How many times have you thought about (or even started) building a niche website with dreams of making thousands of dollars in passive income each month?
If you’re like most people trying to make a living on the internet, the thought has probably crossed your mind at least once, if not thousands of times.
For me, this idea of the niche site is one of the most fascinating anomalies on the internet. It’s one of the hardest, yet stupidly easy things you can do online.
The steps to building a successful site that pulls in at least $500 a month are extremely straight forward, yet most people come at it from an angle of trying to game the system – they’ve lost before they even reached the starting line.
Sure, there are people out there who make hundreds of thousands of dollars off crappy niche sites and products – but most of them have some serious technical, spam, and SEO skills that let’s face it, we don’t have.
So we’ve gotta come up with a better way, you know, one that actually helps people.
Niche Site Quick Start
This is the longest post I’ve written in a year. I go into detail about what to do and why to do it. Don’t have time for that? Here’s the 14 step, quick start, Cliff’s Notes version of my strategy for building a niche site. If you have questions about something, then quit being lazy and read the rest of the article.
Still have questions? Leave a comment.
Step #1: Write out as many niche site ideas as you can, using your interests as a starting point.
Step #2: Narrow down niche based on the following criteria:
- Wide array of products you can review and discuss
- Higher price, lower volume
- Are there affiliate programs with good commissions?
- Are people currently making money?
- Could you write 100 articles on the topic?
Step #3: Setup your site using this tutorial
Step #4: Start creating content. Here’s a good outline to get you going:
- Write 5 articles reviewing 5 of the most popular items in your niche
- Write 3 in depth tutorials on your niche (How to _______)
- Write 3 list posts
- Repeat
Step #5: Sign up for affiliate programs relating to your niche
Step #6: Do keyword research to find 5-10 of the best key terms/products to try and rank for
Step #7: Install Yoast SEO for WordPress and do on site SEO for all posts and pages. Also review “The Backlinking Strategy that Works.” Some of this borders on the spammy realm, but pick and choose what you like. I used a lot of these general concepts when I got going with my first niche site.
Step #8: Create a list of friends and colleagues to email and tell about your new site
Step #9: Setup social media for the site: Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest
Step #10: Sign up for HARO
Step #11: Make a list of all large blogs and syndicated publications you’d want to be featured on
Step #12: Start contacting previously listed blogs and websites offering guest posts or story ideas (here’s how to do it)
Step #13: Create a high quality pdf or email series to collect email addresses. Add to site.
Step #14: Repeat Steps 4 and 12, while continuing to build your social media channels and links for SEO.
There you have it, 14 steps to a niche site that will make you at least $500/month. Want to actually learn how to do this? Then keep reading.
My First and Only Niche Site
Ok in this for the long haul? Cool, grab some coffee or a beer and let’s get going with this.
About two years ago a friend of mine and I started a niche site called HDR Software.
For those of you who don’t know HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography is a process where you take 3 versions of the exact same photograph where one is over-exposed, one is under-exposed, and one is taken at normal exposure.
The software then allows you to combine these images to take one perfectly exposed image.
Here’s an example:
I’d already had a site based around this process, so it was a natural fit to jump into this market.
For the first year we did very little paid SEO, wrote all of our own content, and really didn’t spend that much time working on it. Within 6 months the site was making over $1k a month. At it’s peak it was making closer to $3k/month.
Things were great.
We provided unbiased reviews of software, along with tips for HDR success, and were making good money in the process.
That’s when we started making mistakes.
We hired out two different SEO companies to do some link building for us – believing them when they said it was all hand built, non-spammy links.
A month into working with both of them, we couldn’t believe what we were seeing when we looked at our link profiles – nothing but spam.
We canceled the accounts immediately – but the damage was done.
A few months later the Google Penguin algorithm update happened, and our traffic dropped by about 75% overnight.
The site still brings in about $1k/month and I’ve had a renewed goal of getting it back to it’s former glory.
However the point of me telling you this is I know what works, and what doesn’t – both through my own experience, as well as that of close friends who have seen spectacular success, catastrophic failures, and many who just saw a whole lot of nothing when it comes to niche affiliate websites.
Today, I’m going to share with you, exactly how to build a successful niche affiliate website. More importantly, we’re going to do it in a way that would make your mom proud.
Crash Course: How Do You Make Money Through a Niche Site
Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, let’s talk real briefly about how we’re actually going to make money through this site.
There are a lot of ways to make money on the internet, a few of the ones you’ll find on niche sites are:
- Affiliate Links
- Adsense Ads
- Other Paid Advertisements
- Paid Text Links
- Direct product sales
However for the purposes of this post, we’re solely going to focus on affiliate marketing.
What’s that you might be wondering? Glad you asked.
Here’s the process in the simplest terms possible:
- You have a website
- Someone else has a product
- You get a special link to their product
- A reader clicks on the link and buys the product
- You get a commission
Simple as that!
However for as simple as it sounds, actually getting traffic and getting people to buy products is a much more difficult task that we’ll be covering in depth in this article.
Now that we’re on the same page though, lets jump into exactly how to select a niche, and more importantly how we’re going to select the specific products we’re going to promote.
How to Find and Test a Niche
I believe you can build a niche website around just about anything, assuming you’re passionate enough about the topic.
The reason most people fail is because they choose a niche like “Swedish leather furniture” when they are nomadic and have absolutely no interest in what they’re writing about.
If you want to do this successfully, basically think of this new site like a blog. A blog where you have to write a LOT about one particular topic, and the content has to be really good.
