Mini Product Niche Website: Step by Step Example

[Billy Kay]

We're gonna take a step by step look at building a Mini Product Niche Website

We're gonna try army gifts

We found a good merchant on a good Network with good terms

First, we're going to see if anyone searches for the products, since we don't want to devote a website to something no one searches for.

DS, using Chapter 5 Step-by-Step Product Choosing Technique, let me know if the keywords selections are acceptable

[dsharpie]

OK, I went to the Google Keywords Tool (using the original version at https://adwords.google.com/select/Ke...rceLegacy=true) and did a search on army gifts, checking the box to "use synonyms."

I got 17 results in the top section (shown here with Global monthly searches):

army gifts 9,900
army gift 8,100
gifts for army 1,900
army christmas gifts 480
army retirement gifts 480
swiss army knife gift 480
army graduation gifts 320
army retirement gift 260
swiss army gifts 260
personalized army gifts 210
army mom gifts 170
army wife gifts 170
army national guard gifts 110
army officer gifts 91
army wife gift 91
army gifts for him 73
army dad gifts 58

I also gleaned 7 more keywords (not containing the complete phrase I searched for) in the bottom section of the page, that we might want to consider:

military gift 14,800
military gifts 14,800
army merchandise 5,400
soldier gifts 1,600
army mugs 1,000
deployment gifts 880
armed forces gifts 210

Then, I thought it might be a good idea to search on two other more generic terms, just to see if there is something we should include that doesn't necessarily have the word army in it (also thinking that this list might help point us to more product ideas that could be titled with the word Army included).

Here are some top results for soldier gifts:

soldiers gifts 6,600
gifts for soldiers 4,400
soldier gift 3,600
soldiers gift 2,900
gift for soldiers 1,900
soldier gifts 1,600
gift for soldier 1,300
gift ideas for soldiers 1,000
gifts to soldiers 1,000
gifts for soldier 720
gifts for deployed soldiers 590
gifts for soldiers in iraq 390
send gifts to soldiers 390
gift for a soldier 320
soldier gift ideas 320
gifts for a soldier 260
gifts for soldiers in afghanistan 260

And here are some top results for military gifts (after removing the two already mentioned above):

gifts for military 3,600
gift for military 1,900
military retirement gifts 1,600
gifts for military men 720
personalized military gifts 590
military christmas gifts 390
military gift baskets 390
military graduation gift 390
military graduation gifts 390
retirement gifts for military 320
gifts for the military 260
military promotion gift 260

Looks like there are enough keywords to move ahead, although we'll probably need to get rid of "swiss army" keywords in the first list. I wonder if we will need to "pad out" the army-related keywords with a few of the more generic ones, or else conclude that this niche is too narrow?

What say you, Billy?

[Billy Kay]

Wow!

I WAS gonna' suggest you also do a search for soldier (it seems interchangeable with army) - but you already did!!!

I LOVE checking results!

gifts for deployed soldiers 590

(I would never have thought of the word "deployed" on my own)

From:Mini Product Niche Website Step 1:
Keywords

Step F:

Delete any phrases that the merchant doesn't offer.

Delete brand names.

Also delete phrases that scream out the visitor is NOT going to buy anything. Phrases like "Free army gifts catalog" or "army gifts pictures", or anything with the word "kit".

Delete words that are subjective. Cute, best, ultimate

Delete any named stores army gifts. For example, if there was a famous store called Army-Gifts-R-Us, and there was a search result for "army gifts-r-us soldier gifts", those people are looking for that particular merchant.

I usually delete any phrases with the word "Cheap", like "cheap". These people don't know what they're looking for, and tend to not buy. Leave them for the price comparison Websites!

At the other end of the money spectrum, leave out designer or luxury also. These people are "wannabees" and tick me off. Let them go to Neimen Markus and Tiffanys.

Also delete phrases with store or buy, as in "buy army gifts" or "army gifts store". While these people seem to be looking for what you offer, they don't know exactly WHAT they want. You should simply keep the highly targeted visitors.

