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How I Plan Out a Niche Site – Start to Finish

I am not the type of niche site maker who builds out a bunch of different niche sites in bulk and tries to make a couple dollars from each site. I prefer to focus on one niche site at a time and build it up until it can earn by itself, then I move onto another niche site.

I have a problem with using the word “niche site” because when people hear that term they often think of a small two page site with adsense slapped on it and that is not what I am making. I am making a “niche authority site” which means within the niche I make the site, my goal is to become the authority within that specific niche. So when you see me use niche site within my articles you know what I mean by it. These niches can be fairly small but you will notice that if you become the top dog within that niche you will make money, simple as that.

I am currently in the process of selling one of my niche sites through Empire Flippers so I figured it would be a good time to create another niche site to hopefully take its place. Currently, I have a total of 5 niche sites with one close to being sold. They are all at various stages and some earn a lot while others are still trying to make its first dollar.

Information About the Site

This next niche site is going is going to utilize Amazon as an affiliate just like a couple of my other sites. It is in a niche similar to a couple of my other sites so I know what to expect in terms of how hard it is to rank and how much traffic I will be able to get.

It is in a broad niche that I will break down into sub niches and I will try and rank those sub niche keywords on pages within the site. I will have around 5 – 8 different sub niches that I will be trying to rank for on this site. This might sound a little confusing so I am planning on dedicating a whole post to explaining how to do this and why it is so effective.

To make it as simple as possible, I will be trying to rank 5 – 8 different pages on the site as my main content.

Why Plan?

You may be asking yourself, why should I plan out a niche site?

One major reason is because it will make you write down each step of the process so that you know what you need to get done. There is no second guessing your decisions because you have already made all of the decisions in the planning process. Don’t think that you can’t pivot and change your plans if necessary, but it will give you a good idea as to what you need to do at all times to achieve your goals with the site.

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Another reason is because it will give you a timeline for the site. With a timeline for your site you won’t make irrational decisions because everything will already be planned out. It will also make it easier to be patient with the site and to not get worried if the site isn’t ranking as fast as you would like.

The last reason I like to plan out my niche sites because I can figure out exactly what I want with the niche site. Is the end goal to get it to $500 a month and let it earn passively? Or is to to get it to $500 a month and sell it? You can figure these things out early so you can have laser focus and what you need to do to get the site to that point.

My Plan for my Authority Niche Site

My plan for this new site are going to be setup in a manner that I will be able to see what I need to get done, how long I have to get it done and the how much it will cost me. That way I will know all of the important aspects of each task, let’s get planning!

Find Domain – 1 Week

The first week is dedicated to finding a good expired domain that I can use to build my niche site on. I will give it a week so that I can find an expired domain that is relevant to my niche along with niche relevant backlinks that will give me a headstart when it comes to ranking the site. It’s also important to find a domain name that is brandable and preferably searched for in Google.

Total Cost – $10

Get Content Written – 4 Weeks

The next month is going to be for planning out my content and getting it all written and put onto the site. For this site I am going to need around 5-8 pieces of content that will be on average 2000 words. These pieces of content are going to be the pages that I will be trying to rank for. I want to have all of the content written and posted on the site before I move into the link building phase. I will be using a niche expert from Elance that I have used in the past. He is a great writer and knows his stuff.

Total Cost – $250-$400

Social Signals/Easy Competitor Backlinks/High PR Niche Relevant Comments – 3 Weeks

For 3 weeks I will begin the process of building up the sites backlink profile. I will do this by doing some light backlinking that will make it more credible in Google’s eyes along with diversifying the link profile of the site.

I will get social signals from a service called Social.ninja which allows you to choose how many Facebook likes, Facebook shares, Google +1’s, and Twitter shares you want to your site. I have used these guys many times and they work great. All high quality signals and they are all real. I will start out with getting 200 Facebook likes, 100 Facebook shares, 200 Google +1’s and 75 Twitter shares. This will give me a solid foundation of social signals all for around $30. I will have these drip fed over 20 days as well.

The next part I will be to find easy competitor backlinks and get the same ones for my site. I do this by finding sites within my niche and putting the site into Majestic Seo. From there I will find backlinks pointing to their site where I can easily get them as well. Look for directories or links page, these are low hanging fruit that are easy to get and get your backlink profile similar to other sites ranking in your niche.

