Building a niche website is probably the most common way that people make a “passive” income online.
Niche websites are sites that are clearly focused on a particular corner of the market. The whole website will be about one clear topic and it will be targeting search engine traffic.
For a niche site to work there needs to be:
- Demand for that niche
- A “gap in the market” for that niche.
- A way to monazite.
So basically what you need to do is look for topics that fit the bill, pick one of them and build a website based on it.
Once you build the site and fill it up with great content about your chosen topic, you spend most of your time on Search Engine Optimization.
The aim is to get your website on the number 1 spot in Google search results for your chosen search phrase. That search phrase or “keyword” is based on the research you did when you were picking your topic.
Once you’re ranking highly in search engines, you should be getting a decent amount of traffic on the site. If not, something went wrong at the research stage. You should already have a way to monetize this traffic. It could be by selling products, or with adverts or any way you like.
Thats basically a simplified explanation of how the whole niche site thing is supposed to work.
The Niche Site Competition 2011
I’ve built a couple of niche sites before, however I didn’t really document my progress in a scientific way. That’s why I can’t write about them on this site. I planned to build a new niche site to document properly at the start of December.
To make things more interesting I thought I’d challenge a few fellow bloggers to a niche site competition. This will keep me focused and motivated, and gives others a reason to take action too. I emailed a few bloggers that I follow and got a few people involved. This has all been very last minute, but it’s gonna be great anyway!
Here are the rules of the competition:
- The domain of the new niche website can’t be registered before the 5th of December.
- The winner of the competition will be the first person to get their site onto the first page of the Google search results for their chosen keywords.
- As a little bonus, the winner gets a $100 prize.
There have been quite a few changes with the search engines in the past few months. This competition will prove if there’s still money to be made with niche websites.
I’ll be documenting and publishing what I do every step of the way. If I’m successful, anyone can follow the process and do the same. I assume that some of the fellow contestants will document what they do too. If you want to follow along and build your own niche site then please do so!
Here’s who’s involved so far:
Dave Baker from DBP Marketing
Gregory Ciotti from Sparring Mind (Gregory already has articles on his new niche site so he can’t witn the $100 but is following along anyway!)
John Varghese from JohnVarghese.com
Lyndsy Simon from LyndsySimon.com
Naveen Kulkarni from Planet Naveen
Ramy Khuffash - Thats me!
Salman Ahsan from SalmanAhsan.com
Shamelle Perera from Better Blogging Ways
Steve Scott from SteveScottSite.com
I was hoping for 10 of us but a couple of people had to back out. Eight is great though! The competition starts on the 5th, but the contestants can start doing their research now. When the contestants pick a niche, the will need to either publicly announce their domain and key phrase, or privately let me know what they are. This is to ensure that people don’t accidentally get to number 1 on Google for a different key phrase and win the prize. The aim of this is to see if niche sites are still profitable. I’d LOVE it if we all made money. I’m sure there will be some great new sites on the internet by the end of this.
I can’t wait to see how many of us end up making a profit! Sign up to the free newsletter below to be the first to find out!
Emails are sooooo last year!
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Good luck to everybody in the challenge, I’d be willing to chat with anyone available, feel free to say hi.
How many of you are gonna go through your process/progress on your sites? I’m going to. It will be kinda embarrassing if I don’t make a profit though!
I’m looking forward to this for the accountability, if nothing else
I plan to revamp my own site over the next couple of weeks, as it has sat unattended for a few months. I’ve been focused on my portfolio of sites, and haven’t been updating.
Last night, I spent some time in Market Samurai and have come up with a half dozen or so good topics on which to focus. I’ve not settled on one in particular yet.
One question – I thought that there were two conditions of success: 1) Get to page 1 of Google for your chosen primary keyword phrase, and 2) Make $100 in revenue from the site. Are we only being judged on our SERP rank? If so, I’m going to choose the keyword phrase “This is how Lyndsy makes an easy $100 without actually doing any work”
Ps- Don’t you just LOVE Market Samurai? It’s like digging for gold!
