How To Build Successful Niche Websites in 2018
It’s been a while since I talked about the nuts and bolts of building a niche website. Recent entries into this category have been either more conceptual (like this) or weird tricks (like this.)
Let’s go back to basics and I’ll talk you through my approach to building niche websites in 2018.
Technical Details
Despite pretty much every niche site article on the internet being an excuse to pimp a ton of affiliate products, the technical requirements for niche sites are relatively small:
- Hosting
- Domain name
- A WordPress Theme
- Social media profiles
- Some pictures (use manufacturer’s pictures for reviews, stock photos for other articles)
Most of that is free or low cost. You don’t need expensive hosting and you don’t need to spend hundreds on software. You can but it’s not necessary at all.
All you have to do is set up a basic website and then write, write, write.
Before you do that though, let’s talk about what you’re writing.
Niche Website Strategy
I’ve made the mistake of writing websites like NicheProductReviews.com where you focus on the type of product you’re reviewing as opposed to what I now do, which might be something like WeLoveNiche.com where you are writing with an audience in mind.
Taking the above approach doesn’t change what you’ll be writing (product reviews, how-to information that leads to the product reviews and other similar stuff.) It does, however, make creating content easier and it’ll make your site more legitimate in the best way.
Are you going to trust a site called CheapMaleRazorReviews.com more than you’d trust WeLoveShaving.com? Probably not, and that’s what your audience will think.
So, what are we writing?
- Product review sales letters – we want people to click our affiliate links so we can make referral money
- How to information – where we outline a process of getting something our audience want and then tell them the products to do that
There’ll be other stuff, but those are your two main categories for now.
Remember, the goal is to get people to buy stuff and preferably stuff that makes you the most money.
If that means affiliate links, then great. If you can sell a book or other product, don’t be afraid to do that. Should there be another opportunity like advertising or something, don’t let me stop you.
The success of your niche site project will rest on keeping the general strategy of maximising your income in mind at all times.
Niche Website Article Writing
I’ve inadvertently given the game away further above.
Let’s talk about the articles themselves. You have two goals in mind:
- Product honest, accurate information for your niche
- Get them to buy stuff
Most of what you’re doing is incredibly soft-selling.
You write a review. You write the pros and devote some time to the cons. Give your audience some uses for the product and some basic information about how it’s delivered, who might use it and the like.
You write how-to information. You give a product and then list a few ways it made your life better when it came to doing a certain thing. Or you list the ten products that helped you do another thing. Or the best ten presents for your loved one this Valentine’s Day.
There are hundreds of variations on those two basic footprints and chances are you’ve already read a few of them this week.
It’s not rocket science, but it’s a skill that you’ll develop over time.
Marketing Your Niche Site
Marketing your niche site is simple. You simply learn about SEO basics and follow those. You might also do some social media posting.
SEO for niche sites consists of a couple of things:
- Keyword research
- On-site Optimisation
Keyword research is where the meat for your pudding is with niche sites. You’ll want to – before you go anywhere near an SEO tool – sit and write down all the questions and thoughts your audience have. Most of what you’ll think of as keyword research is common sense because people search the same questions all the time.
So do that, and then verify by looking at the results. Are people asking the questions? Have things been written about your product? If so it’s a good niche. Now, it might be competitive. See how many results there are and how good the pages are.
The second step is to learn about on-site optimisation. If you are a complete beginner, get Yoast’s SEO plugin and edit all of your articles until they’ve got great scores on that plugin. Insert images and change the meta-description and all of the tweaks it suggests.
You can determine the competition for keywords largely by how well the pages you find in search results have done the same process. If you write and get some traction in the search engines, you will also build an intuitive sense of how competitive a niche can be for you to compete in it.
Final Thoughts
Niche sites are a brilliant thing to get into because they aren’t about the trickery or the budget.
For some businesses, you need an ad budget and you need to find a competitive advantage. You need everything to be top-notch and done with care and attention to detail.
Niche sites are low cost, low time investments. More importantly, they’re about the fundamentals of online business. If you can write for an audience online, convert that audience to sales and do the whole design-a-website SEO thing, then you’ve built a ton of skills that will be useful in the more competitive areas I just mentioned.
So here’s to building some niche sites in 2018, upping our bank balances and more importantly, upping our skill sets.