✍️ Last modified on April 12, 2023
It is one of the business models that require the least investment, the least risk with the possibility of creating a real passive income in the long term.
Okay, but how do we do it?
If you’re new to the business, don’t panic.
Here I have created for you the ultimate guide to learn the basics of SEO and affiliate marketing, what is a niche site and how to create yours in 8 steps.
Don’t have time to read this guide? Download it in Ebook format and take the time to read it whenever you want, wherever you want.
Contents
What is a niche site?
The idea is simple:
- Find a niche
- Create a site
- Get it in the first Google results
- Receive traffic for free
- Monetize this traffic
What is a niche?
A niche covers a part of a theme.
Example:
- Theme : Animals
- Doghouse : Dog
- Ultra niche : Dog food
Why a niche and not a generalist site?
When we start in website publishing, our budget is tight and our skills are less and our experience is close to zero.
That’s why we will focus on creating several niche (or ultra-niche) sites to get the hang of it, to have quick results and to increase our skills as quickly as possible.
Also, attacking a niche or ultra-niche will give you a huge advantage over the bigger media.
You will be able to cover all the topics around your niche quickly and become the “niche expert” in the eyes of Google.
A niche site therefore requires less effort, less budget and a faster return on investment (ROI).
Create a WordPress site
You will have to create this niche site on WordPress to have access to the best SEO extensions on the market and have a fast and efficient site to climb quickly in Google.
You will fill this site with content around the topics of your niche by differentiating two types of content:
- Transactional: The ones you monetize (comparison, product review, brand review).
- Informational: Those that will be used to push your transactional pages (guides, tutorials, recipes definitions…).
Get your site in the first Google results
To do this, you will have to learn SEO and implement techniques to ensure that your site climbs in Google results and quickly reach the top positions.
So you’ll have to:
- Create a perfect site structure
- Create semantically optimized content
- Receive links from other sites that point to yours (backlinks)
We will detail all of this in the 8 step guide to creating your niche site.
Receive natural traffic
Once your site is correctly positioned, you will start to receive traffic naturally on your site.
How does it work?
- People will search for a keyword (example: “what are the best dog food”).
- They will click on your article that answers that question and read your content.
To give you an idea, this keyword (“what are the best dog food”) is searched 350 times a month.
Okay, but what do we do with these visitors?
We monetize.
Monetize the traffic of my niche site
There are many ways to monetize your niche site:
- Affiliate: Sell products of a brand and earn a commission.
- Advertisements: Add ads on your site and get paid per click.
- Link selling: Sell sponsored articles on your site with a link to another site.
- E-commerce : Create your own e-commerce and sell your products online.
If we take the example of dog food:
Our article will take the form of a comparison of the best dog food on the market. If we are first on the query, we can have up to 300 visitors per month. These people want to buy the best kibble for their dog.
All you have to do is add affiliate links and for every person who buys kibble through your affiliate link, you will get a commission on the sale.
An affiliate commission can range from 3% to over 60% on certain products.
The best part is that you won’t have to do anything. People will go to your site, order products on other sites and you will only have to pocket your commissions, without lifting a finger.
How much does a niche site earn?
A niche site brings in an average of 150€/month to 5 000€/month. Even if some of them can bring in tens or hundreds of thousands of euros per month. It’s all about choosing the right niche and the affiliate programs that the site promotes.
Let’s take two examples of niche sites (which are obviously positioned):
- A niche site on weight loss that promotes food supplements to lose weight can reach 10 000€ – 20 000€/month.
- A niche site on outdoor mosquito repellent devices that features Amazon products will be more around $50 – $100/month.
The difference between these two types of niches is the initial budget (time and money), as well as the time it will take to position itself.
The first example is obviously a competitive niche, the second, much less so.
Here is in a few lines, what is a niche site.
Now let’s get down to business.
Before you start creating your first niche site, let’s go over the basics of SEO together:
The basics of SEO and affiliate marketing
Before we get down to business, let’s briefly review the basics of SEO and affiliate marketing:
What is SEO?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the practice of getting targeted traffic to a website from the organic rankings of a search engine (primarily Google).
SEO consists of improving a site’s ranking in the organic (unpaid) section of search results.
The three pillars of SEO are:
- The content
- The structure
- Netlinking
1 – The content
Blog posts, pages, images and videos are the basis of quality content. The content must be optimized for search engines but also for visitors.
From SEO tools tools such as YourtextGuru or SEO Surfing will allow you to optimize your content for Google.