The last part I will be getting 50 high PR niche relevant comments pointed to all of my inner pages. This will start to theme the site as my niche and provide pillow links to my inner pages. Pillow links are important to have when it comes to adding PBN links so that you won’t over optimize the anchor text. I will be getting these comments from a service called Adss30 for a price of $90. All of these comments are manually written and on sites with low outbound links. Highly recommended for pillow and theming links.

I will do all of these above tasks within the first week and then give it a couple weeks to settle down and see if there was any movement. I am not expecting to rank for any big terms after this point, I am just laying a solid foundation for the site and building out a diverse backlink profile for the site.

Total Cost – $120

Hoth Package/Monthly Drip Fed Social Signals – 4 Weeks

I will dedicate the next month to the Hoth package and setting up social signals to be drip fed each month.

The Hoth is something that I have hear a lot about from various people in making niche site market but I have never tried it. I have seen nothing but awesome reviews and results from the service. I even asked for a personal review of the service from Matt over at Dumb Passive Income and he highly recommended it to me. This was a few months ago but I am positive the quality of the service has not changed.

I will be ordering the $250 platinum package that they offer which will provide around 50 links to the site. They allow for 3 urls with up to 5 different keywords for each url. I will be targeting the homepage along with the top two pages on my site that I want to rank for. The Hoth provides excellent link diversity and that is the main reason why I am going to be using it. The price tag may be a little steep but in my eyes it is worth the price to do things right the first time around.

I will be getting the drip fed social signals from Social Llama which I have previously used and was impressed with. They offer a package that for $47/month they will drip feed 400 social signals to three different urls. I will be using this service on a couple of my other sites so on average this will get me around 130 social signals a month. This makes the site look active and popular in Google’s eyes and will continue to help the backlink profile of the site.

Total Cost – $250 + $47/month

PBN Links – Until Ranking First Page(2-3 Months)

By this time it has been about three months since the content was first put onto the site and I have done a good job of laying a solid foundation down for the site. The backlink profile of the site should be very diverse by now and it is ready to have some PBN links thrown at it.

I am not expecting to be ranking for any of my main keywords yet but they should be around 80 or higher. They could possibly be ranking higher since the content will be good and maybe the weak but niche relevant links pointed at the site so far will be enough to push it onto the first page. It will be interesting to see what kind of results I will have after three months and no PBN links.

If you recall from the Niche Site Journey, when I was first starting that site I built PBN links before I even had the content written for the site. That way worked but it also took way longer, but it is important to note that I am STILL not ranking on the first page for any of my main keywords. This could be because of the niche or because of the way I built the links.

This time around I will be doing it in a much more natural way which includes adding the content first, then directories/comments/social signals, the Hoth and THEN finally PBN links. This is a more natural progression that I real site would take and will hopefully let it rank easier once I start to add PBN links.

Now that the site has been live for over 3 months with content on along with ligh backlining combined with social signals it is ready for the PBN links. This is where I expect to start to see huge rankings increase across the board and hopefully reach the first page for all of my main keywords.

I will add around 5-10 PBN links a month until it the keywords reach the first page, then I will slow it down to 3-5 PBN links a month to maintain the rankings.

I am predicting that it will take 2-3 solid months of PBN links before I reach the first page and around 20-30 PBN sites.

Since this new site is in a similar niche to a couple of my other money sites I can re-use my PBN’s that I used on my other sites for this site. This will save me money and I know that these PBN sites are strong enough to rank similar terms on the first page.

Total Cost – $50 on a small amount of new PBN sites

5-6 Months After Creation of Site

After around 5-6 months I expect the site to be ranking on the first page for multiple terms and it should start to bring in a decent amount of money each month. I don’t really like to predict exact monthly earnings for a site that isn’t even built yet but by the 6 month mark it should be making $400+ a month. I will keep adding monthly drip fed social signals along with new PBN links to maintain rankings as well as try to rank for lower searched for terms that I haven’t targeted yet.

9 Months After Creation of Site

After 9 months I should be dominating the niche across the board for most of the major keywords and hopefully making around $600-$800 a month. I will maintain 3-5 new PBN links a month as well as the drip fed social signals.

12 Months After Creation of Site

After 1 year, the site should have a proven track record of making around $600-$800 a month and my end goal is to be able to sell the site for around $12,000 – $15,000.

Total Cost

I have not spent this much money on making a niche site before but I also haven’t tried to make it look this natural ever. By building the site this way I will be able to mimic what I real and popular site would do and make it look 100% natural in Google’s eyes. It might cost a little bit more upfront before the site starts to make much money but to me it is well worth it in the end. All of the expenditures of the site are listed below.

