UPDATE: My book “How to Make $100 Every Day on The Internet” containing my NEWEST strategies for making money is now available. Click here now to learn more and download your copy.
I’ve read many business books, attended seminars, and networked with internet entrepreneurs.
All three have one commonality….
They all ask the SAME question: “Why are you NOT making money online?”
There are countless ways to earn money online.
However, they all require work, patience, and time.
They also require self-belief.
If you don’t think you can, you probably won’t even try.
Right?
I’m going to share one of the EASIEST ways to make money online so you can prove to yourself that you CAN do it!
You see, once you have a little proof that YOU can do something, you become unstoppable.
Sky truly becomes the limit!
Well, let’s get you on the road to becoming unstoppable.
Are you ready?
Let’s go!
Niche Websites
I have a couple niche websites that earn me money monthly on auto-pilot.
I don’t share my niche websites because it’ll lead to competition for the same targeted keywords.
Don’t worry, this will make more sense by the end of the article.
Some of my niche websites earn a small amount of money, and others do a little better.
So what is a niche website anyways?
Basically it’s a website dedicated to ONE product.
How does a niche website earn money?
You provide information about the niche and display affiliate links for relevant products.
People come to your website, click on those links, buy, and you earn commission.
Are you a little confused as to how it all works?
Don’t worry, I’m going to break it down step-by-step just for you!
How to Start Your Own Niche Website
1) Pick a Niche
First, come up with an idea (targeted keywords) for a niche:
EX:
- How to make money online
- Dog collars that are waterproof
- Grass fertilizer that’s safe for pets
- How to lose 20 pounds in a month
Go into the Google Keyword Tool to see how many monthly searches it averages.
Make sure you choose “All Locations” in the “Targeting” option.
For this example, we’ll use the niche “how to make money online”.
*You’ll want a niche that gets a lot of monthly searches but has low competition.
So here we see this niche averages 110,000 monthly searches.
That’s a TON of searches which clearly makes this a good niche.
Anything that has over 1,000 searches is great so 110,000 is EXCELLENT!
Now that we have those numbers, we have to verify the level of competition.
Go into Google.com and enter the niche to see how many search results appear.
IMPORTANT: You’ll want to choose a niche that has 2 million or less results, preferably less than a million, but 2 million is fine.
The image below shows 568 million search results for “How to make money online”.
This is a perfect example of a niche you should NOT use!
It’s too saturated (high competition) and hard to rank well for in Google.
Therefore we would NOT move forward with this niche.
At this point, you could either switch a couple words around (ex: how to quickly earn money online, how I made money online for the first time, etc.)
…Or you could begin searching for a completely different niche.
As you can see, this requires some trial and error but the rewards are well worth it!
Once you find a niche that has over 1,000 monthly searches and less than 2 million search results, you can move forward and begin creating the website.
2) Creating the Niche website
First things first, you need a domain name (website address).
EX: This blog’s domain name is www.inertiawillhurtya.com
Go into Hostgator.com and search to see if your desired domain is available.
You should include your niche (keywords) in your domain name.
For example: if your niche is “How to gain more muscle”, it should look like this:
www.howtogainmoremuscle.com
However, if that domain name is already taken, do your best to create one that still has your keywords in it.
EX:
www.waysonhowtogainmoremuscle.com
www.secretsonhowtogainmoremuscle.com
www.howtogainmoremuscleeasily.com
Get it?
Keep playing with the words until you find one that’s available.
The point is to have your keywords in the domain name any way you can.
This will help your website rank well in the Google search results.
…And remember to ALWAYS register a “.com” domain.
Domains that end this way are perceived as professional and trustworthy.
All the others (.net, .org, etc.) are no good.
Once you have your domain name, proceed to purchase and host it on Hostgator by clicking here.
You pay for your website domain once a year and pay less than $10 a month to host it.
Don’t worry, the small fee will pay for itself with your niche website.
Trust me.
Once that’s done, you can begin setting up your website.