2 – The structure
After having researched the keywords on which you want to position yourself, you will have to create the structure of your site by dividing by silos, for example :
Home > Categories > Subcategories > articles
Keyword research and structure are the most important parts. If these are not done correctly, all the work you do afterwards will not be rewarded.
3 – Netlinking
This is the sinews of the SEO war. A link is considered as a vote for Google. If your site has 100 quality links and your competitor has 80 quality links, you have a good chance of passing him.
But how to get links to your site? We will talk about this later.
What is affiliation?
Affiliate marketing is one of the ways to monetize a site in SEO. It is about promoting a product of a brand and getting a commission on each sale.
The affiliate platform platform (but not the most profitable) is Amazon Partner. It is a very good platform to start with, as it is accessible to everyone in a few clicks.
However, there are many other platforms that pay up to 40% commission per sale. But we’ll talk about that later.
The advantage of affiliation
A passive income without the headaches.
Once you have traffic to your site, all you have to do is add affiliate links and everything is done automatically.
- No logistics
- No after sales service
- No headaches
Why combine Affiliation and SEO?
It’s the perfect combo to earn passive income.
- Generate organic and through SEO.
- Automatic sales through affiliation.
How to create your first niche site? (in 8 steps)
Here we will see step by step how to create your first affiliate site in SEO. It is important to know that I will not go into details but I will go over all the steps so that you can quickly start your first site.
A few important points before we begin:
I have deliberately chosen to give you no or very few resources to learn one of the most important things when starting an online business:
Search and learn by yourself
- If you don’t understand, do a Google search.
- If you want to know more about a step, search on Google.
- If you have any questions after googling, then you can DM me on Twitter (they are open) → @asyncr0ne
In this guide, you have all the steps listed in order. 80% of the work is done. All you have to do is look for the information and apply.
Example of a niche site
Last point before we start, here are some examples of affiliate sites in SEO so you understand where we are going:
- electroguide. com : Authority site in the electro / tech theme
- boulotmag.fr: Niche site about office tech equipment.
- enceintes-bluetooth. com : Ultra-niche site around a single product.
Browse the site and use them as examples to understand the following steps.
Ready to go?
1 – How to find a profitable niche?
The Benchmark is the most important point. It allows you to find the right niche, the right product to promote and the right strategy before starting your site.
If you neglect the Benchmark, all the work done afterwards will be useless.
a – Choose a niche
You have a hobby ? A passion? A diploma? Choose the niche according to these three questions.
You will write your first articles yourself, so it is important to choose the right topic for your site.
Plus, you’ll probably stay in that niche for a few years, because it’s easier to set up a new site in the same niche than to start over in a new one.
Passion is good, but a niche that pays off is better.
So here’s the list of niches that pay the most in 2021:
- 1. Weight loss
- 2. Hosting/VPN
- 3. Muscle / Bodybuilding
- 4. Finance
- 5. Male sexuality
- 6. Survival
- 7. Casino/Gambling
- 8. Pets
- 9. Voyance
- 10. Adults
Warning: If they are very profitable, they are also very competitive. It will take longer to rise in the Google results and therefore longer before you get your first payout.
b – Start by finding affiliate programs before starting a site
Once you have chosen your niche, find 3 competitors to use as examples. Find the product they promote the most on their site and find the affiliate program they use.
Once you have found an affiliate, you can move on to creating the site structure.
Resource – Search in Google : seo benchmark
2 – Keyword research
The keyword research is the step before the creation of the site structure. It is crucial for the future of your site.
In this chapter, I will cover the basics of keyword research.
You will learn what exactly keyword research is (and why it is important for SEO).
What is keyword research?
Keyword research is the process of discovering the words and phrases (called “keywords”) that people use in search engines, such as Google, Bing and YouTube.
Why is keyword research important for SEO?
Keyword research impacts all other SEO tasks you perform, including content topic research, on-page SEO, email outreach and content promotion.
That’s why keyword research is usually the first step in any SEO campaign.
Keywords are the foundation of your site: they tell you where to go and how your site is progressing.
As a bonus, keyword research helps you better understand your target audience. That’s because keyword research gives you insight into what customers are looking for… and the exact words and phrases they use.
How to find the keywords?
There are several ways to find keywords. Here we will cover the most used and the simplest one: Copy competition.
Use a paid tool such as SEObserver, Ahrefs or SEMrush .
For free you have Neil Patel’s tool as well as the 7 day trial version of SEMrush.
