A niche site is a website that is built for monetization purposes and targets a very specific, small market segment, called a ‘niche’.
Niche sites are usually built for making money from different affiliate programs or ads. Once your website becomes an ‘authority’ within your niche, you’ll have the chance to monetize it easier.
What’s the reasoning behind niche sites?
The reason people build niche sites is related to the cost of entry and other online marketing benefits. If you want to target a very broad market, you’ll have to compete with everyone on that market including big international brands.
On the other hand, if you target a very specific sub-market, you can enjoy several advantages.
The advantages of niche sites
- Very small cost of entry.
- You can become an expert in a small area very easily.
- Niche sites mean a safer playground. Big companies just won’t take you as a competitor and won’t use their huge resources against you.
- As far as SEO advantages go, Google seems to prefer websites that are very competent in a smaller topic over huge sites with shallow content.
How small a niche should be?
There is really no rule for this. You should pick a niche that is big enough to make money but small enough to enjoy the above advantages.
In general, my recommendation is to start with a smaller niche, leaving room for later expansion. That is, choose a name and domain that won’t limit your possibilities later.
Even if you won’t make a ton of money this way at the beginning, you can learn a lot. And as you gather more experience in how to make money from niche sites, you’ll have more chance to start over with a new site or expand your original niche.
What is that stone teddy-bear on the picture?
Well, this is a photo that I found on flickr and I really like. The reasoning is simple: Niche in English also means ‘a recess in a wall, esp one that contains a statue’ (source: wordreference.com). Do you have a better idea on how to make an illustration for an article about ‘What is a niche site?‘
Photo credit: Leo Reynolds flickr.com.