Daily Niche Site Ideas

One of the most important parts of starting a niche site, is getting it some attention from the search engines. This can sometimes be pretty frustrating though because of all the “ranking” rules that Google, Yahoo and Bing have, but by following a few simple guidelines on your homepage layout, you should rank well without too many headaches.

This post is based on a situation I found myself in last month with one of my sites. It took a while but I was finally ranking number 1 in all the search engines for the term, “distortion pedal reviews”. (If you didn’t already guess, I have a site that sells these items)

Upon realizing this, I thought it would be a good idea to modify the home page in order to get some more sales, but in return I made some changes that knocked me out of my number 1 spot, and into the deep depths of Google’s index. Not a good idea in the long run. ..

We are going to be using the site I mentioned above as an example: http:www.rockdistortionpedals.com

Google Ranking

What I did wrong:

• Decided to monetize the homepage more. I think this conflicted with the primary intent of the site, which is to provide reviews for pedals.
• I removed approximately 250 words of content to make space for current auctions on EBay for distortion pedals. (This was my main downfall)
• I added an EBay feed that displayed only around 3 items on sale, but I think it was what kicked me out of the top spot.

Upon realizing what happened, I reverted many of the changes and got the homepage back to the state it was in when it was ranking well. After about a week or so, I was back on top and I had learned my lesson.

Here are a few guidelines that I follow when I am designed my home page which usually helps them rank well.

Home Page Design Tips:

• Your homepage should directly reflect the overall purpose of your site. Try to keep it clean, professional and relevant to your niche.
• There should be around 500 words of keyword rich content that provides general information about the “niche” you are marketing.
• Add visual links, or image links to some of your best product reviews of guides.
• I like to add a YouTube video in hopes that it will make visitors who hit my home page decide to stick around.
• Finally, DO NOT add EBay auctions to your homepage.  (This is primarily relevant for those of us who are members of EBay’s Partner Network)

Here is an example of one of my latest sites that implement these guidelines: http://www.hybridgolfironsets.com

Homepage ranking takes patience, and sometimes some experimentation. Hopefully this article has given you some ideas to try out to improve your ranking. It is important to mention though, that without great content on the rest of your site, ranking well will be pretty unattainable.  If you start with the content, then make a homepage that reflects the authority of your information, you’ll have no troubles ranking well.

A lot of people may find find themselves in the same boat that I was in when I started blogging sites dedicated to niches; I was writing good, useful content, but I was not attracting many visitors.

This happens a lot of the time because sites with similar content may have a higher page rank than your newly established sites, and it may be hard to appear before them in the search engines. Below is the process I normally take when I write a new article for one of my sites. It is really just a starting point, as there are many ways to promote your articles, but this method is quick, easy and it works for me.

Following these 6 steps will help get your blog some well deserved attention.

Step 1: Write some Great Content

You want to write informative articles on your site that are related to your niche. This type of content is really what your visitors want, and it is what will keep them coming back.

You can view a detailed post about writing niche site content that I posted a while back here.

Step 2: Submit your Article to Reddit.com

Once you sign up for a Reddit account, you’ll be able to post links to them on the site and have thousands of people hopefully check them out. Readers are able to vote your link “up” if it is really good, which will result in more visits.

Reddit also has a high page rank, which means that you’ll get a good backlink from the site.

Step 3: Submit your Article to Digg.com

Digg is a lot like Reddit and you’ll experience the same benefits from posting on this site as well.

My “Digg Links” will almost always show up on the front page of Google when searching for a term directly related to my content. These links will re-direct visitors to the whole article on my site.

Step 4: Submit your blog to Zimbio.com

Zimbio is basically a high ranking article source that will post all of the updates on your blog to its site. In my experience, search engines like Zimbio, and a good amount of content I have written appears high in searches because of Zimbio.

Another great thing about Zimbio is that it will update itself automatically when you post new content on your blog.

Step 5: Submit your blog to BlogoWogo.com

This site shares a lot of similarities with Zimbio. It is also an online “blog directory” that will host small samples of your article which link back to your site.

The update process for this site is also automatic, so once you post a new article on your site BlogoWogo will detect it and display an associated post.

Step 6: Submit your blog to BlogCatalog.com

This is a great way to get your blog content some attention. It will add your blog to a community of others so it can also result in some great link exchange opportunities.

