How many times have you thought about (or even started) building a niche site with dreams of making thousands of dollars in passive income each month?
If you’re like most people trying to make a living on the internet, the thought has probably crossed your mind at least once, if not thousands of times.
For me, the affiliate review site concept is one of the most fascinating anomalies on the internet. It’s one of the hardest yet stupidly easy things you can do online.
And the opportunity to build a profitable affiliate site has never been better.
Take me for example. Over the last two years, I’ve made over a million dollars through my Breaking Eighty and Slightly Pretentious niche sites. All while traveling the world, playing the best golf courses, drinking the best cocktails, and reviewing the coolest golf products out there.
I’m not telling you this to brag, but to show you what’s possible.
If you’re looking to launch a business with significant financial upside, passive income potential, and the freedom to stop trading time for money (and spend more time doing what you love), then starting a niche affiliate review website and YouTube channel could be the perfect opportunity for you.
But let me be clear—the process isn’t easy. It requires a lot of hard work, dedication, and consistency.
With that said, I promise your efforts will start paying off sooner rather than later.
You’ll also have way more fun than with most other online business models. Regardless of which niche you choose, you’ll open up doors to opportunities you never thought possible.
If this sounds like the path you want to take, keep reading for a step-by-step process for building a six-figure affiliate review brand.
Let’s dive in.
Table of Contents
Affiliate Site Video Tutorial:
Dig this video? See more lifestyle business videos on our YouTube Channel.
How to Start an Affiliate Site Quick Start
Here’s the 11-step, quick start, Cliff’s Notes version of my strategy for building a six-figure affiliate review brand.
Step 1: Choose a Niche
- Define your industry, niche, and niche within a niche to narrow down your focus.
- Check out this article on how to choose a niche.
Step #2: Research Affiliate Programs
- Search “<product name> affiliate program.”
- Visit company websites and see if they have affiliate programs.
- Check out other niche sites and see if they have affiliate links.
Step #3: Come up with 100 content ideas
- Product reviews, comparisons, how-to guides, best-of lists, list posts, and personal content all work great here.
Step #4: Get Your Website Going
- Set up your site using this tutorial.
Step #5: Set Up Your YouTube Channel
- Create your channel and get your handle so it’s good to go once you’re ready to start recording videos
- Read more here about leveraging blog and video in order to reach as many people as possible.
Step #6: Start Keyword Research
- Use a tool like Semrush to find 5-10 of the best key terms/products to try and rank for.
Step #7: Start Creating Content
Step #8: Create a Strict Posting Schedule
- Treat content creation like a job and stick to your schedule
Step #9: Decide on a Call To Action
- Start building an email list by offering some type of lead magnet.
Step #10: Research Future Relationships
- Start making connections and building relationships with people in your industry.
Step #11: Start publishing
- Hit publish regularly and track performance.
- Adjust your content strategy based on what resonates with your audience.
There you have it—11 steps to building an affiliate review site that will earn you six figures. Want to actually learn how to do this? Then keep reading for detailed step-by-step instructions.
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Crash Course: How Do You Make Money on Your Website?
Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, let’s talk real briefly about how we’re actually going to make money through this site. There are a lot of ways to make money on the internet, a few of the ones you’ll find on niche sites are:
- Affiliate Links
- Adsense Ads
- Other Paid Advertisements
- Paid Text Links
- Direct product sales
- Paid Memberships
- Newsletter Sponsorships
However, for the purposes of this post, we’re going to focus solely on affiliate marketing.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
When it comes to monetizing a niche site, affiliate links are the easiest way to get started.
What’s an affiliate link you may be wondering?
Glad you asked. Here’s the process in the simplest terms possible:
- You have a website
- Someone else has a product
- You get a special link to their product
- A reader clicks on the link and buys the product
- You get a commission
Simple as that!
However as simple as it sounds, actually getting traffic and getting people to buy products is a much more difficult task that we’ll cover in depth next.
Step #1: Choose a Niche
Before you get started building your affiliate site, it’s crucial to narrow down your focus.
How you ask? By using the Niche Within a Niche (or NWN) method.
Start by defining your industry, your niche, and then your niche within a niche.
For example, with Breaking Eighty my industry is golf, the niche is golf reviews, and one of my niches within a niche is golf rangefinder reviews.
I believe you can build a niche website around just about anything, assuming you’re passionate enough about the topic. The reason most people fail is that they choose a niche like “Swedish leather furniture” when they’re nomadic and have absolutely no interest in what they’re writing about.
Think of your new site as a blog where you’ll need to write extensively about a specific topic. If you lack knowledge or interest in the niche, you’ll likely struggle to create engaging content consistently.
To start, write out a list of every product, hobby, or interest you have that you might build a site around. This brainstorming exercise can help you find potential niches you hadn’t considered.
If you get a list of 50-100 possible niche ideas you’ll be in good shape.
To help you get started, here are a handful from my brainstorm list I did years ago:
- tennis ball machines
- Islay scotch
- Nikon cameras
- golf balls
- tripods
- golf simulators
- travel credit cards
- video editing software
- travel backpacks
- headphones
After brainstorming, narrow down your niche based on the following:
- High Price, Low Volume – I’d rather make a bunch of money off one sale than a little money off a lot of sales. This holds more true for e-commerce/dropshipping websites – but I look at it like this: if I have a low-priced product I have to get maybe 5 or 10 times as many people to actually whip out their credit cards and buy something, but if I only have to convince one person to make a good commission – it’ll be easier to make money over the long term.
- Could I write 100 articles about the topic? – My strategy is all about creating incredibly useful, shareable content – so if I can’t see myself writing 100 unique articles over the next couple of years then there’s a good chance I’m not interested in it enough to invest the time and energy into the project.
- Are there affiliate programs (with good commissions)? – There are affiliate programs out there that will allow you to sell just about anything. But the question is, what are the commissions like? The whole “high price, low volume” approach doesn’t work if you only get a 1% commission off the sale.
- Are there currently people making money? – Come up with 5-10 keywords that people might search for when looking for your product. Let’s say it’s golf launch monitors, and let’s use the Bushnell Launch Pro as our example. I might search for the following keywords: Bushnell Launch Pro review, Bushnell Launch Pro sale, and Bushnell Launch vs. FlightScope Mevo Plus. I’ll then run those through Semrush or the Google Keyword Tool to see how much traffic they each get per month.
- Are other people making money? – When I do a search for the above keywords, I’ll look for sites that continuously pop up. I’ll then visit those sites and see if they have affiliate links. If so, it’s a good indicator the site is making money from affiliate sale commissions.
There are many more scientific and in-depth ways to research this, but if you’re just starting out, this can help you get a good idea.
Check out this video for more specifics on finding a niche:
Step #2: Research Affiliate Programs
This is an often overlooked step, but researching affiliate programs is an important part of the process that will give you peace of mind knowing you can actually monetize your content.
Start by searching for the affiliate program of a specific product you have in mind. Simply Google “product name affiliate program” and see what results come up.
You can also visit company websites and check the footer for information on any affiliate programs. Some companies have dedicated pages for affiliates where you can learn more about their affiliate programs.
Another strategy is to check out existing affiliate review sites and YouTube channels in your niche and look for affiliate links in their content. If you click on a link and it redirects you to the company’s website with additional parameters in the URL like “aff-id”, it’s likely an affiliate link.
And then there’s Amazon.
Amazon has one of the largest affiliate programs globally and there are certainly people out there making a good living off nothing but Amazon affiliate sales.
And considering how easy it is to set up, it’s an excellent starting point for new affiliate sites.
But for your first site, I don’t recommend going solely the Amazon affiliate route. Amazon starts you out at 4% and as you sell more it bumps you up to around 7-8% commissions.
There’s a lot that’s attractive about it. If someone clicks a link and then buys anything you get paid.
If I had a whole site devoted to nothing but one type of item it might be different, but usually there’s going to be a more specific affiliate program for your product that will probably have higher commissions.
Here’s exactly how to start Amazon affiliate marketing to set yourself up for the best chances of success.
Step #3: Come up with 100 Content Ideas
Generating 100 content ideas might sound daunting, but it’s necessary for establishing your brand and making sure you have enough material to write about in the long term.
The last thing you want is to find out 6 months into building your affiliate site that you’ve run out of content ideas.
Keep these questions in mind as you create your list:
- Does the content have the potential to be extremely shareable? To earn natural backlinks, create content people want to share. Brush up on your headline writing and copywriting skills, as they form the basis for engaging content.
- Will the content sell? Your content should help sell products. Sharing personal stories detailing how a product has improved your life can help potential buyers connect with your brand and make the decision to buy.
- Will the content rank well? While you shouldn’t write solely for search engines, you can make it easier for them to understand your content by using relevant keywords and providing valuable, well-organized information.
Your content should cover a range of formats to keep things interesting. Here are some types of content that tend to work well:
- Product Reviews: These will be the cornerstone of your site. Create detailed product reviews within your niche that provide real value to your audience.
- Product Comparisons: Compare similar products to help your audience make informed decisions when choosing between them.
- How-To Guides: Share your niche expertise by creating in-depth guides on specific topics related to your niche.
