenge
You can probably piece together what I’ve been doing this week from the above.
In terms of writing and creating new sites, I haven’t done that… although I’ve been feeling the itch. As such, I’ve been browsing various new places (like the catalogues above) for ideas. Yesterday, I brainstormed about 25 new ideas for sites. I’ve yet to load them up into my keyword tool yet, so undoubtedly that number will be reduced, but for a couple of hours “work” I now have more niche site ideas than I know what to do with. This week, I’ll do the keyword research on some of them and see if I have any good ideas to work on.
Outside of that, I’ve been adding articles to my current sites. I think that it’s important – and should be a goal with any website – to get consistent traffic that turns up whether you do something or not. You’re going to need a few articles posted before this happens, and that’s what I’m aiming to get. Some of my niche sites get next-to-no traffic still, so it’s a priority to get those developed before I build any new ones.
The good thing is that once you’ve got some traffic going on, you’ll find that there are benefits to that. For starters, you don’t need to post as regularly. Secondly, once you have an established site, you can let it turn into a passive income asset type thing. Except when there’s a new product out, in which case you just add to that asset.
This week, one of the companies I affiliate with had a new product out. I checked it out on the morning it was released, wrote a sales letter for it in about an hour and fifteen minutes, and then published it straight away.
At the moment, there aren’t any other reviews of this product online, which is crazy because I’d imagine that there’s more buzz about a product when it’s released than at any other time. Still, I’m happy – I’m number one in the search results for the product title and “product review” term, and will probably stay that way for a while.
Other Articles About Niche Sites From This Week
This might be the first week since the challenge started that I haven’t written any articles specifically about niche sites. However, I’ve written a couple of articles that are relevant:
Reddit Marketing: What I’ve Learned So Far will help you with that tiny bit of Niche Site Marketing.
If that’s not helpful, then this will be:
How To Write Simple Product Reviews
Final Thoughts
Week ten down. We’re about 1/5th of the way through the challenge.
Let me know how you’re all getting on and what you’re doing. Seriously… it’s just a quick comment!
Anyway, hope you’re all doing well with the challenge. See you for an update next week.