Hahahahahhaha! Well your keyword should be what the site is based around. There are always gonna be ways to beat the system and take my hard earned $100 off me but I trust that the people involved wont do that!
Just build a good niche site that earns some money and win the proper way Lyndsy!!!
Hey Ramy,
Thanks for including me. I was thinking about creating another niche site for sometime but didn’t really get into it because of various time commitments. I still have my full time job which demands a lot!
When I heard about this competition it was the boost I needed to get started and squeeze sometime from somewhere!
I see we are in the company of some celebrity niche bloggers!
Now, off to do some keyword research.Where did I keep that crystal ball which predicted…….
I’m glad this competition gave you the boost you needed to take action! That’s great news!
And yeah we have come great competition here! Good luck with your keyword research
A late entrence into the competition from Salman Ahsan. That makes 9 of us now!
So I am in. Good luck and May the best (me of course) win
Hi Ramy,
Thanks for including me.
I am excited to be part of this event. Starting my keyword research now ( I know its already late).
Good luck to all and hope this turns out to be an interesting competition
Naveen Kulkarni recently posted..Release
It is late! Remember that you don’t have to pick your niche by tomorrow, you just couldn’t register the domain early. So you don’t really have to rush the research stage
Well today is the day!!!! The key phrase I wish to compete with is “chia seeds side effects”. Traffic shouldn’t be an issue if I can rank, but monetization might be! I’ll reveal my domain name in a right up that I do very soon.
This is awesome start Ramy. Congratulations on picking up your niche
I too picked up my niche keyword “software engineer”.
I know it sounds like a lot generic keyword, but considering my personal experience in software area , I felt I can provide some really useful content to others.
Good luck to all.
And yes , I have registered the domain and my site URL is softwareengineer101.com
Nothing, is there yet except the nice header that I designed myself
Naveen Kulkarni recently posted..Release
That’s really great that you chose a topic that you understand really well! Also I quite like the code part of the header! Nice!
Keep us posted on how you’re getting on
My KWP is “Photography basics”, and my site is http://photographybasics101.com.
I’m working on content to drip feed right now, so it will be a day or two before I launch the live site.
It’s a fairly competitive niche, but there are some signs that I can crack the top 10 on Google.
Lyndsy Simon recently posted..Get Around the “Main Street Fairness Act” – and Get Your Amazon Affiliate Account Back
Great stuff Lyndsy. I’m sure you can earn $100 from that key phrase in no time once it’s on the first page of Google!
Keep us posted
Thanks for organizing this Ramy. I’ll use the kwp “disaster recovery tools”. I have wanted to build a niche website for a while now. I have not been able to find the motivation because of the low level of income for the effort. But this competition has given me the opportunity to see how it goes. Since someone else has already registered disasterrecoverytools.com I will take http://www.disasterrecoverytools.info as my domain.
John Varghese recently posted..Advertisement Banner Scam – Beware of Free Money
That’s amazing that this competition has given you the push you needed to get started with a niche site.
Good luck! Keep us posted with your progress!
I posted some details on my blog. Check it out
and good luck all!
Salman Ahsan recently posted..Niche Site Competition
I took some time after work today to get my site launched and put together some content. So far, I have one hour invested in the site, and have created two pages of content. I hope to have about 10 pages of content by the end of the week, and 2 published posts, and 2 posts completed and on my editorial calendar for publishing.
Once that is complete, I’ll begin working on off-page SEO.
I’m keeping the default WordPress theme for now. I don’t mind it much once it’s slightly modified, and at this stage, the layout of the site is not even on my priority list. Content, an editorial calendar, and SEO are my primary focus.
I’ve had a look at your site. Its actually pretty great! I used to be slightly interested in photography (you can read the post on how that hobby ended somewhere on this site) and it sounds like you really know what you’re talking about.
I definitely think you are one to watch in this competition!
