Well – I did it. I chose my niche and I’ve revealed it publicly within the video embedded below. There’s no turning back now. I’ve gone out on a limb. I’ve dipped my toes in the water. I’m in uncharted territory and the adventure is just beginning! I’m actually pretty excited about the niche that I’ve chosen. Excited for more reasons than one. I’m really excited about the possibilities that I could bring to life within a site built around this topic. It’s based on something I previously knew absolutely nothing about – but I can see myself becoming very passionate about. I’m actually looking forward to putting a lot of time into this niche site because I am eager to learn more about it and help others learn more about the topic too.
There are some things about this niche though that might seem a little off-the-wall, especially to experienced niche site builders who have been in the game for the past couple of years. As I dove into the keyword research and some of the other criteria I use to select a niche – I went a little bit against the grain as far as doing things the way many people have done them recently in the world of building niche sites.
I’m trying to keep most of the videos for this case study as short as possible without leaving out any important information. This one is a little bit longer though – and for good reason, I think. Within the following video – I did my best to answer some previous questions and further explain my keyword research process. I walk through several examples, ones that I was really looking at in my keyword selection process. And towards the end of the video I finally reveal my niche!
Note: I do all of my keyword research with Long Tail Pro (Platinum version) – and this is the only tool I suggest using for keyword research. There are other tools and even free ways to do keyword research – but I will not be discussing them. Long Tail Pro is the industry standard for keyword research and is by far much better and faster than any other tool.
Niche Site at Night Video
Choosing a Niche (with more detailed explanations on Keyword Research)
Or you can watch the video directly on YouTube here – http://youtu.be/koQTUTYiMoQ
Tools Used in the Video:
- Azon Product Inspector – Included in AmaSuite – 4 ridiculously valuable software products for one low price
- Long Tail Pro (Platinum) – the best keyword research tool on the market
Final Thoughts
When I started this Niche Site at Night public case study – I fully intended to find a strictly product based niche. One where I could build out a simple site with some informational articles and a whole bunch of specific product reviews. As it turns out – my plans for this site are becoming much bigger. I will certainly have the informational articles and product reviews – but I’ve got something much better in mind now. Instead of thinking only about publishing articles based on keywords and products – I’m actually thinking about the structure of the site and what the user experience will be like. These are things I never paid any attention to at the beginning stages of any of my previous niche sites.
The niche I chose is based around a hobby – a hobby that can possibly and viably be turned into a full-scale business. Sure – my site will still be an Amazon affiliate site and that is where much of the monetization will be focused. But I foresee even more potential – which I will save for a later post. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself.
So – within the video I revealed my niche and gave you a glimpse of some of the keywords I will be going after. I realize that I still need to show you exactly what to do with that list of keywords. I’ll get to that soon enough. But while my vision for the site is clear in my head – I want to get the domain purchased. My next post will show you exactly how to do that (and it’s slightly more complicated than just choosing something catchy and buying it on GoDaddy).
Until then – I look forward to reading your feedback and comments about the niche that I have chosen.
Matthew Allen
Great choice. Love what youve chosen. a solid niche to build an authority site with tons of articles and as you said gain white hat backlinks from other in this niche.
I also love coffee and yes no idea you could get the roaster! May go ahead an buy one (from amazon.co.uk :-()
The very best of luck with this site it should be a great winner with loads of effort though.
Interesting choice! It wouldn’t be mine, but I look forward to seeing how it goes 🙂
Good update Matt, looks like a great choice. It’s nice to see a different thought process towards niche research. I definitely saw a few wrinkles I can add to my KW research.
Good luck with the domain search, do you think you’ll try a branded domain or EMD/PMD?
This looks great Matt. I think coffee is a great choice for a niche site. There are quite a few coffee connoisseur who would eat this up. Best of luck to you in your project!
I’m loving the videos Matt. Not only do I get a lot from them in turns of small things we do the same / different, but it also helps me to hear you think out loud as you go about it so that I know what your overall thought process and strategy is.
Thanks Steve. I know you’ve been around the block when it comes to building niche sites – so your validation means a lot. I’ve looked at the competition in the niche extensively – and I’m pretty sure I can build the very best resource in this particular niche – while at the same time monetizing it mostly through Amazon.
Exactly Sharon – I know that probably most people would steer clear of this niche partly based on the keyword research. Exactly one of the criteria I wanted to use for this public case study. I want to prove that my way really works.
Going to be more of a branded domain Tom. I’ve already chosen it, just need to shoot the video to explain my whole process before I reveal it. Cool to hear that I added some wrinkles to your process as well!
Thanks Misty. Part of my thinking is that there are tons and tons of coffee lovers who I can attract to this site who had no idea (like myself) that this hobby even existed and that they might be interested in it. Pretty sneaky! 😉
Thanks MMD. It’s a little intimidating to be putting myself out there in this fashion. I appreciate the fact that you validate my decision to do so. I don’t even like listening to myself think out loud – so I’m glad that you do. At least somebody does. Lol. My videos can only get better as this thing progresses.
Matt – Really interesting videos and what a unique niche – something I never would have thought of, but then again there are a lot of niches out there and most of them I wouldn’t have thought of. A question about the sandbox. How much time/money will you be investing in this area before you get out of the sandbox? Many people just starting out don’t have the capital that you or I have to start new sites, and maybe done want to spend a lot of cash or time building a site that is unproven. How are you going to handle this – are you just going to build out about 20-30 articles and let it go until you see rankings, or are you going to continue to build out the site before you start to see a lot of revenue?
Curious to see what you plan is here.
Hey matt, good niche selection! Its evergreen and there are tons of keyword.
Im actually using the same strategy, going against the grain and targeting keywords between 100-800 searches.
But I try to find niches that have alot of those type of keywords so the search volume adds up but are still easy to rank.
To be honest Jeff – I don’t have a clear plan laid out in regards to waiting for the site to “get out of the sandbox.” I just plan to build out the site to the best of my ability and make continuous improvements to it until it is the best resource on the internet for the niche. That alone will take several months. I might do some outreach to attract visitors from existing audiences elsewhere – and at the same time start doing some link building to try to start ranking for some of the keywords in Google. The time frame for all of the above could go any which way. I hope this somewhat answers your question…
Awesome Cornell. I’ve actually had this strategy in mind for quite awhile, and even put it to practice on a few of my sites. It works wonderfully 🙂
It does, thanks. Also, i’ve seemed to notice that lower traffic posts <250 LMS dont seem to have a sandbox. just food for thought.
Super-fantastic Matt! Thanks so much for sharing your process, ideas and planning.
Nice Matt!
I have a question. Can we mix ad-sense and amazon affiliate in one site? Or should it always be separated? I dont see you mixing adsense and affiliates in one website ever.
I mix them all the time. For my site that makes most of it’s income from Adsense – I might only place a few Amazon links within posts where they are relevant – but I don’t focus on them. For a site where promoting Amazon products in the main goal – I usually only put one Adsense banner in the sidebar or maybe at the bottom of posts.
My Adsense sites don’t make very much Amazon income – and my Amazon sites don’t get very many Adsense clicks. But every little bit helps.