[Billy Kay]

Step G: Your Mini Product Niche Website will have 5 pages devoted to one set of matching keywords - 3 keyword phrases per page. Call each a "themed page" if it helps.

Look at the top 10 results above. Can you make a themed page for any of them?

Look at the lower results. Are any keyword phrases a variation of the phrases you want to use as your theme?

From your list, here's some "themes" I came up with:

army gifts

army retirement gifts

army graduation gifts

army merchandise

soldier gifts

(maybe 2 pages with a variation of soldier)

[Billy Kay]

Step H: Now that you have an idea of what the themes of your 5 webpages will be, you need to group the similar phrases from the above list together - making sure you keep them in the order AdWords gave you. Your list will now look like this:

army gifts, gifts for army, personalized army gifts

army retirement gifts, ooops, YOU need to do this

[dsharpie]

Step H: Now that you have an idea of what the themes of your 5 webpages will be, you need to group the similar phrases from the above list together - making sure you keep them in the order AdWords gave you. Your list will now look like this:

army gifts, gifts for army, personalized army gifts

army retirement gifts, ooops, YOU need to do this

OK, how about this:

1) army gifts, gifts for army, personalized army gifts

2) army retirement gifts, military retirement gifts, retirement gifts for military

3) army graduation gifts, military graduation gifts, ???

4) army merchandise, army mugs, ???

soldier gifts.... actually, it looks like solder gifts is down in the list below some better values, so I'll start with the highest search value:

5) soldiers gifts, gifts for soldiers, gift ideas for soldiers

And as you suggested, there might be enough of these to get more specific with another page:

6) deployment gifts (maybe giving to them as they prepare to leave), gifts for deployed soldiers (already deployed?), gifts to soldiers (implies sending a gift to them while deployed)

This leaves out "military gifts - 14,800" but maybe we don't want to use generic "military" except to fill in our 3 keywords where we don't have enough?

I'm also skipping over "army christmas gifts" (too seasonal?) and the entire range of "army wife" and army family-related gifts (KW numbers are pretty low, but still might justify a page?). Maybe those would be good for the external links section at the bottom, along with "support our troops" car tags, etc?

How did I do?

Specifically, I still need 1 more KW for a couple of the pages, and I'm concerned about having to put in "military" version of KW for graduation and retirement. Not sure if "army mugs" is too specific to go with "army merchandise".

[Billy Kay]

You did good young skywalker

On Mini Product Niche Website Step 1:
Keywords

Step I

The barbeque category has FOUR phrases. We need just three. This has an easy fix. Combine the lowest ranked one ("barbecue aprons") with "grill aprons" and you now have "barbecue grill aprons" which will rank for both keywords.

bbq aprons, grill aprons, barbeque aprons, barbecue aprons

becomes

bbq aprons, barbecue grill aprons, barbeque aprons

-------------------------------

do some combining

also add ARMY to all the soldier and military phrases, like

army retirement gifts, army military retirement gifts, retirement gifts for army military

and

army soldiers gifts, gifts for army soldiers, gift ideas for army soldiers

-------------------------

4) army merchandise, army mugs, ???

Only use this if you have at least 5 army mugs

I'd ax the army merchandise phrase - that could be a Jeep, or an M-16

[Billy Kay]

Step J: Continue tweaking. Continue consolidating. You may have to toss out the lowest ranking keyword. But at some point you will have the necessary 3 related keyword phrases you need, and your final results will look something like this:

(Look at Step J on the tutorial DS.)

It's not a one-shot deal when picking the right keywords... it's tweaking/combining... until you're satisfied.

[Billy Kay]

6) deployment gifts (maybe giving to them as they prepare to leave), gifts for deployed soldiers (already deployed?), gifts to soldiers (implies sending a gift to them while deployed)

I KNOW that sounds like a good idea. But I've learned that what WE THINK people should search for is NOT always what they actually search for In the tutorial (same chapter) I state that "I" spell bar-b-que this way. But the rest of the world spells it bar-b-q, barbeque, etc. So MY spelling is NOT in the keywords

[Billy Kay]

From the same chapter...

