I realized that before I publish my epic posts and really push on with the outreach for these sites, I need to actually have a clearer sitemap and monetization strategy.
Currently the sites are set up like authority sites, there's a blogroll and categories, and not much else. Obviously I said way back in week 1 that I'm going to hold off on monetization until later on.
I also said though that I had no plans to turn these into authority sites. I didn't have the time, and I wanted to show you what a small niche site could achieve.
With that in mind, it makes sense that I should properly set the sites up as niche sites, with 1 or 2 pages designed for conversions.
Doing it now, before the outreach starts means that I'll be able to make full use of any traffic that comes my way, and may even get some earnings as a result. It would be such a shame to have a sudden boost in traffic, and nothing for it to do.
Monetization Overview
For a niche site, it's best to have a couple of big “main” keywords that pull in high traffic sources, and convert that traffic too.
As I explained with my keyword packages, the best keywords for this purpose are ones that contain “review” or “best”.
This is for a few reasons:
- They usually have over 1,000 searches a month.
- Niches sites usually rank well for them.
- They are “buyer's” keywords.
Choosing the keywords.
Now for YourOwnGymZone there are dozens of keywords I can go after, and I'll be outsourcing content work to one of my writers to do a lot of this. This will be things like product reviews and “best” lists.
However, I really want to hone in on one or two main keywords and give them a kind of silo structure.
I'm thinking something like “Best exercise equipment” as the main keyword, with a big epic post on the subject. At the bottom of the post, will be related posts such as equipment reviews.
To actually hone in on the correct keyword I'm going to use LongTailPro to find ideas, and then further analyze each keyword until I come up with the best one.
My criteria will be:
- There must be over 1,000 monthly searches.
- There must be 3 beatable niche sites in the top 10.
- There can't be too many eCommerce sites in the top 10. A few is OK.
- It needs to be for a relatively highly priced product.
This is also the way that I produce the keyword packs I just released as well.
Choosing Main Money Keyword(s) For YourOwnGymZone
Learn more about Long Tail Pro by reading my review, or by downloading the 10-day trial.
As you can see, I slightly broke my own rules in the end and choose one that doesn't have 3 beatable niche sites.
However, I still feel it's very much rankable, and I will go for “Best Power Racks” as a secondary keyword too. In the end, you can never guarantee results, and keyword analysis isn't perfect, so I wanted to give myself a couple of options.
For Dateandsimple, I always said I wanted to sell a digital clickbank product on this site. Fortunately, Clickbank has started featuring their top sellers, and one of them has a dating guide for women. Perfect!
One of my main monetization strategies for this site then will be a review of this product. At the same time, I'd still like to select another big keyword that I can try to rank for to point traffic to that review.
This will let me double up on traffic and opportunities to rank.
What I will likely do is use one of the keywords to form the title of my epic post.
DateAndSimple Epic Post Keyword Selection
I'll spend this week creating the two “money” posts, and then next week I'll start creating the epic posts. I've already got the ideas lined up.
The basic outline will be:
1.) Epic posts get links to the site because of their quality and linkability (and my outreach efforts)
2.) More links to the site helps the “money posts” rank faster.
3.) Internal links from the existing posts, more outreach efforts, and a few fresh posts all help to boost the money pages and send traffic to them.
4.) Add more money pages later.
This is kind of a hybrid of the niche review sites you'll find out there, and the authority sites that use white-hat outreach methods.
I hope these videos and this post have clarified things for you, and as usual, feel free to ask any questions below.
Dom
P.S I released 5 keyword packs yesterday using the same analysis methods as above. If you want your own fully researched niche, head here and check them out.