Table of Contents
Why are you here?
With all that’s going on in the world right now more people are realising it makes sense to have a back up plan. What sort? How about an online business. You have obviously been thinking about it otherwise you wouldn’t be here.
You obviously want to know how to start a profitable website. Not much point wanting an unprofitable one after all.
So with more time you have been looking around online and if you are in the UK now know that lockdown will continue for at least another 3 weeks. Clearly a brilliant time to learn the basics and get a website up and running. The best time to create an online business.
Sooo….. what is the first thing you need to do to start a profitable website? Most people just leap in without giving much thought to what their website will be about. Surely its creating the website that’s important, isn’t it? You know, getting it built, adding the fancy bells and whistles to wow the customers. Not really. So how do you start a profitable website? Well you need to start right at the very beginning.
First you need to decide what the website is about.
Choosing A Profitable Website Topic
You can’t just create a website about anything, it has to be a specific topic on which you have a decent amount of knowledge and interest. Well you can, but it would be pointless. You won’t know what you are talking about and it won’t be enjoyable.
The first step, before we do anything, is to decide what the site is actually going to talk about. You need to create a “niche” website. Niche is a word that refers to a small, profitable corner of a market. This means that your site will be very specific and focused on one topic. Your goal will be to dominate this “niche” and become an authority in it. Does that make sense?
Let me give you an example.
You may love sport and take part in a few. Through the process outlined below, you decide on something within that topic that is the right angle for you. You don’t create a website about sport in general. You narrow it down to a very specific piece of this topic (a niche). Through your research you may decide it would be best to create a website about the training process of one particular sport or about the clothing required. Though with the clothing, it could then be narrowed down further into a particular part, such as footwear. Now, THAT is a “niche”. If you became an authority on that specific topic, it would be something that could be very profitable for many years to come.
Isn’t bigger better?
So, you may be thinking “Why should I narrow it down so much? Wouldn’t it be better to go after any sports or at least all equipment needed including clothes or even just clothing?”
I know I thought the same when I started. I had many thoughts along the lines of: What if I run out of things to write about? Surely I need a bigger topic for more variety to make the site more interesting. No and no. You won’t run out of things to say, unless you pick the wrong topic, such as something you have no interest in.
Too much variety on different subjects isn’t good because it means your customer struggles to find what they are interested in amongst everything else you have written about.
Less is good
Wikipedia states:
- A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focused. The market niche defines the product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that it is intended to target. It is also a small market segment.
A narrower niche means that there is less competition and the more you narrow down your topic, the amount of competition reduces further.
And the less competition, the greater chance you have of becoming an authority on your topic. When you become an authority it brings more people to your website, they learn to trust you and this brings them back.
HOW to choose your topic
Make a list of everything you are passionate about. Write everything down, everything you can think of.
Then, it’s time to research which of those passions and interests would make the best topic for your website. To do this you need to work out two simple things.
1) How many people are interested in your topic
2) How many other websites there are on this same topic. There are simple, free online tools that you can use to work it all out.
So, step number one is to see how many people are searching for your topic online. This gives us a rough estimate of how much demand there is for a website on this subject. Visit the “Google AdWords Keyword Tool“. This is a free tool provided by Google and it will let you know a rough idea of how many times someone typed any particular keyword into Google.
How does it work?
Lets find out. Clink on the link or type it in to google.
You should have a screen like the screenshot opposite. Then click on the blue button that says ‘Go to keyword planner’.
I am showing you as I do it for you, mainly because I have seen so many outdated instructions without anything to show you how it should look. Instructions are fine but you want to be sure you have the right page. Especially when you are discovering this for the first or even re discovering after a long time.
At this point I will confess that it has been a long time since I used this tool and it does look different. It’s also good for me to brush up on such tools and remember to use them. Such tools do make life easier.
And on to the next
So let’s say you decide you are keen on crafts, so you narrow it down to your 2 main interests in that very large topic, knitting and crochet. You put in crafts, knitting and crochet just to see what happens and to try out the tool.
