Case Study #1 – Profiting from a Niche Site (Part 1)
What’s up Slump Busters! Niche websites are nothing new. In fact, I started my first niche site back in 2007. I had absolutely no clue what I was doing but I just said “fuck it” and hopped right in, learning as I went. Back then, niche sites were starting to pop up everywhere and content marketing really started to gain some momentum. Eight LONG years later, my first niche site is still going strong and still very profitable. In fact, this year I had my first $10,000 + month just from my first site! So I was extremely happy.
Since then I’ve made a handful of smaller sites, but I’ve always thought to myself, why not duplicate my efforts and create more niche sites. I’ve always made excuses like “it’s different these days and harder to break into a niche”, “there’s too much competition/saturation”, and “I’m not completely passionate about that topic”. But today is the day that changes!
What is a Niche Site?
Since this is my first ever post on this website, nineofspades.com (which has a cool story behind the name), I’m sure you’re not familiar with my writing style. So let me fill you in on a little secret. I don’t really go by industry terms. I might read something, translate it into a way that it makes sense to me, and then spit out my own definition. I know a lot of you internet nerds get butt hurt when someone says something that may go against what you read in a book somewhere, but deal with it! I make shit up from time to time. If you don’t like it, go to another blog.
Since I got that disclaimer out of the way, a Niche Site is a website in a specific niche in which you use content marketing, advertising, social media marketing, and/or an email list to drive people to buy cool shit related to your niche. Me personally, I don’t like to get super specific in any niche (or “niche down”) but I also don’t think you should cover a huge niche where there is not enough focus. I think it’s a sweet spot you’re looking for. That’s what I call a Niche Site! If you want a second opinion, click here.
Case Study #1 – Profiting from a Niche Site (Part 1)
At this point I don’t know how many “Parts” this case study is going to be, but hopefully more than less (because that’ll mean it’s going well). But what I do plan on is sharing everything that I go through to build my new niche site and make it profitable. I hoping to include things like:
- Picking a Niche (see below)
- Creating a Website
- Creating Branding
- Content Marketing
- Creating a Funnel
- Paid Advertising
- Making the site profitable
- and anything else this experience takes
meus through.
Where should I start when creating a Niche Site?
That’s the same question I asked myself this morning. That’s right, I decided to jump into this project this morning and that’s the first step! START! Don’t do like I’ve been doing for the last 8 years and think about it. Shoot, I’ve had so many great ideas over the years that I’m sure if I just picked one of them I could have been making some good money already. I don’t want to waste another 8 years!
So, the first step (besides deciding to start) is to choose a Niche. For me, this is the hard part because for a while I’ve made excuse after excuse. But this morning I’ve picked a Niche! I’m going to be focusing on the Baby Boomers. For years I’ve had the idea of developing a retirement community, and recently, here in Florida where I live, many of them have been popping up. That’s because all of the Baby Boomers are starting to reach that age. So, instead of spending the millions of dollars I don’t have on a retirement community, I figured I could create a Niche Site that deals with the things that the Baby Boomers are going through in this part of their life like retirement, heath issues, and just getting older in general. To be honest, I was so excited when I thought of this Niche that I didn’t do much brainstorming, I just came straight here and started writing this post. So, I’ve got some work to do when I’m finished here. But you get the idea and I’ll keep you posted in the next part of this case study on what I’ve come up with.
How to choose a Niche?
Recently I’ve been motivated to create something new. My first idea was for this site (nineofspades.com). Upon doing some research, I ended up on a site called ViperChill.com by this kid named Glen. I don’t want to give away all of his secrets, but I highly recommend checking out his site because he’s got some great ideas on different Niches to get involved in. But that’s not where I got this idea from. Actually, I joined his email list (also highly recommend for the original content) and ended up purchasing one of his products. From his suggestions in that program, I did some looking around on the sites he recommended and couldn’t really find anything. But as I was switching between websites it hit me. That’s how I came up with this Niche idea. The bottom line is you’ve got to just browse the web and keep thinking. When it hits you, you’ll know, and then you’ve just got to run with it.
Now, I could weigh my options, do a little more research on the competition (which I plan to), and decide if this is a really great niche to get in to, but that’s always been my problem before. I’ve over analyzed and talked myself out of it. Therefore, I’m just going to go for it and start brainstorming the site name, focus, and branding even before I research the competition. I know it may not be the smartest idea, but that’s the way I feel right now and sometimes you’ve just got to grab your balls and say “let’s do this shit!”.
I do have one major concern and it’s really my only concern as of right now and that is that these Baby Boomers aren’t as technologically savvy as us Millennials. So I’m a little worried that they may be a little harder to reach than a normal audience. But like I said, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Who knows, this thing may flop and I might not make a single penny from it, BUT I won’t know until I try. So….
In Conclusion
I’m very excited about this and am going to start working on it as soon as I finish this paragraph. I’m hoping that you can learn something from this case study and I hope it goes well for my own sake. I will probably post Part 2 of this case study tomorrow after I do some more work on it today. Please, leave a comment below. I would love to talk about this project. Tell me what you think. Whether you think I’m an idiot or you think the idea is brilliant. Either way, I look forward to the FIRST EVER comment on this blog! [Insert comment below]
