Tag: NSD2.0

Episode 1: Domain Name, Hosting and Website Theme
Welcome to another update of my Niche Site Case Study. You can read the introduction post on the case study here.

So, this week things were pretty quick. I did three things: bought a domain name, bought web hosting and bought a website template. Let’s go deeper into these actions;

Buying the Domain Name

The niche I am in is pretty targeted and is in the health category. I cannot reveal the niche at this stage because I want to avoid instances of skewed results that may arise by me revealing the niche. But I can tell you more about my target customers.

My target audience has a problem and the solution to the problem is to buy a certain product. There are many brand names of the product available in the market. My approach is to build an authority website that reviews the different brand products and hopefully help customers make a good decision.

In taking this niche, I know that:
1. the target customers know they have a problem.
2. the customers know there are different product solutions for their problem.
3. the customers are looking for reviews of the different solutions before they buy.
So, my major type of content I will be posting on the website will be in-depth review of the products.

Since, I have already researched the marketing and the target keywords (more on the niche and keyword numbers in my next post), I decided to pick an exact match domain (EMD). The reason for this is that I believe I can rank faster for my target keywords with an EMD. Despite Google’s EMD update, I still see EMD sites ranking. I honestly believe Google does no tell the whole truth about rankings. I hope I’ll find out in this study.

The domain name is registered for one year. I used NameCheap.com to register. NameCheap usually sells .com domain names at $10.69 per year. But why I like them is that the company offers a lot of coupons for its services. Before registering the domain name, I headed off to NameCheapCoupons.com and grabbed the coupon “THX2U“. This allowed me to save $1.08 on my purchase. Thus, I was billed $9.79. In addition, I also got free Whois protection and Comodo SSL certificate valid for one year.

That is all about buying the domain name.

Choosing a Web Hosting Provider

The next thing was to buy web hosting for the website. I am not new to web hosting so my choice was easy. There are a couple of things that I was looking in a hosting provider for the site.

1.Bandwidth

Since I am making an authority site, I expect it to have lots of visitors at one time or the other. Therefore, I needed a host that offers unlimited bandwidth. This will ensure that the site will always be accessible no matter how many visitors stop by it.

2. Disk space

I don’t see the site needing a lot of space so I could have chosen anything from 10GB and up. However, I found a great hosting company that offers unlimited hosting for a fair price. The company is JustHost and for just $5.96 per month ($71.40 for one year), you can enjoy unlimited disk space.

3. Price

Price is another thing I was looking for. Basically, I believe you can get good hosting at less than $10 per month. There are many websites that offer hosting at less than $10 per month. JustHost offers different pricing per month based on the term of the payment. I chose the $5.95 ($71.40) for one year. Below is an image showing the other prices available and their duration:

4. Support

As I mentioned, I have been hosting my different website and for my clients on Just Host since 2010. I have had good email and phone support from them. In some instances, the support team has helped me with problems that I or my clients caused on our websites. This is one of the things that makes me stick to Just Host up to today.

The above are the four main things I was looking for in a hosting provider, and they are what made me choose Just Host over other popular hosts like BlueHost and HostGator.

There are many web hosting reviews online that can guide you on the right web hosting company. Personally, I prefer JustHost. I have been with them for three years now and have found them to be affordable and offer awesome support.

Choosing a Website Theme

Creating a website is no longer a difficult thing thanks to WordPress. With WordPress, you can easily set up your blog within 5 minutes and be up and posting. If you don’t know how to set up a blog, I recommend you read this guide on how to install WordPress on your hosting account.

Like you may have guessed, I chose to build my site using WordPress. I prefer WordPress because I’ve found it to be good when it comes to SEO than most Content Management Systems (CMS). But I just did not want to have the basic WordPress theme on the niche site. I wanted something that is professional and will build the site’s brand to the audience. This is the theme I chose (click here to view)

I searched for a theme on ThemeForest and finally settled on the Gonzo theme. ThemeForest, in my opinion, is the best place to find affordable themes. The site is one of the largest WP theme marketplaces on the Internet. You can search for themes based on industry, most of which go for under $50. The Gonzo theme cost me $45. I will have to do some customizations for it to fit my needs later on.

Niche Site Case Study Costs

Here is a breakdown of the costs that I have incurred so far:

Domain name registration from NameCheap ($9.71)

Web Hosting for one year from Just Host ($71.40)

WordPress theme from ThemeForest ($45)

TOTAL COST: $126.19

In my next post, I will be discussing on how to set up the website. Stay tuned.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS POST

JustHost: The web hosting company I use ( Get unlimited disk space and bandwidth for $5.95 per month)

NameCheap: Buy .com domain names for $10.69 per year. (Visit NameCheapCoupons.com to get a coupon before you buy.)

ThemeForest: Browse hundreds of premium WordPress themes. Get a theme for under $50.

