How to Find A Profitable Niche Site - Tips and Tricks

Creating a niche site to make money online is an interesting idea, which requires some knowledge. These sites host content on a specific topic and are often created to generate additional income, can attract crowds when they are well written, well presented, and above all get better rankings in Google search results. Here is a complete guide on designing a successful niche site around a passion or a supposedly viable idea to make ends meet.

What Is A Niche Site?

A niche site is a site that will deal with a particular theme to target visitors to whom you want to sell a product. Unlike Blogs, which share a passion and bring together a community of users around a sometimes broad theme (travel, football, video games, etc.), the niche site is designed to generate money.

It is possible to know how to make money with a blog, but that is not its primary purpose, while the niche site is created for this purpose.

The idea is to choose a promising subject that will interest a small group of people and take the place of # 1 (ideally!) On Google to become the benchmark for the domain. It could be a site on dolphins, a table tennis platform in France, a site on cabin suitcases, or a platform on Korean gastronomy… The important thing is your focus on a specific topic and provides quality information.

The niche site will need to be monetized, which will allow you to generate passive income, which can range from a few dollars a month to several thousand for the top-performing sites. We explain how to create this type of online platform, make it a benchmark of its kind, and earn money with it.

The Different Types Of Niche Site

You have a precise idea of ​​the existing niche sites; let's reference the different platforms that we find on the net under this name.

The Old-fashioned Niche Site

The niche site has been around since the beginnings of the internet, at a time when the competition was less, design mattered little and SEO rules were much less strict than they are now.

The first versions of these sites took the form of a platform containing a mass of information grouped on a few pages (a maximum of ten), accompanied by numerous clickable advertising links. The ubiquitous advertising allowed his manager to earn a few thousands of dollars per month with the subject treated. By accumulating sites of this type, the best niche site creators could even make a living from it.

But we are no longer in the year 2000, and this kind of niche site has had its day. There are still many of them, but they are now classified as spam sites, and Google (but also other search engines) penalize them heavily.

The Authority Site

Much more relevant, the authority niche site, which will become the absolute reference on a specific topic. To achieve this, the platform must offer quality content (sourced or verified). It must respect Google's SEO rules and serve as a benchmark for a community of enthusiasts who can live through the site's forums/comments and share their articles on various social networks.

By monetizing it via the different methods we develop below, you will earn money while offering your field expertise. As you can imagine, becoming No. 1 on a topic requires a certain time investment, but it pays off!

Amazon Niche Sites

More popular than ever, Amazon has a very well-constructed affiliate program that allows products to be marketed on a niche site through animated inserts, clickable images, and other purchase incentives.

This is a prevalent type of niche site that can work wonders if you find the right niche. Users are reassured to see that you offer products through the largest shopping platform on the net - which allows them to benefit from the advantageous sales conditions of the site - and as the creator of the niche site, you will have access to a wide choice of products, because you can find almost everything on Amazon.

When a visitor clicks on the link and places an order on Amazon, you will receive a percentage of the cart, even if they do not order immediately, thanks to cookies!

Affiliate Sites

The affiliate's niche site is based on the same principle as the Amazon site, but you will go through another affiliate program.

Say you started a post-pregnancy diet site, you could partner (an affiliation) with a diet supplement program, which you could promote on your articles. You will receive a percentage of sales with each order.

An interesting solution, especially since the programs to become affiliates are numerous and that we find in most areas!

How To Create A Niche Site?

Like starting a free blog with no ads, building a niche site isn't technically complicated at all. However, it is necessary to proceed in stages to not waste time on a project that does not bring in anything. Because yes, if you create a niche site, it is to make money!

Here's how to get started!

Find The Idea

Obviously, the first thing to do is find the right idea for your niche site! You can consider going on a subject that you know, if you have an unusual passion or expertise, or opt for a subject that generates a certain demand and is not / little covered.