NOTE: if this is your first website, you can find a TON of free step-by-step videos on YouTube on “how to start a website“. I would write the steps but it will make this a VERY long article. Building a website is learned A LOT easier and quicker through svideo anyways.
…And we’re not trying to complicate things, there’s enough work that needs to get done.
Here’s a great video on how to do it.
Don’t start watching videos until you’ve purchased and hosted your domain because you’ll need to apply what you learn.
You’ll be pausing the video often and jumping back and forth from your website and YouTube as you go following the steps.
Once you have your website up and running, it’s time to get started!
3) Write Articles and Promote Products
Now you’re going to want to create at least 8-10 articles that contain your keywords in it.
Don’t “stuff” each article with your keywords in attempt to rank better in the search results.
Google spams websites that do this.
The way to rank better is by creating quality articles in low competitive niches.
Write 400-500 word ORIGINAL articles and mention your keywords 3-4 times in each.
And when I say “original”, I mean you write you OWN article.
Do NOT copy and paste information from another website.
Google can also tell when you do this.
Yes, in case you didn’t know, Google is quite miraculous with it’s genius abilities.
If you’re not willing to sit down and write your own article, then you’re not serious about making money.
Go into the “Add New Post” section in your website and get to work!
Your other article titles should look something like this.
- Bodybuilder’s strategies on how to gain more muscle
- How to gain more muscle without spending money
- Former inmates share secrets on working out
- What I learned last year on building muscle
- How much protein do you really need?
You’ll include your keywords in your article titles, but don’t necessarily need to in all of them.
Also, make sure you don’t start every article with “How to”.
Switch it up a little like the examples I provided.
The important thing is that your articles are of quality and authentic.
Do plenty of research for each title so you can provide great and useful information.
Last, offer your readers affiliate links to buy items you KNOW will help them gain more muscle.
This can be dumbbells, a good protein product, or a book.
Make sure you use/read the items before promoting them to ensure they actually work!
A niche website has two goals:
- Educate people on their searched keywords
- Make sales from the products you recommend which will actually help them.
You want to be an authentic niche website, not a scam.
The most trusted website to promote products from is Amazon.com
Creating an amazon affiliate account is easy and free.
Amazon pays monthly for sales through your choice of direct deposit or check.
After you create your account, log in and search for the book you want to promote.
Click on “get link” for the book you want.
Save a picture of the E-book cover on your computer.
Click “New Post” in your website and add the picture.
Link it with the affiliate code you get from Amazon.
Paste the link in the URL section and click “Add link”.
Click “text” on the far right and copy the code displayed.
Go into your widgets section in WordPress and enter the code in a “text” category.
The final result….
Click on the picture above to see an example of how your readers will be guided straight to Amazon.
It’s that easy, my friend.
Promote no more than 2 – 3 books/products.
Don’t JAM-PACK your website with too many offers.
Even though this is a niche website where promoting products is perfectly fine, you don’t want your readers to get distracted with too many offers and not notice that you have articles (information) to offer them.
Make sense?
The goal is to educate and allow them to purchase a product if they choose to.
Well that’s it!
Simple and straight-forward just how I like it.
Let’s recap:
- Find a niche
- Set up the website
- Write 8-10 articles
- Promote a couple relevant books/products
- Earn money monthly on auto-pilot
Again, as long as you find a niche that’s getting A LOT of searches monthly and doesn’t have too many search results in Google, you’ll be able to rank in the first page and make money.
How much money you make will ultimately depend on how much time you spend working on the website.
Even though this really works, the whole process requires time and effort which most people are NOT willing to dedicate.
However, if you DO THE WORK, you’ll reap the rewards.
Remember, don’t share your niches with any one unless you want competition.
But trust me when I say this, there are A LOT of niches available.
Just play around in the Google Keyword Tool and you’ll find them.
So if this is so easy, why isn’t everyone doing it?
Well because they either:
A) Don’t know how
B) Are too lazy to take action
Remember, this requires time and patience but once your niche site is “live”, it won’t be long before you appear on Google and begin earning money on auto-pilot.
