How do you pick a site topic?

Topic you are interested in or topic to make money

[gazraa]

I've been racking my brain to come up with an idea for a site.

I want to build a content based site with a view to using for 'an income source' over time.

I want it to be something I'm interested in, as that might give me some motivation to keep it going, but that's the problem.

I can't come up with any topic that's not already saturated with sites on the same thing.

I've sat down and done a big spider chart listing my main interests, possible spin off interests, related themes, seeing where they cross and join up further down the chart.... but nothing has caught my eye, inspired me and not produced millions (ok, not millions but you know what I mean) of like minded sites in google.

So how do you guys and girls come up with the idea?

Is it a case of if it's already been done, do it better?

[flobaby]

I'm also developing a site with the same thought in mind, in an oversaturated market as well. However, I've got a particular spin on it and when I researched keywords with that in mind, that market suddenly became manageable and I realized I could be a player.

So you might consider targeting an area within your large market.

[tomkuegler]

I run over 35 Web sites and I think all of them started the same way... something hit me all of sudden that it was interesting.

Once I had that I went about making sure it was interesting to other people by asking other's opinions.

Then I built or had built a site that would work. Sometimes one site will lead to another semi-related site, but often they are unconnected.

[MovingOnUp]

Here's how I've come up with virtually all of my sites:

1) I have an idea of something I'd like to find.

2) I search for it. If I find it, I stop there. If not, I proceed to the next step.

3) I build it.

4) It gets tremendous word of mouth as others who are looking for the same thing tell others.

They seldom start as ideas for sites. They're just things I want to use. I probably come up with dozens of these every month. Virtually all of the things I try to find are already out there, so I don't build them. But those few that aren't make excellent sites.

Most people I talk to have built dozens and dozens of sites and few are profitable. Every single site I've built (all by using this method) has been profitable.

Most of these sites have had a ton of competition come in after I built mine. There are literally thousands of sites like my second site now. But by being one of the first, I had a huge advantage. There are dozens of sites like my third one now. There are no other sites like my fourth one.

[Dorian]

I'm not sure I would worry about how saturated a market appears to be. Most affiliates don't really have a clue and, if the product or service is a big online seller, you can easily get a decent share of the market just by doing it better.

[gazraa]

thanks for the replies. I think I've thought of an idea to at least look into, plus there's one or two possibilities in the areas I thought were saturated.... I think. Anyway, gives me something to look into anyway.

Anymore advice is welcome though, not just for me but for others in the same position.

[webmastertexas]

My first site came about because I was bored in-between college classes, so knocked one out in-between waiting for classes to start in the computer labs. The rest came because I figured I could make money with this, but I still wanted to stay within my realm of interest, thus they remained in my general niche, but are their own separate sites with their own separate identities. It's very difficult to do something just because you think it'll make money, I think, if you have no personal interest in it at all.

And just because there are a gazillion sites out there in your area of expertise/interest, that doesn't mean you still can't break in. If you can do it better, why not go for it?

[rbarker]

I encourage people to do keyword research on fields of interest. You may discover there is an area that has little or no competition but substantial demand. I've launched several successful sites based on this approach.

Doing similar research ten years ago would have cost you thousands. Today it's practically free and takes minutes to get results.

[jasonlambert]

My biggest site i started in March 2003 because I started working for an ISP that gave it's staff a free domain name and I couldnt think of anything else better to do at the time. That site now pulls in over 10,000+ uniques a day.

Other sites i've started because of high revenue potential.

A new site im planning the financials for now came as a result of overhearing 2 "non-technical" everyday people discussing life on a train on my way home from work 2 weeks ago. Go figure.

[Fairla]

Pick something you are very, VERY interested in, or you will soon go insane with boredom.

Also, I suggest you define your topic broadly rather than narrowly, so you can branch out into a lot of different interconnected areas. That saves you boredom and earns extra cash. No need to have 15 different domains if you can fit 15 topics logically into one domain.

(For instance, if you are thinking of starting a site on rose gardening, start a general gardening site instead, or better yet, start a site about flowers that includes a gardening section. Well, maybe not, but you see what I mean.)

[StephenR]

From a marketing standpoint I first go to [inventory.overture.com...] to find a large market with a high search through. It can be on anything off the top of your head or something you are passionate about. From their I drill down to a particular niche and simply target it in every aspect from the actual Website-->forum-->RSS Feed.