If you don’t have a certain level of knowledge or interest in that topic, you’re going to get burnt out before you even make your first dollar.
This is why niche selection is so important.
Action Item: Write out a list of every product, hobby, or interest you have that you might be able to build a site around.
Why? Because everyone always says they don’t have a good idea. I’m willing to bet if you get a list of 50-100 possible niches you’ll be in good shape. Need a jumpstart, here are some from my brainstorm list:
Tennis ball machines, Islay scotch, DSLR cameras, golf balls, golf clubs, golf shoes, really anything golf, skis, tripods, SE Asia travel, travel credit cards, luxury watches, televisions, hi fidelity speakers, AV receivers, Mac computers, 5 star hotels, video editing software, waterproof cameras, travel backpacks, headphones etc etc etc.
I could go on like that forever, as I’m sure you could too if you start thinking about it.
Now, with enough time, motivation, and passion, I think you could probably build a successful niche site out of just about any one of those niches I listed.
But we don’t have all the time in the world, so we want to make sure we give ourselves the best shot at success possible.
How are we going to do that? By running our list of niches through a few key filters.
Action Item: Narrow down niche based on the following criteria:
High Price, Low Volume
I’d rather make a bunch of money off one sale, than a little money off a lot of sales. This holds more true for e-commerce/dropshipping websites – but I look at it like this: if I have a low priced product I have to get maybe 5 or 10 times as many people to actually whip out their credit cards and buy something, but if I only have to convince one person to make a good commission – it’ll be easier to make money over the long term.
Could I write 100 articles about the topic?
My strategy is all about creating incredibly useful, shareable content – so if I can’t see myself writing 100 unique articles over the next couple years then there’s a good chance I’m not interested in it enough to invest the time and energy into the project. Don’t get me wrong, maybe you’ll be able to, but for me, this one’s a deal breaker.
Note: If you have some money to invest, you can hire this out as long as you’re diligent about the quality.
Are there affiliate programs (with good commissions)?
There are affiliate programs out there that will allow you to sell just about anything. The question is, what are the commissions like? The whole “high price, low volume” doesn’t work if you still only get a 1% commission off the sale. I generally won’t get into any market with less than a 10% affiliate commission unless I have a really good reason. I also shoot for at least 25-30% with everything I do.
It’s worth noting you generally won’t find commissions this high with physical products, but if you have a few good products that you can recommend with higher commissions, it can help subsidize the rest of the products that may have lower commissions.
Are there currently people making money?
This can be a tough question to answer definitively, but here’s how I go about it.
Come up with 5-10 keywords that people might search for when looking for your product.
Let’s say it’s DSLR cameras, in particular let’s use the Nikon D7000 as our example.
I might search for: Nikon D7000 review, Nikon D7000 sale, adorama coupon code (a site that sells the camera), Nikon D7000 vs. D600.
I’ll then run those through the Google Keyword Tool or Market Samurai to see how much traffic they each get. In this case, “Nikon D7000 Review” gets 27,100 searches per month.
Note: Doing this will also provide you with a hundred other keywords that may be more attractive.
When I do a search for that (and all these other keywords), one site continually pops up: Kenrockwell.com
This just so happens to be one of my favorite photography sites – where all he does is review Nikon camera equipment.
Is he making money off the site? Yep. He even tells us he is at the bottom of every page. Moreover, he says the site makes him enough for him and his family to live off of.
This is the perfect example of an affiliate site done well.
But, that’s just one guy. Are other people making money?
Looking through some of the pages on the search results, there are other reviews with affiliate links in them, so I’ve gotta imagine that because there are so many people in this market reviewing this particular product, that people are making some decent money (especially if they are reviewing a bunch of other cameras and equipment as well).
Here’s my basic formula for determining if it’s a profitable niche:
Buying Keyterm Traffic + Lots of reviews with affiliate links + High priced product with good affiliate commissions = Good chance people are making money.
There are much more scientific and in depth ways you can research this, but if you’re just starting out this can help you get a good idea.
Why I Personally Wouldn’t Build a Site Around Amazon
Before we start jumping into the specifics of getting your site setup, we should address one thing: Amazon.
Amazon is the biggest and most well known affiliate program in the world – and for good reason: you can sell almost anything.
There are certainly people out there that make a good living off nothing but Amazon affiliate sales – but for your first niche site, I don’t recommend going that route.
Amazon starts you out at 4% and as you sell more bumps you up to around 7% commissions. There’s a lot that’s attractive about it. If someone clicks a link and then buys anything in the next 72 hours you get paid.
So why not go that route?
You need a lot of traffic to be successful.
I’ve used Amazon links a fair amount across all my sites, and the biggest month I ‘ve ever had I sold 100 items that earned me about $80. If I had a whole site devoted to nothing but one type of item it might be different, but usually there’s going to be a more specific affiliate program for your product that will probably have higher commissions.
For instance I could sell the photography software I promote through Amazon and usually earn around 6% – but if I do it through their own affiliate program I make 30%. Hmmmm…
Use Amazon as a supplement, not a primary focus.
What to Focus on When You’re Starting Out
Ok, so you’ve done some research and selected a niche. From there you’ve found some specific products you’re feeling really good about.
Now what?
Well you need to actually get the site up.
Action Item: Follow this process in order to get your hosting, domain and basic site up and running.
Don’t worry about spending tons of money on a custom design or anything like that. Get a premium WordPress theme, hire someone on Fiverr to do a logo for you, and you’ll be good to go.
