How to Properly Build a Mini-Niche Website in 2017
If I told you that there are over 1 million niches, you would probably tell me I am nuts. But that is the reality of the Internet, any audience, no matter how small it seems in a potentially successful niche. A niche site, the framework of it, can quite easily be constructed in a matter of 4 weeks and we are going to be showing you how to build a niche website in a month within the live class training here at Wealthy Affiliate.
First things first though, I want to clarify the difference between a niche website and an authority site. They are similar in many ways, they are the same thing in others, and there is going to be a lot of confusion here if I don’t do a proper job of explaining things.
A Mini-Niche Website vs. an Authority Site
A mini-niche website is one that is going to be much more focused on a smaller pocket audience, sometimes these audiences are even temporary or seasonal. Many marketers online have the approach where they build out 5-10 of these niche websites and in the process they are creating multiple streams of income (each site produces income).
FootballSnackHelmets.com is one such example, a mini-niche website that was created in a past Live Class Case Study series. There are limitations to the scalability of a site like this. There are also ways in which it can be scaled, but there is going to be a point in which you are going to have to deviate from the main theme. At which point you will just be maintaing that respective mini-niche website and any comments it gets, but it is unlikely that you will focus on scaling the website any further.
To scale your business with mini-niche websites, you typically capitalize on smaller, much more targeted niches and will be building out several websites over time. To scale, you build more websites in more mini-niches (which differs from the authority site space).
An authority site is a much more unified and longer term approach to a single website. This is what is taught within the OEC and Bootcamp training courses. The idea is the choose a niche, but not a niche that is not quite as specific as a mini-niche site that is more "exact match" targeted.
Authority sites always have room to grow and scale and you should never run out of opportunity with an authority site, that is, it only takes ONE authority site to have a long term and scalable business online.
In theory there should be 10,000's of low competition keywords within any niche that you build an authority site around, even something as peculiar as dog toys has over 50,000 products on Amazon alone. That means that a site like that would have the potential for 50,000 product reviews, not to mention probably 100,000's of other keywords. You could create a dog toy authority site.
Using Exact Match Domains (EMD’s) For Your Mini Niche Sites
Smaller or “mini” niche sites tend to focus on keywords within their domains as well. What I mean by this, is that your target keywords are right within your domain name URL.
An example of this would be football snack helmets, that being the niche. Ideally you want to be able to purchase a .com for that respective domain as .com domains tend to rank the best, but as a secondary you would want either a .net or a .org domain. Google does reward exact match domains with higher rankings if you target their exact term.
So unlike an authority site where you don't need a keyword in your domain, a keyword within your domain is much more important with a mini-niche website where you are trying to achieve rankings under the specific keyword that is in your domain name.
Subsequently, in the example above it is ranking #1 overall in search engines (including Google) under the term:
football snack helmets
And drives consistent revenue daily as a result of being ranked under this search term. This case study has turned into $1,000+ per month during the football season and a consistent income stream throughout the year (even during the football off season).
The core starting point of a mini-niche website though is having a domain that is exact match in nature.
How the Niche Website Live Classes Are Going to Work
Each week, for 4 consecutive weeks you are going to be able to watch over Jay’s shoulder as he builds out a niche website. The niche has been selected by Jay and it will be a brand new niche that he has never been involved in.
Like the FootballSnackHelmets.com website, the goal of this niche website is going to be to get ranked under the primary terms, but also many other associated terms as the site is built out. Ideally this site once it gains some traction and authority, which can take a few months to do, will start to achieve high rankings, traffic, and ultimately revenue.
Past Success Building Niche Websites
The last time such a live class was run, the focus of the niche website as aforementioned was within the Football Snack Helmet niche. To most, this would seem like a crazy idea for a niche (it actually seemed crazy to me when Jay brought it to my attention lol), but that is the thing about the Internet. There are millions of little pockets like this that you can leverage and build a consistent income from.
In the early stages of the website, Jay experienced some breakthrough success. The Morning Show contacted Jay and asked if they could showcase his site on the morning show leading up to the Super Bowl, showing people some cool ideas for Super Bowl parties.
That propelled high volume sales for several days following the show, but as time went on Jay achieved not only #1 overall rankings in Google for the main focus keyword, “football snack helmets”, he was able to achieve first page rankings all over the place for related searches.
Here is the past case study from 2015 if you want to watch the entire series or if you simply want to check it out.
- WA Live Niche Case Study Series - Week 1 of 4
- WA Live Niche Case Study Series - Week 2 of 4
- WA Live Niche Case Study Series - Week 3 of 4
- WA Live Niche Case Study Series - Week 4 of 4
- Live Niche Case Study Complete, Now What?
The Main Focuses and Topics Covered
There are going to many different topics covered in the 5+ hours of live training that is going to be taking place over the next 4 weeks. The ultimate goal is to walk you through the exact process of going from the research phase, building out your niche website, getting indexed and ranked, and then integrated products/services that will drive revenue to your business.
Some of the topics that are going to be discussed in the upcoming 4 weeks are as follows:
- Researching and Finding Lucrative Niche
- Analyzing Low Competition, High Yielding Keywords
- Understanding Important Competition Metrics
- Purchasing a Domain in WA with Credits
- Building Out the Content Framework of a Niche Site
- Integrating Google Analytics Awareness
- Properly Adding Google Webmaster Tools to the Site
- Optimizing Pages and Posts for Search (SEO)
- Adding All Sorts of Links (Internal, External, Incoming)
- How to Profit in the Early Stages of Your Website
- Creating a Better Menu Experience & User Friend Nvaigation
- A Look at Stats, Rankings & Profits
- The EVERGREEN Plan of Action
- Your 4 Week PDF Checklist
- The Journey Forward and an Week 4 and Beyond Action Plan
Between each week there is going to be a recap based on what was done in the week. The time and energy investment never stops when you are building a business and this is going to be exemplified each week.
So make sure you take part in the training that will be taking place through the month of April. The Live Classes can be registered to within the Live Class page:
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/webinar
And you will also be able to see all the past replays there. The replays for a live class are usually posted within 24 hours of the live class taking place. As a Premium member you can attend all of the live classes and watch 100's of hours of past live classes. :)
- Build a Niche Site - 2017 Live Case Study, 1 of 4 (Available NOW!)
- Build a Niche Site - 2017 Live Case Study, 2 of 4 (Available NOW!)
If you have any comments or questions about mini-niche sites or authority websites, please leave them below.
Unfortunately I can't make it live being in the UK, but at least with the recordings, I can stop/start as I make notes.
Thank you WA for always moving forward :-)
In reading your post, although I see my site as an Authority Site, the name of the site may give it the appearance os a Mini-Niche Website. UGH!!! Would that be an issue?
I don't think I'll be able to watch live but going to try and keep up with watching the replays!