Content Website Ad Revenue

Someone emailed me the other day and asked how they can start a content website and ultimately sell adspace on it, like I’ve done so successfully in the past. They asked me how to pick a niche and get started.

Here’s my response and how you can do it too:

First of all, the landscape is ever changing. Picking a niche is tough.

What I can tell you is this.

The niche itself (to an extent) is not necessarily the first thing that you should decide.

The first thing you should decide (and maybe just a better way of discovering a niche), is how can you create an interactive website that people will want to keep coming back to. Don’t think in terms of niche, think in terms of what you already know something about and how you can engage people.

How do you engage someone? Create something funny, informative, interesting that they wouldn’t truly want to tell to their real life friends. This is basically ‘how to be viral 101′.

Don’t make it about what keywords or what niche would work well for the sake of selling ad space. Instead, make it about HOW you can get people to keep coming back to this site. Come up with something unique or do something that’s out there in a better way, in a way that’ll get those people to send it to their friends and tell them how cool, funny or interesting the site or content is.

When you think about things with this mindset rather than thinking about the niche, you separate yourself from the competitors in whatever market you end up being in. They are all thinking about how they can land all these banner sales and you are just out there creating a cool environment, that people actually want to use.

Law of attraction really works here and people will be using your contact form, emailing you, calling you, and knocking down your door to get their banners or ads on your new interactive site that people in their niche are actually using.

Still have no ideas? What niche is interesting to you to do a site about? What are you knowledgeable on that you could personally write content on every now and then or at least be the driving (knowledgeable) force behind making decisions regarding what’ll be on the site and what is interesting to you??? By using yourself as the demographic (to an extend) you instantly have the power and know-how to ‘make it happen’ in this niche that you know something about.

I had a friend that was making a site about Intellectual Property because the contextual ads paid out well. He didn’t have a clue what he was doing and failed and lost a lot of money. After 1 hour of coaching him, the same stuff that I am telling you guys, he ended up creating what is now one of the most successful Mixed Martial Arts websites in the world. (One of his biggest personal hobbies.)

That’d be my recommendation. Still have nothing? If you respond and tell me more about you. i.e. What has worked for you. What was not worked for you. What your biggest success in marketing has been and what your personal hobbies are, then I could help you come up with an interesting spin on a niche that’s out there. But truly, you can do it all yourself. If you still want to fire ideas off someone then respond to this email and I’ll talk to you about it for free.

At the end of the day it’s not about doing what someone else is doing it’s about making something work that you already know how to make convert, whether you realize it or not you are already an expert in something. Are you getting my drift?

P.S. Please show your support by heading over to JonathanVolk.com and checking out my Interview with him. Leave me a nice comment over there if you like it!
Interview –> http://www.jonathanvolk.com/affiliate-marketers/interview-brian-evans.html