Design is completely secondary at this point to content.
Action Item: Install these extra things you’ll want to make sure you have:
- Yoast SEO Plugin. Search engine traffic is going to play a big role in the success of your site. This is the best SEO plugin out there, and makes it extremely easy to see if your pages are optimized – even if you have no experience with SEO.
- Optin Skin – I’m increasingly convinced in the importance of an email list for niche sites. This is the best tool I’ve used for helping to build that list. It costs $67, but trust me, it’s well worth it.
- Google XML Sitemap – You want to make it as easy as possible for the search engine spiders to find and categorize your site.
How to Create a Content Plan that Works
When you’re trying to drive traffic to a niche site you can do so in two ways:
- Legit Way
- Spammy Way
- Extremely Sharable – Because we’re not going to be doing a lot of spammy link building, we’re going to need to get links by you know, actually creating something people want to share. Brush up on your headline and copywriting skills, as this forms the basis for everything we create.
- Content that Sells – The end result of all of this is you need to get someone to buy something, so your content should help sell them on why they should do that.
- Ranks in Search Engines – You don’t want to write specifically for the computers, but like we mentioned above, you want to make it as easy on them as possible.
So, how do we accomplish this?
Well there are a few specific types of content that I’ve found works extremely well. Let’s go over what those are in detail.
Review Posts
One of the best ways to sell any product is to include an entire post that details how the product has had a personal effect on you. How did it improve your life? What can you do now that you couldn’t before? What were the legitimate downsides of the product?
All of these things help make a buyer’s decision much easier – this is especially true if you create a brand built around quality and trust.
At HDR Software I personally review every single product. I give my honest opinions, I compare them to one another, and I do my best to allow the user to have a solid choice about what’s best for them by the time they’re all done.
Detailed Tutorials Showcasing a Product
Just as important as review posts, are posts where people can learn a thing or to – after all your readers won’t always be in a buying mode, so you want to get them to come back on a fairly regular basis and build loyalty to your brand.
The best tutorial posts feature a product in one way or another.
For instance this post about Black and White HDR Photography showcased a few different products that I use in order to create black and white HDR. It’s not only educating, but it’s playing up the abilities of the software – hopefully making people realize it could be a good asset to their photo arsenal.
If you get detailed enough, these are also the kinds of posts that could get picked up and syndicated by larger blogs in your industry.
List Posts About Your Niche
Bottom line, list posts are easy to read and easy to share. People love them, even if they often don’t provide as much in depth value as the previous two kinds of posts.
If there are a lot of products in your niche, you can potentially make these posts profitable by writing articles with titles like:
- 5 Best Point and Shoot Cameras for Low Light
- 3 Best Golf Shoes for Playing in the Rain
- 7 A/V Receivers That Will Make Your Neighbors Hate You
Posts like that are enticing, and if you do little mini reviews in them, you can generate some sales.
It’s also worth noting, not every single post has to be trying to sell something. Yes that’s the goal of the site, but you’re only going to make money by providing value, so make that the priority above all else.
Coupon Code Pages
This is less of a content post and totally an SEO play.
When you’re on a checkout page getting ready to buy, what’s the first thing you do when you see that little box that says “discount code”?
You Google “product name discount code” – or something similar.
With many affilaite programs instead of getting an affilaite link, you get an affilaite code.
The user enters in the code at check out, they get a discount and you get paid.
In addition to using your code in tutorials and review posts, you can create a page that walks people through exactly how to use the code.
Title the page “Product Name Discount Code” or some variation, and use some of your SEO resources to build a few links for that page. Often people will see it come up and see the coupon code in the title, and without even coming to your site you’ll get paid – because you gave them what they wanted, a discount.
Action Item: Start writing content based on these types of posts. Here’s a good plan to get started:
- Write 5 articles reviewing 5 of the most popular items in your niche
- Write 3 in depth tutorials on your niche (How to _______)
- Write 3 list posts
- Repeat
The Most Important Factor for Any Site
Bottom line, if no one comes to your site, you’re not gonna make any money (with the exception of the little tip above about coupon codes).
With the content strategies I’ve outlined, you’ll position yourself well, but in the beginning simply writing good content isn’t going to cut it.
Use the following strategies to help spread the word quickly and help you gain traction.
With a Little Help from Your Friends
Have any friends that do stuff on the internet? Great, give them a call or send them an email to let them know about your new project. You don’t want to be the dude that’s constantly inundating all your friends with pitches and favors, but don’t be afraid to let them know what you’re up to.
Often they’ll be able to do something small like give you a link on their site, or mention it via Facebook or Twitter. When you’re getting going anything helps, and it’s usually the people you’re already close to that will have the biggest impact towards getting on the right track.
If they have blogs see if you can write them a guest post. With almost every guest post I write I find a way to work a link back to my HDR site. It’s always relevant, but by doing this I’m not only building my blog, but my niche site as well.
List Out the Big Sites that Might Be Interested
Major blogs and news outlets are constantly looking for story ideas. When they are posting dozens of articles a day at times, editors love it when people come to them with good ideas and make their lives easier.
Make a list of all of the big web sites or blogs directly related to your niche and send the editors an email telling them about your latest post or story ideas.
Need ideas on how to do this, read “Trust me, I’m Lying” to get the juices flowing.
If it’s someone’s personal blog, maybe you offer to write a guest post (here’s how to pitch it). Be persistent with this, and eventually you’ll have the BBC writing about your marathon or Psychology Today writing about your unique lifestyle.