To do this, you have to observe the world, be inspired by your readings and your conversations with those close to you who can give you the right idea, but you can also choose a niche by looking at the products that are selling the most on the major sites of e-commerce (e.g., gaming chair, Christmas garlands at the end of the year, etc.) and check that the market is not saturated.

Analyze Research Statistics

The idea of ​​the niche site is based on the low amount of people interested in your topic. It is therefore important to analyze the number of potential visitors and the competition.

You can do this via keyword research on Google AdWords to find the most relevant queries and see if your niche site can be viable. Keep in mind that a keyword that yields potential traffic between 5,000 and 10,000 is interesting.

Also, check any nearby queries you might write about to make sure you have enough themes to flesh out your niche site's content.

Compare with niche sites on the subject

Do you have your subject? Now take a look at the most popular sites that deal with the same concepts as you. Type the query on Google and look at the available sites. Based on the optimization of their style, you will see if you feel you can do better.

To help you in these different steps, we recommend that you use tools like Google AdWords, SemRush, KWfinder, or Ubbersuggest.

Choose The Right Name

Your niche site's name is important, and it should allow you to identify the topic being treated immediately: make sure it contains the main keyword! You will need to buy a domain name, which is usually offered by the host, and you will have two options:

• Opt for a specific site name on your specialty.

• Choose a more thematic name. 

Choose the domain names that allow better SEO and which will contain your main theme. We prefer .com sites, or even in .info, .org, or .eu, which are more serious than an extension that takes the host's name.

We avoid dashes, too-long domain names, or fanciful names not to mislead the potential reader or displease Google!

Where To Host My Niche Site?

For your site to exist, it must be hosted. Many platforms offer hosting, with or without a domain name, and if free versions are available, it is better to spend a few dollars for a paid solution, which will be more complete and more secure.

Which CMS?

The CMS (for Content Management System) is the tool that allows you to model the site and insert content. The best known of which is WordPress, which is used by 1/3 of websites.

Free or paid according to your needs, you will choose the one that suits you according to the interface, the plugins that can be useful to you (price tables, button, design…), and the updates offered.

Do you have to be a specialist in the theme of your niche site?

This is one of the recurring questions for those who want to get into a niche site: do I have to be an expert in my field? If this is a determining factor for a blog through which you will share a passion, it is not mandatory for a niche site.

You can do everything to launch your site without knowing much about the subject and read, inform yourself and collect information on specialized sites to offer your readers quality content.

The important thing is to write articles that include verified information without bragging about the non-existent merits of a product (at the risk of being penalized by Google). If you're short on time, you can even delegate this research/writing task to copywriters who will do the work for you. Of course, a time-saver will only be relevant when your niche site starts to operate correctly. Otherwise, you could spend more than you started earning.

Let's take a look at content creation, one of the most important steps for an effective niche site.

Create content for a successful niche site

Your site should contain articles that answer all that a visitor might have as a question about the product or service you are talking about. Put yourself in the shoes of your readers and write articles that encompass all of these questions.

The Contents

Organize a niche site with categories, clear menus, and a home page that ranks on your main keyword. If you want to sell cat collars, the main page will list the essentials and link to the corresponding articles ( how to choose a cat collar? What size for my cat's collar  ? Collar for which breed, what are the best brands of cat collar, etc. ).

You have to write articles that read well, with titles and headings, bold words, and links that will lead to the products' sales pages. This facilitates navigation for the visitor, and it allows you to facilitate the understanding and structure of your niche site for better Google SEO.

Feed The Site

It is often a question of quantity when we talk about creating a niche site: how many articles? What size for each of them? What keyword density? This is a job of SEO ( Search Engine Optimization ) that will have to be done to climb in SEO.

For a small niche site, the minimum would be 10 articles, but better to go for 20, 30 articles for a site as complete as possible. You need at least 1000 words per article, but as the number of articles, it is recommended to write longer articles, 2000 or 3000 words, to be exhaustive.

Do not fall into the opposite excess, with articles that are too long or too many articles, at the risk of repeating yourself and losing relevance.