- Enter the domain name of your competitor in the search bar of the tool
- Explore the keywords on which it is positioned
- Choose the keywords that bring the most traffic to the site
- Choose the keywords with which you can do affiliation (comparison / review)
- Export to CSV and create a keyword list on Google Sheet
Example with Neil Patel’s free tool (UbberSuggest) on the electroguide.com website
Do you have your keywords? You are now ready to create the structure of your site.
Resource – Search in Google : seo keyword search
3 – Structure
To create the perfect structure for your site, you will use the list of keywords you retrieved from the tools in the previous chapter.
You will then classify them into categories and sub-categories to create the architecture of your site.
→ Get inspired by the competition and do better!
Example of a structure for a site on bodybuilding
- Bodybuilding (home page)
-
Nutrition
(category)
-
Proteins
(sub-category)
- Best protein powder (item)
- Best vegan protein (article)
-
Food Program
(sub-category)
- Best diet program for mass gain (article)
- Vegetarian diet program for weight gain (article)
-
Proteins
(sub-category)
-
Exercises
(category)
-
Abdos
(sub-category)
- Article 1
- Article 2
-
Arm
(subcategory)
- Article 1
- Article 2
-
Legs
(subcategory)
- Article 1
- Article 2
-
Abdos
(sub-category)
Important: The homepage should always target the biggest keyword. Example “Bodybuilding”.
Is your structure ready in Google Sheet?
You can now create your site.
Resource – Search in Google : Seo Site Structure
4 – Creating a site with WordPress
The creation of the site is the most exciting part. Find a domain name, make the design, put your first site online. You are giving a name and an image to your first online business!
a – The domain name
To find a domain name or branding idea, I use: namelix.com (Enter a keyword and it will give you ideas.)
Important: It’s always better to have the keyword or part of the keyword in the domain name.
Example : semuscler.com / mespetitsmuscles.com / musculator.com
The domain extension does not really matter, but .com or .fr is the best choice
To check the availability of a domain name go to internetbs.net
The domain is free, two solutions:
- Buy it on internetbs
- Wait for the next step (recommended)
b – Host
Here you will choose the host for your site.
I’m not going to beat around the bush:
- Economic solution: Cheap, fast, efficient: Planethoster (Unlimited web hosting for 6€/month) or O2switch (Unlimited web hosting for 5€/month)
- Best solution : fast, French technical service at the top, my personal choice : WPserveur (initial offer at 19€/month)
Take a look, make your choice. Then you can buy your domain name + hosting directly on their sites.
When you purchase your web host, choose the option to install WordPress automatically.
You are now ready to create your first site.
5 – Creating a website with Astra and Elementor
To create a beautiful, efficient and powerful site in a few hours. I advise you to install the following themes and extensions:
The basics:
- Astra WordPress
- Elementor (theme builder → To build your site easily)
Extensions to install (free) :
- SEOpress (SEO optimization)
- Stackable – Gutenberg Blocks (article layout)
- Table of Contents Plus (to add a summary at the beginning of the article)
Extensions to install (paid) :
- WProcket (boost site speed)
- Elementor Pro (for more design possibilities and page templates)
- Astra Pro (for more design possibilities and page templates)
Then you just have to search in Google “tutorialextension name “.
Example: “Astra Theme Tutorial
Build your site with the right structure:
Home > category > subcategories > articles
Important: Take a cue from your competitors so you don’t miss anything.
5 – Write your first articles
Now it’s time to write your first articles.
How to write an article yourself?
- Take one of the keywords from your list (example: “best vegan protein powder”)
- Search the keyword in Google
- Take the first 5 results, look at the structure of the articles (titles)
- Look at the number of words with combiendemots.com
- Make more words than the competition
- Use the same structure and add content that competitors do not have
- Optimize your text with YourtextGuru or SurferSEO
Make sure you always have the best article available on Google:
- The longest
- The most complete
- The most pleasant to read
- The most optimized
Important: For a good balance towards your readers and Google, favor this distribution.
- 70% informational content (exercises, tutorials, recipes..)
- 30% of affiliation articles (comparison, product review..etc)
How to outsource writing?
If you want to outsource the writing quickly and at a good price, go through the following platforms:
Give them a list of keywords and they’ll do the rest!
Write yourself or outsource?
I will always advise to write at least the first 15 articles of your blog to understand the system and better understand the target you are addressing. Then you can subcontract without problem to save time!