Landing just one publication like this can be a total game changer for a small site.
HARO
Help a Reporter Out makes it even easier to find opportunities for press. You sign up for the topics you’re interested in and receive an email or two a day from reporters looking for stories.
Simple as that. This can help you position yourself as an expert on your topic, and potentially drive a lot of traffic to your new site.
Social Media
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest – all of these can be huge drivers of traffic to a site. Provide unique content via each of these mediums, and develop a little mini-community around each of them.
The better you are at this, the more interested they will become when you’re sending them back to your site to see your latest post.
I’ve personally found Facebook to be the best for traffic. It’s easier to be seen and the ability to add a photo and longer caption to a post can be just enough to get people to click through more than say Twitter.
Email List
Once you’ve done all the basics, you can hop into “niche site 301″, and come up with an email gift for people. Maybe it’s a 4 part email series educating users on your niche, or perhaps it’s a full on pdf ebook that teaches them something useful.
Either way, giving people something of value for signing up to your email list is helping you to build a huge asset.
Like I said, traffic on our site dropped nearly 75% overnight. Had we been building an email list, we’d still have a way of communicating with our most loyal readers.
If you setup the list to send emails for every new post, you’ll also drive more traffic back to the site in the process.
Action Item: Do all the things listed above:
- Make a list of friends to contact about your new site – contact them.
- Make a list of larger blogs and publications you want to be featured in – contact as you begin creating content
- Sign up for HARO
- Register social media accounts and star posting
- Begin formulating ideas for your email list
A Quick Primer on SEO
So we talked all about how to build content that gets shared, leading to backlinks from others, which improves SEO, and ultimately makes you money.
In a perfect world, that’s all you need to do.
It isn’t always that simple however, and sometimes you just need a jump start.
Review How to Become an SEO Freelancer in 48 Hours
This is one of the highest trafficked posts on this blog. It’s a full overview on SEO and is worth reviewing as you’re getting your site up and running.
Yoast SEO for WordPress
As we’ve mentioned above, you’ll want to grab Yoast SEO for WordPress. It’s free, and it makes it as easy as possible to see if you’re optimized for a particular key term:
Yoast SEO Page Analysis Screen
Select your keyword, and use their handy system to see if the keyword is in all the right places. Once you’ve got a “green light” you know that post is in good shape from an on site perspective.
The Backlinking Strategy that Works
We want to do our SEO in the least spammy way possible – however with these sites, the vast majority of your traffic and income is going to come from the search engines. So in order to help facilitate that process, you might need a little kickstart.
When my partner and I began HDR Software I essentially used the same system that Pat Flynn recommends in “The Backlinking Strategy that Works.”
He’s done a pretty good job of keeping this post up to date, but make sure you read the notes at the beginning of the article for the caveats.
This will help get you a good base, but it’s through high quality content, sharing, and larger media outlets that you’re really going to get the good links, traffic, and in turn money.
Action Item: Read both “How to Become an SEO Freelancer in 48 Hours” and “The Backlinking Strategy that Works” posts and begin implementing
Does This Process Really Work?
Well there you have it, this is exactly how to build a niche site in a non spammy way that will make you at least $500 a month.
Really? You might be asking “Is that all I have to do?”
That’s pretty much it. Don’t get me wrong though, you can sum up the process in 14 steps but it takes a lot of work and a lot of trial and error.
The main way you’re going to make consistent income is ranking highly in Google for buying key terms. Spend extra time doing the research to make sure you’re link building efforts aren’t wasted on terms that won’t have much monetary benefit.
If it takes a few months to start seeing rankings or even your first dollar – don’t get discouraged.
With every piece of content you create you’re opening up the door for someone to find you. This is not an overnight project – you’re in this for the long haul.
That said, if you’re willing to devote some time up front, in the end you’ll be rewarded with a business and asset that will make you relatively “passive income” for years to come.
Want to Go Even More In Depth?
This article tells you all you need to know in order to get started. But I’ve built an entire blueprint on affiliate marketing inside Location Rebel that will totally hold your hand if you want more help.
Want to know about the HUGE benefit of rich snippets? How about how to create an email campaign that sells? Google Authorship? The most up to date things I (and hundreds of others) have learned? 12 other detailed blueprints helping you build an online business?
Join The Discussion
Wow!! This is the the most actionable, detailed, honest and constructive (thinking and acting win/win) free guide to get to a muse-like niche site. Thank you sooo much for compiling and sharing all this!
Thanks Michael, I put a lot of thought into exactly what worked and what didn’t when I’ve gone through the process, so hopefully you’ve found it useful!
Sean–
Have you tried the Google disavow tool for the spammy backlinks?
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main?pli=1
I started getting crap backlinks from obvious spammers (a link to my website with a keyword of something like “there” or “it” which were clearly not relevant to whatever random words they’d thrown out) who were trying to get backlinks/trackbacks from me. I used the tool to disavow those junk links.
Yeah we’ve looked into it – that’s worth a whole post in and of itself
Now this is a great post Sean! I wonder how many folks who really want to make money will follow these steps to achieve such income though? Hopefully many as it’s clear there’s lots of money to be made online.
I’d love to get your insights on SEO and backlinking strategy given Google crushed niche sites and EMD sites last fall. It also looks like Google is slapping around sites again last week and will have more big updates against thin sites this year.
Does it not seem like it’s now harder than ever to build a profitable niche site? Thx
Glad you liked it!
As long as you build your links in the right way and avoid anything that seems like its potentially “gaming the system” you should be ok. Soon I’ll write an entire post on my experience with Google penalties and the effect it has on traffic/revenue.