3. We started with 149 keywords, and niched it down to 25. It's important to note that fifty people can end up with 50 different results. As long as you followed the directions, there is no wrong set of keywords. Plus, if 50 affiliates all choose to make sites for aprons, it means they will all focus on different keywords, which is good for everyone involved.

When making decisions on how many products are available, remember you're using more then one merchant. I know you're using me and Beachy, but you may have other merchants

[Billy Kay]

4) army merchandise, army mugs, ???

Only use this if you have at least 5 army mugs

I'd ax the army merchandise phrase - that could be a Jeep, or an M-16

You don't have to do this:

When you're doing your tweaking, you can add "personalized" to those phrases (if you were planning to have a page devoted to "personalized army gifts"

and it would look something like this:

personalized army gifts, personalized army merchandise, personalized army mugs

again, use these only if you didn't have any "ideal options" upfront

Your goal is to have three RELATED keyword phrases per page

These 3 phrases - while I wouldn't consider them related - they all have "personalized army" in common - and that's actually what MY site sells.

[dsharpie]

OK, after reading your suggestions, thinking for awhile, doing a bit more keyword research, looking at other merchants for gift ideas, and looking more closely at your army- military-related product line, I have made the following adjustments by combining, moving around, and adding some keywords.

I'll show my original version, followed by changed version:

1) army gifts, gifts for army, personalized army gifts

Because I'm going to do a page focused on personalized gifts (see below), I'm removing the third keyword from this page and replacing it with "army military gifts". By itself, "military gifts" had a large search number, so by adding "army" in front it, we might benefit from some of those searchers who are really looking for army gifts.

1) army gifts, gifts for army, army military gifts

2) army retirement gifts, military retirement gifts, retirement gifts for military

Followed your suggestion to add "army" to each "military" keyword

2) army retirement gifts, army military retirement gifts, retirement gifts for army military

3) army graduation gifts, military graduation gifts, ???

Again, followed your suggestion to add "army" to the "military" keyword, and I'm still looking for a great keyword for the third position. I'm also considering whether "army commissioning gifts" (very low search numbers) might work with this grouping -- commissioning is the term usually used for officers "graduating" from an officer school, so it might work well and get the occasional traffic.

3) army graduation gifts, army military graduation gifts, army commissioning gifts

4) army merchandise, army mugs, ???

I like your suggestion that the above categories could be kept if we added the word "personalized" so that's what I've done -- I like the fact that "army merchandise" has 5,400 searches, and adding the personalized word onto it should filter out the people wanting M-16s or tanks.

However, when bringing down "personalized army gifts" from the original first group (Global monthly 210), I noticed "personalized military gifts" (Global monthly 590) not used yet, so I combined them together to make "personalized army military gifts". Because your merchant site has personalized army mugs, along with some other great personalized gifts (like the soldier's prayer plaque), I'm including the "personalized army mugs" keyword.

4) personalized army merchandise, personalized army mugs, personalized army military gifts

5) soldiers gifts, gifts for soldiers, gift ideas for soldiers

As suggested, added "army" to all of these:

5) army soldiers gifts, gifts for army soldiers, gift ideas for army soldiers

6) deployment gifts (maybe giving to them as they prepare to leave), gifts for deployed soldiers (already deployed?), gifts to soldiers (implies sending a gift to them while deployed)

I'm scratching this page due to ambiguity about whether people want a gift to give to a soldier who is about to deploy or they want to send a gift some someone overseas. I might revisit this concept later on and perhaps add a page to the site later on.

I'm also skipping over "army christmas gifts" (too seasonal?) and the entire range of "army wife" and army family-related gifts (KW numbers are pretty low, but still might justify a page?). Maybe those would be good for the external links section at the bottom, along with "support our troops" car tags, etc?