PS: I’m on Twitter. Follow me @modekali

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November 29, 2013
Niche Site Case Study: My Niche Revealed
Hey guys! I’d like to thank you for stopping by. Today, I am going to tell you what my niche is and what I considered when coming up with it.

If you read my last blog post on 3 characteristics of a profitable niche, you already know some of the primary things I consider important in a niche. In a nutshell, I believe a profitable niche should:
- Be big enough to make good money from it.
- The target market should be able to afford what you want to offer.
- The market should know they have a problem and should be looking for a solution to solve the problem.
For this Niche Site Case study, I decided to target an evergreen market. For those who don’t know, an evergreen niche basically means a market segment whose desire or need for a solution is not affected by seasons or events during the year.

For example, people look to lose weight any time of the year. Thus, the weight loss niche is an evergreen market.

On the flipside, people only buy Halloween costumers in October before Halloween. Thus, the Halloween costume niche is not evergreen since it is dependent on an event (Halloween).

How Did I Find My Niche?

There are many ways in which you can find a profitable niche. More of this in a later blog post. But primarily, finding a niche is all about finding a problem that people have and a way of solving it in a better way.

Any problem that is worth solving can be a niche. You just have to find how to solve the problem in a better way. And where do people share their problems or frustrations on the Internet? On social media and in forums.

First, I’ve chosen an evergreen niche in the bigger “health” niche. My target audience is divided into two, although they are related.
- The first audience is looking at stopping a habit naturally.
- The second audience is looking for a product that can help them stop that same habit.
So, I basically will be catering to two related audiences in the same sub niche in the health category.

For the purpose of fairness and to prevent people with malicious intentions, I will not directly reveal the niche at this time. However, I hope to release the niche, the website domain name and everything else at the right time.

I choose not to directly reveal the niche and site for two reasons:
1. I don’t want the results of my case study to be affected by people already knowing what I am working on.
2. I feel more comfortable working on the niche site at my own pace without pressure.
However, this said, I will provide as much data as possible during my case study. For example, I will provide the keyword strategy I used, the search numbers, traffic numbers and so on. I intend to make this Niche CS one where any person can benefit through step by step tutorials.

Validating My Niche Market

After finding a problem that people had and were looking for solutions, I know I have a potentially lucrative niche. But first, I had to validate the niche market to see whether it has any potential in making GOOD money.

If you have identified a potential niche, I encourage you to go further and validate it. Here is what validation involves:
- Check the size of the market. Is it big enough to warrant you getting into it?
- Determine the solution. Will you create a product or refer your customers to other products as an affiliate?
- Competition. Are there competition sites in the niche? How strong are they in search engine rankings?
- Content. Can you easily find content to write about in the niche?
I’ve done all the above and I am convinced I have a good niche. In the coming blog post, I will show you how I validated the niche using the above four steps.

Until then, keep grinding.

Have something to say? Holla at me on Twitter @modekali. It will be an honor to connect with you.

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November 21, 2013
Introducing My Niche Site Case Study
I am starting a niche site case study this month. The aims of the case study are mainly two:
- Create a high authority website in the niche.
- Make a passive income from the niche
In this blog, I will document my journey from the start and try as much as possible to let you know what I am doing, the tools I am using and possibly through in a couple of tutorials on different tools.

Why a Niche Case Study Now?

For the most part, I want to have a way to document my progress with the project. Many people have done niche case studies in the past and ended up with some impressive results. The first time I came across a niche case study was at Pat Flynn’s Blog Smart Passive Income. The study was done in 2010 and in 2013, he started another study Niche Site Duel (NSD2).

A niche case study offers me a way to be more productive with my time and test my committments to my projects. I’ve had many projects in the past all in the head. Do you know what happens with projects in the head? I’ll leave that to you. This time, I’ve decided to document my journey. This is the post introducing my niche site case study.

Project Motivation: Keeping Myself in Check

In my quest to keep myself in check and motivated to complete the project, I am doing the case study together with a couple of guys inspired by Glen from ViperChill. The whole study is known as the Triple XXX Niche Case Study (read about it here) and although I am not officially in the case study, it’s good to have my own study on the side and see how I will do compared to Glen, Diggy and Mr. V of Triple XXX Niche Case Study.

Niche Site Case Study Updates

I will strive to post updates on the Niche Site Case Study at least once a week or two weeks. The posts will usually indicate the major things I have done on the website and the reason for doing so. If you are interested in daily updates of the study, you can check me the updates I make at Private Inc. Forum.

Some of the things I expect to cover in my updates include:
- Traffic generation methods I’ll be using
- Crunching the numbers (site visits, Google rankings for various keywords, leads generated, etc.)
- Costs of doing various tasks. (For most tasks, I’ll be doing things on my own. But if I have to outsource some tasks, I will indicate how much I will have spent).
At the end of the project, I hope to me making some passive income (Perhaps, a 4HourWorkWeek model?).

If you are also building a niche site and have a case study, comment with your link below and we can keep each other in check.

PS: Want to say something? Tweet me @modekali

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November 2, 2013