Sounds good. Very quickly, am I a being a fool for not building links at all? I just read another post talking about how some tool has really helped them build backlinks for $14/month b/c the tool submits your articles to all these directories.
Do you think I could boost the traffic on my site if I just participated in what it seems like a large majority of web owners are participating in? I just haven’t been focusing my time on this stuff, and just writing content. I’m also increasingly wary of getting punished by Google, so I end up not doing anything at all except for the occasional guest post.
Financial Samurai: please, please, please, don’t ever buy a $14.00 link package from anyone anywhere ever.
Just try to think that through for a second. Google wants links that they see as natural and editorial. Do you think you could get a link on any well written valuable site (like Sean’s) for $14.00? Or without building a relationship and putting in some sweat equity or doing the site owner a favor first?
Absolutely not! So what makes you think that something that claims to get you a ton of links for $14.00 is going to do anything but put your site in danger especially after Penguin.
It’s hard work but what you need to do is build a prospect list of sites relevant to your own and form some kind of deal with them. That could be sponsoring the site, pitching a guest post, creating a great piece of content that you ask them to share, etc.
Here’s an article I wrote on how to link prospect with free tools that I think could be helpful to anyone who’s trying to figure out how to do it without link networks and packages:
http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/crush-link-prospecting-with-free-tools
Great post by the way Sean, I agree with you every step of the way except for the linkbuilding.
Ryan, I agree with you, so why is it that there are so many link building services around? Why on earth are people paying to link build when Google is punishing folks who buy links left and right?
I think the answer is that short cuts like this DO work, otherwise, such services wouldn’t exist.
Ryan, one question I have for you as an SEO. If an SEO is so great at SEO, why not create their own mega trafficked site and make lots of money that way than bother doing SEO? Does an SEO need credibility (a highly trafficked site) to be a credible SEO?
Thanks,
Sam
Hehe, believe me or not, I bought many times links on fiverr for 5$
And they worked 
Google is nothing but a big bunch of shitty programmed algorithms… Google is like financial software trying to find an “ideal” model to beat the market, but market always wins. So please stop speaking about Google as about a goodness… Google “wants” you to build natural links, bla bla..
Hey Sam,
I’m not going to come here and say that no cheap mass link building service could ever work as I think that would be ignorant. I especially think a well put together and closely guarded private link network could work as well as ever although I think it would be more expensive to run as you’d need to have higher quality content standards.
As far as the cheap crap that will get you in trouble though, I think the services still exist because a lot of people are slow to adapt. Both the service providers and the people who don’t know what they’re doing who need SEO help but can’t afford an agency or aren’t sure what else to do.
I think the important point though is you shouldn’t be penny wise and pound foolish. If you build up a site to the point that’s making $500 a month by spending a few hundred on cheap link services it’s eventually going to crash and burn especially if it’s not balanced out with high authority and more natural looking links. Then you lose that income and all the money you paid to develop the site and create valuable content. It all goes out the window unless you know how to get a penalty lifted which is really time intensive. Instead you could just spend more time and money up front building quality links.
As for the question on why don’t good SEO’s make their own mega sites I think it’s a very valid one. I got into working at an SEO agency because I was struggling to learn this stuff on my own and separate the wheat from the chaff. After working at an agency for 1.5 years, managing clients with big multi million dollar businesses and being somewhat of an expert on linkbuilding I think I could definitely create a huge site that’s majorly profitable. The two things I lack though are the time and resources to do it the right way.
That’s why for now I have two niche sites and one big site that I focus my time away from work on. I think others in the SEO industry either do have their own sites or get lured in by freelance work. I love the goal of more long term passive income but I have friends who work at agency’s who get easily lured in by making huge hourly rates for freelance projects and rather get the money up front instead of putting the time in to develop a site.
So many of the good SEOs I know simply enjoy being employees. It’s just like being good at accounting. Why dont most go start their own businesses, and end up working for someone else? It’s easier, pays way better up front, and carries none of the perceived risk.
I think there are a lot of mass link building strategies that will be effective for a period of time – especially private link networks, which are a bit of a different story. But most of those strategies will lose value over time at best, or ruin your site at worst. That’s why I do my very best to build links through good content and networking as much as possible.
@Financial Samurai
I think your question regarding “Why SEO makes SEO and doesn’t build own website” is quite out of place. First of all many SEOs have own website or websites (niche, affiliate… whatever)
second: I was reading the post of Sean (managed only 1/3… ) ) and wondered, who the hell needs to write 100 posts, repeat all those 14 steps again and again… to earn 500$!! To have some kind of “normal” income I have to create and manage 8 blogs like this. That’s incredible effort!
Third: SEO is nice business, it has huge market (also huge competition), there is some good money moving around, you can work as freelancer, or you can build own busness with hiring people and outsourcing activities… And it is scalable!
And updates of Google make me laugh
honestly
Cheers
David
Thanks for the response. Fair enough. I’m sure you are probably aware though that after a couple years, a successful bloggers income far surpasses a rank and file SEO’s income. Guess it all depends on what one wants.
I’m so sick of people spouting this EMD bullshit. I have a bunch of sites, all of which are fairly new and using EMDs. They didn’t get whacked and are making me a regular income via Amazon. Just because you didn’t have success a bunch of asshat spammers on webmaster forums failed with them doesn’t mean that they don’t work. I’m not saying that they give you a boost or anything; simply that they don’t get you slapped.