As usual, my time is tightly constrained. Because of this, I’ve not been able to do nearly as much on the site as I would like. Still, I’ve done the following
* 2 blog posts published, 3 more in the queue already written
* 6 pages of unique content, with more to come
* PLR eBook purchased and added to the site to build my list
* Email list set up with basic autoresponder to deliver eBook automatically
* Linkbuilding has begun (slowly)
I was listed for my target keyword yesterday at #278, and am at #118 today.
That’s more than what I’ve done. My time is limited too and I’m sure we will all be short on time, specially for the holiday period. Sounds like you’ve done plenty of work though. Can I just ask, which auto responder do you use, and how are you finding it?
I’m using MailChimp, because I have a grandfathered free account.
I like it quite a bit, but there has been controversy in the past about whether or not they allow affiliate marketing. I contacted them, and told them my plans in the future of running multiple lists targeted to specific niches, and using affiliate links for monetization – I was told that “as long as what your recipient is signed up for is what they get”, I’d be fine.
I’m still keeping a backup of all my lists weekly, and a copy of my autoresponders on hand. If there is an issue, I could be back up and running with another service in a week.
If I were starting now without an account, I’d look at either Aweber or Constant Contact.
Lyndsy Simon recently posted..4 Tips for Taking Photos Indoors
Hi team,
Hope you all are doing great.
I did Some work on my niche site (www.softwareengineer101.com). 4 posts, and a job board.
Still need to work a lot, but I am in no hurry
Looking good, I like the job board! Seeing as you guys are listing what you’ve done so far, I will too:
6 posts, 3 videos and the about page. I’m mainly working on building links at the moment but ideally I would like to write way more posts. After the christmas period I will be doing more work on the site. I’m enjoying it so far though!
I’ve begun tracking my progress on my personal site, and I’ve started doing regularly photo breakdowns on my niche site (example).
I’ve got a full week to work on outside projects this week due to the holidays, though I have to split that between some college stuff I’m working on, an existing couple of niche sites, and my photography site. Still, I hope to have my autoresponder sequence in place, a new semi-custom theme up, and lots of additional content added this week.
Right now, I’m off with my 3-year-old daughter to go see a dinosaur exhibit
I’ve now fallen completely out of the top 1000 on Google for my target keywords. I have no idea why this is the case, and I’m hoping it’s the beginning of a serious “Google Dance” at this point.
Lyndsy Simon recently posted..4 Reasons to Use Your Tripod
Yeah, I’ve never had a site not go through some sort of dance with Google so it’s nothing to worry about. I’m sure you know all this but Il tell you what works for me anyway:
1- Keep adding content.
2- Mix it up with your anchor text.
3- Make sure you are linking to all the pages on the site, not just the homepage.
I’m sure you will come out of the dance ranking higher than before!
Thanks for keeping us posted Lyndsy!
Yes – and this point, I’m focusing on traffic from other sources, like Reddit and similar social sites. My last post has some Amazon affiliate links in it, and got a hundred or so hits from Reddit over the course of a couple of days.
With that, I’m happy to say that I’ve made my first trickle of income off the site! A whole $2… Still, the camera strap post has had a 40% CTR to Amazon. It’s a very small sample, but that’s about a $20 EPM (Earnings per 1k visitors), which is many times what I’ve achieved elsewhere.
Finally, I had a Redditor call me out on using affiliate links to monetize my content. See here: http://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/o0asl/has_anyone_ever_pulled_out_the_tripod_mount_using/c3dfi4z
I addressed it fairly directly, and I think the result was favorable. My post was primarily to gather information for my blog post, not to publicize it (although I knew that it would get clicks and linked it for that purpose). It got a decidedly mixed reaction from the /r/photography crowd, getting 9 upvotes and 4 downvotes.
Some people are completely opposed to advertising. I just don’t understand that mentality.
Lyndsy Simon recently posted..Choosing the Best Camera Strap for You
Wow. Sounds like you are doing amazingly well. I need to put some more hours in clearly! Don’t underestimate the achievement of $2 on what’s pretty much a brand new site!
I need to get my head around reddit. I got a load of traffic from there onto this site for some reason which has shown me that I really should think about using it.
