Don Modekali

Tag: niche site content strategy

  • NSD Episode 4: Niche Site Content Creation

    NSD Episode 4: Niche Site Content Creation

    “No, we ain’t got an office yet. But we got big plans like an architect.” Lyrics from the Song WutUWanKno (Masta Ace ft. Edo G, A Long Hot Summer Album)
    niche-site-content-creationWelcome to another episode of my niche site case study.

    If you have been following my blog, you know that I have already chosen my niche and set up my website with a cool theme. You can catch my last post on how I set up my niche site WordPress for SEO here.

    Setting up the site correctly for SEO is important to make it easy for Google to find my content. While I will initially focus in driving traffic from different sources, ultimately I will want to let the site go on a roll and get organic traffic from Google.

    Apart from this, setting the site correctly will help to avoid any issues that WordPress has with indexing duplicate content.

    You can use a couple of plugins to easily make WordPress ignore any duplicate content on your site. I have outlined how to prevent duplicate content in your WordPress site in this video.

    Now, back to the topic at hand. I have finished all the basics of setting up the the website, except for one thing: creating content.

    Niche Site Content Creation

    One mistake that I find many people make when creating niche sites is putting up mediocre content. By mediocre content, I mean using spunned content or content that does not make sense.

    I believe content is the most important part of building a niche site. Heck, you can even sell to an audience if you have content alone (even without a website). But that is a post for another day. For now, let’s concentrate on content development.

    Content does not simply refer to the articles you will post on the site. Rather, it includes things like articles, images, videos, infographics, eBooks, and so on. All of these are what we collectively refer to as content.

    The content you create should achieve one or more of the following: educate, entertain and inspire.

    If visitors stop on your niche site but cannot get any value from the content, making sales will be difficult.

    Which Type of Contents Should You Create?

    The audience you are targeting should help you determine the types of content to  create. For most niches, creating informative articles will work. In fact, this is the primary type of content used 90 percent of the time.

    For my niche site, I am selling some products. Based on this information, here are the types of content I’ve chosen to go with and why:

    a) Articles – These will be posted on the blog and will also be used for blogger outreach (e.g. guest posting and syndication) and SEO purposes.

    b) Videos – I plan to create videos demonstrating how the product I am selling is used.  Videos can be helpful if you are selling a technical product that your target audience may want to know how to use.

    c) Ebook – This eBook is primarily for the purposes of building an email list from visitors on the site and from other third party sites.

    d) Infographics – These will mostly be used for link baiting and SEO outreach.

    These are the primary types of contents I will be creating for my niche site. Let’s look more into the contents.

    Niche Site Articles/Blog Posts

    keyword-organic-searchWhether you prefer calling them articles or blog posts, we are referring to the content that visitors read on the website.

    For my niche site, I will be relying heaving on search engines to get traffic to the website. Therefore, creating content that is optimized for the various keywords I am targeting is important.

    I use Google Keyword Planner, Google Keyword Suggest and Long Tail Pro to come up with keywords to target in the content. Every article primarily targets one primary keyword and includes a number of secondary long tail keywords.

    Here’s a description of the main and secondary keywords I target.

    Main Keyword. This keyword is what the whole theme of the article is about. I use the keyword once in the article title, once in the H1 (subtitle) title and once in the body.

    Now, this rule is not written on stone. Sometimes, I find myself using the keyword more than the number I have mentioned. However, I strive not to make the word sound unnatural. Generally, I don’t want to stuff the keyword everywhere in the article.

    Secondary Keywords. For an article, I may choose 3-4 secondary keywords to support the main keyword. These keywords are usually longer (more than 4 words) and have significantly fewer searches, sometimes less than 100, in Google.

    I target the long tail keywords because of three reasons:

    1. LSI relevancy. When Google bots read my website content and find the main keyword in the title, I want them to understand the page is specifically about that keyword I am targeting. I do this by using relevant supporting (secondary) keywords.

    2. Targeted traffic. Long tail keywords may not have many searches than the shorter keywords. However, the keywords usually get targeted searches.

    3. Cumulative traffic. Targeting long tail keywords can boost traffic to your niche site. For one, the keywords are easy to rank for since not many people are targeting them. Next, when you add the number of searches of the keywords, they can be nearly the same or higher than that  of short tail keywords.

