When people are new to affiliate marketing, most of them finding it difficult to determine what is a niche site and secondly to find a niche they can relate to.
In this post, I want to shed some light on what is a niche, talk about niche websites and the pros and cons of niche sites.
Also, I am going to touch on the subject how to find a niche and what steps you need to take when you found one.
Without further ado, let’s get going.
What Is A Niche
A niche is basically a group of people who share the same interest. Let’s have a look at your life. What are you interested in? Have you got a dog or a cat? Do you love reading? Do you do sports like badminton or swimming? Do you enjoy cooking?
These examples are all niches. You could even be more specific. For instance, You love cooking vegetarian meals? Or, you might own a puddle and have a particular interest in this kind of dog.
I will talk about this in more detail when we look at how to find niche website ideas.
What Is A Niche Site
A niche site focuses on a specific interest and targets people who are interested in this particular niche.
As a website owner, you would promote products and services related to your chosen niche. If people would buy a product through the links on your site, you will get paid a commission at no extra cost to the visitor.
This process is called affiliate marketing.
Your aim would be to provide relevant information for people who are looking for help or have questions. A good example would be people who are interested in a vegetarian lifestyle.
If you were vegetarian, this could be your niche. You could write about it, about your own journey, challenges and positive changes you may have experienced. From there you could recommend motivational books, vegetarian cookbooks, and other things through your site.
Amazon is one of the largest affiliate programs with millions of products. So if someone buys through your affiliate link, you’ll earn a commission.
What Are The Benefits Of Having A Niche Website
It is very easy to start and does only cost less than $50 in start-up costs. You will need a website ( I show you here how to build a website for free), a domain name and a hosting platform.
A domain name costs around $14 a year. My recommended hosting, domain buying, and training platform is Wealthy Affiliate, where you can get two SiteRubix websites plus hosting for free or, for the serious business builder, you pay either $49 a month or annually $359. Read more about it here or click on the banner to start your free trial.
There are several other benefits of having a niche site. As mentioned, you only need low start-up costs. You don’t need your own product. That means no overhead costs, no storage space, no handling refunds or customer complaints.
Other Pros:
- Write about a subject you are interested in
- Earn passive income
- Your website is open 24/7, even while you are asleep 🙂
- Work from home or anywhere in the world
- It is a business that will generate revenue for years to come
- You can have multiple websites.
When a customer is searching for a particular product, they are close to buying the product. With your site, you are helping them to make a decision.
You are there to give honest advice and well-researched information. Only recommend products you are using or would buy yourself.
Kyle co-founder of Wealthy Affiliate has a good point when he says:
You don’t write to make money, you write to help your visitors, and earn money with it.
What Are The Cons
It takes time to generate traffic to your site. If you need money in the next few months, affiliate marketing and building a niche site wouldn’t be for you.
You have to write good quality content, do research, write product reviews, add images and get the site optimized for the search engines.
To build a sustainable long-term business with a niche site can take a year or longer. It’s not different than with any other business type.
If you have a realistic outlook and willing to put in the hard yards and reap the rewards later, then you are in for a real income.
Here are the Cons in a nutshell:
- Income is not recurring unless you promote a membership product
- It takes time to get visitors to your site
- You need to know the basics of internet marketing like SEO, keyword research, etc. Again, please check out Wealthy Affiliate that will teach you everything you need to know.
How Do You Find A Niche
When you start a niche website, for most people it is quite tricky to find a niche. As a result, they tend to overcomplicate things because they want to find “the niche” that will earn a lot of money.
As a matter of fact, you can make money with any niche!
My number one tip is to find a niche, where you already have some knowledge and are interested in.
Doing some brainstorming is good. On a piece of paper write down:
- Ten things you are interested in or you feel passionate about.
From this list, choose a subject you could write about for the next few months. Write down any ideas that come to mind. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. Just imagine you would talk to a friend.
Here is a video, that will show you how you can find niche ideas by using different sources like Amazon.com and Google.
Watch The Video Now ⇒ Click Here
In the video, Kyle briefly touched on the subject to narrow down your niche.
What Does He Mean By That?
Well, if you start a niche site, you need to be specific about the topic you are going to write about.
Here is an example: You are interested in the niche Cooking. Of course, that is far too broad. So we need to narrow it down. To be more specific, you could say ‘Vegetarian Cooking’ or another term could be ‘Vegetarian Dishes’ or ‘Vegetarian Meals.’ Even this term could be narrowed down to ‘Vegetarian Meals For Singles‘ or ‘Vegetarian meals for Families’, as examples.
The last two options are very specific niche ideas which target a particular audience, in this case, singles, and families.
If your topic is too broad, you will have a hard time competing against well-established websites. The key is to keep your site as focused as possible. Later down the track, you can add other sub niches to it.
Let’s Recap The Most Important Things So Far
- A niche website focuses on a specific interest and targets people who are interested in this particular niche.
- The start-up costs for a niche site are small. You need a website, a domain and a hosting platform.
- Choose a niche you are interested in. It should be fun writing about your niche.
- Always write for your visitors and help them the best you can.
- You can develop several websites.
- A niche site earns you a passive income, but it takes time and consistent effort to build your business.
- When you choose a niche, be as specific as possible. (as shown in my example).
What Are The Next Steps?
There are a few more steps you need to take. First up, you need to do some keyword research. That will give you, even more, ideas regarding a niche and about the competing websites.
I took a screenshot of my keyword research ‘vegetarian meals for families’ using the free keyword tool at Wealthy Affiliate.
The competing websites for these keywords are between 10 and 60, which will make it easy to rank for these keywords.
As you can see on the screenshot, another targeted audience could be people who want to lose weight or vegetarian meals for beginners or kids.
The last step …
The last step would be to buy a domain name. It’s a good idea to use a keyword as a domain name. Here is a screenshot of domain names that are available for this niche.
I prefer a dot com domain but also own a dot org domain.
Okay …
You have got your niche, your keywords and bought your domain name. Now it’s time to get cracking.
Start with writing blog posts and fill your website with content. I recommend posting at least once or twice a week.
When you have content on your post, it is time to find affiliate programs, apply for them and add your affiliate links to your site.
The screenshot shows a few examples of possible affiliate programs. And don’t forget there is also the Amazon affiliate program.
It is very easy to apply to become an affiliate, and it doesn’t cost anything.
Wrapping It Up
I do hope my post has helped you to get a better idea of what a niche website is and how to find a niche.
Besides adding affiliate links, there are also other options for how you can monetize your site. For more information, please click here.
Some more tips I would like to add:
- Don’t take forever to find a niche – a couple of days is sufficient (sleep on it 🙂 )
- Try not to overcomplicate things. You can always change an idea later.
- Don’t worry too much about the competition. There is competition in every niche.
- Be consistent with posting content.
- Only promote products and services that are relevant to your niche.
- Write for your audience.
If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below. I’ ll get back to you asap.
If you need to learn more about building a niche website and what affiliate marketing is all about, please join me at Wealthy Affiliate, my #1 recommended training and hosting platform.
Check It Out And Start Your Free Trial Today.
To Your Success
~ Anke
Please note: this post contains affiliate links
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