How do you know if a niche is worth it?

[MortimerJazz]

Tweet

Hi everyone,

I'd be interested to get people's thoughts on the processes that need to stuck to when deciding wheter a niche is going to be profitable or not.

What do people mean when they talk about "running the numbers"? Is there some kind of formula? How do you guys decide whether it's worth your time to try to promote a particular niche?

Thanks alot for your help in advance ...

[tbp]

I only create niche sites now, as like being able to build them quickly, and having to perform very little maintenance.

My way of choosing a site is:

Checking the estimated traffic in Googles keyword tool and a couple of others.

Checking I can get a .co.uk or .org.uk domain for the main keyword.

Looking at the top 10 results for that keyword, and seeing if I think I can get in the top 5 at least.

A lot of it is gut instinct, I`m getting more of an idea looking back at my other niche sites how googles green bar, and other indicators, relate to real traffic figures. I`ve also learnt over time techniques that work for me as indicators to show if I can easily get a good ranking.

I also go for products with a decent commission. Obviously due to their nature niche sites get smaller traffic volumes, so i`ll go for a product that gives me say £5 commission rather than £1.

It works well, a lot of my sites only get 50 visitors a day, but with a conversion rate of 40 - 50% I can still earn a nice bit of commission out of it. As they are smaller and quick to create, I can have a number of niche sites all earning, rather than one big one.

I think a lot of it comes from experience, I made some bad site choices when I started, but learned from them, and keep on learning so I have a better idea of whether a site will do well or not.

In the end if it doesn't work well, and you make 5 sales in a year, its still more than the domain cost so you are still in profit.

[csn]

I agree with tbp: experience tells you if you're onto a winner.

I've got a reseller web hosting account so if I have 1 website or 100, it'll all cost the same. The only price I pay for a site is for the domain name. Of course there is my own time but I don't charge myself for my own time

UK domains from 1&1 Internet Ltd. cost around £7 inc VAT for 2 years. If I think of an idea, for £7 I'm willing to give it a go. If it doesn't make back £7 in 2 years, I would be very suprised.

[MortimerJazz]

Thanks for the replies so far. Can I ask where you've got your reseller account csn?

Thanks,

[csn]

Can I ask where you've got your reseller account csn?

HostNine - They are a mixed bag. When it's good, it's really good. And vice versa.

Servage Hosting are recommended by Kieron and Ray though I've not tried them out (yet).

[Lawcom]

on hosting services I've been thinking of going with this Canadian company .. unlimited domains from $5.95 that's about £3 per month ... seems like a good deal to me HostPapa - Canada's Web Hosting Provider

don't know much about them but maybe worth checking out..

And no I'm not afffiliated you can help each other out without making a profit all the time, no need to be obsessed

[zaq]

Hi everyone,

I'd be interested to get people's thoughts on the processes that need to stuck to when deciding wheter a niche is going to be profitable or not.

What do people mean when they talk about "running the numbers"? Is there some kind of formula? How do you guys decide whether it's worth your time to try to promote a particular niche?

Thanks alot for your help in advance ...

Easy check other sites in the same niche if they are ltd company by looking at the bottom of their frontpage or domain name whois then check company house for their income records etc

WebCHeck - Problems (only works on weekdays)

it cost around £4 a report but its worth it you can see their last year income, profit and loss numbers, thats how i do it

[andy_jacko]

I dont like recomending hosting companies as there's bad and good in all,

I have used servage for over a year with very few issues, stats does let them down due to the way their servers work so I recomend finding an alternative(analytics?)

[kingoftherodeo]

Heart Hosting are really good in my opinion!

[lauriebred]

I used Heart hosting for a while but they bombarded me with promotional junk so I dropped them.
If you're selling to the UK market, best use a provider with servers in the UK, there's some evidence that this helps the search engine positioning. Don't assume that all UK providers use UK based servers, some of them lease American or Continental ones.