How to Build a Niche Site
If you want to get started making money online one of the quickest and easiest ways to do so is by creating niche sites. These are smaller, mini sites that focus on a very narrow topic. If you start with a general idea you will want to drill down a few categories from there. Let's say you are interested in Video Games. That is a broad topic covered by the likes of IGN and others, but if you drill down to say Civilization V, you will cut out a lot of the competition.
There are a ton of products and keyword terms to go after here, but how do you get started? Zac Johnson has a nice guide on building niche sites that you should check out. Let's take a look at some of the key points.
Find a Profitable Niche
The first stop should be Google's Keyword tool to see how many searches there are for your term each month. You don't want too many, otherwise you are going to be competing with the bigger sites, but you do want a decent cost per click (CPC). That is a sign that the niche is profitable. Then search google to see what advertisers are using the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads to drive traffic to their sites. You don't want to see Amazon, but if you can find affiliate sites that's a bonus.
Find Affiliates
The easiest affiliate market to use is Clickbank. All you have to do is type your keyword in to their search box and see what pops up.
Content
Building content on your site is easy. You want to continue to do some keyword research with Google's tool to see what kinds of variations are listed. Check out competitor sites to see what they are writing about. Then start posting as much content as you can. Don't overthink this.
Getting Traffic
Great, so you built the site but how are visitors going to find it? You have to build links to your site. You can submit to paid directories like Yahoo and/or start writing articles for directories like EzineArticles. The more you write, the more links you will get coming back to you site for the keywords that you desire. With any luck, other sites will pick up your articles and maintain the link.
There is a quick how-to guide on how to get started with niche marketing. The good news is that the more you create the more practice you get at figuring out what works and what doesn't. Plus, the sites continue to give you residual income for years down the line, even after you have moved on to another niche!