OK, after looking at your site, Billy, and seeing some great army wife shirts, sweatshirts, and other gifts, and doing a Google Keyword Tool search on "army wife" (not "army wives"... that just gets the TV show), I came up with a set of three keywords that I propose to use for page 6. We already had on our first research list "army wife gifts" (170 searches), and I found several more related to clothing items that would potentially work with that:

army wife shirts 1,900
army wife clothing 1,200
army wife apparel 880
army wife t shirts 880
army wife jewelry 390
army wife license plate 320
army wife merchandise 320

So, I'm going to use a couple of them, adding on the word "gifts" so that each keyword in the entire site has both "army" and "gifts" in it.

6) army wife gifts, army wife clothing gifts, army wife apparel gifts

NOTE: I wondered about using "army wife shirts gifts" or "army wife t shirts gifts" but that sounds a little bit awkward, although it better describes the items we'll likely feature (and shirts has better numbers than clothing or apparel). Is it OK to use just "army wife shirts" (covers tshirts and sweatshirts, with better numbers) without the word "gifts"? If so, I'd make the list:

6) army wife gifts, army wife shirts, army wife clothing gifts

A QUESTION: I started off with the generic "army wife gifts" although it has lower numbers -- with the idea that the page isn't just about army wife shirts (better numbers). Should I change that?

WHY include army wife stuff? Because if they are searching for "army wife shirts" or "army wife clothing" it might be the wife who is searching, and she'll then get something for herself as well as for her soldier hubby! Or, the person (Mom, Dad, sister, brother, friend, husband) searching for a gift for an army wife might get a great idea for the soldiers they know, too, or for themselves. It's too good a category to ignore, I think.

OK, I'm ready for the professor to grade my quiz and further enlighten me.

[Billy Kay]

DS - I'm very impressed! Everything is spot on!

re: your question on #6... I really don't think there's that much difference in the traffic. If the difference was in the thousands it would be one thing. I'm thinking the difference is in the "dozens" - lol

So go with what you decided.

From the same chapter:

Final Review

You found the perfect products.

With the right merchant.

On the right Network.

And you now have the right keywords.

You're done! You've completed the research. The hard part is over. You graduated! The rest - building the niche site - is simply copying and pasting products.

Double check your results before proceeding. Building a website with the wrong products or keywords will NOT generate a profit.

I think you did great DS!

Just double check your final decision one more time.

Then we can go on to Chapter 2 - downloading the template (which I think you already did)

[Billy Kay]

Double check the numbers on

3) army graduation gifts, army military graduation gifts, army commissioning gifts

MY feeling is there's a limited number of searches - basically - how many people graduate west point each year? I think these keywords may be limited.

It may also be "seasonal" - assuming West Point only graduates in June

Also, still on the same chapter, I state that if you can't get THREE related keywords, you may want to drop the idea of that page.

But it's your call.

[dsharpie]

Double check the numbers on



MY feeling is there's a limited number of searches - basically - how many people graduate west point each year? I think these keywords may be limited.

It may also be "seasonal" - assuming West Point only graduates in June

Also, still on the same chapter, I state that if you can't get THREE related keywords, you may want to drop the idea of that page.

But it's your call.

OK, I double-checked the graduation numbers for seasonality and surprisingly, it's relatively steady throughout the year, with a bit of a spike up around April/May. Evidently, people are searching for gifts not just for West Point graduation, but also for those graduating from boot camp throughout the year.

However, the numbers are fairly low, and we don't have a great selection of products that are specific to army graduation, so I'm going to pull that page out of the list for now and keep it on the back burner for possible future addition once the site is up and running on the better pages.