Above all, link the articles together (internal linking) so that your niche site is easy to read. It is also an essential criterion for good SEO by Google bots, which will judge your information's quality by easily browsing your platform.

Among the tips for effective content writing, it may be wise to opt for the first person to speak directly to your community and forge a certain connection, which will cause the visitor to return to your platform. To tell people about your site and to share your articles on social networks.

Promote Your Niche Site

If natural referencing, which depends on your editorial content's quality, is essential, promoting the site through external channels is just as important. To keep it simple, keep in mind that the more visible you are, the more popular your site will be.

For this, you can opt for sponsored links, which advertise your site on another platform. It will be necessary to contact the managers and negotiate a price for an article in which an anchor (= a link) will be inserted in a text.

The reverse is also possible if you wish to exchange favors: you write an article by inserting a link for another site, and in exchange, it places the reference of yours in one of its articles.

Finally, do not neglect the power of social networks, which allow you to give maximum visibility to your platform.  

To Follow Evolution

You don't have to be impatient because a niche site doesn't reach the heights in a flash. Once the main one is on your platform, you have to feed it regularly (every week / 2 weeks / every month) to keep it alive and to continue to generate constant traffic.

An active site remains in Google's ranking, and it is more pleasant for a visitor to have news and one-off promotions, which will keep them coming back regularly.

To follow your niche site's evolution, use a tool like Google Analytics or one of the other solutions (free or paid) that you will find on the net.

Generate income with a niche site

Your site is alive; now you have to get down to the basics: monetize it! When you create a niche site, it's to earn money, and there are several solutions available to you to do so:

The Adsense advertising system or another advertising network, which allows you to be paid for hosting ads, either in exchange for display or when a visitor clicks on one of the ads in question

The affiliate programs, like Amazon that we mentioned above (but it is far from the only one), through which you will receive a predefined commission for each sale made through your site

Selling a service/ebook directly on your site: do you have a dating site? Sell ​​seduction guides in ebook form! Is Your Niche Site About Weight Loss? Offer weight loss programs!

Sponsored articles help generate income because a relevant and prominent site will attract other entrepreneurs who want to promote their platform or businesses who want to gain visibility. You will be paid to write an article containing the link for the site/company that may contact you.

The sale of the site is an option for the most invested. If you manage to create a niche site that becomes a benchmark, it may interest potential investors, who will repurchase it from you to reap the benefits without doing all the initial work.

Various solutions, some of which can be combined, allow certain creators to make a comfortable living from this business, especially when you create several niche sites. If the investment of time is large in the beginning, you will take the hand and pass the first site; you could take a liking to this practice and multiply the experiments.  

Examples of niche sites

Concretely, the niche site can deal with anything, as long as it is a specific subject within a theme. We will not do a site on dogs, but rather a site on dog leashes, in the same way that we will have to specialize in car types rather than cars in general. Do you see the principle? Here are some examples of niche sites:

• Cosmetics sites specialized in a particular product (for curly hair, to take care of frizzy hair, etc.)

• A niche site on the local products of a particular region (ex: the gastronomy of the Southwest)

• The platforms that highlight the Do It Yourself, on which you will offer products to create candles, knit, make jewelry …

• Niche sites relating to fishing, hunting, survival, which will offer accessories and advice

• Sites dedicated to parents and activities to awaken a child, with games, coloring, and activities in board games.

• The list is endless, and the niche sites that work simultaneously will not be the same later. However, certain niches are promising, and you need to rack your brains a little to find the right vein!

Time and desire for niche sites that work

Getting started with building a niche site takes time and effort, but you could be well rewarded for the investment. Let's summarize the essential steps to follow:

• Find the idea for your niche site

• Study the market to know how to position yourself

• Design the site, with a domain name, a host, and the right CMS

• Feed the site with content

• Generate earnings through sales, advertising, or partnerships

• Follow the evolution of your site!

• By following these steps and recommendations, you will succeed in making niche sites that perform well and earn a few tens or hundreds of dollars in passive income!