Bloggers Journal

Before embarking upon developing a niche website, or even any website, a webmaster needs a few tools which make life a little easier.  There are many pieces of software available that do this.  They help you research keywords, and judge the associated competition levels.

(Un)fortunately, many of these software packages cost money.  Many developers cannot justify to pay out lots of money for a tool that they will maybe only use a little.  However, I wish to undertake this project by spending out as little as I can, and use as many free tools that do at least a similar job.

Getting a website from theory, or thought, to an actual functioning website, with users and earning you some cash is a straight forward process.  However for many it is quite daunting.  Here are some step by step approaches to going from A to Z.

Plan your website

Planning is really very important to the eventual outcomes of whatever you undertake.  When you have determined a niche you wish to use as the content of a website, it is best to draw up an action plan of how you aim to write articles, and how you want to monetise the website.

For instance, before you start, it is always a good idea to have a list, on a piece of paper, for instance, of article titles you wish to write.  These article titles should be rich in keywords.  For example, I have one,

how to save money

This is a common question, and makes for a perfect title that can be exploited for SEO purposes.

I came across a cool tool (c/o Pat Flynn) where you can research questions associated with keywords using this free online tool,

http://labs.wordtracker.com/keyword-questions/

Choosing a web host

This can be a little intimidating for people too.  However, it is really very simple.  To get your website up and running, you need two things,

1. A domain – your web address
2. A host – somewhere to put the files that make your site

You can get your domain from a variety of sources.  However, I recommend using :NameCheap:, and have used them for many years.  They offer competitive prices, and full administrative control over your domains.

For hosting your site – I recently switched to :HostGator:, and I am glad I did – naturally I recommend them.  They offer hosting packages from as little as $5 per month.  You have unlimited disk space and databases.  I’m sure though, that this is subject to a fair use policy, however, it will be a lot of resources!  You also have CPanel, which allows you full administrative control over your webspace – including domains, email and software.

:HostGator: is also one of the top webhosts which has a facility for you to install Word Press at the click of a few buttons – how cool is that?!

Design your website

Designing your website is where you really start to let your personality take control.  There are a variety of cool themes for free through the Word Press dashboard.  However there are also a number of premium WordPress template websites.

Getting ranked on Google

Getting ranked on Google is ultimately the name of the game when it comes to niche websites.  Of course it’s not just Google.  The other major search engines being Yahoo and Bing.  However, if you are developing a website about a specific niche, you are wanting to bring targeted traffic to your website.

To do this, you need to target specific keywords.  As mentioned earlier, there are software packages which do this for you, at a cost.

There is one free tool however, that is excellent for researching keywords – Google Keyword Tool.  This tool gives you numbers of searches against particular keywords as well as the AdWords competition for advertising for the keywords.

To get the most out of this, and determine the number of competing websites, I use a method outlined by the SEO Revenge ebook by Dan Lew.  This ebook shows you a step by step method which can be used to narrow down the keywords you have found from the Keyword Tool to a list of low competition words, ideal for targeting.

Make money from your website

The goal of many niche websites is to make some money.  This is done by either selling your own products, or recommending products created by other people.  There are many different approaches to monetising as well.  For instance, you can take a slow and steady approach of building a list of email addresses, then target your signups with recommended products.  Or, you can take the approach, that I’m using, where you have the affiliate links on your website directly.  A hybrid approach of these methods is most likely the optimal method, however.

To monetise my niche website, I will be using these methods,

• Google AdSense – used to generate inline adverts related to my content.  Clicks on adverts can earn anything from a few cents to several dollars.
• Amazon Affiliates – perfect for recommending physical products which are sold through the highly reputable Amazon company.  Earnings can vary.  Depending upon the number of products you have sold, your commission percentage will change.
• ClickBank – is used to sell digital products – eBooks!  It’s perfect for recommending books on solutions to peoples’ problems.  The commissions vary, however, because they are digital products, you can stand to earn quite a bit from this method of monetising your website.

Summary

These are some of the tools that I’m using to create my niche website.  As mentioned earlier, I want to develop the website at minimal cost without, or as little fancy software.  I have nothing against the paid software packages – but I’m a firm believer in understanding what they are doing.  I see there being no better way to understand than do the hard labour myself.  In future, hopefully I can benefit from workload reducing software tools!

These are the tools I’m using.  What tools are you using to develop your website?  Are you a fan of free methods, or do you use paid software?  I’d be interested to hear your opinions.

Part 3 – Niche Website Development – Competition and Backlinks

Image Credit – origomi