How to Choose a Niche: My 4-Step Approach

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Show Notes:

Detailed video showing you the 4-steps I go through when choosing a niche, picking a domain name and launching a niche content site.

Show Notes:

Concept: Go Broad, Dig Deep
Plan for expansion
Name your site and get domain that gives you WIGGLE room (and lots of it)
- Automobiles is broad (GOOD).  Domain autobuddy.com (GOOD)
- Minivans is narrow (BAD).  Domain: minivancentral.com (BAD)
Why?
Give yourself options. With Autobuddy.com you can focus on minivans with options to expand. With minivancentral.com you’re stuck with minivans.

Step 1: Choose a Vertical
With this approach, there really aren’t that many niches.  Here’s a list:
Tech
Vehicles/Transportation
Sports
Home
Beauty
Travel
News
Business / Money
Health / Fitness
Relationships
Self Improvement
Entertainment
Food
Fashion
Science
History
Religion
Pets
Hobbies
Politics
Law
Parenting
Philosophy
Writing

Exceptions (there are always exceptions)
Hobbies are the exception

Revenue potential & strategy consideration
Do you prefer affiliate marketing, display ads or both? 
This will narrow down your options.

Revenue per 1,000 visitors consideration
Revenue is dictated by revenue per ad impression/click and traffic.
Some niches pay very little for ad impressions but potential traffic is ridiculously high.
Some niches are the opposite.
Many fall somewhere in between.

Your ability to “knock it out of the park”
Can you cover the vertical well? Better than other sites?
Can you establish credibility and authority?
If you plan on hiring writers, can you hire writers with the ability to knock it out of the park.
For example, I enter topics because I find writers who can knock it out of the park.

Step 2: Plant a few trees, but dig deep
Once you settle on a vertical and have a domain name, it’s time to publish content.
My approach is to “plant a few trees, but dig deep”.
What this means is I choose a few topics within the vertical and publish a cluster/series on those topics.

Why cover multiple topics out of the gates?
I like hitting multiple topics because I never know what Google will favor.  It’s an attempt to see what “sticks”.
What I’ve noticed over the years is that in time, Google will favor one or two topics on your site above others. 
This is the data you want. 
Once you see a topic outperforming, cover that topic extensively including going after more competitive topics/terms.

Step 3: Plant more trees (topics)
While carpet bombing the winning topics within the vertical, continue publishing small clusters targeting more topics.
Over time, some topics you cover will outperform. Again, those are what you focus on.
Rinse and repeat.

Step 4: Build authority for exponential growth
Traffic drives traffic.
Good things happen when you get traffic, even a little bit.  When you get traffic, you will attract links.
Links build authority which ranks more topics and keywords.
It’s a self-fueling cycle.
But always focus your efforts on topics that work!  Let Google tell you what to publish.

Example:  Tech Site
Bad domain: Sheetshq.com (as in Google Sheets)
Good domain: Techtitan.com (broad - can reasonably cover anything tech-related).
Initial cluster topics to try (I’m thinking of moving from Apple ecosystem to Google):
- Google sheets tutorials
- Google Pixel phone How-to’s

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