I completely agree, I don’t think they get you slapped by any means. They just aren’t as effective as a boost as they were two years ago. I still believe there is actually some benefit, as long as you diversify the anchor text of your backlinks.
Looks great! Optin’s price is $67 for me. I don’t see a $49 version.
Ooh, they may have raised the price since I last checked. I’ll double check and update it.
Perfect timing, I have a niche site I want to bring back from the dead!
Hi Sean, great post!
One other thing I’d add is that it’s important to understand the requirements for getting into the affiliate programs before choosing your niche. I am learning this the hard way right now.
I’m a professional web developer and have a personal interest in travel hacking so I decided to build a credit card search tool specifically for travel hackers. Before officially launching the site, I applied for entry into the affiliate programs of all the major credit card companies but each company denied my application because I did not have enough traffic. I later came to realize that it is actually very difficult to get into these programs and that I’d have to generate a large amount of traffic before even being accepted.
Now I’m not sure how to proceed. Do I spend money and time attempting to drive traffic to the site and just hope that I eventually get accepted into the affiliate programs or do I rethink my monetization strategy completely? Since the site is a tool rather than a collection of information articles, it’s more difficult to generate organic search traffic so paid advertising may be the best option. It’s hard to spend money on advertising though when you aren’t sure if it will ever result in earning money.
Do you have any experience with web applications as opposed to traditional niche sites? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Unfortunately you picked the absolute hardest niche to get into. Credit card companies are EXTREMELY selective about who they bring in, and if you don’t make sales during your trial period, they’ll boot you out (as I learned).
I’ve rarely had much trouble getting into other affiliate programs, and often if you have traffic on one site, you can leverage those traffic numbers if you’re starting a new site. If not, maybe you know a friend who has a site with some traffic.
I think in your case paid traffic is probably the way to go, or possibly trying to partner with someone that already has an established brand.
Thanks a lot for the reply, Sean. I had thought about teaming up with one of the big travel blogs so maybe that’s something I’ll explore further. Thanks again
This is just what I need right now. I’m working on a travel niche site. Thank you so much for putting all these together. I’ll use it as a checklist of the things I need to do.
Your lengthy posts are always the best!
Thanks again Sean!
Thanks Mark, hope to make the more detailed posts a fairly regular thing!
Great Sean! I’m working on my first batch of niche sites and have pretty much been following a similar process. Thanks for sharing HARO! Excited to get started with it.
This is exactly what I needed to take my first “real” stab at a successful niche site. I’m not so sure that the topics I’m most experienced with translate to niche sites all that well. Has anyone out there had success with a topic they decided to learn as they created the site, blogging along the way to show progress?
Great tutorial, Sean! With a post this long, I’d expect an ebook or something. Just goes to show how much you are willing to go over the top in providing value for your readers.
Doing my best to try and put more stuff like this out there
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks Sean for for a great summary of niche site building. You really kept it simple! I am inspired to jump in.
Damn solid post bud.
Hey Sean,
Great post as all ways. I’ve just started to work on some of my nearly dead sites. I found the Back-link Strategy from Pat Flynn, and have been half following it, so yes it works. I kinda worked out that I had only been doing half the job, by writing the content, and some basic social media links and pinging.. It is a lot more work then that, that’s for sure.
Hi Sean,
Thanks for writing. Some great specifics in here (always love those). I had a question about your keyword numbers. You said the term “Nikon D700 Review” gets 27,100 searches per month, but when I checked that on Google’s keyword tool, it was much lower. The phrase “Nikon D700 Review” only got 3,600 global searches and other combinations didn’t seem to get close to the 27,100 figure you mentioned either (screen shot here – http://gyazo.com/0b4e5cfc18c2d650549e5fb9391004e5). Thanks in advance for clarifying – just wanted to be sure I was looking correctly.
Tim
Tim, that’s because I’m not talking about the D700, I’m talking about the D7000. The 700 is an older model, which is why the results are lower.
Thanks for keeping me honest
Here’s the screenshot of my results:
http://www.seanogle.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Nikon-D7000-Search-Results.png
Haha, not trying to keep you honest, just wanted to be sure I understood.
I see you changed it from 700 to 7000 in the search term (I missed that too!) – all makes sense now.
Thanks for clarifying!
Tim
Hi Sean, great post. I have an old site that provides original information, and I make $700 a month from it despite the site being just very very basic html and my having limited SEO skills (although the site ranks well for most secondary keywords due to decent content and the fact that its been online for a number of years). The subject matter of that site holds very limited potential for a higher income, so I was too lazy in trying to improve it in terms of look (learning CSS, Wordpress, Joomla etc…), ranking, social media and so on.
I now want to create a new site on another subject that interests me, and decided to buy the domain from the evil godaddy this time (first site domain purchase and hosting plan is from another company that is so-so). What do you think of godaddy’s hosting services? I keep getting their e-mails with discount offers. Is Wordpress really as simple as you make it out to be for someone not really into tech? Am already mildly stressed with so many separate accounts (domain, hosting, e-mails, control panel, phpbb forum login etc…)!
Wow! If your basic site can earn $700 then well designed site will definitely earn more.
I’ve heard many complaints from my friends regarding go daddy but I don’t mean to say it’s really that bad. It’s average and might give you trouble sometime. I’d try and go with FatCow if I were you.
Actually, I’m also thinking of creating a niche site. I had my own blog which I thought would bring me some affiliate income but it didn’t. I was only able to earn some from setting up WordPress websites.
What was your previous site about (if you don’t mind) ?
