We have all thought about turning our internet addiction into a profitable proposition. Imagine if you could make passive income right from your computer. Well, that is possible by building niche websites.
No BS: Niche websites are a great way to earn a passive income. Once established, there is no need to regularly update the content every day. In this way, niche websites differ from blogs.
Blogs typically deal with topics that need updating. Whether it’s a personal blog or a blog about sports, fashion, or politics, you need to keep this site updated.
But a niche website, on the other hand, is an informational site about a specific subject that doesn’t need much updating.
Yes, at first, it does require time to get set up. But once the groundwork has been laid out, you can have a steady source of passive income for years to come.
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Building niche websites FAQ
What is a niche website?
A niche website basically focuses on one specific aspect of a field or one product out of a range of products.
Unlike over-arching websites covering a wide range of topics, a niche website only focuses on a small topic.
The idea behind niche websites is to attract users interested in a very specific topic and then have them buy something.
For instance, a health website would cover most topics related to health, and therefore, the traffic it would receive would be very diverse. However, if you focus on hair loss and hair growth, you would get users looking for something very specific. This targeted traffic means it would be easier to convert them into paying customers.
This is the true beauty of a niche website. The traffic you receive, however little, is very interested in the topic.
How do niche websites earn money?
A niche website can earn money by placing affiliate links from within the content and placing Google Adsense banner ads.
Affiliate links or referrals work by rewarding you whenever one of your visitors clicks on an affiliate link and buys something. You would then be awarded a commission.
Popular affiliate programs include ShareASale, ClickBank, and Amazon Associates.
With Google Adsense, relevant ads are displayed based on the content of your page. This is easier since you don’t have to find a product to sell yourself; it’s all done automatically. It’s also easier to make money since you are paid per click – not per sale.
4 steps to building niche websites
In this post, I’ll take you through the entire process of building niche websites from scratch. Here’s a step-by-step guide for building niche websites that become a solid source of passive income.
Step 1: Brainstorm for niche website ideas
The ideas for creating a niche website are endless, so it can be difficult to pick a topic. Although there are many topics, not all of them will make you money.
Celebrities are always highly searched on Google. But it’s hard to create a site about a celebrity and expect to make good money. After all, there’s not much to sell there.
One idea is to focus on a huge market and then find your niche within that market.
For example, let’s focus on the health industry. Let’s dig deeper; how about weight loss. Let’s go even deeper and choose exercise. Then finally, we’ll choose HIIT (high-intensity interval training). A website based around HIIT would be considered a niche website.
This particular topic works because any information you add is more than likely going to be evergreen (it will be relevant now and 5 years from now).
When it comes to choosing a topic, take into account these important things:
- You need to be interested in the topic. Otherwise, you will burn out and quit; therefore, if you’re a meat-eater, you probably don’t want to create a niche website on veganism.
- The niche needs to have a product you can sell. There’s no point in writing about your love of fast food if you can’t sell anything.
- It needs to have enough search volume. You may have an interest in dogs with long ears, but not many other people do.
- You need to be able to write 100 articles on the topic. If you choose something too narrow, you might not be able to create enough unique content.
Step 2: Create your niche websites
To create your niche website, you will need a domain and web hosting. For newbies, I recommend using HostGator. They have a step-by-step guided process to get your site up.
Choose a domain name that has your niche topic in the domain. Don’t choose a vague domain or use your name.
You can use WordPress to create your website, even if it’s not a blog. To make a site that converts, you’ll want to use a professional blog theme to give your site an elegant touch. This step is crucial as the look and feel of your website would impact the traffic driven to your website. Without a proper layout and a solid design, users won’t stick around.
You can take your site to the next level by utilizing plugins like Yoast SEO to properly optimize your site for Google.
Step 3: Create well-researched, keyword-targeted content
Content is king in this day and age, and if you didn’t produce quality content, the chances of success would stay low.
You should first identify the topics that you think are most relevant to your selected niche. Afterward, use Google Keyword Planner from within Google Adwords. You will need to sign up for Adwords to use this tool. However, you don’t need to spend money on Adwords, just set up an account.
Google’s keyword planner is useful in finding relevant keywords that your posts should revolve around. However, once you start making money, you can switch to a more robust keyword-finding tool, such as SEM Rush.
Make sure to create more posts on keywords with a higher search volume, as these would be the keywords that would drive the most traffic to your website.
It’s important to also think about products from the get-go, and you should do your research on relevant products right from the start so that you can place them intelligently within your website’s content.
Focus on creating lists, product comparisons, and how-to’s, as this is the type of content that most resonates with people today.
Step 4: Monetize your niche website
This is something that should go side-by-side with content creation. Sign up for ad programs like ShareASale and Flex Offers.
Look for programs that are in your niche and sign up to promote them. You should focus first on only one or two main products since your traffic is too low right now to make a lot of sales.
You should also sign up for Amazon Associates so you can promote books and products related to your niche.
Finally, sign up at Google Adsense to fully monetize your niche website.
Step 5: Get traffic to cash in your hard work
Now that you’ve created your first niche website, it’s time to start making money. But without the traffic, your site won’t make a penny.
The traffic to your niche website will come from two sources: Google and social media.
Get search engine traffic.
This means you’ll need a site that is properly optimized for Google. This article teaches you the best practices for on-site SEO. Create articles based on keywords and make sure each one is over 1,000 words in length.
Aside from on-site search engine optimization, you will also need to build links to your articles. To do this, you can guest post on other websites and add a link back to your articles.
Get traffic from social media
Set up Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest accounts for your niche site. Promote each article on these networks. To give your website an extra traffic boost, you can choose to invest to promote your tweet, FB post, or pin.
You can also use a service like Tailwind to automatically post your articles on Pinterest and Instagram.
Now that you’ve created your first niche website, the next step isn’t to sit on your laurels and wait for the money to roll in. Nope, the final step is to choose another topic and make your second niche website!
