A common question people have when they first start to go into Online Marketing and especially into Affiliate Marketing is usually about the jargon, especially with what a Niche Site is and what an actual Vertical Niche is.
The thing is that many Newbies consider a Niche Site a Coupon Site or a Fitness Site. The issue with this is that even though it is technically a Niche (or smaller topic focused piece of an Industry like Affiliate Marketing or Health and Fitness) it is still not broken out enough for today’s saturated market and for a Newbie (unless they get seriously lucky).
A Niche site now a days isn’t just going after a coupon site and being in the Couponers Niche in Affiliate Marketing but it is about starting a coupon site for pet products or even more specific pet products for dogs or dog shampoos or something broken out into an even more solid target. You can then build out multiple long tail targeted sites, and as you gain the authority in your verticals you can start to build up authority for more general and vanity terms or even large brand names.
Once you have the Authority and start owning a couple less broken out Niche verticals, and you hae done this across multiple niches like dog shampoos and checks or household cleaners or pink tank tops and tshirts, you can now start to allow your authority to build up another set of sites that are more general and are more competitive with the established sites.
Where you couldn’t compete with general heavier pet products sites or general pet search terms like dog food sale instead of organic Labrador retriever dry food you can use this authority to start to compete with the bigger sites and leak the long tail traffic in to them. This is basically following basic SEO 101 to build your authority, customer base and company brand. Then as you watch this authority grow for the more general terms you can now start to compete with the bigger players out there and claim your market share and customer or fan base.
Picking a niche isn’t as clean cut as it was before since most verticals are now broken out tenfold, but is still an easy thing to do. Just remember to go granular for something that has a search volume, isn’t way to generic and to find brandable and memorable urls so people can remember to come back to your site instead of going back to the Search Engines for more recommendations when they need to find a similar topic.
In order to help you see different verticals and break them down into a granular Niche, here are a couple more examples of an Industry or Type of Site broken down into more granular niches that you may want to build sites around. I am also going to link to a couple stores in here for some link love (Darn you Nate that term is forever implanted in my head thanks to you!). =0).
Businesses > Business Gifts > Business Card Holders > Ladies Business Card Holders > Ladies Crystal Business Card Holders.
Animals > Animal Products > Animal Training Products > Dog Training Products > In Home Dog Training Products > Large Dog Training DVDs and Home Schooling.
Statues > Famous American Statues > President Statues > Presidential Statues and Monuments in The South > Thomas Jefferson Statues in Maryland and Virginia.
Clothing > Plus Sized Clothing > Women’s Plus Sized Clothing > Women’s Plus Sized Dresses > Plus Sized Women’s Evening Gowns > Women’s Plus Sized Sequined Evening Gowns.
As you can see you can go granular and break it out to specific targeted sites to get that extremely targeted traffic, but make sure there is a search volume and demand or you may be wasting your time in the short run. Then build up your sites to give you more and more authority then work your way up to compete with the established sites in the vertical you want to take over.
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1 thought on “What is a Niche Site?”
Great topic idea for an affiliate site. Affiliates more than most people must figure out what is too general or competitive versus what is large enough to have sufficient traffic and sales opportunity. Too tight or too general both fail.
In your example above, a site dedicated to women’s business card holders would be a good-sized niche: small enough to not have to compete with already established business card holder sites yet large enough to have plenty of interest.
In contrast, crystal business card holders would be a really tight niche which isn’t to say it might not work. You could potentially own that space faster and then expand.
There are far more niches than most people realize. For example, someone could create a site that focuses on pink accessories for women including pink business card holders, or women’s business accessories or blue business accessories.
I mention that to get affiliates thinking about how to set their site apart from others. Every site needs a USP – what is unique about it that makes it special.