How To Start A Niche Site In 6 Simple Steps For Just $23.49
Stop putting it off, will you?
You keep telling yourself that you’re going to start a niche website this year.
That you’re finally going to take control of your income.
But you never do it, do you?
Well, today is the day, my friend.
It’s time to step beyond that crippling fear of failure.
To say goodbye to the “One day..” and “When I get the time…” excuses and you actually do what you said you were going to do.
In this article, I’m going to show you how to set up a profitable niche site in 2017.
All for less than a round of drinks with your friends or a meal at a restaurant.
1. Choosing a Niche For Your Niche Site
Your niche should be something you’re interested in.
You’re going to have to invest lots of time and energy and money into this site over the next few years.
So, it’s important you’re at least vaguely interested in the subject.
For example, Jawad writes over on his niche site, Writing My Destiny, because he’s passionate about it.
That’s why he’s been able to keep the site going for 3+ years.
My new site, Deutschified, is easy for me to work on because I’m learning German and have moved to German.
It’s important not to chase money.
For example, so many new niche marketers hear about a site like Pinch of Yum that make over $30,000 per month, and decide they want to start a food blog…
…despite the fact the last time they actually cooked anything was back in the summer of 2006.
I find choosing a niche becomes really easy when you go back through your recent purchases online. For example, my Amazon right now looks a lot like this:
And that’s just one of many books, podcasts and online courses I’ve purchased.
Just think of all the product reviews and recommendations I can create!
But if you’re really stuck for a niche site idea, you can always download Stuart’s 1781 Profitable Niche Site Ideas right here.
Or why not pick up a copy of Stuart’s 7 step formula for finding profitable niches that you can dominate?
2. Setting Up Your Domain and Hosting ($3.49)
The go-to hosting for Niche site owners (and our mastermind members) is Bluehost.
Why?
Well, firstly their service is tailor-made for niche marketers.
But, secondly, they let you choose your domain name and hosting in one go.
Meaning you’re able to get your niche site online in just a few minutes.
It was the favourite of Pat Flynn over at Smart Passive Income for many years (until his site got too big!) and it’s still who he recommends to all of his new recruits.
In this section I’ll walk you through exactly how to set it up.
Head over to the Bluehost website and click the Get started now button:
This will take you to a page where it asks you to sign up by choosing an existing domain, or by selecting a new domain.
If you don’t have a domain in mind this is a really fun process.
You can choose a name based on the keywords that you want to focus on.
Or, you can be creative and come up with a brand name that’s easy to remember.
The brand name option is your best option as keyword based domain names tend to sound spammy.
And brand’s have much bigger potential in terms of how you can grow the site later.
It’s best to come up with about 10 to 15 domain names before you choose this.
Here is my exact list for coming up with Deutschified:
- ExpatsaroundGermany
- AnEnglishmansguidetoGermany
- TheUKgermanconnection
- Englishbytherhine
- learn german with James
- how to move to Germany
- Deutschified
- leicht deutschleben
- moving to Germany
- British around Germany
From there I chose the one that most stood out to me and provided me with the most flexibility.
I’d also recommend going for a .com suffix, but if you’re targeting a local audience, feel free to go for their .com equivalent.
Once you’ve entered your domain name, you’ll be asked to choose your package.
For a beginner the basic package is more than enough to get you started:
Then go ahead and choose your package on the next page and any extras that you might be looking for.
For example, as Search Engine Land writes here,
Google has been known to give Search Engine ranking boosts to websites with an SSL certificate.
Finish off the process and…you’re done!
Yeah, that’s right. It was so damn simple.
Why had you even been putting it off?
And if you want to go the (recommended) route of adding WordPress to your site, you can follow this simple video from BlueHost themselves:
In the next section, I’ll show you how to get a super cheap logo made for your site that doesn’t look like it’s super cheap.
You’ll be surprised how professional it looks most likely.
3. Creating A Logo For Your Site ($20)
Fiverr is a great place to get your logos made.
They’re always made professionally and cost between $5 and $20 depending on what package you get.
You can have your logo in just a few hours, or a maximum of three days, depending on who you go with:
But it can be quite hard to choose; after all, there are so many options!
It pays to do a little shopping around and find a style that you like.
My strategy is to look at some competitor websites, or your favorite sites, and see what style they’re using.
If multiple sites in your niche are using a similar style then it’s a safe bet to assume that’s what people in your niche are used to.
Or you can hover over a specific designer and see how many good reviews they have.
Like this one that has 896 five-star reviews.
It’s safe to say they’ll be a good designer to use:
To get the best logo for your site and to save money the best strategy is to order logos from 3 different sellers who are samples you like.
Give them all the EXACT same instructions on how you want your logo to look.
Be clear on what your site offers, whether you want just text or text and images, and what colors you want.
And send them example logos you like from other sites in your niche so they have a point of reference
And just order the absolute most basic $5 gig first no extras.
Once you have all 3 of your finished logos back pick the one you like best.
Then go back to the designer and get any changes you’d like to get made (this may cost extra depending on their terms so check before you order.
I recommend placing it on your site to see how it looks and getting feedback from your friends, family, and niche (Facebook groups are a great place for this) so you’re 100% sure it works.
