Building Niche Sites

Building niche sites is the only way for bloggers to really make some decent money online. Building niche sites is what I’m doing right now. I have my hand in about 3 different niche projects all done different. By now I know that building niche sites works with all these 3 methods, but I would still try to see which one works best over time.

You could call this my project studies and the only way I can truly compare the 3 methods with each other is once the niches are up and running. There are actually a lot more ways to build niche sites. Below are ways on how you can build a niche:

• Squidoo lenses using long tail keywords
• Hub Pages using long tails
• Blogger blogs using current news
• BANS does it all for you, you just pick the products
• WordPress.org blogs building a niche site slowly over time into an authority

Here is what I do with each of these methods:

Building Niche Sites with Squidoo Lenses:

To build a niche site with Squidoo I first need to do some serious research using a free or a paid keyword tool. I normally use Word Trackers Free Keyword Tool which helps me to determine a good keyword.

At this stage I’m chasing long tails which are extended keywords such as “building niche sites” or “blogging with WordPress”. Long tails are usually around 3-5 words long and because they are searched less often than the main keyword such as (niches) and (blogging) they will bring you more targeted traffic.

When I find a suitable keyword that has a good amount of daily searches and not too much competition, I go to Squidoo and build a lens using my chosen keyword in the title, description, tags (in variations) and in the body quite frequently.

This will normally get me ranked on first place in Google within days and will send all that search traffic mostly my way. The secret here is to make sure you are incorporating not only Squidoo’s money makers (of which you will be paid a percentage) but also your own affiliate marketing links (targeted to your long tail keyword)

I won’t go into further detail here, otherwise I would have to write a book. And there are already some good affordable books on the market that explain exactly this and and some more. My recommendation would be the Squidoo Queen Ebook. It helped me to build a couple of Squidoo niche sites and earn around $30 in the first month.

Negative points of Squidoo niche sites:

• time consuming
• income is limited per lens (you can expect about $30 – $50 per month/lens)
• you need to keep updating the lenses all the time (there is a fast trick to do this BTW)
• it is no longer possible to build a mailing list with Squidoo
• having to share your income with Squidoo
• limited creativity

Building Niche Sites with Hub Pages:

Hub Pages are similar to Squidoo in the way they are set up and ranked. They seem to be favored by search engines but to be honest, I have yet to come across a great hub that strikes my attention long enough.

You also build modules with hubs and write your own content. You can then monetize the hubs with Google Adsense (using your own code), EBay, Amazon and more. What I do like about the hubs is the ability to be a little more creative opposed to Squidoo. I have never build a hub page to be full functional so I do have no idea on the possible amount of income that is to be earned with them.

Maybe one of my readers would care to share this information.

Negative points of Hub Pages niche sites:

• time consuming
• most likely limited income possibilities
• sharing income with hub pages
• the hubs sit hugging the left frame and therefore look a little wacky

Building Niche Sites with Blogger Blogs:

Blogger blogs are easy to set up. You can virtually be up and running with a blogger blog niche site within 1 hour. Ok, maybe 2 but that is still great doing. To do this you will need to follow exactly in Grizzly’s foot steps. Alternatively you should also visit Vic’s blog Blogger Unleashed, since the two of them are mainly responsible that the penny finally dropped!

This is potentially the fastest and best way to make a decent income online with niche sites. I started my first real one today and have already received close to 200 unique visitors. Now remember, that this is a brand new site I created only hours ago. And yes, it isn’t 20,000 unique’s yet, but for a blog that isn’t even 1 day young it is pretty damn good!

Negative points of Blogger Blog niche sites:

• you don’t own them so if something does go wrong, you might be shut down
• limited layouts unless you know a little HTML
• limited functionality compared to WordPress
• building links from authority sites
• getting indexed (won’t be a problem if you follow Griz’s and Vic’s advice)

Building Niche Sites with BANS:

BANS is the new kid on the blog when it comes to niche marketing. It allows you to build unlimited niche sites with the one software and is pretty easy to set up. Once you purchased your BANS software you are set to go and start building your niches.

What you need to know upfront is that BANS won’t make you rich overnight, but Vic says that he makes about $ 1 /day with each of his BANS sites. I feel this is a fair estimation and would vary for all of us, according to our ability to drive traffic to our BANS site.

Most will probably make less since they purchase the software with good intentions and then never go further. But for others, who work this and give BANS a serious try it could well become a nice little sideline.

Apparently it is as easy as building a BANS niche site within a couple of hours and have it ready to roll.

I purchased a nice PR 4 domain yesterday with a good keyword that gets some decent searches every day. Guess what I will do with this site?

Yep, it will be a BANS niche site.

You can read more about BANS .

Negative points about BANS niche sites:

• you need to spend some time writing decent content to optimize
• you need to build traffic by promoting
• when you update the site you’ll need to use bookmarking sites since there is no pinging like with blogs
• doing proper keyword research to get decent traffic

Building Niche Sites with WordPress:

WordPress is a great tool to build niche sites because of their friendship with Google. The key to building niche sites with WordPress is to understand that this is the long term approach or also slow approach.

I do however like this because I’m able to build an authority site with WordPress over time. Maki from Dosh Dosh actually told me this and it does make perfect sense. I choose a niche that is quite generic but does not contain the main keyword. So I won’t choose dogs, but I might choose dog wash as my main title.

From there I would build sub niches into categories. Say your title is (dog wash), one of your subs could be dog wash shampoo, or dog wash bath tubs. (If something like this exists, I just made this up to set an example).

I think you are getting the idea anyway. This is one of my niche sites I’m building right now and it will take month before it is valuable in terms of decent income.

But I happen to like the subject and know a lot about it too. (And before you ask, no it isn’t in the meta blogging industry either).

Negative points on WordPress niche sites:

• it is time consuming
• needs some heavy promotion
• needs incoming links
• you need knowledge about the subject in some degree

Building niche sites does take a good pinch of marketing knowledge and the ability to promote yourself well. Sometimes it involves the more grey zones of marketing too, but to be honest I have learned now that marketing is just that. If I manage to market better then I make more money and that is ultimately what I’m here for.

I blog and write because I love doing this and I also love to share my knowledge with others and help them. But to earn the real money that is to be made online, I will turn my focus on building niche websites.

The penny has finally dropped – Are you turning with me?

Monika

The Writers Manifesto Blog

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