- List Posts: People love lists. Create content that lists things like tips, ideas, or resources related to your niche. These types of posts are often super easy to read and extremely shareable.
- Best-of Lists: Compile lists of the best products or services in your niche. These lists can be based on price, features, user reviews, and the like.
- Personal Content: Share personal stories or experiences related to your niche. This content helps you connect with your audience and build your brand authority.
Step #4: Get Your Website Going
OK, now it’s time to finally get your website up and running.
Don’t stress too much about your domain name. Just make sure it’s general enough so that you can expand as your business grows.
For example, I wouldn’t go super specific with a name like golfrangefinders.com, although if that’s all you want to do, it could be a successful business.
Because I would get bored doing just that, I want the freedom and flexibility to expand out in the future. Maybe I want to talk about travel or different types of products in other industries.
In my case, using a general golf term like Breaking Eighty allows for future growth since I’m not pigeonholed into creating content I don’t want to create.
Setting up your website is relatively straightforward. Focus on getting these basics right, and you’ll be well on your way to building a successful affiliate review site:
- Buy a Domain: Use a site like Namecheap or GoDaddy.
- Get Hosting: If you expect to drive significant traffic to your site, I recommend WP Engine as a hosting provider. However if you’re starting with a smaller budget, Bluehost is more affordable and also works great.
- Install WordPress. Get a premium WordPress theme, hire someone on Fiverr to do a logo for you, and you’ll be good to go. Design is completely secondary at this point to content.
- Set Up Your Site: Once you have your domain, hosting, WordPress, and theme in place, you’re ready to start creating content.
You’ll also want to make sure you install these extra things on your site:
- Yoast SEO Plugin – Search engine traffic is going to play a big role in the success of your site. This is one of the most respected SEO plugins out there, and makes it extremely easy to see if your pages are optimized – even if you have no experience with SEO.
- Optin Monster – Building an email list will be crucial to your success – now more than ever. This is the best tool I’ve found for easily creating high converting opt in offers.
- Google XML Sitemap – You want to make it as easy as possible for the search engine spiders to find and categorize your site.
For detailed step-by-step instructions, refer to our guide on how to start a blog.
Step #5: Set Up Your YouTube Channel
Our YouTube channel for Location Rebel
Don’t stress too much about this step, especially if you’re new to being on camera.
Because let’s face it—your first videos are going to suck. But that’s okay, it’s all part of the learning process.
If you’re not ready to start filming videos yet, that’s fine. At this stage, all you need to do is create your channel and secure your handle so that it’s ready to go when you’re ready to start uploading videos.
However, don’t wait too long to dive into video content as it can be a powerful tool for building trust and authority in your niche and driving traffic to your affiliate site.
You can start creating videos with just your smartphone and a basic $50 ring light off Amazon for better lighting.
However, you should definitely consider investing in good audio equipment. People will tolerate sub-standard visuals but will click away immediately if the audio quality is lacking.
Something like the DJI microphone can really take your video quality to the next level. While it costs around $300, it’s a worthwhile investment if you’re serious about growing your YouTube channel.
Even if you’re not ready to publish videos yet, practice speaking on camera every day. Building this habit can help you improve your on-camera presence and delivery for when you start recording videos.
Step #6: Start Keyword Research
Use sites like Semrush or Ahrefs to find the best keywords and topics in your niche to target for writing your blog content. If signing up for Semrush is out of your budget, you can sign up for a free trial version.
For YouTube, I recommend using VidIQ since it’s dedicated to YouTube keyword research.
These tools give you search volume, keyword difficulty, and user intent to help you know where to focus your content creation.
Here are some other helpful ways to maximize your site’s SEO potential:
- Focus on creating shareable content to earn backlinks. This can boost your site’s visibility and drive more traffic to it.
- Use Yoast SEO plug-in for WordPress. As mentioned above, this tool will make sure your content is SEO-optimized for your target keywords.
- Read ‘The Bootstrappers Guide to SEO Link Building.’ This is one of the easiest to digest blog posts I’ve seen on link building in a legitimate way.
- Review this post: How to Become an SEO Freelancer in 48 Hours
Step #7: Start Creating Content
When you’re trying to drive traffic to an affiliate blog or YouTube video you can do so in two ways:
- Legit Way
- Spammy Way
We’re going to be doing it the legit way, which in turn makes the content on your site a thousand times more important. We’re not just writing any content either, we’re being very deliberate as it has a couple specific goals we want to accomplish:
- Extremely Sharable – Because we’re not going to be doing a lot of spammy link building, we’re going to need to get links by you know, actually creating something people want to share.
- Content that Sells – The end result of all of this is you need to get someone to buy something, so your content should help sell them on why they should do that.
- Ranks in Search Engines – You don’t want to write specifically for the algorithms, but as mentioned above, you want to make it as easy on them as possible.
So, how do we accomplish this?
Well, as mentioned above in the Quick Start, there are a few specific types of content that I’ve found work extremely well. Let’s go over them in detail.
Review Posts
One of the best ways to sell any product is to include an entire post that details how the product has had a personal effect on you. How did it improve your life? What can you do now that you couldn’t before? What were the legitimate downsides of the product?
Case Studies
If there are products that either you, or someone you know has had success with? Do a case study! These are not only encouraging to people, but they can also be a great way of selling a product without having to actually do much selling.
Here’s an example of a case study I did on my experience with Interact Quiz Builder.
Detailed Tutorials Showcasing a Product
Just as important as review posts are posts where people can learn a thing or two – after all your readers won’t always be in a buying mode, so you want to get them to come back on a fairly regular basis and build loyalty to your brand.
List Posts About Your Niche
List posts are easy to read and easy to share. People love them, even if they often don’t provide as much in-depth value as the previous two kinds of posts.
If there are a lot of products in your niche, you can potentially make these posts profitable by writing articles with titles like:
- 5 Best Point and Shoot Cameras for Low Light
- 3 Best Golf Shoes for Playing in the Rain
- 7 A/V Receivers That Will Make Your Neighbors Hate You
The Magic Words: “Best” and “Year”
There are two key terms that have absolutely drive more traffic to my niche and authority sites more than anything else.
The first is “best.”
I alluded to this above in the part about list posts.
Think about how you search. When you’re looking for recommendations or are considering buying something, I’d be willing to guess you have used the word best in dozens of searches.
Some examples:
- best golf launch monitors
- best golf Christmas gifts
- best travel gifts
- best bucket list books
- best things to do in [insert city]
You get the idea. They are generally high-traffic terms that indicate buying intention and are generally pretty easy to write.
You can modify this even more by adding the current year.
- best travel gifts for 2024
- best business books 2024
- etc.
Here’s a good outline to get you going:
- Write 5 articles reviewing 5 of the most popular items in your niche
- Write 3 in-depth tutorials on your niche (How to _______)
- Write 3 list posts
- Repeat
Step #8: Create a Strict Posting Schedule
Think of this step as creating a blueprint for your publishing routine.
If you’re serious about building a six-figure affiliate site, you have to approach content creation with the same level of dedication as you would a job.
First, determine how often and on which days you’ll publish new content. Whether it’s every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, once a week, or twice per month, choose a posting schedule that you can maintain long term.
Consistency is key here. Once you’ve decided on your posting schedule, make it public knowledge. Share it on your website, socials, or through your email list.
This transparency informs your audience about when to expect new content while adding trust and credibility to your brand.
Step #9: Decide on a Call To Action
Your call to action (or CTA) is something you might overlook, but it’s one of the most important things you can do within your content.
Giving people an actionable step at the end of your content helps simplify the decision-making progress and makes it easier for your audience to take that next step that earns you money.
For example, if it’s a product review, your CTA may be as simple as “Click this link” or “Buy this product.”
Here’s an example of one of my call-to-action boxes on Breaking Eighty:
I use the tool Lasso to build these, which is excellent for making clear CTAs and highlighting product reviews.
However, you should have a more overarching CTA across your entire business that allows you to start building an asset.
In my opinion, the best asset to start building is an email list.
When it comes to the algorithms on Google and social media, you’re at their mercy. But when you have an email list, it’s something you own that can’t be taken away from you.
Your email list consists of people you can still reach out to if all else fails. Plus, every time you publish new content, you can email your list to get some eyeballs on it.
I recommend you start building an email list ASAP.
The best way to do this is to create an offer compelling enough to get someone to give you their email address.
While some people will like your content enough to sign up for your newsletter so they can hear more from you, most people need a little more convincing.
Here’s where lead magnets come into play. Essentially, you give people something useful in exchange for their email addresses.
On Location Rebel, I have a free 6-day email course that takes you through how to build a sustainable freelance writing business. When people sign up, they receive the first lesson immediately and it walks them through 6 days of valuable and actionable content.
Another lead magnet that’s worked really well for me is quizzes on Breaking Eighty.
For example, if someone reads a post on the best golf launch monitors and can’t decide which one is right for them, I offer a 30-second quiz where I make my best recommendations based on their specific needs. At the end, they have to put in their email address to get the results.
If all goes well, they’re going to buy that product and I’m going to get a commission off the sale.