And I know what you’re thinking: “Why in the hell would he share this?”
1) I don’t have a scarcity mindset.
2) There are a TON of niche ideas available.
Even if I didn’t share this with you, I wouldn’t discover nor have time to work on all of them.
And this is the reality for all the other bloggers and internet entrepreneurs.
They all start with small projects like this but then move on to BIGGER and more profitable things.
This can earn you money monthly, but once you get good at it, you move on to projects that can make you the same amount of money in a month that you would make in a year with a small niche website.
Is this beginning to make sense?
The goal of each and every entrepreneur is to earn money on auto-pilot so they no longer have to go and spend time building small niche websites.
You can’t be scuba diving in the Caribbean if you have to work on a website, can you?
The answer is no, you can’t.
There are literally millions of keywords that get searched for monthly that have yet to be discovered.
…And some never will.
Just think of the billions of people in the world who all have different interest and search for different things.
So by now I’m sure you’re wondering just how much can you earn monthly with niche websites.
The answer is that it depends on of course how many niche websites you build and how much time you spend working on them.
A niche website can earn anywhere from $100 to a couple $1000.
It ultimately all depends on the amount of searches it gets.
The more searches, the more traffic comes in.
The more traffic comes in, the more sales.
But look at this way, if you put in the time and work to build 20-30 small niche websites which all earn $100 a month, would that money on auto-pilot change your life?
But YOU have to work for it, my friend.
Setting up that many websites will take some time, but it CAN BE DONE!
You have to sacrifice and sit down in front of the computer and do what needs to get done.
I wrote this 2100 word step-by-step guide to show you how, but only YOU can actually do the work.
I know sharing this kind of content will result in my readers trusting me more than they already do.
The goal of my blog is to help others get motivated and create success for themselves.
…And that’s exactly what it always has and will do.
Don’t just read this and say “Oh wow, Alex is such a great guy for providing this”.
TAKE ACTION!!!!!!
We’ll talk again soon,
-Alex
PS – Download my NEWEST book “How To Make $100 Every Day On The Internet” because it’s going to show you my ALL my proven ways to make money online.
Andrew Miles says
Damn Alex, this is an awesome article. I knew the steps for setting up a niche site before, but this has actually got me motivated to try it out. I’ll report back with my results if I do. I love the way you made it so step-by-step and easy to follow, keeping it simple and ignoring things that would complicate the process unnecessarily. Great guide. You could even sell this as a stand-alone eBook!
Alex (Administrator) says
Thanks, Andrew! Glad you liked it! Yeah, setting up a niche site isn’t hard at all, but it does require time, patience, and effort. Best of luck if you decide to begin one.
-Alex
Alex (Administrator) says
Glad to hear you learned a lot, Tara. Thanks for the feedback and compliments!
-Alex
The Rational Rebel says
Yet another fantastic article. I’ve learnt quite a few new things here, so thank you for taking the time to outline everything in such detail. What’s even better, it’s such an easy read.
Quick side note – “Former inmates share secrets on working out” – I’d love to read that 🙂
– Tara
Jacob S. says
Nice article man! Currently looking into doing this myself. You have provided some HUGE tips that I had no idea about, like the keywords for instance.
As far as recommending two to three products, would you say it’s okay to promote more as long as you’re building a larger niche site?
Again, great article Alex. I hope that your other projects are going well. Inertia Will Hurt Ya is already on a great path. Also, I like what you mentioned about providing information so people have the opportunity to buy. I currently am working on this aspect and to help provide as much information as possible, while promoting products I have personally used.
Alex (Administrator) says
Jacob,
If you’re building a larger site, then yes it’s fine to promote more than two or three products. A good example is a niche site about digital cameras. You can have articles about different series of cameras (EX: Nikon-D3200, Nikon-P530, and so on…) and go into detail about their features. What you want to avoid is filling your page with too many affiliate links. The Google Bots will spam your website when they “crawl” it if they detect too many links. Just write a review on your product and include ONE link per article.