Then once you are 100% satisfied with the end product order the source files and any other essential extras you need from the Fiverr seller.
Don’t order any of this stuff upfront as if you end up with a logo you don’t want you’ve wasted extra money on it.
Here’s the finished product of a logo for my newest niche site:
Not bad for $15 all in, and it’ll work for a long time to come.
4. Getting A WordPress Theme For Free ($0.00)
Did he just say free theme?
Yeah, I did.
Because you don’t need to pay for a WordPress theme to get your site off the ground.
You just don’t. It’s not necessary.
For example, when Jeff Goins launched his Coffee Snobber site in an attempt to make money from a hobby in just 48 hours, he used the standard WordPress theme to do it.
And, if you read the Gaps blog, Glen often points out that you can create a basic niche site using just a free WordPress theme.
And when you’re looking at how to build a profitable niche site, you should too.
Right now, you don’t know what the future of your brand holds.
And, you’re probably not that good at coding a site and a theme, either.
So why spend $60 on a theme right now?
There are tonnes of free themes in the WordPress database that you can download that look super professional but don’t break the bank.
Like this one, I was able to use and put it together in under 10 minutes…
Once your WordPress site is set up, all you need to do is head to your Dashboard and look for the Themes option on the side of the screen:
On the next screen select the Add New option from the top of the page:
And then you’ll find a whole database of new, free, themes you’re able to add to your site and customize:
If you’re adamant that you need a Premium theme, you can check out MyThemeShop where they have some free options of premium themes for you to work with.
But, if I’d recommend starting off like I’ve done above, and making a proper investment in a theme further down the line when you have some content to work with.
5. Mailing List (Free) ($0.00)
A good mailing list is the backbone of any niche site.
And, even in 2017, it continues to be one of the most valuable assets to your business.
But did you know that you can create your first list for absolutely free?
Well, with MailChimp, you can.
When I reviewed all of the big players in Email Marketing for Matt Woodward, I found one epic thing:
You can start a mailing list for up to 2,000 people with MailChimp, and then when you’ve hit the 2000 limit, you can transfer the database for absolutely free to different software.
Now MailChimp does not allow you to use affiliate links in your emails.
But, that’s not a problem (yet).
The idea here is that you can start building a list and get into the habit of sending emails, adding a signup boxes, and interacting with your audience.
Then when you get over the 100/200 person mark, you can swap to a bigger mailing list that does allow you to send affiliate links, like Aweber.
6. Getting Set Up On Social Media ($0.00)
Damn, your site itself is pretty much complete, right?
You’ve got a:
- Domain
- Hosting package
- Logo
- Theme
- Mailing List
All you need now is a way of getting it out there.
And, with these free tools, that’s going to be super easy.
Now I won’t teach you to suck eggs, you know you need to go and set up free social media profiles for your niche site, like this Facebook page:
After doing some research with CoSchedule, I’d recommend you just focus on one channel right now.
And, honestly, Facebook will probably bring you the best return on time investment.
For example, take a look at this data from Roman Fitness Systems:
Or just head over to the Nichehacks Members Area and see how engaged that Facebook group is.
You can find help on how to set up pages through these links:
Recommended Reading For New Niche Marketers
This article is really just the basics of setting up a site and getting it off the ground.
But, you’ll need to learn more if you want to go from just having a domain name to actually having an online business.
Here are some of the best Nichehacks articles to get you started based on different topics:
SEO
- 38 Places To Find The Best Keywords For Your Niche
- 15 Powerful Places To Build Backlinks To Rank Your Niche Site
- 7 Simple Tips To Increase Your Niche Site Rankings
- How I Found 100 Keywords In Under 26 Minutes
Traffic Generation
- The Beginners Guide: How To Increase Your Website Traffic Using These 100+ Resources
- The Ultimate Guide To Blog Comment Traffic
List Building
- 6 Email List Building Strategies That Still Work In 2017
- How To Write Your First Profitable Email Series
- 15 Irresistible Incentives To Grow Your List (One of my favorites from Jawad)
- How To Get Your First 100 Email Subscribers
Content Creation and Copywriting
- How To Create 2 Months Of Content In 3 Days (Chelsea killed it with this one)
- 7 Powerful Hacks That Will Glue Your Readers’ Eyeballs To Your Content And Keep Them On-Site Longer
There You Have It, Folks… (Total: $23.49)
I hope by now you’re ready to start your new niche site especially now it can be done for less than $25.
You can see that it’s not hard, expensive, or time-consuming.
You can get it all done in a matter of minutes.
It makes you question what made you put it off for so long in the first place, doesn’t it?
Just to recap, here’s what you need to have in place:
- Choose your niche (or use Stuart’s 7 step plan to find it)
- Set up a domain and hosting with Bluehost
- Install WordPress
- Use Fiverr to create a logo
- Install a free wordpress theme
- Sign up with MailChimp
- Create one social media channel for your site
- Dive into the recommended reading
And if you need any help or support there is always the Nichehacks Mastermind group to help you find your way and answer your questions.
Or, you can just leave us a comment below…