It’s a win-win. They get a product they’re really happy with, and I earn money and satisfaction from helping someone make that decision.
Step #10: Research Future Relationships
One of the best ways to grow your niche site is to get active within your industry and start making connections with people.
Here are some people to reach out to in your industry:
- People running other affiliate review sites
- Social media influencers or managers
- Business owners
These relationships can open doors to collaborations, guest posting opportunities, and more.
Remember—everyone you interact with online is a real person, so the more relationships you can build within your industry, the better your chances of having success.
With Breaking Eighty I built a relationship with the person in charge of social media at Golf Digest. They shared some of my Instagram photos, which led to hundreds of new followers and website visitors who then joined my email list and became regular readers.
Here’s one of my photos that Golf Digest shared back in the day.
What’s the lesson here?
Take the time to figure out who are the people you want to get to know in your industry. Once you’ve established who they are, figure out how you can help them so you can build relationships and grow quicker in the process.
Step #11: Start Publishing
Now that you’ve laid the groundwork for your affiliate review site, it’s time to start publishing content regularly.
Track the performance of your posts and adjust your content strategy based on what resonates with your audience.
What content seems to get people excited and engaged? Do more of that.
What content gets crickets? Do less of it.
Building traction takes time, so be patient and keep creating valuable content.
So don’t get discouraged if your content doesn’t take off immediately. Chances are nothing you create in the beginning will.
And don’t fall victim to imposter syndrome – you’ve got this.
This is also another example of how video content can be so valuable. You can have a YouTube video that gets no engagement for months, then suddenly 6 months or a year later it blows up.
This video I did about unique golf resorts didn’t do much until over a year after it came out. Then it started getting 1,000 views a day for a couple months.
A year after that? It did it again. So you never know what’s going to hit.
As you become an expert in your niche, algorithms will start working in your favor, driving more traffic to your site and helping you grow your business.
Consistently publishing new content requires a lot of work upfront, but if you follow this process, you will have the potential for a six figure business that will change your life.
FAQs
How do you get products to review?
Start with items you already own and like. These are the products you’re likely the most excited and knowledgeable about.
You can also buy products online to review and return them afterward, but I suggest not making a habit of it.
Once you’ve published a lot of content and built a solid reputation around your brand, contact companies you’re interested in working with to see if they would be willing to send you products for review.
How much can you expect to make with an affiliate commission?
Affiliate commissions can range widely from 3% to 70% or more, depending on the retailer and product.
Amazon typically offers around 3% commission, while smaller companies selling a handful of products only might offer 10% or more.
Information products usually offer higher commissions ranging from 20% to 50%.
What type of products should you review?
Again my recommendation is to focus on high-priced, low-volume products in industries where people are eager to spend money.
For example, selling a $3,000 golf launch monitor with a $300 commission has a higher money-making potential than selling a hundred $30 t-shirts with a $3 commission.
At the end of the day, choose an industry that aligns with your interests and where people are excited to spend money. Here are some examples:
- Golf
- Travel
- Photography
- Outdoor gear
- Home automation
Want to Go Even More In-Depth?
Feel free to comment below if you have any questions. I’ve been in this industry for over a decade and would love to help you out.
This article tells you all you need to know in order to get started. But I’ve built an entire blueprint on affiliate marketing and niche sites insideLocation Rebel Academy that will totally hold your hand if you want more help.
For this, and so, so much more, check out my private community and business building course Location Rebel Academy.
Sean Ogle
Sean Ogle is the Founder of Location Rebel where he has spent the last 12+ years teaching people how to build online businesses that give them the freedom to do more of the things they like to do in life. When he's not in the coffee shops of Portland, or the beaches of Bali, he's probably sneaking into some other high-class establishment where he most certainly doesn't belong.Join over 40,000 people who have taken our 6 part freelance writing course. Sign up below and let’s do this together.
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207 comments on "How to to Make Over $100,000 with a Niche Site in 2024"
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Wow!! This is the the most actionable, detailed, honest and constructive (thinking and acting win/win) free guide to get to a muse-like niche site. Thank you sooo much for compiling and sharing all this!
Thanks Michael, I put a lot of thought into exactly what worked and what didn’t when I’ve gone through the process, so hopefully you’ve found it useful!
Sean–
Have you tried the Google disavow tool for the spammy backlinks?
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main?pli=1
I started getting crap backlinks from obvious spammers (a link to my website with a keyword of something like “there” or “it” which were clearly not relevant to whatever random words they’d thrown out) who were trying to get backlinks/trackbacks from me. I used the tool to disavow those junk links.
Yeah we’ve looked into it – that’s worth a whole post in and of itself 🙂
Now this is a great post Sean! I wonder how many folks who really want to make money will follow these steps to achieve such income though? Hopefully many as it’s clear there’s lots of money to be made online.
I’d love to get your insights on SEO and backlinking strategy given Google crushed niche sites and EMD sites last fall. It also looks like Google is slapping around sites again last week and will have more big updates against thin sites this year.
Does it not seem like it’s now harder than ever to build a profitable niche site? Thx
Glad you liked it!
As long as you build your links in the right way and avoid anything that seems like its potentially “gaming the system” you should be ok. Soon I’ll write an entire post on my experience with Google penalties and the effect it has on traffic/revenue.
Sounds good. Very quickly, am I a being a fool for not building links at all? I just read another post talking about how some tool has really helped them build backlinks for $14/month b/c the tool submits your articles to all these directories.
Do you think I could boost the traffic on my site if I just participated in what it seems like a large majority of web owners are participating in? I just haven’t been focusing my time on this stuff, and just writing content. I’m also increasingly wary of getting punished by Google, so I end up not doing anything at all except for the occasional guest post.
Frankly, I’d just keep doing what you’re doing. With your amount of traffic and exposure, you can keep putting out good content, getting good results, and never have to worry about the penalties.
It’s more difficult, however, for sites that are just starting out. You need a good base of links to work from, which makes getting a high value link that much more useful.
Sure over time you’d see some benefit by doing it, but unless you’re going to hire someone to do it for you, I don’t think it’s worth your time.
It’s just weird not knowing what I do not know. Perhaps if I followed along and hired someone to build links, traffic would be 2X higher? Who knows. I even saw a testimonial from one of my PF blog peers how great so and so link building/SEO site was… and I was thinking…. man, what a fool I am to not participate and take the easier way. The site also is a PR5, but I don’t think the traffic is the same, but who knows.
I’m fascinated with playing around w/ niche sites.
Financial Samurai: please, please, please, don’t ever buy a $14.00 link package from anyone anywhere ever.
Just try to think that through for a second. Google wants links that they see as natural and editorial. Do you think you could get a link on any well written valuable site (like Sean’s) for $14.00? Or without building a relationship and putting in some sweat equity or doing the site owner a favor first?
Absolutely not! So what makes you think that something that claims to get you a ton of links for $14.00 is going to do anything but put your site in danger especially after Penguin.
It’s hard work but what you need to do is build a prospect list of sites relevant to your own and form some kind of deal with them. That could be sponsoring the site, pitching a guest post, creating a great piece of content that you ask them to share, etc.
Here’s an article I wrote on how to link prospect with free tools that I think could be helpful to anyone who’s trying to figure out how to do it without link networks and packages:
http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/crush-link-prospecting-with-free-tools
Great post by the way Sean, I agree with you every step of the way except for the linkbuilding.
Ryan, I agree with you, so why is it that there are so many link building services around? Why on earth are people paying to link build when Google is punishing folks who buy links left and right?
I think the answer is that short cuts like this DO work, otherwise, such services wouldn’t exist.
Ryan, one question I have for you as an SEO. If an SEO is so great at SEO, why not create their own mega trafficked site and make lots of money that way than bother doing SEO? Does an SEO need credibility (a highly trafficked site) to be a credible SEO?
Thanks,
Sam
Hehe, believe me or not, I bought many times links on fiverr for 5$ 🙂 And they worked 😀 Google is nothing but a big bunch of shitty programmed algorithms… Google is like financial software trying to find an “ideal” model to beat the market, but market always wins. So please stop speaking about Google as about a goodness… Google “wants” you to build natural links, bla bla..
Hey Sam,
I’m not going to come here and say that no cheap mass link building service could ever work as I think that would be ignorant. I especially think a well put together and closely guarded private link network could work as well as ever although I think it would be more expensive to run as you’d need to have higher quality content standards.
As far as the cheap crap that will get you in trouble though, I think the services still exist because a lot of people are slow to adapt. Both the service providers and the people who don’t know what they’re doing who need SEO help but can’t afford an agency or aren’t sure what else to do.
I think the important point though is you shouldn’t be penny wise and pound foolish. If you build up a site to the point that’s making $500 a month by spending a few hundred on cheap link services it’s eventually going to crash and burn especially if it’s not balanced out with high authority and more natural looking links. Then you lose that income and all the money you paid to develop the site and create valuable content. It all goes out the window unless you know how to get a penalty lifted which is really time intensive. Instead you could just spend more time and money up front building quality links.