You can promote 10 different products if you want to as long as you have 10 different articles with ONE affiliate link in each. Keep in mind the importance of content. Each article has to have a minimum of 500 words. This will make the Google Bots think the following:
“This website has content to offer people, it’s only intention isn’t just to make money. Therefore, this isn’t a spam website, I’ll approve it.”
Content is VITAL in a niche website. A lot of people make the mistake of writing short articles (100-200 words) and placing a TON of links all over the place. Then they complain about niche websites being a scam and that they don’t work. Do things right, have patience, create quality articles that both inform and help people, and you’ll be fine.
-Alex
Jacob S. says
Interesting information about the Google algorithms and how they view sites. My honest opinion, I’d you’re just fluffing up your articles with rehashed content and affiliate links, it’s not going to go well. I always remember that people read content and buy the products, not machines. With that being said, it definitely supports how you said thay content is so vital.
Alex (Administrator) says
Exactly, Jacob. That’s why I preach to ONLY promote things you actually use. And you’re absolutely right, you’re talking to PEOPLE, not machines.
-Alex
Riz says
You have to be very careful with exact match domains. They don’t work that well at all anymore unless there is literally no competition.
Brand names are far more preferable to “howtogainmoremuscle.com.” If you make this your domain, you won’t be able to get away with keywords in inner URLs or inbound links if you are boosting your own stuff.
Google knows what someone is looking for if they search a brand name. They aren’t as sure when you’re domain is just a long tail keyword. Moving forward into 2015-2016 exact match and even partial match will be bad practice.
Alex (Administrator) says
Thanks for sharing, Riz…
Keep in mind that niche websites have very low competition. That’s why I mentioned above “no more than 2 million search results, preferably less than a million”. If you create a niche website that has low competition and great content, you’ll rank for it. End of story.
When you find a niche with potential, you’ll notice that all the other search results in Google for your keywords are NOT from high authority websites. That’s why it’s so easy to “outrank” all of them. Most of the time, the search results are posts or comments from a social media profile where the keyword just happened to get mentioned. It happens by mistake, not for the intention of actually ranking for those keywords. Make sense?
Since no one has created a niche site for these keywords yet (that’s where you come in), there are random sites/social media profiles ranking well for them. What’s important is that your site offers value (good content) when the Google Bots crawl it. Keywords with 2 million or less search results are easy to rank well for. However, keywords like “how to gain more muscle” have a TON of authority websites intending to rank well for that specific keyword. Any authority website with a lot of content that’s been around for a while will outrank any small niche site, that’s why we stay away from them.
I understand that Google makes changes to their ranking process. However, I’ve been doing this for a couple of years now and am having success even with all the changes that Google makes on the regular. I have yet to notice any decline in my rankings following everything I mentioned in this article.
Another example: A very generic, competitive keyword domain name, such as music.com, will be EXTREMELY difficult to rank for. In other words, not everyone searching for “music” will see your site as the #1 result. It takes lots of work to get any website, regardless of keywords, to the top of the Google, and any other search engine, for competitive, highly searched keywords. When you have success and find a keyword that gets a lot of searches but has low competition (low search results), you’re good to go! That’s why I don’t share my niche’s with anyone. This article has the potential to be read by millions of people, what if they copy my niche? That’s millions of new competition. Right?
-Alex
Riz says
I get what you’re saying.
If you really want to dominate, you have to go gray hat and cheat. Not even a question.
When using private blog networks and other stealth tactics, you have to be very very careful with exact match domains. When you send links to your own properties you can blow people away, but you need to know how to do it without committing SEO harikiri.
Alex (Administrator) says
I simply do what I mention in the article and it works very well for me. I rank in the first page of Google for all my niche sites. It doesn’t happen overnight, but with patience, writing quality articles, and actually providing a solution to people’s problems; I do very well. The day it stops working (which I highly doubt it will) I’ll delete this article. However, I understand what you’re trying to say. Thanks again, Riz.