Enwil, my first site is about a “niche” medical condition. People visit the site for the large amount of original information I have on there, but I can add no significant useful information on there anymore:-( Improving the look of the site, adding videos, graphs, diagrams etc… will not increase the traffic in any significant manner. Less than 1 percent of people have this condition.
The only way I can stay interested in this kind of website building is if I am passionate about the subject matter. Luckily, the second subject matter I have in mind for my new site can bring me much more revenue due to the more rewarding and popular keywords in that area (and in this case, a better looking site will also help the traffic due to the nature of the subject matter). I have a lot of original content ideas for this new site.
Ranking high on google will be difficult without hiring an SEO expert, but based on my experience with the first site, lots of original useful content and a 5 years plus web presence will at the very least make me rank high for secondary keywords. I am aiming for the mid/long-term as far as the revenue goes. Anything significant within the first year will be a bonus and might make me afford to hire an SEO expert.
Despite the political fallout surrounding GoDaddy, from a purely technical perspective, many of their sites load extremely slow(this could be the result of trying to cram as many sites on to the same shared server for maximum profitability). I know of several Web Designers that refuse to have their clients hosted on GoDaddy just for this reason alone. A few months ago, several sites that were hosted by GoDaddy went down and despite the rumors, they weren’t hacked; but, it was an internal technical issue as admitted by them. Not exactly a glowing testimonial as a reason to use their service.
Sean,
To be honest, you can really have a huge advantage if you work a more grey approach to the SEO. One tactic I found relevant is to do SEO based on your specific articles rather than on the main site as well. There are fewer people searching, but it is far more niche specific AND google rarely penalizes you due to the plethora of content on the page.
Try it and you can get a bit more aggressive with your strategies.
Totally agree – you can, but at a cost.
2 years ago, no one saw anchor text diversity being a big deal, and look how hard some people got hit. If you’re operating in a grey area, you’re still susceptible to changes like that.
There can definitely be value to you, but the lack of value to everyone else, and the potential to hurt you long run makes it a little bit more questionable as a long term strategy.
Awesome post Sean, thanks for posting!! Has definitely got my mind going into overdrive with ideas!!
Definitely one of your best posts Sean! I like the combination of “thinking” and “doing” something posts
2 quick questions – do you recommended any particular sites for finding affliate programs? And which WP theme are you using for HDRSoftware?
Many thanks,
Matt
Matt,
I’ve found it better to find a product first, and then you can usually either Google to find out their affiliate program info or contact them directly. Another way is to find someone else who is an affiliate and then look at their affilaite link – which can often tell you.
The theme is custom designed by my partner, but it was originally on Thesis.
Thanks Sean
With youe SEO head on, do you think it is important that the domain name contains your niche site’s keywords as much as possible?
Sean-
Great post! I am going to use the information you provided as a blueprint to build my own niche site with. Thank you so much for the high quality information. You rock!
Also, I am looking for someone who has similar goals as me to help keep me motivated. I wrote a post about it here: http://www.undertheclearbluesky.com/wanted-accountability-buddy
If you know of anyone who might be interested, it would be great it you would point them my way! (Although I’m hoping I’ll find someone just by writing this comment.)
Epic post Sean!
Curious about choosing a niche, would you recommend using Google’s keyword tool to make sure there’s some minimum number of monthly searches for relevant terms? At what search volume does a niche become viable?
Cheers from a Portland native
.
Chris
After reading “How to Become an SEO Freelancer in 48 Hours,” I was left with a lot of questions about how to go about designing my own website and -most importantly- how to make it generate revenue. This post answered all of my questions! Thanks for the info!!
Wow this post is awesome, the best bath time reading I ever did. Thanks!:)
Ok, so I have a question… I have an entertainment news website and we get about 6,000 page views a day we get paid from ad networks, direct ads and sponsored posts. We average close to $800 a month but, we’re trying to bring that number up. How could we implement something using this platform or is it doable? Just wondering. We’re PR3
this is the niche article I’ve been looking for!!! Thank you!
Best Regards!
One thing I’m hoping everybody who is reading this post and planning on working on their niche site is to report back in 3-6 months how it went.
We all know that Google is moving away from niche sites and thin content with the EMD and Panda updates, so I’d love to hear about your experiences and see if it was worth it as opposed to working on a Prime site.
Thanks everyone!
Sam
Nice post and good luck getting your HDR site back to its former glory.
I think (niche) is an extremely important factor in this exercise. From what I have noticed the sites that are doing well are in a somewhat specialized niches and also one that the big boys aren’t necessarily going after.
Your HDR Software site is one good example, as you picked a good niche. So I would gather that before anyone get into this, they find a niche that is:
1. Popular, but only to a very fragmented demographic
2. Big boys are not competing in it (yet, or ever)
3. Is a product based niche, as opposed to informational
4. Has good affiliate program, merchant, etc – you did cover this above
5. Competition is not stiff, or at least beatable
Niche is extremely important in this exercise.
Thanks for sharing, Sean. Great tutorial.
Hey Sean,
I’m really enjoying all of your work. Between your site and Ferriss’ 4-hour workweek, I’m doing everything in my power to start my own location independent business. I’ve got plans for Germany and Austria for the end of April/beginning of May. I’m in the beginning stages of starting my own SEO business, and I’m a bit confused about incorporation. What corporate entity do you recommend for such a business?
all the best,
Nick
Epic post Sean! I wish I had this info when I got into blogging several years ago and more recently niche sites.