So, my final list (I think) is:

1) army gifts, gifts for army, army military gifts
2) army retirement gifts, army military retirement gifts, retirement gifts for army military
3) personalized army merchandise, personalized army mugs, personalized army military gifts
4) army soldiers gifts, gifts for army soldiers, gift ideas for army soldiers
5) army wife gifts, army wife shirts, army wife clothing gifts

I'm not sure yet about the order of those 5 pages, including which one will become the main "index.htm" page. I'm sure we'll get to that soon when we also consider choosing a domain name. But if I remember the tutorial correctly, we're first going to start building some pages before deciding on the domain.

I've downloaded the templates, so I think we're ready for the next step, although I may have to work with the products a bit to decide which of them go on which pages. The army wife page is probably the easiest to decide on the products, but the other 4 categories have lots of overlap where one product might work equally well on several of the pages.

Ready for your direction, dear leader...

[Billy Kay]

1) army gifts, gifts for army, army military gifts
2) army retirement gifts, army military retirement gifts, retirement gifts for army military
3) personalized army merchandise, personalized army mugs, personalized army military gifts
4) army soldiers gifts, gifts for army soldiers, gift ideas for army soldiers
5) army wife gifts, army wife shirts, army wife clothing gifts

When choosing the main index page, remember that this is the DEFAULT page search engines will link to - and the first page people will generally see

Look at your 5 choices and rule out the "most specific/hence limiting" choices

For example, you don't want people to think it's a site devoted to army wife gifts

So you look for the most basic - that also says what the other 4 pages will be about

So which of the 5 basically says "This site is about army gifts"?

As soon as you decide which will be your index page, we'll start on page 2

(Which is basically random - you already KNOW from your research that all these pages will be targeted, related and focused. So which one is page 3 and which one is page 4 is not really important)

[Billy Kay]

The order you have them in above is an acceptable order for the pages

1) army gifts, gifts for army, army military gifts
2) army retirement gifts, army military retirement gifts, retirement gifts for army military
3) personalized army merchandise, personalized army mugs, personalized army military gifts
4) army soldiers gifts, gifts for army soldiers, gift ideas for army soldiers
5) army wife gifts, army wife shirts, army wife clothing gifts

[dsharpie]

Yep, looks like #1 is the most targeted and concise set of keywords that says this site is about "army gifts" so I think #1 will be the index page.

[Billy Kay]

Mini Product Niche Website Step 3:
Creating Niche Page 2

In Chapter 10 Step J you made 5 groups of themed keywords, with 3 keyword phrases each. We'll randomly use the army retirement words as the basis of creating page 2. They are:

army retirement gifts, army military retirement gifts, retirement gifts for army military

Since AdWords placed "army retirement gifts" as the highest result, "army retirement gifts" will be the main keyword phrase for our retirement page.

Look at keyword-phrase-04.htm. This is your page 2. It will contain keyword phrases 04, 05 & 06.

Look at the code for keyword-phrase-04.htm. You'll notice I split the page into different sections for ease of use.

Section 1: Headers is the all-important header section. It contains the tags that search engines look for and use.

Section 2: Main Product Description Your page will feature one main product, followed by 5 brief thumbnail products. This section is the main product.

Section 3: Product Thumbnail Descriptions. If the visitor doesn't like the army retirement gift you chose to feature, this section gives them 5 more choices. It is similar to the "You may also like" links on other websites.

Section 4: Internal Links. These are the links on each page to your other pages - like personalized-army-military-gifts.htm, army-soldiers-gifts.htm, army-wife-gifts.htm, etc. As I mentioned earlier, as you do the search and replace functions during this tutorial, these links inadvertently get re-named, so I put them in a separate file, and we'll place the finished product onto each webpage at the end.

Section 5: External Related Links. Do you remember when we were choosing the keyword phrases we found more then we could use? Like army graduation gifts. This is where those links would go. Or, if someone comes to your site for a army gift and for whatever reason decides not to purchase one, this is a chance to still get a sale. In this example, we can assume they know someone in the service (which is why they were searching for army gifts), so this is links to related products they may want instead: military gifts, magazine subscriptions to military or gun mags, maybe Navy or Marine items, etc.