Some people always seem to have a problem with advertising, even if they get plenty of value for free. Pretty strange really. It’s a good thing that most people aren’t like that though.
I did a quick search – “site:reddit.com experimentincome.com” – and it looks like you were mentioned in /r/bitcoin. I’m actually a member of that Reddit, and saw your site come through.
That single link went out to about 5,800 readers, and in my experience, you get about 5% of those to come through and visit your site. That’s not bad, because of 5,800 subscribers, not all are going to log on daily or see the post. I’m guessing you’ve gotten around 280 hits since Dec 28…
I’ve found that Reddit visitors usually come with a short attention span, though they are more likely than others to subscribe to your blog via RSS, and to follow links on the landing page. They usually don’t go exploring your site, though. I think that’s because most Reddit users are massive content consumers, tending to constantly be looking for interesting information regardless of source.
I’ve also had more success historically with driving traffic from Reddit than with any other social source. On another of my sites, I regularly get 800-1000 hits within 24 hours of posting a link. That Reddit (/r/guns) has about 40k subscribers.
The one thing I *don’t* like about it though is that it takes the conversation away from your site. Out of a half million or so hits total from all of my sites from Reddit, I don’t believe I have ever gotten a comment on my site. HUNDREDS of people comment on the article on Reddit, though. I’m considering now writing a plugin for a system similar to Trackbacks/Pingbacks, where mentions of your site via Reddit are recorded, and the comment streams from them embedded into the page – or perhaps, even imported into the WordPress comment system. I’m not sure how that would work from a duplicate content standpoint, but there has to be some way to capture that conversation and use it to build your brand.
Lyndsy Simon recently posted..Simple, Easy Portfolio Websites for Photographers
Quick update….
At #8 for my primary keyword: Free Beat Making Software
Income Generated:
$75 affiliate product
$23.44 Google Adsense.
Guess I’m pretty close to the $100 mark….
Steve recently posted..How to Find Time to Write an eBook (Even if You’re Busy 8 Days a Week)
Sounds like you’ve pretty much won!
you guys are killing it
Its good to see people taking action.. I am just trying to get back in #1. Not sure who is trying to beat me 
but well, lets see.
As for monetization, I am trying to create my own content instead of promoting affiliates since the niche I chose doesnt have that many products. I need to find the demographic and stuff before I put in more work. Hope all is well and keep us updated, cheers
Salman Ahsan recently posted..New Years 2012: My Secret to Making the Most Money next Year!
I’m still plugging along – though I’m not posting as often as I should, I have been doing a bit of backlinking here and there, and have gotten some organic links as well.
My main page hit PR1 last night! I know, PR doesn’t equate into anything substantial anymore, but I do see it as a sign that I’m building content properly and that my links are coming from the right places.
I don’t think I’ll rank for “Photography Basics” any time soon, though it is possible eventually – I’m chasing the keyword “best camera strap” right now, for which I am ranked 14th.
So far this month, I’ve gotten 20 hits from Google on it, and have made 2 sales on Amazon – $2.39. That’s an insanely high EPM of $115, though I’m quite certain I won’t sustain it. What’s more important to me is my CTR – 18 of 20 hits clicked on to Amazon from the same. For my last update, my traffic was social, coming from Google+. This time, it’s all organic search, which I believe is driving the increased CTR.
Lyndsy Simon recently posted..Buying a Used Lens
Hi Lyndsy.
That’s great that your site is now PR1. I also understand that Page Rank doesn’t help much but as you said it’s feedback from Google that you’re doing things right (I also get excited when it goes up!).
Your amazing CTR seems really good. Have you been testing, moving links around etc to get that CTR? Also, interesting that you’re getting traffic from Google plus! Have you created a page on it or anything?
How’s your list building going? That’s something I need to learn more about. Are many people signing up?
I’ve also got to update you all on my niche site. The issue I’m having is that although I’ve already publicly announced the niche, Build My Rank asked me not to reveal my niche when talking about them. I’ll have to call it NICHE SITE 1 or something in the next post.