I have built and am still continuing to build my wealth online through niche sites. I have what most Internet marketers call a Virtual Real Estate (VRE). The Internet marketing strategy behind is based on duplication of success. That is, you create a website and market it in a way that bring you profits and then take that same method and build another site and another site etc.Before we get carried away, let me share with you the basics of niche sites. The “niche” in the “sites” is the keyword for online success that is based on building multiple income generating websites.

In my own explanation, a niche site is a website that is built to appeal to a certain audience and not for the mass Internet users. This site has strictly narrowed information that may be useless to most except for the select few. For example, while a website about “cars’ is a general site one about ‘Jaguar cars” is a niche site.

Have you ever started out looking for something online through the search engines, you type your keyword and then the search engines presents a list of results. You see a site that pretty much has what you are looking for, you click on it but as soon as you land on their page your realize it is not quite what you are looking for – what do you do? Exactly what 3 billion others do, live the page immediately. Let’s say for arguments sake you stay for a while, do you ever care about the adverts that show up on those sites? I double it.

Now what do you do when you land on a page that has exactly what you are looking for? Exactly what 3 billion others do, you stay on the site longer and may even buy what is being offered for sale. The Google Adsense ads become so relevant you find yourself clicking them (and making the site owner some money – just by clicking).

So, when you are building a site that you will monetize, it is always based to make it a niche site. There are several reasons for this but most of all, you will be able to attract the audience that will be willing to buy the products you promote on your site and thus make you money. I mean what is the use of getting 1 000 000 people to your site and having none of them buy the products you promote compare to 100 targeted people visiting your site and having all of them buying one or more of your products.

Take it from me, building a general site and promoting general products or adverts does not bring in the amount of money you may be looking for. This is coming from someone who has tried it and struggled until the concept of niche sites was drummed into my heard by experience itself

Niche sites succeed by building up a loyal readership of relevant readers who return to that site of their own free will and who go on to recommend the site to their colleagues. This combination of high repeat visit levels and word-of-mouth referral traffic means that a niche site can grow and prosper on a fairly modest advertising spend.

So how niche is niche?

There is no specific answer to this question, for example, someone may argue that a site about “cars’ is a niche for “transportation”. If you want to build a profitable niche site, “profitable” being the keyword, choose a niche based on the number of searches made for that “niche keyword” on search engines vs. the number of pages already available online. I elaborate on this in my post about “keyword research”

Generally I go for a niche that has about 10 000 searches per month with less than a million pages available online. Some people have lower and some have higher limits. If you are just starting out, keep the figures as low as possible. This way you can easily rank higher on search engines while attracting scores of traffic to your site. Never build a niche site that has more than 2 million pages already available online. As a beginner, how would you expect to overtake all the 2 million pages and stay right at the top of Google when you are still trying to learn more about this industry?

The other benefit of niche sites

If you have a niche site, you can easily convert or make sales on your site. If you are running Google Adsense, you are most likely to get people who will click on your ads because Google tends to work best for sites that are “niched’ up.

I know this article might have left you with more questions than answers, its alright, I have written more articles explaining this concept, you can do a search or email me so I can try and answer any questions you might have. Alternatively simply post your comment or question below.