-Alex
AD Ziemann says
Wrapped up on a recent project and was checking my site. Saw your comment went to see how your site was doing and man, killer content again! Plus this article was perfect timing since I had been thinking of working on some niche ideas for some time while working on my last project and this article made the final push to jump into it today. Thanks.
Alex (Administrator) says
Damn glad to hear that, A.D.! Email me if you have any questions regarding the niche sites, I’ll be more than happy to help. Good luck!
Inertiawillhurtya@gmail.com
Al says
I have always love the idea of making money on auto-pilot and niche websites seems like a legit way to do this. The only problem most people might have, including myself, is writing quality articles to prove that you are not bogus and you know what you are talking about. It seems like you have to really do your research on certain niches in order to come up with 8-10 articles. Unless you know the niche well to begin with, this will ultimately be the hard part, along with understanding that it takes 20-30 sites to really feel like it is all worth it. Good stuff.
Al says
…Going back to my “worth while” comment, I was referring more to having a financial goal first say “I want to make 600/month from all of my sites” then that means roughly having 6 sites. For me, I would want to make enough money from my sites to at least cover my mortgage. Then it would be worthwhile to me. If I was making that much then I would probably want to make more lol. Regardless, I’m sure it is all worth it if you put in the work.
Alex (Administrator) says
Al,
It really is one the most legitimate ways to make money online. My rule of thumb is: if it provides free value and I can monetize it, I’ll do it. You see, at the end of the day, not everyone will buy but if they can still learn something valuable from your site, then at least you were able to help them and not waste their time. Newbies in business believe/want every single visitor to result in a sale. That’s not how it works. In order to be successful in business, you need to develop the mindset of “I’m going to help 20 people and if only one of them decides to buy, that’s fine”.
Writing quality articles is a lot easier than you think. You simply research the niche, learn important things worth mentioning, and then re-write it in an entertaining and informative way. Remember that you could find information about ANYTHING online these days. Yeah, 20-30 sites might sound like a lot of work but once the work is complete, you’re good to go.
It’s well worth it.
-Alex
Alex (Administrator) says
You said it, Al – it’s all worth it if you put in the work. Your goal of having 6 niche sites that all earn $100 a month is attainable but you need to do the work and be patient. If you combine patience and hard work, the only thing you’re guaranteed is success.
-Alex
Al says
What is your strategy on getting traffic to your site?
Alex (Administrator) says
Al,
Since niche websites are so low in competition, they’re relatively easy to rank for. Therefore, 95% of the traffic comes from search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.). This is why I mention in the article to search for niches that get A LOT of searches but are low in competition. If you create a niche website following the steps I mentioned, your website will be perceived as “valuable” by the search engines and allow you to rank better. I don’t really focus on building traffic for my niche websites, I leave it up to the search engines.
-Alex
Al says
Yeah that is what I thought. I have read in other places where people go to unreal lengths to bring traffic to their sites through back link, forums, etc. I love the idea of not having to worry about any of that and just do thorough research in finding the most valuable niches in the beginning.
Alex (Administrator) says
Yeah, all of that is only necessary when you’re in a very competitive niche like fitness, money, etc. For example, creating a niche website in “bodybuilding” will be a nightmare!!! You’ll be competing against high authority sites that have been around for years! Can you imagine how hard it’ll be for Google to rank you over Bodybuilding.com and all the other websites that have a TON of content and have been around for years?
For a newbie, it only makes sense to build niche websites in these popular niches since that’s what it appears people are searching for. However, trust me when I say this, it is A LOT easier to rank for a niche that gets a lot of searches but has barely any competition in the search engines.
Here’s a tip: As you go throughout your day, take notes of things you see that people might be searching for. It can be anything: car air fresheners, best butane lighters, cages for rabbits, etc. There’s so many obscure niches that get searched for with little competition. You just have to find them.