    The content of the articles is bent on being informative rather than entertaining or inspiring. This is because the niche I am targeting is mostly looking for a solution to a problem they are have.

    Niche Site Video Content

    Video content is also part of the content strategy for my niche site. I haven’t created videos yet but I have a couple of ideas at the back of my head:

    1. Hire a model or use Fiverr to get a video made on the product. The video will be short, less than two minutes, with a call to action to my website. I will upload the video on my niche site as well as video sharing sites like YouTube.

    2. I can also make PowerPoint of Flash slides and convert them to video. These will mostly contain snippets on features and benefits of the products. The videos can be distributed on video sharing sites to build backlinks and drive traffic back to my site.

    The video(s) will basically be reviewing the different products on the site. Ideally, the model will be holding the product and instructing the visitors how to use it.

    The essence of creating video content is to improve the likelihood of visitors buying on my site. People are aware of affiliate marketers and the last thing I want to seem is an affiliate simply publishing information for the sake of gaining a sale.

    Of course you can still be successful without having video reviews on your website. Sometimes, you may not even need a video review. However, videos improve visitors’ trust and are likely to improve sales.

    Ebook

    For the eBook, I have two options; write it by myself (I’m a great writer) or outsource the content creation. I am yet to come up with the topic orcreate-an-ebook content outline of the eBook.

    Writing the book on my own is advantageous because I will be able to guide the reader in the direction I want.

    I will primarily use the eBook to gather email subscribers on my list at the website. This email list can be a great resource to tap on, especially if I would like to take things further in future and transition the website from a niche to an authority site.

    However, writing a book is not easy. First, there is the issue of knowledge of the topic. I have to admit I am not an expert on the subject matter of the products I am selling. I can however research online and come up with something good.

    Another option would be to hire a writer to help me create the book. I have previously hired writers from both Freelancer.com and iWriter.com and I have not been disappointed. The best thing with outsourcing the ebook creation is that I can get high quality content at possibly a lower rate.

    Infographics

    The main reason why I opted to use infographics is to get high quality niche links from relevant websites. The craze for infographic link building may have died but if used right, infographics can get you coveted links that your competitors may not get easily.

    For infographics, I will mostly be creating them using Photoshop. However, you can easily create your own infographic using Visual.ly or get someone to create one for you for 5 bucks at Fiverr.

    Creating infographics is easy when you already have the content you want presented visually. I will simply be getting statistics related to my audience online and using some points from my articles to create infographics.

    Infographics are also good for building backlinks.

    So, there we go. The above are the types of content I will be creating for my niche site.

    Do you have any questions or comments? Let me know.

    [mailerlite_form form_id=2]

  • NSD Episode 2: My Niche Site Content Strategy

    NSD Episode 2: My Niche Site Content Strategy

    content is kingHey guys, I hope March is good to you. It’s been a minute since I posted on this blog and today, I have an update on my Niche Site.

    Last time, we talked about finding a domain name and hosting services provider. If you  haven’t set up your website yet, you can do it in under 5 minutes by yourself using WordPress.

    —>Check  this guide on how to set up a WordPress site in under 5 minutes

    If you are just joining me, you can read the past  episodes of the Niche Site Study here:

    Now that we have our domain name and have, we have to think of content.

    My Niche Site Content Strategy

    Content fuels the web. It is what makes Google index  your website and bring visitors. The whole essence of searching things on Google is to get information. Thus, for my content strategy, I have to think of what information my niche will be looking for.

    When selecting my niche, I already had an idea of what people would be looking for.  And since we are looking to make money online, we want to solve a problem that people have. When researching my niche, I found out people  had a problem; they were looking for information on how to stop the problem they have.

    Apart from this, there are a number of products in the niche that  people are researching. They want to know if the products are good. So, they are essentially searching for reviews of the products.  For this niche, my content strategy will consist of the following:

    i)  Writing  educational articles on how to solve my niche’s problem. These articles will  be in form of  tips, lists, etc.

    ii) Writing reviews of the popular products in the market that can solve their problem. So, I would have lots of “product X review” or “product X guide” type of articles.