As for the question on why don’t good SEO’s make their own mega sites I think it’s a very valid one. I got into working at an SEO agency because I was struggling to learn this stuff on my own and separate the wheat from the chaff. After working at an agency for 1.5 years, managing clients with big multi million dollar businesses and being somewhat of an expert on linkbuilding I think I could definitely create a huge site that’s majorly profitable. The two things I lack though are the time and resources to do it the right way.
That’s why for now I have two niche sites and one big site that I focus my time away from work on. I think others in the SEO industry either do have their own sites or get lured in by freelance work. I love the goal of more long term passive income but I have friends who work at agency’s who get easily lured in by making huge hourly rates for freelance projects and rather get the money up front instead of putting the time in to develop a site.
So many of the good SEOs I know simply enjoy being employees. It’s just like being good at accounting. Why dont most go start their own businesses, and end up working for someone else? It’s easier, pays way better up front, and carries none of the perceived risk.
I think there are a lot of mass link building strategies that will be effective for a period of time – especially private link networks, which are a bit of a different story. But most of those strategies will lose value over time at best, or ruin your site at worst. That’s why I do my very best to build links through good content and networking as much as possible.
@Financial Samurai
I think your question regarding “Why SEO makes SEO and doesn’t build own website” is quite out of place. First of all many SEOs have own website or websites (niche, affiliate… whatever)
second: I was reading the post of Sean (managed only 1/3… ) ) and wondered, who the hell needs to write 100 posts, repeat all those 14 steps again and again… to earn 500$!! To have some kind of “normal” income I have to create and manage 8 blogs like this. That’s incredible effort!
Third: SEO is nice business, it has huge market (also huge competition), there is some good money moving around, you can work as freelancer, or you can build own busness with hiring people and outsourcing activities… And it is scalable!
And updates of Google make me laugh 🙂 honestly
Cheers
David
Thanks for the response. Fair enough. I’m sure you are probably aware though that after a couple years, a successful bloggers income far surpasses a rank and file SEO’s income. Guess it all depends on what one wants.
I’m so sick of people spouting this EMD bullshit. I have a bunch of sites, all of which are fairly new and using EMDs. They didn’t get whacked and are making me a regular income via Amazon. Just because you didn’t have success a bunch of asshat spammers on webmaster forums failed with them doesn’t mean that they don’t work. I’m not saying that they give you a boost or anything; simply that they don’t get you slapped.
I completely agree, I don’t think they get you slapped by any means. They just aren’t as effective as a boost as they were two years ago. I still believe there is actually some benefit, as long as you diversify the anchor text of your backlinks.
Looks great! Optin’s price is $67 for me. I don’t see a $49 version.
Ooh, they may have raised the price since I last checked. I’ll double check and update it.
Perfect timing, I have a niche site I want to bring back from the dead!
Hi Sean, great post!
One other thing I’d add is that it’s important to understand the requirements for getting into the affiliate programs before choosing your niche. I am learning this the hard way right now.
I’m a professional web developer and have a personal interest in travel hacking so I decided to build a credit card search tool specifically for travel hackers. Before officially launching the site, I applied for entry into the affiliate programs of all the major credit card companies but each company denied my application because I did not have enough traffic. I later came to realize that it is actually very difficult to get into these programs and that I’d have to generate a large amount of traffic before even being accepted.
Now I’m not sure how to proceed. Do I spend money and time attempting to drive traffic to the site and just hope that I eventually get accepted into the affiliate programs or do I rethink my monetization strategy completely? Since the site is a tool rather than a collection of information articles, it’s more difficult to generate organic search traffic so paid advertising may be the best option. It’s hard to spend money on advertising though when you aren’t sure if it will ever result in earning money.
Do you have any experience with web applications as opposed to traditional niche sites? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Unfortunately you picked the absolute hardest niche to get into. Credit card companies are EXTREMELY selective about who they bring in, and if you don’t make sales during your trial period, they’ll boot you out (as I learned).
I’ve rarely had much trouble getting into other affiliate programs, and often if you have traffic on one site, you can leverage those traffic numbers if you’re starting a new site. If not, maybe you know a friend who has a site with some traffic.
I think in your case paid traffic is probably the way to go, or possibly trying to partner with someone that already has an established brand.
Thanks a lot for the reply, Sean. I had thought about teaming up with one of the big travel blogs so maybe that’s something I’ll explore further. Thanks again
This is just what I need right now. I’m working on a travel niche site. Thank you so much for putting all these together. I’ll use it as a checklist of the things I need to do.
Your lengthy posts are always the best! 😀
Thanks again Sean!
Thanks Mark, hope to make the more detailed posts a fairly regular thing!
Great Sean! I’m working on my first batch of niche sites and have pretty much been following a similar process. Thanks for sharing HARO! Excited to get started with it.
This is exactly what I needed to take my first “real” stab at a successful niche site. I’m not so sure that the topics I’m most experienced with translate to niche sites all that well. Has anyone out there had success with a topic they decided to learn as they created the site, blogging along the way to show progress?
Great tutorial, Sean! With a post this long, I’d expect an ebook or something. Just goes to show how much you are willing to go over the top in providing value for your readers.
Doing my best to try and put more stuff like this out there 🙂 Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks Sean for for a great summary of niche site building. You really kept it simple! I am inspired to jump in.
Damn solid post bud.
Hey Sean,
Great post as all ways. I’ve just started to work on some of my nearly dead sites. I found the Back-link Strategy from Pat Flynn, and have been half following it, so yes it works. I kinda worked out that I had only been doing half the job, by writing the content, and some basic social media links and pinging.. It is a lot more work then that, that’s for sure.
Hi Sean,
Thanks for writing. Some great specifics in here (always love those). I had a question about your keyword numbers. You said the term “Nikon D700 Review” gets 27,100 searches per month, but when I checked that on Google’s keyword tool, it was much lower. The phrase “Nikon D700 Review” only got 3,600 global searches and other combinations didn’t seem to get close to the 27,100 figure you mentioned either (screen shot here – http://gyazo.com/0b4e5cfc18c2d650549e5fb9391004e5). Thanks in advance for clarifying – just wanted to be sure I was looking correctly.
Tim
Tim, that’s because I’m not talking about the D700, I’m talking about the D7000. The 700 is an older model, which is why the results are lower.
Thanks for keeping me honest 🙂
Here’s the screenshot of my results:
http://www.seanogle.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Nikon-D7000-Search-Results.png
Haha, not trying to keep you honest, just wanted to be sure I understood. 🙂
I see you changed it from 700 to 7000 in the search term (I missed that too!) – all makes sense now.
Thanks for clarifying!
Tim
Hi Sean, great post. I have an old site that provides original information, and I make $700 a month from it despite the site being just very very basic html and my having limited SEO skills (although the site ranks well for most secondary keywords due to decent content and the fact that its been online for a number of years). The subject matter of that site holds very limited potential for a higher income, so I was too lazy in trying to improve it in terms of look (learning CSS, WordPress, Joomla etc…), ranking, social media and so on.
I now want to create a new site on another subject that interests me, and decided to buy the domain from the evil godaddy this time (first site domain purchase and hosting plan is from another company that is so-so). What do you think of godaddy’s hosting services? I keep getting their e-mails with discount offers. Is WordPress really as simple as you make it out to be for someone not really into tech? Am already mildly stressed with so many separate accounts (domain, hosting, e-mails, control panel, phpbb forum login etc…)!
Wow! If your basic site can earn $700 then well designed site will definitely earn more.
I’ve heard many complaints from my friends regarding go daddy but I don’t mean to say it’s really that bad. It’s average and might give you trouble sometime. I’d try and go with FatCow if I were you.
Actually, I’m also thinking of creating a niche site. I had my own blog which I thought would bring me some affiliate income but it didn’t. I was only able to earn some from setting up WordPress websites.
What was your previous site about (if you don’t mind) ?
Enwil, my first site is about a “niche” medical condition. People visit the site for the large amount of original information I have on there, but I can add no significant useful information on there anymore:-( Improving the look of the site, adding videos, graphs, diagrams etc… will not increase the traffic in any significant manner. Less than 1 percent of people have this condition.
The only way I can stay interested in this kind of website building is if I am passionate about the subject matter. Luckily, the second subject matter I have in mind for my new site can bring me much more revenue due to the more rewarding and popular keywords in that area (and in this case, a better looking site will also help the traffic due to the nature of the subject matter). I have a lot of original content ideas for this new site.
Ranking high on google will be difficult without hiring an SEO expert, but based on my experience with the first site, lots of original useful content and a 5 years plus web presence will at the very least make me rank high for secondary keywords. I am aiming for the mid/long-term as far as the revenue goes. Anything significant within the first year will be a bonus and might make me afford to hire an SEO expert.
Despite the political fallout surrounding GoDaddy, from a purely technical perspective, many of their sites load extremely slow(this could be the result of trying to cram as many sites on to the same shared server for maximum profitability). I know of several Web Designers that refuse to have their clients hosted on GoDaddy just for this reason alone. A few months ago, several sites that were hosted by GoDaddy went down and despite the rumors, they weren’t hacked; but, it was an internal technical issue as admitted by them. Not exactly a glowing testimonial as a reason to use their service.