There is less competition but still plenty of visitors looking and searching for information. So then you need to scan the list to find potential topics.
Altogether there were 2,651 results just from the 3 words.
Keywords that you provided:
100K – 1 M High
10K – 100 K High
100K – 1 M High
So crafts and crochet both have 100,00 – 1,000,000 average monthly searches. So the narrower subject of crochet is more popular than knitting.
So we take that one and put that into the keyword planner. There are 667 results, just from crochet.
The top 5 that come up are these:
10K – 100K High
10K – 100K High
10K – 100K High
10K – 100K High
10K – 100K High
So crochet patterns and free crochet patterns are highly popular searches with amigurumi in between them.
A topic of patterns could be narrowed down further into amigurumi patterns. You will have noted that Amigurumi was another popular search. Or baby clothes , blankets, or more specifically, baby blankets even.
While you are on the webpage “Google AdWords Keyword Tool“, spend some time playing with various words of ideas that interest you. then choosing narrower subjects from the words offered. This will help you learn how it works and make it easier and faster when you are needing particular keyword.
What’s next?
Now you know that it’s possible to make a site about crochet patterns, you need to check the amount of sites that there already are about crochet patterns. Of course, if you find that there’s 100 million sites about crochet patterns, you will need to go back and look at other crochet niches.
To find this information, all we need is Google. So type Crochet patterns into Google Now you look at the top of the page, just above the first entry where it says “About 132,000,000 results “.
This means that there is 132,000,000 web pages on this term. It may seem like a lot, but it’s not that bad because in reality, only percentage of those sites will be very good with high quality content. Compare it to the general term of crochet where you get: “About 891,000,000 results”. Plus google will have scanned the entire internet for that search term, so even a mention will have that page included.
Another popular search was Crochet Blankets. Put into Google it came up with: About 106,000,000 results so lower still.
Just play around with your words and ideas until you have settled on what you want your niche site to be about.
Niche done, ready to go
Well not quite but that is a major step forward you have made a start. Many jump into building a website, buy the first domain name they think of and the first topic they think of. Many also go for a topic rather than a niche at first thinking it will be easier.
Admittedly it does sound as though it will be. The reality is, that 6 months down the line, you are likely to scrap that site and start again, having taken the steps of choosing a niche and domain name carefully.
That time won’t have been wasted, you will have learnt a lot. The original site could be kept for trying out new ideas or plug ins before adding them to your main site. Also could be something you might want to go back to.
A little planning in the early stages can save you a lot of time later.
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Comments and questions welcome.
Hello Linda,
Came across your very informative and interesting article while browsing and was compelled to write a comment. There is much too much jargon, sales pitches and the like thrown about and this article was in plain English which was refreshing but also was a genuine attempt to help people looking for a back up plan in all the uncertainty we are all experiencing worldwide. I believe you have captured the mood perfectly and the fact there will be many people researching an alternative path through an online business. I really like the way you have introduced through practical steps how to initially think of a niche and then the steps someone can take to find out through Google very useful information such as competition, searches on the actual topic and how keyword searches between knitting and crochet identify the differences in potential advantages of one over the other is actually quite fascinating. Have you a group whereby you mentor or offer step by step advice to on building a website? If so is it possible to have an idea on possible costs involved to join it? Thank you so much again for your kind help in offering a potential way out of a situation which may prove very worthwhile indeed.
Rami.
Thank you Rami, your comments are appreciated.
I do try to write the sort of information that would have helped me when I started out. I believe it is more helpful to keep it simple and easy rather than dress it up in jargon, as you say, no point in overcomplicating things.
When I learnt about making the searches through Google, I found it fascinating and it made such sense, so wanted to pass it on.
No I don’t have a group to offer advice to, as I don’t consider I know enough myself as yet.
Though I do help others when asked, if I have the knowledge to do so.
Linda