What are niche websites and why should you want one? To put it simply they’re blogs, blogs that can make you money. It’s the whole reason that bloggers do what they do, to make money and have the freedom to work from anywhere with internet. I’m not talking about a few dollars either, you can actually make a lot of money with niche websites… even tens of thousands of dollars per month or more if you do it right.
If you’ve found your way here, then you likely know all of that already. However, you also want to go about the process the right way. Over the last couple of years I’ve perfected the process of setting up a niche website to get it ready for content and ultimately monetization.
On this page I’m going to outline the exact steps I take to quickly and easily setup a simple yet fast website for affiliate marketing and display ads. I’ve been building WordPress websites for 10 years now and have this down to a science. I can go through this process in a few short hours, and I’m going to teach you how to do it now.
1. Pick a niche
If you’ve made it this far and want to make this whole niche site thing happen, then the first thing you need to do is choose your niche. If you are wondering what a niche is, then keep reading because I’m about to give you a quick definition that you can understand.
Think of a niche as a theme or a category for you website. One example of a niche is camping. Camping is a hobby that millions of people love worldwide. It has many products related to it that you could recommend. Which among other things, is a huge plus when considering a niche.
It’s not something you should just pick off-the-cuff, you should take a little time in choosing your niche because it can make or break your site.
2. Choose your domain
If you have your niche picked out, it checks all of the boxes I outlined, and you’re confident about it, then lets move on to the first stages of actually setting up your site.
First up is choosing your domain, and there are some things you need to take into consideration before you just choose one at random. I’m not going to say choosing the wrong domain can totally ruin your chances for success, but it can really limit your potential for growth if you choose poorly.
3. Set up hosting
You’ve got your niche and domain secured. You’re now ready to set up your hosting. This part is intimidating to people that are new to building websites, but it’s really easy. Or at least I’m going to make it easy for you, as long as you follow my exact instructions.
The amount of web hosts out there claiming to be the fastest host, or have the most uptime, or be the best host for WordPress, is staggering. The amount of bogus reviews out there is also quite astounding, and I’ll tell you why. Every single one of these reviews has a motive behind it, and that’s to get a commission off of you signing up. And hey, that’s totally fine! The problem I have with it is that too many people are recommending hosts based solely on the size of the commission they get.
I’m also going to be using affiliate links, I’ll tell you that up front. However, the hosts I’ll be recommending I’ve actually used or are currently using. I use them for a reason, because they are good.
4. Install WordPress
You are finally ready to setup your website. The platform I use is WordPress, because it’s the best for blogging hands down. It also powers over a third of the internet worldwide making it the most popular website platform in the world. It’s user-friendly and has virtually unlimited features and functionality through the use of plugins and themes.
Some people may mention other platforms like Wix, Squarespace, Medium, and even WordPress.com which is still WordPress but not the one you want. We are going to be using WordPress.org. There’s really nothing to consider here, you need to use WordPress.
5. Install a theme
Installing a visually pleasing theme that is also highly customizable right from the start is important. You just want the ability to easily customize every aspect of your site, you don’t have to spend countless hours customizing your theme in the beginning. In fact, I highly recommend against it, and here’s why. As soon as you get your site live on the internet and looking decent, you need to start focusing on adding content ASAP.
I use Generatepress theme on all of my niche websites. It’s a great theme for affiliate marketing and internet marketing in general. Yes there are other options out there, and I’m not knocking them. I haven’t tried every theme in existence, but I’ve tried a lot. Generatepress is clean, super fast, easy to customize, inexpensive for the premium version, and has great support should you ever need it.
6. Install plugins
Plugins are used to add additional functionality to your WordPress website. There are thousands of them out there, and it can be confusing which ones you might need and which ones are the best.
I have a short list of essential plugins that I use for niche websites. I say short list because too many plugins can slow down your site and cause problems when updating. The fewer the better is my motto when it comes to plugins.
Head over to this post for a list of essential plugins I use for my niche websites.
7. Pages and disclaimers
There are certain pages that most sites have for different reasons. Some pages you may need for legal reasons and others are to establish trust with your readers. Having these pages on your site is highly important, not having the right pages with the right info on them can ruin your chances of success.
Ok so what pages do you need? What do you put on them? Stay tuned for an in-depth article on that topic.
8. Setup Google Analytics and Google Search Console
This part is important in knowing how your site is performing. All you need is a Gmail account to get started, both are 100% free.
Google Analytics is for seeing who has visited your site, from all sources. It gives you loads of valuable info about your audience, info that can help you increase your earnings. Google Search Console is purely for showing how people found your site from searching in only Google, it doesn’t display data for other search engines or traffic sources. Google is going to provide you with the majority of your traffic so it’s very important as well.