BlogCatalog also displays links to all of your content that you add to your site which helps out in the search engines as well.

This step is the most important of the whole niche marketing process. Without a good niche, you’ll effectively be wasting your time building a site around something that you have an impossible chance of being successful at. This is why I devote a lot of time to researching niche trends and competition.

I usually brainstorm niche ideas just by browsing sites like EBay and Amazon, and also by reading through consumer report websites. These are great places to start looking if you’re in a “niche-slump”.

EBay offers a great service called EBay Pulse, which offers information on the most watched items, and the most popular items for each item category in EBay. This is a great way to narrow down your niche ideas. At this point, I’ll usually try to come up with 10 broad niche ideas that I will narrow down in my next step.

An additional word of advice would be to start looking for a niche that is related to something you are either interested in, or could be interested in. This makes the whole process of adding valuable content to your site much easier.

Google’s Keyword Research Tool

Google offers a great keyword research tool that allows you to drill down into specific niche’s and identify competition and search volumes. The best part about this is that it is completely free.

Let’s see how this tool can help you pick a niche:

• I started by searching for the broad term “Wall Art”
• Google then returned a large list of related keywords that people are searching for along with their competition ratings, local monthly search volume and global monthly search volume.

• I worked my way through the list looking for good candidates for a niche site and came across the term wall art sculptures.
• This term had a below average amount of competition and a decent amount of monthly searches.
• I then checked out EBay and found that there are a large amount of products available for this niche, so I decided to take the next step and create a site called: Wall Art Sculptures

Just by doing a little bit of niche research before you dive into building a new site makes it possible to rank well with new sites. My site Wall Art Sculptures is a little over 2 months old and is already on page 1 of Google for its main keyword search term.

Having high quality, original content is the backbone to any well performing niche site. There are many benefits of having great information like this on your site, and all of them can result in more clicks and conversions.

What is considered “great content”?

I consider content to be of value if it is directly related to the niche, and if it offers some tips, reviews or information that I can find useful.

I also like what I read to be organized in an easy to read format. If I have to read a solid page of text, I am going to instantly navigate away from the site. I remember this when I am creating my own site’s content, and try to keep everything very reader friendly.

If you provide your visitors with a positive “content experience” then they will be more likely to explore your site further, and hopefully they’ll start browsing through your store pages.

Why do I need content on my niche site?

Without content, you’ll have no way of attracting attention from the big search engines, and if they decide to turn their back on you, you’ll have a hard time getting any visitors at all.

Search engines, like Google, frequently scan your sites for keywords and new content (If you are in their site index). This means that when you are writing your content, make sure to use the keywords that your visitors will be searching for within it.

Without content, there will be no way of knowing what your site offers and therefore it will be viewed as a site with very little importance/relevance to your niche.

How do I write great content?

I typically try to write 500-1000 word articles pertaining to my niche, and I try to write about something that my visitors would hopefully find useful.

I’ve found that using a blog platform like, Wordpress, in conjunction with a niche site is hands down the best way to add content to your site. It makes it easy to update your site, while also implementing a lot of great Search Engine Optimization tips within your articles.

Wordpress will also automatically notify all the big search engines that you’ve just added some content that you think they should check out.

Here is an example of a BANS / Wordpress niche site that I manage: Rock Distortion Pedals.com

Another great tip is to use anchor text. Anchor text is basically a keyword link within the context of your writing that will link to another site, or page. Here is an example:

When deciding to build a niche site, it is important to add content.

In this example, “build a niche site” is the anchor text. Search engines like keyword related anchor text, so use them in your writing, but remember not to overload your articles with them.

How do I get niche content ideas?

• Check the news for niche related stories and put them into your own words
• Use a keyword tool like Micro Niche Finder to see what people are searching for in relation to your niche
• Write product reviews
• Use the Google keyword tool to see niche keyword search terms

Can I just copy other site’s content onto my niche site?

NO!

Duplicate content is something you want to stay as far away from as possible. Search engines will penalize you, and your site may get in some hot water with the original author.

There is no harm though in re-wording and summarizing other articles into your own words. Just make sure they are not exact copies.

I’ll usually read an article a few times, then close it, and try to write a similar article on my own. Not having it open prevents me from using similar phrases and words.

Hopefully you’ve found this post helpful, remember: Content is King!