Sean,
To be honest, you can really have a huge advantage if you work a more grey approach to the SEO. One tactic I found relevant is to do SEO based on your specific articles rather than on the main site as well. There are fewer people searching, but it is far more niche specific AND google rarely penalizes you due to the plethora of content on the page.
Try it and you can get a bit more aggressive with your strategies.
Totally agree – you can, but at a cost.
2 years ago, no one saw anchor text diversity being a big deal, and look how hard some people got hit. If you’re operating in a grey area, you’re still susceptible to changes like that.
There can definitely be value to you, but the lack of value to everyone else, and the potential to hurt you long run makes it a little bit more questionable as a long term strategy.
Awesome post Sean, thanks for posting!! Has definitely got my mind going into overdrive with ideas!!
Definitely one of your best posts Sean! I like the combination of “thinking” and “doing” something posts 🙂
2 quick questions – do you recommended any particular sites for finding affliate programs? And which WP theme are you using for HDRSoftware?
Many thanks,
Matt
Matt,
I’ve found it better to find a product first, and then you can usually either Google to find out their affiliate program info or contact them directly. Another way is to find someone else who is an affiliate and then look at their affilaite link – which can often tell you.
The theme is custom designed by my partner, but it was originally on Thesis.
Thanks Sean 🙂
With youe SEO head on, do you think it is important that the domain name contains your niche site’s keywords as much as possible?
Sean-
Great post! I am going to use the information you provided as a blueprint to build my own niche site with. Thank you so much for the high quality information. You rock!
Also, I am looking for someone who has similar goals as me to help keep me motivated. I wrote a post about it here: http://www.undertheclearbluesky.com/wanted-accountability-buddy
If you know of anyone who might be interested, it would be great it you would point them my way! (Although I’m hoping I’ll find someone just by writing this comment.)
Epic post Sean!
Curious about choosing a niche, would you recommend using Google’s keyword tool to make sure there’s some minimum number of monthly searches for relevant terms? At what search volume does a niche become viable?
Cheers from a Portland native :).
Chris
After reading “How to Become an SEO Freelancer in 48 Hours,” I was left with a lot of questions about how to go about designing my own website and -most importantly- how to make it generate revenue. This post answered all of my questions! Thanks for the info!!
Wow this post is awesome, the best bath time reading I ever did. Thanks!:)
Ok, so I have a question… I have an entertainment news website and we get about 6,000 page views a day we get paid from ad networks, direct ads and sponsored posts. We average close to $800 a month but, we’re trying to bring that number up. How could we implement something using this platform or is it doable? Just wondering. We’re PR3
this is the niche article I’ve been looking for!!! Thank you!
Best Regards!
One thing I’m hoping everybody who is reading this post and planning on working on their niche site is to report back in 3-6 months how it went.
We all know that Google is moving away from niche sites and thin content with the EMD and Panda updates, so I’d love to hear about your experiences and see if it was worth it as opposed to working on a Prime site.
Thanks everyone!
Sam
Nice post and good luck getting your HDR site back to its former glory.
I think (niche) is an extremely important factor in this exercise. From what I have noticed the sites that are doing well are in a somewhat specialized niches and also one that the big boys aren’t necessarily going after.
Your HDR Software site is one good example, as you picked a good niche. So I would gather that before anyone get into this, they find a niche that is:
1. Popular, but only to a very fragmented demographic
2. Big boys are not competing in it (yet, or ever)
3. Is a product based niche, as opposed to informational
4. Has good affiliate program, merchant, etc – you did cover this above
5. Competition is not stiff, or at least beatable
Niche is extremely important in this exercise.
Thanks for sharing, Sean. Great tutorial.
Hey Sean,
I’m really enjoying all of your work. Between your site and Ferriss’ 4-hour workweek, I’m doing everything in my power to start my own location independent business. I’ve got plans for Germany and Austria for the end of April/beginning of May. I’m in the beginning stages of starting my own SEO business, and I’m a bit confused about incorporation. What corporate entity do you recommend for such a business?
all the best,
Nick
Epic post Sean! I wish I had this info when I got into blogging several years ago and more recently niche sites.
I pretty much did all the things you shouldn’t do and made all the common mistakes. I’m feeling pretty good about my niche site strategy moving forward.
I totally agree with you about Amazon. It should be used as a supplement not primary! I didn’t realize that four weeks ago when I launched my first Amazon focused niche site reviewing electric shavers. I only made 2 commissions so far and the total wasn’t even enough to cove domain registration lol. Now I’m looking at eBay and other affiliate programs to boost sales on that site.
I will definitely be bookmarking this page and coming back often, there is just to much good stuff here!
One thing I really love about the whole niche site thing is there’s really no limitations. I mean sure there’s some competitive niches out there, but there’s always money to be made. Everybody in the world could have this information, but there’s only a handful of us that will really do something with it, and even less that will stay the course no matter what!
Thanks again for such an awesome post, hope to connect with you on Google Plus, take care Sean.
Wow Sean, thank you very much for this awesome article. It helped me a lot building my blog and I followed many of the steps you mentioned here.
Can you recommend any alternatives to Amazon? My blog is about different fun activities like skydiving, surfing, etc. and I also want to write articles about games you can play in your garden or in your house with your friends. Basically everything you can have fun with.
I would be pleased if you had any recommendations.
Thanks, Jan
Sean, thank you. This post is just what I was looking for – spoke right to my problem, where to start. I’m going to lock myself in a room this weekend and get to those steps.
One question though. If you are writing a review on products, does that mean you have brought each of those products and used them? Depending on the products I can see that being a very large up front cost.
Cheers, Rich
thanks. This publish is exactly what I had been searching for – spoke to my problem, how to start. I will lock myself inside a room a few days ago and obtain to individuals steps.
Quick Question Sean,
I want to go super in depth on some posts and give some good content, but I feel I will have nothing left to offer in an ebook that I plan to sell on the niche site. Everything on the topic will be have covered in my posts…
This should answer your question Lior:
http://www.seanogle.com/entrepreneurship/free
For people just starting out with niche sites I think it’s important to do the math before selecting a site. Find your 3 or so main keywords and see how much traffic they’re generating per month in Adwords Keyword tool and RankCheckerAce. Then multiply it by your expected conversion rate, say 2% and the affiliate commission you’ll make. Some people build sites that end up not getting enough traffic to justify the time put into it, even if it does rank well.
Brilliant! More information in this article then I’ve learned in over one year working in digital marketing… Will definitely put some of these strategies to use into our side project – a hyperlocal niche blog/digital street press that promotes local live music and creative output in the city where I live (Melbourne, Australia) – Thanks Sean!
What a great post. Epic post motivated me to start researching my second post
I have to say I have join a lot of programs studying and learning about keyword research, monetization and everything above. I have never found such a detailed article about what I basically paid $30 per month for. GREAT Article.
Robert.
I heard that niche sites are killed by latest google updates. How do you think ? any test so far ?
Hey Sean,
Thanks for this. I’m fairly new with Niche sites, (got introduced through Pat Flynn’s NC Duel). I was skeptic about it at first since the “make money online” has always been there but a lot of people are complaining that it takes a long time, or that it’s a scam. Anyway, I’ve decided to try it. Thanks for this guide!
Hi Sean,
Your article has been a great read, especially as someone who has just started seriously blogging. I had a few questions that I wanted to ask you. You write that bloggers should find a niche, and I wonder…how specific does that niche need to be? My blog is a “lifestyle” blog in that it covers fashion, decor, food, and travel. The goal of my blog is to show that people can lead interesting and sophisticated lives by creating luxury through simple comforts in all the related categories I cover. I am very passionate about this idea. There are many blogs like this out there, and I know ultimately it will be my content and voice that set me apart. However, do you think this style blog is unproductive in terms of monetary gains? Is this blog more hobby-geared and going to be impossible for me to ever make a career out of? There are a few very successful blogs like this out there that I know of (such as cupcakesandcashmere.com) that have had tremendous success, but it seems they racked up an audience of readers just through word of mouth (aka social media FB, Twitter, etc), rather than specific techniques like you have outlined. One blog, which is geared towards fashion is just photos of herself in different outfits and has no textual content at all, minus the brand/designers, so I wonder how her blog gained such a huge following?
I also am using Tumblr with my own custom domain since Tumblr allows for using custom domains free of charge. I am not familiar with SEO at all, with the exception of what it actually is. But other than that, I don’t understand how I would go about adjusting my site so that it is more successful in terms of SEO. I downloaded the plug-in you suggested, but have no idea how I even go about installing it or whatnot on my site. Do you have a tutorial for this?
I’d appreciate any help at all since I am so very new with all this and in desperate desire to make a career out of something I am so passionate about! Thanks anyways for a great article!
Hi Sean,
Great post packed full of high value content. I have just started my own niche challenge and have picked up a few tips from this post, Thanks!
Only found your blog this evening and I really like what I have read so far. I am not quite at the stage where I can quit work just yet but hopefully that day will come soon 🙂
Keep up the good work and I hope everything continues to work out for you
Paul H
Sean, you totally rock!
I’m creating my first niche site right now and this post simply guides me through the whole process 🙂
Can you tell me how I should spend the time I planned for research that you just saved me?