Expired Domain – $10

Content – $250 – $400

Social Signals(Upfront) – $30

High PR Niche Relevant Comments – $90

The Hoth Package – $250

Monthly Drip Fed Social Signals – $47/month or $470 total(Using for 10 months until I sell the site)

New PBN Sites – $100(Just to be safe)

TOTAL COST: $730 – $880 + $47/month

The end cost is going to anywhere from $730 to $880 plus the $47/month for drip fed social signals. If we assume the $47/month for 10 months then it will come out to a total of $470. With that added into the total cost it will now look like it will cost anywhere from $1,200 – $1,350. This looks like a lot of money upfront for a niche site but all of the spending will be spread out over multiple months so it won’t be as bad.

Earnings

All of the earnings are speculative and they are based off of the niche and my previous experience within a similar niche. The site could earn way more money as well as way less money but I am going to use my best guess. This is just a rough estimate to see what the possible gains for making this site could be.

Month 0 – 4 Earnings – Maybe around $100

Months 5 -6 Earnings –  $800(2 months x $400 each month)

Months 7 – 9 Earnings – $1,800(3 months x $600 each month)

Months 10 – 12 Earnings – $2,100(3 months x $700 each month)

Sell the Site – $14,000(20 x $700 which is the 3 month average)

TOTAL EARNINGS – $18,800

These earnings are calculated by adding up each months earnings along with the final sale price of the site. Like I mentioned, these numbers are estimates and they could be higher or lower.

The Sites Ending Profit

Profit = Revenue – Cost

Profit = $18,800 – $1,350(highest possible cost) = $17,450

If everything works at like planned(probably won’t but I will pivot and make adjustments as needed) I will make a total profit of $17,450 from this site after I sell it. Keep in mind that it is going to take over a year before I will realize this profit but it is good to know what you are working towards and what kind of profit you can expect from your hard work.

Conclusion

Planning out your niche site from start to finish is a good exercise to do so that you know exactly what work is needed to reach your end goal. For this specific site my end goal is going to be selling the site but it may differ with you. Nonetheless planning each step of the process lays down a path for you to follow that will lead you exactly to where you want to go, When you make a plan like this, do your best to stick to it but make the necessary adjustments when needed to make sure the site sees as much success as possible.

Feel free to use the above steps that I am going to use on my niche site for your own niche sites. I am confident that the above steps will help me rank my site and bring in money. I am excited to get started on my site and after I get done writing this article I will be registering my domain for the site and beginning the year long process of building this niche site up into a passive earner and then selling it for a good chunk of money.

Thank you all for reading and I hope that this was useful for you all to see. I highly recommend that you go through the same process of planning out your next niche site to give it the best chance to succeed.

Comments

8 Comments

Honeydear

hi there, this is the first time i seen someone earns money by writing something niche ! this is very very interesting and love the way you listed it out step by step. i have a question Josh, you are making ur site popular but where does the income generated from ? selling advertisement ? or ? because i am an ecommerce owner so i only know my site generates profit by selling products. kindly email me if you would like to let me know ya it will be deeply appreciated ! sending greeting all the way from Malaysia

Dave

I echo the above comment and would also like to better understand how you are initially earning these monthly streams of income. What is the site doing at month 6 to be making $400 a month?

Josh
Josh

Hi Dave,

I am basing those earnings off of my previous niche sites and how they progressed around that same time frame. I will be making the money from Amazon affiliate. Which means I will send people from my niche site to Amazon where they will hopefully buy something and then I get a small commission on every bought item. Hope this clears things up and sorry for the confusion

-Josh

Tom

Thanks, you guide reads like this :
1. Set up website
2. Optimize website
3. ???????
4. Profit

Josh
Josh

Hi Tom,

This post was not supposed to be a how to guide on how to make a niche site. This was purely just to show how I go about planning a niche site.

Also everything I listed is what I do anyways so i don’t know what you are confused about?

Let me know and hopefully I can help

-Josh

Alamgir Rajab

Thank you for mentioned our service in your case study! Appreciated:)
Let us know if you want any assistance

Alamgir

Baki

Hi JOsh,

Thanks for writing such a lovely article, By the way while choosing the expired domain what thing you like to focus, i like to know what should be the search volume for your primary & other keywords?

Josh
Josh

Hi Baki,

Glad you liked the article 🙂

I like to have my keyword range from 500 – 15,000 depending on the niche and competitiveness of the keyword. The lower the search volume the more keywords you will need to rank for, but it is usually easier to rank for these smaller keywords.

Josh


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