Simple Research For Unlimited Niche Site Content
(This is an entry about the Niche Site Challenge, but you can apply it elsewhere.)
I spent the afternoon getting irritated. I was trying to make some headway with building a niche site, and hoped to write a few sales letters for one of my sites, which I lovingly refer to as “Niche Site #1”.
The background on the site is as follows:
- I have no previous knowledge of the subject
- It revolves around a product that costs $100-$300 depending on the model
- I am actually going to buy a product because I want to get into this hobby
As such, there’s a lot of groundwork that I need to do. This directly translates to me not doing much writing and sales letters not manifesting themselves.
I know that there’ll be stalwarts who are also on the niche site challenge who’ll be in this position as well, and it’s important we turn the research stage into something positive and productive.
The easiest way to do this is to use this process as a means of planning your articles.
What do I mean by that?
Creating A Natural Web of Questions
When I look back on my internet search history for the afternoon, I can see a massive array of Googled questions which are pretty handy. You can probably think of the easy ones:
- “What is the best X?”
- “How much should an X cost?”
However, you know all the scammers and guys looking to make an affiliate penny are going for those terms. I know this because I clicked on about ten rubbish websites with stupid “Here’s a review 5 stars buy through my link” type stuff.
After going through that process, guided by the fact I actually want to buy the product, I had a few specific questions once I nailed down the shortlist of products. Remember though, by the time you’ve gotten to this point, you’ve already got a longer list of questions during the shortlisting process:
- “Why is X better than Y?”
- “Why are most products rubbish?”
- “Why you can’t trust reviews from dodgy-affiliate-site-dot-com” (Remember, kill your competitors if they’re bad.)
You get the idea. But it’s at the shortlisting point where you start to get natural questions that people are going to want answers to. In my particular example, the two best options are by the same company. One model is 30% more expensive than the other. They’re virtually identical except for a different material finishing/colour and an added attachment on the expensive model.
There are a lot of good questions raised by this:
- Which is better: A or B?
- The best X with a Z attachment
- What’s the difference between products with X or products with Y?
- What’s the most stylish X no the market?
- Do I need an optional attachment?
- What’s the best affordable X?
- Why are company A the best X Manufacturer?
These could probably do with some work and you’d want to extract the keywords. For instance, in the last example the key search term would be “best X manufacturer.” Once you’ve got the keywords you can pay around with a keyword tool until you find a headline that fits your SEO requirements and yet is catchy at the same time.
You already know these are buying keywords or will give highly convertible traffic because you are searching as a potential customer.
Now, to take yourself out of the “My websites are a collection of sales letters” category, you’ll want to do a few things – which again involve walking yourself through the process. (Technically, you could wait until you’ve gone through the process and just write about what happens.)
For instance, what happens when you have decided on the product you want to buy?
- How to shop around for X / Where are the best value Xes / Where can you get an X in [Your City]?
- How long does it take to deliver X?
- Is the shipping secure/discrete/at a convenient time (these things may be important)
- How long does product last / what’s the warranty?
- How long does it take to set up your product?
- Learning curve?
That’s another level of how-to information and we haven’t even got the product yet. Of course, we want to go deeper.
Imagine yourself (or wait) until you’ve got the item. It’s unboxed, sitting on your living room floor. What are you going to do with it?
- Best starter activity with X
- How to use X like a pro
- Can I use X every day?
- What can I do with X?
- Strange uses for X
- How X can save your life/make you money/make girls, guys or your cat love you
- How to hack/upgrade/repair X
Realistically, the above blueprint is going to help you build a site that’s so helpful it’ll barely even be a niche site. The last two bullet points above will give you a practically endless stream of material to use as well.
Of course, we’re not aiming for an authority site here. The good thing with all of those topics s that they’re still based around the humble sales letter. Every single one of those topics can either be a sales letter or link to one.
Final Thoughts
I have inadvertently given away a whole blueprint for populating a niche site with high quality and high converting information in this post.
You can literally use the above formula for building unlimited niche site content on any topic. (Obviously these are centred around selling a product, but you could easily jig the questions around for a service or something else.)
More importantly, the framework doesn’t get you stuck in rigid, lifeless “10 things to love about your best cat collars for dogs” posts. Anyone can build a site around a couple of hours of Google searches and then playing around with the keywords for a while.
If you’re building a niche site and stuck for inspiration, just revisit this post, do what I’ve done and you’ll have loads of ideas.