Thank you very much!
Best regards,
Jan
Wow, this was such a detailed and informative post! Unfortunately I didn’t do any of the suggested things when I launched my site last year. I am wondering if it will be ok to relaunch? I wasn’t clear on my mission as I am now. I would love to hear what the community think!
if its so simple why 90% people fails?
Dont mistake simple and easy 🙂
Wow. Really in depth post. Tons of great content. If you aren’t part of the Niche Site Community on Google+, you should join it, you would be a great asset!!
Damn! this was really an awesome post. Got to learn a lot from this post. I still do not believe i read every bit of it, in fact several internal links too. Thanks Sean for sharing this precious information.
I love how optimistic you are. While I know it’s a long hard road, it’s not impossible and you make this clear.
My wife and I are forever travelling the world by the skin of our teeth, and it’s only recently that we’ve thought of generating a passive income to fund our travels. You’re post has really motivated me to get a website up and running, though the tricky thing is not falling into the bottomless sea of travel website/blogs. This summer we’re living in Croatia and I’m sure there’s a niche just starring me in the face.
Thanks Mate. Love ya work !
Scott
I am participating in the niche site duel conducted by Pat Flynn. There are a lot of good tips here. Thanks for putting it out as a post. Are you participating in the niche site duel as well? Thanks for the info.
Sean, Thanks for that in-depth look at niche site building. It made me realize that one of the big flaws in the sites that I have built is that they are far too broad in their scope and I need to learn how to do a better job of drilling down to make my sites work to my advantage.
The key here is not having too many sites just for the sake of it. Find a niche and give it all you’ve got! Online is just one way for marketing your website. The smartest thing I’ve done was having a corrugated sign printed out and “H” staking it on the corner of this very popular intersection where I live. SEO, link building and content sharing is the law, but traditional marketing (for the appropriate niche) can yield wonderful results. Combine both, and you start to feel the “business” aspect a lot more which motivates you to keep going during the uncertain times.
Hey Sean, building sites for Amazon specifically isn’t bad. The problem is that your niche of HDR software just simply isn’t a good fit for Amazon.
I built and sold a site about netbooks in late 2010 in a six figure deal (link here: http://entrepreneurboost.com/how-to-sell-a-website/) with most of the earnings coming from Amazon. In total I’ve sold over $1.5 million dollars worth of products using Amazon’s affiliate program and earned over $100,000 in commissions (and that doesn’t include the sale of the aforementioned website).
Ultimately with any niche or authority website it all comes down to the monetization strategy that best fits that specific topic and a niche site about software just doesn’t really fit as well as a niche site about physical products.
(Feel free to remove my link to my blog post not sure if you want people linking to articles in your comments or not. Just trying to add to discussion.)
Wow Chris that is amazing and exactly what i would like to be doing. Did you have any IT background before you started doing this kind of sites to sell?
Yes I did! I guess it’s pretty easy to see huh?
Thanks for a very very good idea.
I have really enjoyed reading about how to build a niche site. I have tried and failed so many times. At the moment i am changing my website because i have tried to be a jack of all trades and obviously that doesn’t work. So my website is going to be taken offline and changed and now i have a better understanding from what you have just wrote i can do a much better Job. I also tried to do a lot of work with Amazon personally but i understand why you say not to.
Thank you very much
Michelle.
This is possibly the best guide to affiliate marketing I have read. This is really going to help me finally get started and jump right in. Thank you.
agreed, very informative site. Also check out Dealer Dan’s affiliate bible site. helped me out a lot too.
I am so pleased I came across your site. Having been blogging for a few months now I have been wanting to find other avenues online where I could be making money and potentially faster. I will be following this formula and have loved the language in which you have put it in, perfect for newbies like me! Thank you so much.
Nice tips. And if anyone is thinking of starting a site but is short of niche ideas, then check out my site.
I’ve built all kinds of useful tools to find forums in a whole load of niches. I’ve only included big forums, and that means the niches are good ‘n’ lucrative.
I’ve now built a second niche finding site: NicheIdeaOfTheDay. Click my name to visit (it’s absolutely free).
Nice read…and the HARO idea is something I can use…but if a person has been at this for a while some of your ideas happen naturally from just using your brains…when I started I thought I didn’t have a creative bone in my body and I got so aggravated with the advice of…”Do what you are passionate about”…I wasn’t passionate about anything…making money was my passion…and as you know that is one of the toughest niches to get into…but I kept trying and I refused to give up…I started noticing what other so-called experts were doing and how they were doing it and I started developing my own strategies based off of different internet marketers (like your HARO idea I am gong to use…email lists and how marketers built them…thinking about what made me sign up for a list…also thinking abut would I really buy that and use that…also what type of problem was that marketer solving…like you right now are helping to solve a money problem people may have…your catch is….make $500.00 dollars… that gets INSTANT ATTENTION…finding stuff I could give away…finding coupons for stuff…the ideas and list is huge when you pay attention)…so that led me to analyze other marketers success…I found out about how to get my own software idea done…I found out who was who in IM and I subscribed to a bunch of lists with the intent of just seeing what other expert marketers were doing and before I knew it I learned what they were doing…I guess my passion turned out to be “learning”….I have taken so many ideas and formed them all into one or two I can’t even call them my own…I guess you can say I have put together a bunch of hybrid ideas from expert marketers and then using tools I needed to make it all work…if it’s one thing I have discovered about making money online it is there is no absolute one way of doing this… what works for you may not work for the next person and it’s simply putting together what works for you….I’m an expert at not being an expert….I guess you could say I am an expert copier of other marketers…read and study has been the way for me…and the thing about that is I never run out of ideas or ways to do things….I don’t overwhelm myself and try and do them all… I have taken about 4 strategies that I use that make money for me consistently…I am under the radar and that’s where I want to stay…I help my friends when they need money…I actually do it for them because I have it so structured it doesn’t take me very long and they are so lazy they don’t want to maintain the sites I build for them…I just have them pay the cost of the domain until they let it expire…anyway I guess my long rant here is because when I hear “do what you are passionate about” or “do whatever interest you” just makes me a little crazy….and I know you gave some examples of different ideas for niches but I am one of those people if you had given me that advice early on I would have wanted to jump out of a window…so I’m just letting you know that does not work for everyone and just because it doesn’t I’m letting some one else know that making money online does work it’s just a matter of how you want to approach it….
Well written. That’s awesome. It’s like you were reading my mind. Learned a thing or two from you. Mostly don’t give up.
Omg! That`s what i keep saying. My passion is freaking MONEY. Well actually the freedom that comes with it but anyways. I would seriuosly like to talk to you and how you got passed that bump of not having a passion to build a niche around.
Thank you for the clear, concise road-map for building a successful monetized site without relying on spam. Since my retirement from teaching in 2012, I have been freelancing as a writer/photographer and have had some success, but my ambition is to have my own website up and running so that I can write for myself and still earn money. I have not dedicated enough time to writing quality content or marketing my website, but this article has inspired me to dig in and get it moving in the right direction. Again, thanks for an article that was worth reading and may you continue to have great success with your endeavors.
Great step-by-step checklist of what to do. A lot of posts swamp people with information overload but this post gets right to the point and provides a workable blueprint on how to build a niche site and start generating income.
You are very correct about niche selection. This is the step that is often rushed. It pays to spend several days, maybe longer, doing your research before jumping into a new niche.
Extremely in depth article that covers all the necessary tips needed for niche success. I’m looking into starting a new site soon around a specific niche so this has helped.
WOW Sean! I am thinking of creating a blog in the “men’s shaving” niche. It’s something that I’m pretty passionate about and I know there are tons of products that I could review and tons of small tips I could share. This post had so much great information and I feel I learned more from your blog than from any information product I could have paid for about the subject. I can see you are very knowledgeable about the subject and very passionate as well. I’m thinking my two main forms of monetization for the blog will be Amazon and Adsense. Do you have any advice on what theme I should use or any plugins out there that might make it easier for me?
Sean, great article.
Forgive my bad english, i’m Dutch so english is not native language . I’m reading a lot about niche marketing but never read such practical tips.
I like to know what affiliate program you advise. You write something about codes instead of links. Can you be more specific?
Sean I really appreciate this great generosity. Thanks a lot.
I am working on a new site that would look like gsmarena.com, its going to be a phone and accessory review site. Is it a good idea for me to add affiliate links to the products? I’ll gladly appreciate your suggestions and criticism.
Niche sites can do wonders; and they are easy to rank if you did keyword planning. This article summarizes it all; what is to be done to start a niche site.
Thanks…!
This was a good article on niche sites but I am still confused on how to find the best keywords that Rank and gives out good money.
Niche try and surfing more posts 🙂
Anchit…have you heard of Market Samurai (http://www.marketsamurai.com) or Google Keyword tool (https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner/Home)?
You can try Market Samurai for free for 14 days and Google Keyword tool is free. Just use your Gmail account if you have one already or sign up for an Adword account.
Sean,
Thank you for the great article and advice.
Well done!
Sean, your presentation is very comprehensive, especially for those who are looking to make extra income on the web. Your step-by-step tutorial is actually good as a “product development” stage of the overall business development, suitable for (aspiring) entrepreneurs looking to build a serious business online. If the niche site works we can grow it up for selling our own products or services.
