The 5 Main Keys To Successful Niche Websites
People (probably me included) make building successful niche websites into a scarier idea than they should.
In reality, it’s not too tough to build a decent, successful niche website that makes money and is a valuable asset for you and a valuable resource for other people.
You can hyper-optimise a site, no doubt. But at it’s very core, building successful niche websites is about following a process and getting the broad strokes right as opposed to learning “one new secret trick!”
Let’s distil it down to five key things. Aside from the first two which are crucial, there’s no real order to them.
1. Audience-Focus
My most successful niche websites thus far have all targeted an audience as opposed to a product type.
I started with doing things like, “[Product]Reviews.com” but I’ve found it’s much easier to base all of your articles around a theme and work to that. The obvious focus being product reviews and affiliate stuff still, but I’d be willing to bet that in most cases, “FitnessForHipsterGirls.com” would outperform “ProteinPowderReviews.com” even with the same content.
There are a lot of reasons why, but think about which site is more useful: A resource for a specific audience or a directory of reviews?
2. “High” Traffic For The Niche
Most niche site guides say things like, “Do your keyword research and make sure there’s a lot of traffic for your keywords.”
I’ve always found that a bit disingenuous. If you are targeting your niche well and picking a product with low competition, then chances are you aren’t going to get high traffic for the keywords you really want to target.
Let’s say you review aftershaves.
Now, most niche site guides will tell you, “Find search terms with 500 views a month.”
Chances are, “Essence By RandomCo Review” isn’t going to get 500 clicks a month. “Essence By RandomCo vs. Essence2 By OtherCo Review” is going to get even less.
This is ok.
Let’s say each of those searches gets 100 views a month and you can convert at 1%. That’s two, maybe three sales if you get a collector who wants both. If you make 10% of $50, then that’s $15.
Not bad.
If you look for “X review” keywords that get your target searches per month, then you’ll have a competitive time.
Instead, look for niches where there’s traffic across many smaller keywords.
One keyword that gets 1000 clicks a month is valuable but will be competitive.
Ten keywords that get 100 clicks a month each are valuable but far less competitive.
One articles =/= one keyword.
For reference, one guy I know has a 3,000 word article. It’s huge. But you know how many search terms it ranks for?
324.
Make sure the niche has traffic. The buying keywords are important, but not the be all and end all.
3. User Experience
Sometimes I look for information on a product online before I buy it. Sometimes, that’s a terrible experience.
On more than a few occasions, I’ve started searching for something, clicked on a webpage and then gone and done something else.
I’ve returned to wonder what the hell I clicked on because the web page I searched for has been swamped by popups. Then when I finally close them, it turns out that the information I was looking for is just Amazon’s product description reiterated or there’s some dumb buttons or something.
I’m a patient man. Most people are going to immediately click off your site if it’s annoying as hell and there are alternatives.
I’m not saying popups and buttons don’t have a place. They obviously do. But if you’re looking to build successful niche websites, then you can skip all that and in most cases, you should.
You want people to get to your site, read your informative article and then purchase through your link. Anything that gets in the way of that streamlined process is a bad thing.
4. Good Affiliate Programs
There’s a catch to this one.
Some of you build niche sites that are monetised in a completely non-affiliate way. That’s fine. Take this section as a “Monetise your site” section.
There’s very little point in doing hours of research and much less in starting to write material if you can’t monetise your website. Now, you might want to start writing your material and then monetise without affiliate programs later (say, writing a book or something.)
But in most cases, you need to find out how you’re going to make money at some early stage of planning.
A good affiliate program can make the difference between your site being profitable and your site not being profitable.
For instance, some niche web guys tell you to use Amazon’s affiliate program.
It’s okay, but it’s a last option rather than a first one.
You’ll get about 5% on sales from Amazon. Most Amazon purchases aren’t for that much money. For instance, this site uses Amazon Affiliates program links for the books I recommend.
It doesn’t add up all that much because 5% of a $10 book is $0.50. You have to sell a lot of books to make a dent in your tea bill. Whereas some affiliate programs I’ve signed up for give me $150 per signup. Trust me, you don’t need many notification emails with that figure in to brighten up your morning.
5. Good Calls To Action
I could have picked anything about the niche site article writing process here, but calls to action are probably the place where people get it wrong the most.
It’s because they don’t trust themselves and they don’t trust the process.
Most call-to-action sections are pretty terrible because they’re overly salesy. “Hey man… Get this super-duper thing and it’ll totally save your life! Buy right now because Amazon might shut down tomorrow!”
You should do the selling – and it’s soft selling – before the call to action.
If you have written about the benefits, then you’ve done the job. The call to action is a case of saying, “Order it now. It costs this, shipping is that and it’ll get to your door by Wednesday. Here’s how you do it. Click the button below, and then add it to your cart. The checkout process is a simple two click process with Paypal. You’ll get a confirmation and you’ll receive your order with no fuss.”
The last thing people are going to be fooled by is the 1990’s big buttons, red underlined text and WARNING: 3 COPIES LEFT hustles.
If you’ve done a good job with the article, then some people will buy and others won’t. That’s how it works. Don’t beg people to buy. Just give them the details and a gentle push.
Final Thoughts
There are a lot of things I haven’t mentioned here. Things like keyword competition, email marketing, social media or even PPC ads.
Can you use those things to build successful niche websites? Yes. Absolutely. But you don’t need them. I’d argue that you need all of the above.
If you don’t focus on your audience, then you’ll build a bland site that could do OK, but will struggle against better sites. Even if there aren’t better sites now, there will be in the future.
If you don’t have any traffic, then you’ll struggle to make money.
If your website is a terrible experience, then people will click off it. Even if you create great reviews, you need to build a website that works and isn’t going to scare people away.
If you want to make money, then you need good affiliate programs (or otherwise you need some avenue for making money.) You can make a non-profit niche site, but no matter how good your attentions, it will get outcompeted by people who are commercially orientated.
Finally, you need to be able to push people to products. I’ve highlighted calls to actions because that’s where most make their mistakes, but the whole of your article is important really. You’re selling someone with words, and as such, they need to be good. That’s where your value as a niche site creator is derived, and is the key to successful niche websites.