I pretty much did all the things you shouldn’t do and made all the common mistakes. I’m feeling pretty good about my niche site strategy moving forward.
I totally agree with you about Amazon. It should be used as a supplement not primary! I didn’t realize that four weeks ago when I launched my first Amazon focused niche site reviewing electric shavers. I only made 2 commissions so far and the total wasn’t even enough to cove domain registration lol. Now I’m looking at eBay and other affiliate programs to boost sales on that site.
I will definitely be bookmarking this page and coming back often, there is just to much good stuff here!
One thing I really love about the whole niche site thing is there’s really no limitations. I mean sure there’s some competitive niches out there, but there’s always money to be made. Everybody in the world could have this information, but there’s only a handful of us that will really do something with it, and even less that will stay the course no matter what!
Thanks again for such an awesome post, hope to connect with you on Google Plus, take care Sean.
Wow Sean, thank you very much for this awesome article. It helped me a lot building my blog and I followed many of the steps you mentioned here.
Can you recommend any alternatives to Amazon? My blog is about different fun activities like skydiving, surfing, etc. and I also want to write articles about games you can play in your garden or in your house with your friends. Basically everything you can have fun with.
I would be pleased if you had any recommendations.
Thanks, Jan
Sean, thank you. This post is just what I was looking for – spoke right to my problem, where to start. I’m going to lock myself in a room this weekend and get to those steps.
One question though. If you are writing a review on products, does that mean you have brought each of those products and used them? Depending on the products I can see that being a very large up front cost.
Cheers, Rich
thanks. This publish is exactly what I had been searching for – spoke to my problem, how to start. I will lock myself inside a room a few days ago and obtain to individuals steps.
Quick Question Sean,
I want to go super in depth on some posts and give some good content, but I feel I will have nothing left to offer in an ebook that I plan to sell on the niche site. Everything on the topic will be have covered in my posts…
This should answer your question Lior:
http://www.seanogle.com/entrepreneurship/free
For people just starting out with niche sites I think it’s important to do the math before selecting a site. Find your 3 or so main keywords and see how much traffic they’re generating per month in Adwords Keyword tool and RankCheckerAce. Then multiply it by your expected conversion rate, say 2% and the affiliate commission you’ll make. Some people build sites that end up not getting enough traffic to justify the time put into it, even if it does rank well.
Brilliant! More information in this article then I’ve learned in over one year working in digital marketing… Will definitely put some of these strategies to use into our side project – a hyperlocal niche blog/digital street press that promotes local live music and creative output in the city where I live (Melbourne, Australia) – Thanks Sean!
What a great post. Epic post motivated me to start researching my second post
I have to say I have join a lot of programs studying and learning about keyword research, monetization and everything above. I have never found such a detailed article about what I basically paid $30 per month for. GREAT Article.
Robert.
I heard that niche sites are killed by latest google updates. How do you think ? any test so far ?
Hey Sean,
Thanks for this. I’m fairly new with Niche sites, (got introduced through Pat Flynn’s NC Duel). I was skeptic about it at first since the “make money online” has always been there but a lot of people are complaining that it takes a long time, or that it’s a scam. Anyway, I’ve decided to try it. Thanks for this guide!
Hi Sean,
Your article has been a great read, especially as someone who has just started seriously blogging. I had a few questions that I wanted to ask you. You write that bloggers should find a niche, and I wonder…how specific does that niche need to be? My blog is a “lifestyle” blog in that it covers fashion, decor, food, and travel. The goal of my blog is to show that people can lead interesting and sophisticated lives by creating luxury through simple comforts in all the related categories I cover. I am very passionate about this idea. There are many blogs like this out there, and I know ultimately it will be my content and voice that set me apart. However, do you think this style blog is unproductive in terms of monetary gains? Is this blog more hobby-geared and going to be impossible for me to ever make a career out of? There are a few very successful blogs like this out there that I know of (such as cupcakesandcashmere.com) that have had tremendous success, but it seems they racked up an audience of readers just through word of mouth (aka social media FB, Twitter, etc), rather than specific techniques like you have outlined. One blog, which is geared towards fashion is just photos of herself in different outfits and has no textual content at all, minus the brand/designers, so I wonder how her blog gained such a huge following?
I also am using Tumblr with my own custom domain since Tumblr allows for using custom domains free of charge. I am not familiar with SEO at all, with the exception of what it actually is. But other than that, I don’t understand how I would go about adjusting my site so that it is more successful in terms of SEO. I downloaded the plug-in you suggested, but have no idea how I even go about installing it or whatnot on my site. Do you have a tutorial for this?
I’d appreciate any help at all since I am so very new with all this and in desperate desire to make a career out of something I am so passionate about! Thanks anyways for a great article!
Frankly, I’d just keep doing what you’re doing. With your amount of traffic and exposure, you can keep putting out good content, getting good results, and never have to worry about the penalties.
It’s more difficult, however, for sites that are just starting out. You need a good base of links to work from, which makes getting a high value link that much more useful.
Sure over time you’d see some benefit by doing it, but unless you’re going to hire someone to do it for you, I don’t think it’s worth your time.
It’s just weird not knowing what I do not know. Perhaps if I followed along and hired someone to build links, traffic would be 2X higher? Who knows. I even saw a testimonial from one of my PF blog peers how great so and so link building/SEO site was… and I was thinking…. man, what a fool I am to not participate and take the easier way. The site also is a PR5, but I don’t think the traffic is the same, but who knows.
I’m fascinated with playing around w/ niche sites.
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