Also, I agree with you regarding building a site around amazon. From my experience, to reach $500 monthly commissions you have to generate at least 100 unique visitors per day for products with price range from $50 -$300 — or $2.77 per visitor.
Sean, I enjoyed your article. Very informative for those like me just getting started. I’m currently in my third month of my first niche site. I’m mainly using amazon affiliate. Traffic is building now but sales are slow. Hoping to use some of your tips to get things moving a little faster.
Best Regards,
Trevor
I am so, so thankful I found your website and started reading this article. The internet is full of dishonesty and discouragement, but this was enlightening and empowering and I can’t wait to start applying these methods to my own website/niche blog.
Hello Sean,
I’ve never seen such an article, which starts from the abc of website and teaches you everything about it. It is really superb. HARO and YOAST ideas seem to be really helpful. There are lots of topics, words and ideas in the article, which are new to me but are really great.
I’m sure this post will be helpful for the green horns as well as the experienced people of this field as there are so many ideas.
Thanks for sharing.
Hi Sean,
First of all, I would like to thank you for sharing this great article. It’s really useful for me.
I accidentally read your post three months ago, and I think I was inspired. So I decided to give it a try to build a website by following some of your advised steps.
After some try and error, the website started get some traffic, and I earned about $80 last month. So I think your methodology is working for those who want to earn some extra money via the internet. Of course, I hope I can reach the goal of $500 /month in the near future.
Thank you so much.
Michael
shaving and razor bump stopping and control. is this a good niche?
The tutorial is in deep very helpful. I know a few bloggers that earn quick money by spamming and keyword stuffing with their niche sites and thus people like us, who use legit ways to get things done are left behind. How do we deal with that?
I like in-depth tutorials and this is one of them. I would have loved if you could show some statistics on your niche site so we could get an idea. Also, does link building helps in ranking high?
I would also like to suggest that please increase the font size of the blog, makes me difficult to read! Thank you!
Great article!
I’ve been searching the guideline on how to make passive money using a blog. And found this article and its really inspired me to continue my journey make living on the internet.
So, i only have one questions that is bugging me, plz solve this :
I have a free domain name and a free web host, the domain name is not a subdomain and i get full customization with my host,
I’ve installed wordpress and working on the site, can it rank on google for something
or the free host and domain name are a waste of time, if I want to earn.
Plz clear this out to me
there is one more crucial thing it’s ” anchor text ” when building links
the exact match keyword shouldn’t go over 5%
Awesome post…
Keep up the good work. 🙂
I enjoyed reading your post on how to build a niche site. niche or not, it is not as easy as people make it; whatever you think of doing; someone else is already doing it, and as markets get tougher, then everything else gets harder also; Most of my sites are amazon based, and no bucket of joy either; all of my amazon sites are in decline, so much that I am starting to think about dumping them, as they cost me more to keep them then what I am making….
Sean,
Thanks for this post, really useful advice.
Chris
I am in the process of setting up a niche site right now, and this post has been very handy as a check-list to make sure that its on the right track.
The seo post was good also – picked up some bad advice on how to do this, and this put me straight.
John
Hey John,
If you’re just starting out wanting to learn the ins and outs, right now there is a pretty damn good internship that a group of SEO’s are putting on. I started about a year ago and without much success until I went through one of the internships. They cover niche website building start to finish so I highly recommend it. Just give me an email if you are interested. [email protected]
Hey Sean!
Amazing article, I definitely got something out of it.
Glad that there are still people like you helping out other people 🙂
One thing i would like to address though:
You’re saying a beginner should stay away from the amazon affiliate program, because of the low commission-rate.
I think it depends on the price.
When I promote a product that costs more than 100$ the 4% commission are actually good.
Of course its more reasonable to go with a higher commission-rate if possible (with another affiliate program).
But the damn good thing about amazon is the phenomenal trust people put in this company.
If they “could” choose between amazon and “yet another online shop” it will most likely be amazon.
That means after clicking on your affiliate link they might think “Oh no, i don’t know if this shop is legit, I even have to sign up to buy my desired product, at the same time I already have an amazon account”.
Another thing as far as you already mentioned: you get commission for products bought within that 72h timeframe, which is another awesome aspect.
So given you promote a product that costs 100$+ would you still say amazon is the wrong choice?
I would like to hear your opinion on that.
Thanks in advance!
On Amazon.com, a session lasts 24 hours, not 72, except for one condition. Items are tagged with your associate ID at the time they are placed into Amazon’s shopping cart. Then, the items remain tagged for up to 89 days, giving the buyer a chance to complete the purchase at a later date, at which time the Amazon associate would earn a commission.
Hi Sean…love the article. I have been trying to come up with a good strategy for coming up with a solid niche that I can be successful with and your article has helped me tremendously. I have combined your advice with the advice from another article and I think I have about 3 ideas that I will try to narrow down to 1. Do you have a timeline of how many articles you get up with a new site and the money that you will make on average per month for the first 6 months?
Thanks…Moe
I still confuse how to put the ads for best CTR, but thanks for share, I got something new here.
Very detailed guide on how to build a niche site Sean. Exactly how people wan’t to move forward when trying to build a niche site. I have seen people trying to succeed without proper keyword research, spammy content.
Some of them build a site, never notice it again. They keep earning for few months and then lose their rankings.
The guide you have put up here is very useful and the right path to succeed. But I also feel newbies can own successful amazon affiliate sites making a decent income if they chose the right product and setup a proper website. @Aaslin
I am so thankful for reading this post.
I started a blog that I still haven’t given up on, but I’m terrified of ads/Affiliates,etc. And i would like to make money with it.
I think I’ll have keep this post as i restructure my blog a bit.
It is good to look for the search count to find your niche but it is also very typical to rank for those keyword. I suggest to write what you like and choose only that niche. With this you will never get bored ( A big problem in writing).
You are spreading relly great stuff andrew 🙂
Great writeup! I’ve made a couple of websites now but this is a great page I bookmarked to look back on. And now just so you know, Yoast SEO plugin now has a xml sitemap settings and if you install both that the google plugin, they can conflict with each other.
Thanks
Wooow, some solid piece of advice. It’s midnight overhere so I will have to read it tomorrow thoroughly again. I just wonder at this moment what I can sell with my niche, Land Rovers? Thank you for taking the time explaining all this.
Hi Sean,
I wrote a comment last night but it vanished into cyberspace. I hope my ip is not somehow blacklisted?
Thank’s for the article again.
Robert
First comment just has to be approved first 🙂
Probably the only post I came across that has literally ALL the information I’ve learnt over the past few months in one single go- pretty impressive.
It always helps reading posts like that and getting motivated to get your website going!
Kudos to Sean!
l really took my time reading this piece, it was on of the best l have seen recently, very down to earth and practical,,, l would love to start trying some of your advice out, although earning a living from my location (Nigeria) is one of the most difficult things on this planet earth. but many thanks to your article.
Thanks Sean!
This was really informative. I was wondering, what’s your opinion on using Weebly over wordpress. I’m a big fan of wordpress, but I more just want to focus on content than worry about design.
Hi Megan,
Can I offer you some advice? Lead Pages has good ideas for layouts. Canva can make you a designer. If you look around the web, most of the logos are pretty basic. Find a WordPress theme that you like the layout of. What I did for my website was find a theme with the colors that I loved and then designed a Canva logo that complimented it. I still use a free theme but it looks nice. You can even do black and white and then add colors from Canva.
Hope this helps!
Amy
I still confuse how to put the ads for best CTR, but thanks for share, I got something new here.
This is possibly the best guide to affiliate marketing I have read. This is really going to help me finally get started and jump right in.
Sean you have mention all the things in a proper way in this single post …..I really like your way to describe all the thing short and simply.
Hi Sean,
awesome information!
At beginning of this year, I started using LongTailPRO.
I found a profitable keyword, I used to build a niche site from scratch.
Now, after 3 months of natural link building, I rank #4 for its keywords for Google U.S.
Feeling proud!
Thanks for sharing your guide, Sean.
Hello,This is the best guide for Building Niche Site i must say.I’ve seen hundreds of case studies over the years,but this one is really good.I’ve recently made a Entertainment niche site I’m currently monetizing it using Adsense and Amazon Affiliate and I’m already making 3 figure income which is good for the first time.
i need to start small good business
Great article! The only question I have is how do I go about setting up commissions?
Very useful list to follow. Thank you. I have started a niche site but not earn money. I will try to do again with your detail guide
Thanks for the insightful post! Very easy to follow guide. I am in the middle of building my own niche site, and have no background in any sort of online business. I have been running into some smaller problems such as, where do I get pictures to put on my website and include with my posts? Do you know of any resources or guides that address this or other small problems people may run into when they begin building niche sites?
Thank you so much for sharing this awesome and practical post!
Thanks. This is a really helpful post. I’m just starting out and there’s a tonne of useful stuff here.
Thanks for a useful article. I built a lot of niche sites in 2010. Loads got killed off by successive Google updates. However, some sites are still doing well. The key really is to provide USEFUL services in less competitive niches.
