Part of your research for developing your niche site will be looking at competitor sites. You usually find these sites by searching on your site’s keywords and then looking at the top 10 results.

Even though it’s good practise to check the competitor sites regularly, most of us forget to.

There is however a very easy and efficient way of tracking activity in you niche, and that is by using Google alerts.

Using Google alerts you can get notified by email when someone mentions a particular keyword in a blog, website,video etc.

Here is partial screen shot showing two alerts that I’ve set up:

I’ve chosen comprehensive which includes all media and I get an email one a day. An example is shown below:

All you need is Google account (free if you don’t already have one), and you can configure them here: http://www.google.com/alerts/

I frequently get emails and mail offering to make me rich; if I just purchase their website package; which is all set up ready to go, and just waiting to make me oodles of cash.

I can even choose whether I want to base my new Internet Empire on

• Porn
• Gambling
• Supplements
• etc

And some even want to give me multiple empires, all for the same price… What a bargin!

If It Sounds Too Good To be True..

You’re familiar I’m sure with the saying ..If It Sounds Too Good To be True..It probably is.

What usually on offer is a site template full of affiliate links and google adense code and all you need to do is buy it and the visitors will be there in droves buying stuff and clicking on the adsense ads making you rich.

Of course they fail to mention how you will get the visitors in the first place.

Are Ready Made Websites( Turnkey websites) Bad?

Ready made/Turnkey websites are in fact a very good idea and extremely useful.They  could form the basis of a profitable web based business/ business website.

You should remember that all website start with a website template. This website is based on a template developed by Chris Pearson. Chris in turn developed his template on the Wordpress platform; which you could call a site template.

All I really needed to do with the site is to add content. So you could say it is 90% ready made.

There is nothing wrong with this type of site and that is how most of the websites on the internet are built.

Deciding Between Good and Bad

So how do you tell a good ready made site from a bad one?

 Well as a general rule of thumb the more complete the site is then the more likely it is to be a scam.

 By complete I mean does it include the site content as well as the site template? If so then I would keep clear of it.

After all if you had a website that made you $1000 a day for 10 minutes work would you..

• Sell it for $100?
• Sell it for $500?
• Keep your mouth shut and pocket the cash?

Search engines can provide two forms of traffic- Organic and paid.

To get organic traffic you will need to get your pages listed high in the search engine results for your selected keywords. If you have done you research correctly then this should not be a problem as you will have choosen a niche market that you can compete in.

So for niche websites there shouldn’t really be a requirement to purchase traffic from the search engines using PPC (pay per click).

However you shouldn’t dismiss pay per click traffic out of hand. It is very useful for getting traffic:

• for testing a niche idea
• for getting traffic while your site is new and not ranked well
• for getting traffic for related keywords that are not possible to rank for.

PPC Traffic for Testing

Is your niche idea going to work? Well you don’t really know for sure until you’ve tried it. But getting organic traffic from the search engines can take many months, and require that you create a content heavy website; which in itself takes time.

However you can turn PPC traffic on and off in an instant, and send it to a small mini site which you can put together in days.

This sounds easy, but in practise it requires that you have experience in PPC, Website building and testing to make it work. For that reason it is really more suitable for experienced web masters looking to test a new idea, than beginners looking to start.

However if it sounds interesting to you then the technique is covered in more detail in craking the niche code.

Getting Traffic For a New Website

Free organic traffic takes months, and sometimes years to build. For sites that sell a product or service, then it is well worth considering getting the initial site traffic by paying for it.

How much you can/should pay depends on many factors, but usually most site owners will want to see a positive return. Meaning that they will want to pay less for the traffic than they make from the traffic.

Getting Traffic for Related Keywords

You may have a site on computers, and have targeted the term computers for your keyword. You also have several pages of reviews on various computer models that are linked to affiliate programs, and convert very well.

You may find that you can create a PPC campaign to drive traffic to these pages with two main benefits:

• You make more affiliate sales
• You get more site visitors.. Just give them a reason to return

In summary PPC traffic isn’t for everyone, but it does have its uses, and should not be dismissed out of hand. It does however require mastering a new skill, and is not really for beginners. However for experienced web masters it is well worth considering.

Useful Resources:

• SEO and PPC Training and Consulting
• Google Adwords, Yahoo publisher, Microsoft Adcenter

When looking at Niche websites you will undoubtably come across Mini Websites.

Although all website start small these sites are usually 1-10 pages and stay that way. Mini sites are favoured by affiliate marketers as they are quick to build and are excellent for product/idea testing.

Main Advantages

* Quick to build
* Can build multiple sites
* Enables quick test of market
* Very focused

Main Disadvantages

* Unlikely to rank well in search engines
* Usually required to use PPC as traffic source

References/Resources

The ebook the niche code goes into the concept in more detail. However before you go and buy the book you should know that it uses PPC as the main method of niche testing, and if you don’t feel comfortable with trying PPC then It is probably not for you.