Section 6: One paragraph keyword site description. Besides products, you actually need CONTENT!! Something for the search engines to index and visitors to read.

Section 7: Optional related banner to merchant Just like section 4 - external links to related products. But since you'll be using a 468x60 banner, it will add color to your site. And if you choose a professional looking banner, it will make your site look more professional.

Section 8: Optional sitemeter If you track visits, this is where the code goes.

[Billy Kay]

Paste your army retirement keywords into a temporary notepad page. They are all lower case. Paste again and change the keyword phrases to Title case. You'll have this:

army retirement gifts, army military retirement gifts, retirement gifts for army military

Army Retirement Gifts, Army Military Retirement Gifts, Retirement Gifts for Army Military

army retirement gifts is keyword phrase 04 (and is also the main keyword phrase for this page)

army military retirement gifts is keyword phrase 05

retirement gifts for army military is keyword phrase 06

and since you also made Title case versions,

Army Retirement Gifts is Keyword Phrase 04

Army Military Retirement Gifts is Keyword Phrase 05

Retirement Gifts for Army Military is Keyword Phrase 06

You need one more version of the lower case keywords, which are used for your page names and require dashes. So copy the original phrases, add dashes, and you'll have

army-retirement-gifts is keyword-phrase-04

army-military-retirement-gifts is keyword-phrase-05

retirement-gifts-for-army-military is keyword-phrase-06

[Billy Kay]

Without giving away the farm, search engines want to see the keyword on the page. Where it's placed, how it's placed, how many times it appears are all important to achieving good search engine rankings.

In the good old days you could get good rankings simply by stating the keywords a zillion times. As search engines have evolved, they made us work harder. We have to mix up the order, change the case, use the keywords in an actual sentence, place different keyword phrases in certain locations, etc.

I've tweaked my keyword formula over the years, and have consistently been rewarded with good rankings. So PLEASE... avoid the temptation to change anything.

[Billy Kay]

Here we go! On keyword-phrase-04.htm

1. Replace "Keyword Phrase 04" with "Army Retirement Gifts".

Note you're using Title case. This results in 6 changes to your template.

2. Replace "keyword phrase 06" with "retirement gifts for army military".

All lower case. Results in 9 changes to your template.

3. Replace "keyword phrase 04" with "army retirement gifts".

All lower case. 11 changes.

4. Replace "keyword phrase 05" with "army military retirement gifts".

All lower case. 9 changes.

5. Replace "keyword-phrase-04" with "army-retirement-gifts".

There should only be one occurrence (in Section 5, your internal links directory.

6. Save "keyword-phrase-04.htm" as "army-retirement-gifts.htm" and open it up in your browser to see what you have. Looks cool, eh?

7. You can delete the original "keyword-phrase-04.htm" as it's just been replaced.

[Billy Kay]

ds,

It's important to search and replace using the same case I specified

Lemme know if you get the same number of replacements as the tutorial states

[dsharpie]

OK, army-retirement-gifts.htm is created and I got the exact number of substitutions you specified above.

[Billy Kay]

Mini Product Niche Website Step 4:
Niche Page 2: Adding the Featured Product

Go to the merchant's page featuring the products. In this case, it's

http://engravablegifts2go.com/person....htm#topofpage

If you already know (from your affiliate sales reports) which army gift is the best seller, use it. If not, use your instincts. If they all look interchangeable, go with the one with the best graphic. Since customers can't touch the item or smell it, etc., all we have going for us on the Internet is the product graphic.

I'll use the US Army Personalized Wood Sign in this example, because I like the graphic.

Click thru to the product page.

This would be a good time to log into the Network to get links. Depending on the merchant, you may be able to get the product link from an existing link option.

You may be able to get the link from the "Link to any page on our site" option available for most merchants.

In some cases you may have to download the merchant's datafeed. For example, you can't copy a product graphic for a merchant who is hosted on Yahoo!Stores, so you need the datafeed to get the product image.