By the way, I just searched “cages for rabbits” and it only has 1,720,000 search results in Google and gets 1,000 searches a month according to the Google Keyword Planner. This is a perfect example of a niche to take advantage of. You could write articles on: the best rabbit cages, how to clean rabbit cages, should you leave food inside your rabbit cage, etc. Then promote a couple rabbit cages and you’re good to go. I should have charged you for this haha!
-Alex
Al says
You’re the man Alex! I think you made a great point that the best thing to do is to write stuff down, miniscule stuff like rabbit cages, anything. You just never know what can become a profitable niche. I think once someone makes 5 or more of these sites then they really get in the groove of things. A few years down the road they might have 50+ sites that brings in a great passive income, a pension if you will. You got me excite now!
Alex (Administrator) says
Awesome, damn glad to hear that, Al. Get to work!!!
-Alex
Khalid Maghni says
Hi Alex, generally speaking what is the percentage that one can earn from selling one book?
Alex (Administrator) says
Do you mean promoting one book on a niche website? If that’s what your asking, the earning potential is limitless. It all depends on how much traffic you get and the quality of FREE content you offer your readers. Remember, you have to create content that actually teaches your readers something. If they learn something from the content, they’ll be willing to buy a book you promote related to the information in your niche site.
Al says
After you write your 10 articles and the entire process is complete, do you just leave the site alone? I ask because I wonder if people who visit the site will start questioning things when a new article hasn’t been posted say in 1 or 2.
Alex (Administrator) says
Al,
You can add additional content if you’d like. However, don’t be too concerned on whether people will or won’t come back. Remember that a niche website is used to answer a specific question only. Therefore, most people won’t come back seeking additional information. It’s not a blog like this one which publishes content on the regular. A niche website’s goal is to provide information and solutions (affiliate products) to people looking for it.
IAAM says
This is a great blog post Alex. You have earned a spot on my blog roll.
Alex (Administrator) says
Thank you, IAAM. I appreciate it.
-Alex
San says
Hi Allex,
Really awesome and helpful articles.
But you did not mention anything about plugin settings for SEO purposes.
Or any other seo settings?
Thanks
Alex (Administrator) says
San,
Glad you liked the article. The only SEO plugin I use is Yoast SEO. It’s self-explanatory and gets the job done.
-Alex
San says
Hi,
Thanks for your prompt reply. Just Another query… Is it necessary to have large number of Backlinks and Backlinks to authority sites. Or without backlinks it will work?
Thank you
Alex (Administrator) says
Niche websites have incredibly LOW competition. So just having some quality articles is enough to convince Google (and all the other search engines) to rank you high.
Do backlinks help? Yes. However, I wouldn’t worry too much about it with niche sites. I’d focus more on the content.
-Alex
Al says
Is it possible to leap some big name sites when ranking your site to the first page? When I Google search my niches, I notice that big name site suchs Amazon and Ebay take up at least half of the first page worth of searches. If the goal is have your niche sites on the first page of Google, is a niche worth pursuing if these already established sites flood that first page?
Alex (Administrator) says
Sometimes those big name sites are there simply because no good review articles have been published for the product. However, in some cases, these websites will still pop up first (even if good reviews have been published) simply because they offer the product for sale. Keep in mind that many people (but not everyone) looking for reviews will likely click on your link before they do on Google or EBay simply because they are seeking more information about the product and not ready to buy yet.
If you write a good review, talk about your experience (the good and the bad), and provide them a link to buy; there’s a good chance they’ll feel safe and move forward with their purchase. Remember that no marketing strategy is perfect. Different things work for different people. Some will go straight to Amazon or EBay to buy…While others will ONLY buy if they read a review that motivates them to do so.
To answer your question – Yes, a niche is worth pursuing in these circumstances. Look at it this way…If someone was ready to buy, wouldn’t they just go straight into Amazon or EBay instead of Google?
Always remember that while ranking on the first page of search engines does help a LOT…it is still possible to make money off niche websites ranking on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th page.