When I mean useful services, I mean moving away from just writing articles, and provide real value for your site visitors.
Hi everyone, just an open question anyone can answer if you please:
I was going to build a site around my hobby, kitesurfing, not necessarily to make money but as it is time consuming it would be good to make a return on it.
Following the research steps I’ve come to realise that there are no affiliate programmes in the niche, only retailers selling products themselves. There are also not a high number of buying keyword searches in the niche each month.
As a result the only income I can think of would be Google Adword clicks and direct advertising if the site became more popular, possible free samples of product later down the line.
The question: Is it inadvisable to develop a site in a niche in this state?
Thank you all.
Thats is very nice working on a micro niche sites because these kind of blogs take less time and produce great results.I really like this task. Thanks for the informative article. 🙂
Thanks for this post and I think that niche sites are good way to make money if you are able to rank them successfully in Google
These are the kinds of write ups that make the internet a better place. With the huge boom it’s tough to sift through everything. I’ve been fighting tooth and nail to get up to speed after coming late to the party. Thank you for your post! I myself am trying to become travel independent, but my niche is a tough one.
Is there a reason my comment didn’t make it through moderation?
Sorry just hadn’t checked it yet 🙂
My apologies for being impatient.
I am so dumb,I kept reading your name as Seanogal and was fully convinced that you are a die-hard Tolkien fan and your favorite character is Smeagol 😀
Great article by the way, you described about a year’s worth of work in a light positive way, I liked your style of writing, so clear, coherent and the content was very helpful as well.
Thank you
Great read Sean.
You mentioned “buy key term traffic”.
For the life of me I cannot find what this means on Google… And you don’t explain it in more detail. What’s key term traffic? Targeted traffic for chosen keyword? Cheers!
This is just an awesome guide I was looking for. Basically I am a programmer but as writing is my hobby, I was thinking about to start Affiliate marketing. Trust me this your this article just save 80% of my time. Thanks, Thanks a lot.
This is really great post. Long article but going right into the point of choosing and building the niche sites. I definitely got some good ideas, and could see where I do the mistakes.
Thanks Sean
Hi Sean, awesome information. Always look forward to read your posts.
Thanks 🙂
He,
You said that Amazon isn’t a good start for beginners, but what do you think of Azon Authority, hence in gives 90 days for the consumer, and if they pay within the 90 days, you will get your comission. And they have other things that stand a out. My question is, is this a scam-thing, because it is just too good to be true, I think. Well thank you for your time,
Best regards,
Eren
I’ve maid a blog with multiple niche. And I’m getting a hard time thinking and starting a articles for each niche that I have on my blog. When I just rear this article from you, I got sad and realize my mistakes but at the same time excited to revise my blog =).
This was really helpful for me!
Thanks
Hi
Thanks for sharing this awesome post
Yes it seems to be the ultimate affiliate marketing training report specially for newbies
I think that affiliate marketing is all about pinpointing the right niche – the one that you’re willing to pour hours of your life into. Yet, at a certain point, you need to choose one in which you’ll be able to find solid, willing prospects.
Thanks again
Omar Saady
Just curious, how much time would you say it would take the average person who has a decent understanding of how to do much of what you covered to get through all of these steps? Just a rough estimate. And how long, again, on average, after doing all of this would it take before that person starts seeing $500/month in a medium competitive niche – one that you would consider being pretty ideal?
Complete post for Build a Niche Webside… I have learned lot from this article. Now i can understood about niche blog..Thanks for Sharing..
Thank you for this article. I have created a niche blog following most of your guidelines. Which would be the best affiliate system that you recommend for a website focused on gardening tools?
Building niche site is a wonderful way to earn decent amount of money in shorter periods. Also, you do not have to use many strategies for making them creative and user friendly.
Thanks for your detailed information about building a niche site. Although I was having adequate information of building a niche web site but I was not aware about the step by step procedure..So, your article had inspired me to build niche websites for my online business..
Can you explain about benefits of HARO strategy? How it help us in our business?
Thanks,
Jennifer
This is a great list, find good niche ideas has been one of my major difficulties, because not all we find has a good search volume and at the same time with low competition. I like these ideas. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Sean,
Thanks for a great article. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and I’m following al of your steps.
Just one question. I have visited your site where you are currently making $1000 a month, and I cannot see any links to purchase software or goods.
Can you please tell me how your website generates so much money when the links are not clear to see?
Thanks!
There are affiliate links and affiliate coupon codes in each of the reviews.
Great tips, I’m looking for good niche markets to build a money site and I found your page. Interesting ideas I’ll try some of them. Now I’m looking for something that is related to some of my passions and hobbies and you have possibility for monetization
Hi there,
I have a question for you my friend. Is it writing content the only way to earn money through affiliate marketing? What if I am not the best copywriter out there? Is there any other form of marketing that dosn’t require rich content? For example, which is the model of platforms like Gadget Flow?
Thanks!
Great tips, I’m looking for sensible niche markets to make a casting website and that I found your page. Interesting ideas I’ll strive some of them. Now I’m trying for one thing that’s associated with a number of my passions and hobbies and you’ve got risk for monetization
Great post, Sean! Do you still think this works now after all the animals Google released lately :)?
Hi Sean-
My passion is golf and watches. The 3 niches I’ve narrowed down are:
1) Vacation golf packages
2) Golf Simulators
3) Luxury watches
What niche would be a good way to start? Also, do you focus content on brands or do you create a umbrella name and affiliate market off of that i.e..
Create a golf site that follows the outline you’ve provided regarding content, but link to golf simulator affiliate sites, golf club affiliate sites, etc..
or..do you stay more focused? For example, only do a golf club site, or only do a simulator site , or only do Rolex luxury watches.
All feedback is appreciated!
Thanks,
Zachs
haha you and I would get along well.
I have quite a bit of experience in all of these niches, so if you want to talk in more detail shoot me an email at [email protected].
But here are some thoughts:
1) golfvacationinsider.com does this really well. Where the real money is, is building up your email list and getting the resorts to do direct mailings.
2) The high end market is tough with this, I make a nice affiliate income from reviewing some of the lower end products: http://breakingeighty.com/optishot-2-review
3) Luxury watches are tough – because most people will buy them through authorized dealers, and with so many fakes out there, you have to overcome quite a bit of skepticism from anyone who is not authorized.
I was searching for Amazon niche and got this wonderful article. I must say that my thinking regarding niche marketing has widened after reading this post. The idea I had thought of working is mentioned in much more elaborated form.
Thanks Sean!
This article is the most helpful one I have come across so thank you. I’m in the planning stages of my site. I didn’t think I’d be able to make money out of my interests but it makes sense that it is the best way to go. Thanks to you.
Hi sean,
Your article is really really great …Information you have shared is very useful for me..I have just bookmarked your post and also forwarded this to my friend…Much thanks for sharing 🙂
Great article Sean – I’ve added it as a resource to my business idea directory.
Great tips, I have been following your advice and finally started to work on my own website – I am wordpress newbie – and it is now finally starting to take shape. I have learnt that it is a marathon not a sprint when it comes to a niche website.
Hi
Thanks for sharing this good article, I am thinking of starting a niche blog and your article gave me fruitful info.
Brilliant. I love the Purest Form.
There are some really great tips and ideas for people to really grow their sites. You have gone a lot more indepth on this post. Niche sites, everyone wants, so thank you for this post.
James
P.S Love LOTS of Steps lol
Great video and written blog! I completely agree with everything you said. I think one of the main reasons (besides not listening to you) that people end up not making any money is that the real way to make money online is to create great products, services, content, reviews, etc that are actually useful to people. Most people have enough experience surfing online that they can see someone trying to game the system a mile away. Honestly, I’m glad the focus is getting away from that anyway. If we’re not here to help people, then why are we here?
Thanks so much for your hard work. Although I’ve never met you, I have an idea how many hours your put in to make your life go in the direction you wanted it to go.
Keep up up the great work and positive vibe!
Hi,
Thanks for the great post. I have some questions related to the programs like Google Keyword Tool and Market Samurai. When I try to register for the Google Keyword tool it asks for my website. However, I haven’t created a website yet. I just wanted to check how it works. Do I have to create a website before using these programs or can I just practice and check some statistics before getting serious?
Other question related to costs of these programs. I guess none of these programs is free to use, right? How much money would you suggest a beginner to use when starting to create a website from scratch?
Thank you for your answer,
Juho-Pekka
Really awesome article and I love it how you give a brief guide at the top and the go into the nitty gritty details below. It makes coming back to see the steps a lot easier and I can draw up a list of items that I need to take action on!
Cheers
Great article. I am a bit late to the party. I have been cruising along as more of a hobby but am now looking to get more $ serious. Thanks for all the tips.
Tommy
Hi
Looks great! Optin’s price is $67 for me. I don’t see a $49 version.
Thanks
Hi Sean!
What an amazing detailed post on building a niche site that makes good money! Loved the post very much reading till end!
Thanks for sharing an informative article!
Keep it up!
Great article. What about using sites like Weebly or Wix?
Not a fan. Not very flexible, and not great for search results.