Building Profitable Niche Websites

By Steve Gillman

I shouldn't have to say it, but building profitable niche websites is not about secret tricks or sneaky games. Yes, there are some techniques worth learning for getting recognized by search engines and for properly marketing your site, but start by offering what every business should offer: real value. You'll do better and feel better if you have something that is actually valued by your visitors.

Ideally you want to find a niche that is not too competitive, and is also on a subject that you have some interest or knowledge in. For example, you might love everything about cars, but it would be difficult to compete against websites reviewing new cars or offering advice on buying used cars. So you do some keyword research to see what phrases are being searched and you find that "fix my car" is typed into a search engine 4,400 times monthly. Related terms like "how to fix my car" and "how do I fix my car" have over 1,000 searches each month, while dozens of other related keyword phrases each have hundreds of monthly searches. See the resources section below for free places to get this information.

You then install the Google tool bar on your browser and enable the "PageRank" feature, which is a little green bar that shows you what Google thinks the importance of a website is. Now, using Google, you search the primary keyword "fix my car," and click through to the ten sites on the first page of results. If there are a few that have a PageRank of "2" or "3" you should be able to compete and eventually get your new site on that first page of results. If they are all PR 4 or higher, find a new niche.

Having found a niche you can now register a .com (not .net or other) domain name with the primary keyword in it. If "fixmycar.com is not available, try "fixmycarnow.com," "tipstofixmycar.com" or "fixmycartoday.com." Find a good server (we use HostGator) and get set up, buy pagemaking software and start making pages. Without going into the details of how to build and optimize sites (beyond the scope of this simple page), I will tell you that I've had the best luck designing each age to target one keyword phrase. So your second page might be "How To Fix My Car Cheaply," targeting "how to fix my car," and the third, "How to Change a Timing Belt," after you notice that there are 18,000 people searching monthly for "how to change a timing belt" (really-I just checked).

How Much Can You Make?

I have no idea how much you can make, but there are a lot of profitable niche websites waiting to be built. For example, I spent an hour interviewing a carpet cleaner (and I had the job myself earlier in life), and built a website on how to remove carpet stains. I have a couple dozen pages targeting keywords like "get out koolaid stains," and "remove blood stains," and because it was a less-competitive niche when I started, it has done well for years. In 2010 I spent perhaps five hours working on it and it made over $14,000. It does that by way of pay-per-click ads and links that generate a commission from sales of products we link to. We spend nothing to advertise our sites, and although that doesn't constitute a living by itself, it is one of many websites we have.

Ways to Make More | Related Opportunities | Tips

If you want to make more money money, create more niche websites.

Study up on how to promote a website and get free traffic.

Qualifications / Requirements

You can start a site for under $100. Offer good quality information for visitors or you'll be fighting an uphill battle.

First Steps

Find a niche that will keep you interested and start that keyword research. I like to see at least a few thousand monthly searches for a primary keyword in order to base a site on it, with thousands of searches for related terms as well. Start reading up on how to monetize a site, so once you develop that traffic you can make some money from it.

Resources

http://www.google.com/toolbar/ff/index.html - Get a Google tool bar here.

http://www.howtoremovecarpetstains.com - One of my profitable niche websites.

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