Resource – Search in Google : Write seo article
6 – Netlinking
After having put your first articles online (minimum 1 article per category), go to netlinking (while continuing to write and put articles online). I’m going to tell you about different techniques that work:
a – Ninjalinking
NinjaLinking is about spying on the competition to find free spots to link to.
Example: Comment / Wiki / Social network profiles
To find a spot, just spend some time spying on competitors’ links and find free nuggets.
You can also do Google searches to find good spots.
Read this interesting article from Ninjalinker for more info (ok I’ll give you a resource anyway, because it’s the boss of Netlinking: ninjalinker.com/footprint/
b – Exchange of links
Link exchange is barter 2.0. It is about exchanging links of the same power between different sites.
The problem is that you need to have several sites to be able to exchange with other sites. That’s why it’s important to create a PBN (Private Blog Network) from the beginning.
You can exchange links on the following Facebook groups for example:
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/144973267436037
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/seofriend/
c – Purchase of links
Buying links is crucial to getting regular links to your site. Try to get 4-5 links per month to your site from the start!
Here is a list of platforms dedicated to the purchase of links:
Small budget:
- Backlinks
- Ereferrer
Small and large budget:
Tip: Sign up for these platforms today to be ready the day you need them. You can also ask them for advice on a link strategy that fits your budget!
d – Guest Post
The guest post or “guest article” is to write an article for another site in exchange for a link from you.
Just search in Google: “keyword of your niche” + “Write for us” / “Guest post”
Example:
- “bodybuilding” + “guest article
- “bodybuilding” + “write for us
You can also have a look at the FB group: https: //www.facebook.com/groups/seofriend/
e – Outreach (Skyscrapper)
Another way to get links, but much longer, is the skyscraper or outreach. It is about creating a unique content (study, infographic, video…) and promoting it by email to authority sites that could use your content as a source.
Which Netlinking strategy to adopt?
The goal is to remain regular in your Netlinking. Don’t throw everything away at once, but have a good velocity every month. Give yourself a goal (example: 5 links per month) and reach it!
Sample strategy:
- 1st month: 4 NinjaLinking links / 1 purchased link
- 2nd month: 3 NinjaLinking links / 2 purchased links
- 3rd month: 3 NinjaLinking links / 1 purchased link / 1 guest article link
- 4th month: 2 NinjaLinking links / 2 purchased links / 1 article link invited
- 5th month: 1 NinjaLinking link / 3 purchased links / 1 article link invited
- …
Keep this pace for 1 year and watch your site rise in Google rankings.
Once your first articles start to get traffic (about 4-5 months after the site is online, monetize them!
Resource – Search in Google : netlinking seo
7 – Monetization
As I said at the beginning. You need to find the products you are going to sell before you start your site. Whether it is in affiliation, product info or advertising. You need to know how to monetize at the very beginning.
To help you, here are the different ways to monetize a site in SEO:
a – Affiliation
Affiliation consists of adding an affiliate link on your article directing to the vendor’s product page. You get a commission for each sale.
Example of affiliate platforms:
- Amazon Partner
- Affilae
- Awin
- Effiliation
b – Product Info
This is a monetization technique that is very rarely used in SEO. Yet, you can simply create an ebook on a topic related to your site and sell it directly on your blog.
Idea ebook for the bodybuilding niche: “Dietary Program & Exercises for Rapid Mass Gain”
c – Advertising
Forget Google Ads, you’ll never make money. On the other hand, as soon as you pass the 10 000 monthly visitors you can then apply to Ezoic to integrate their platform.
They offer a CPM (cost per thousand visitors) between 6€ and 15€. This is not negligible.
Resource – Search in Google : seo monetization
Now, your site is online, it generates free traffic thanks to your content and your links, it is monetized via affiliation, advertising or product info.
You generate your first passive income, congratulations!
Now what will you do?
8 – Start the process again
- After finishing the first site 100%, make 2 new ones.
- After finishing the first 3 sites, make 4 new ones
- After finishing the first 7 sites, make 8 new ones
Never stop.
Your goal is to have 15 sites generating passive income in the next 2 years .
If you need investment for bigger projects, then resell one or two sites from time to time to have cash to invest.
But never stop creating.
Create an internet empire that generates passive income for you every month.
A video training dedicated to niche sites
Do you want to speed up your results, avoid making mistakes and wasting time? I’ve created a complete 9-step video training to create your first niche sites without the headache.
- More than 20 hours of video tutorials.
- A Discord community of over 700 people who help each other on a daily basis.
- Ready-to-use templates to save time.
- Good plans to get all the necessary tools at the best price.