    Now, depending on your niche, you may want to explore other content avenues.  For me, my content will mostly be reviews of different products that the market can use as well as

    What Type of Content Will I Be Creating?

    Now,  creating articles is good as it helps  to get your website to rank high. However, when creating your content strategy, think about  which form of content will resonate well with the target market.   In some markets, having text content will work well. For  example, if you are selling an ebook to your market, you can only review the eBook  in in a series of articles or blog posts.

    On the other hand, if you are selling a physical product (for example, let’s say you are selling a coffee maker), you might want to  have a video of the coffee maker in action. This is apart from writing articles about it.

    You see,  different types of content will work for different types of markets.

    In my case, I will be writing articles on the “how to” advise. Apart from this, I will be creating videos  for the various physical products that the niche is looking for reviews on. In a nut shell, my content strategy consists of the following:

    i)   Articles- How to, tips, lists, etc.

    ii)  Videos/Slideshows of the products

    iii) Email course (This will basically be a series of emails talking about the problem and how it can be solved. It will also help me warm up prospects who are not ready to buy at that time)

    My niche is very specific and I think the above forms of content will work. Now, depending on your niche, you may wish to explore other content forms such as podcasts, eBooks, webinars, demos and so on. Check the image below for more.

    types of content

    Niche Site Content Message

    Every content you create should have an end goal. In any online business, you want to provide value to your market as much as possible. Providing value helps to establish you as an authority in your field. When your market can read  your articles and think “hmm, this guys really knows what he is talking about”, then they start ing you.

    Traditional and online businesses have very little differences save for the presence of a physical store and an online store. Apart from this, all the basics of business apply. Now, people buy from those that they trust.  Always remember that.

    Your content should make readers trust you. They should trust that you know the topic you are writing about and are genuinely interested in helping them.  Your content should be:

    i)  Educative

    You already know the problems that your niche market faces. Now, how can you solve this problem, at first without athin-content-googlesking them to buy from you?  This is where educational or advisory articles come in. Create articles that will give your audience tips on how to solve their problem.

    For example, if your niche is on freelance writing, you can provide tips on how to get your first client online. This advice does not have to be packaged into an eBook and sold given that it is already freely available online.

    TIP: Since Google Panda update, thin sites took a hit on their rankings. Therefore, you want to create more comprehensive content for your niche site. I recommend articles 500 or more words for your articles.

    After putting the last full stop on your article, ask yourself: will someone who will read this article be better off  that he was before reading the article? If your article has not provided value to your audience, you will have a difficult time getting your market to trust you.

    ii)   Informational

    Provide content that resonates well with your audience. People  go online to search for information and you want to be the guy providing the information they are searching about. Find out the information that your target market is searching about.

    Is your audience searching for reviews, guides, events, collections, etc.? Here, Google is your friend. Use Google Adwords tool to search for the keywords that your potential market types on Google when searching for  information.  If you want to drill your niche even further, I recommend you use Traffic Travis.

    Apart from Google, check on forums in your niche and check the discussions going on. Usually, you will find people asking questions about a problem they have or a product/service they are looking to get. Forums can be a good place to find ideas on what to write about. The good thing with forums is that since it comprises of  an audience that is interested in your niche, you can be sure that  of getting targeted visitors to your blog if you happen to cover a topic that seems popular in the forums.

    iii)  Entertaining

    Most people are online to get entertained. In as much as people have problems, they are also human and have  emotions.

    Creating entertaining content helps your audience to know that you are a real person behind the business and helps to break the ice than a new visitor may have.  When marketing to your market, you don’t always want to have this serious tone or voice on your content. Break the ice,  give your audience a good laugh.

    Business is built on relationships. And having some personality in your content helps to build a relationship with your target audience.

    There we have it, educate, inform and entertain. These are the three types of messages you should have on your content.

    This is the exact content strategy I will be following for my niche. Did I miss something in the content strategy? Let me know, I’d like to hear your comments.

    PS: Follow me on Twitter 🙂

    TOOLS MENTIONED IN THIS POST

    Traffic Travis – The No.1 Keyword research tool for finding profitable keywords in your niche.

    [mailerlite_form form_id=2]