[Dorian]

I disagree strongly with Fairla and suggest you do the exact opposite. Narrow your focus and then narrow it some more.

[siteseo]

I got one of my best ideas for a site while visiting a renaissance festival. I uncovered a great niche with SOME competition, but none of the competitors are into SEO whatsoever, so it's been fairly easy to get good organic traffic. IOW, find a niche that other affiliate site developers aren't already in. There's competition...and then there's competition, yaknow?

Keep your "radar" up everywhere you go...never know when you'll stumble onto something.

[Fairla]

What I'm talking about is a narrow focus on each page/section, but leaving yourself room to put up other sections later. If you want a rose garden site, put it under, say, myreallygreatgardeningsite.com/flowers/roses -- and then someday you can add other sections if you want. If not, you still have a narrowly focused rose garden site.

Just leave yourself room to grow and expand. If, say, you notice visitors to your gardening site are clicking through your affiliate links and buying a lot of strawberry plants -- you may want to add a narrowly focused strawberry section at fruit/strawberries. Why not? It works for me, anyway.

(Btw I have no idea if people even buy plants online, probably not, I just made this up as an example)

[rfung]

I'm currently at a tradeshow, and I have right here in my pocket a website for this industry focusing on a particular subset of their needs - I looked up potential sites for a related industry and couldn't find anything on G. Next thing on the list is to talk to some people I know who are in this other industry and see if the needs are also there for the same kind of site.

Everyone I meet who I happen to talk to about what I do, I mention 'if you have any idea for a site on your particular industry, let me know and we can partner up'. I don't profess to know what is needed in any particular niche, so I figure it's much more worthwhile to partner up with someone on the inside for a share of the profits... sounds like a good idea anyhow.

[Dorian]

Fairla, its only a matter of opinion but I still don't agree. The advantage of the affiliate over a general merchant is your ability to be highly focussed. If you start adding more plants to your site you'll dilute your content and the search engines will no longer rate you for roses.

[MovingOnUp]

Dorian, you're assuming that a site ranks for keywords. It doesn't. Pages rank for keywords. You can have some pages that rank for roses and others than rank for orchids.

The main problem that you run into with too general of a site is that you're not able to be an authority at anything, so you end up not being an authority on nothing. (When I say authority here, I'm not talking about the SEO term "authority", but the everyday use of the word.) Your site will be much more useful to your visitors if you can effectively be an authority on the subject of your site.

Why does that matter? When you're an authority, you get a lot of free traffic. You get repeat visitors. You get referrals. You get unsolicited links. You get press coverage.

I've found this type of traffic to be far more reliable than PPC or natural search traffic. Search engines can be fickle, so natural search traffic can come and go. PPC has such a low barrier to entry that the ROI is continually dropping due to new competition.

[Dorian]

MovingOnUp, no I wasn't assuming that. But you're not totally correct in your interpretation either. Yes, search engines rank pages rather than sites. But, by the same token, the value of a particular page is increased when another page, whether on the same site or not, refers to a page of similar content. So, for example, this garden site. We have 2 versions both with 3 pages.
Site 1) Has a home page, a roses page and a petunia page.
Site 2) Has a home page and 2 roses pages.
Assuming all pages are interlinked on both sites, were someone to look for roses they'll find site two listed before site one because there are more pages linked to more pages on the same theme.

What is happening is that the search engines reflect what you're calling 'authority' but could equally be called branding.

[Fairla]

In my experience, people won't find your home page at all, just the page with the info they're looking for. Then, if you're lucky -- and you have a lot of content -- they'll start looking around the rest of your site, bookmark it, and come back later.

I'm not sure if my gardening example was a great one, but to expand on it -- most gardeners probably don't grow only roses, so it doesn't hurt to give them info on other plants on the same site, assuming you have the time and inclination. (You can be a gardening authority as well as a rose authority.)

I fell into this approach, starting with a relatively narrow idea of my site and expanding constantly to meet visitors' requests and interests. I have found this approach works well for me and hasn't hurt me in search engines. However, it's not for everyone and not the only way to do things. (And I shouldn't give my secrets away, anyway.)

[Michael Anthony]

I've said it time and again - you DON'T need to be interested in anything except money to make money online.

The simple criteria for a good aff site is this - does it make money. I get very interested when I can make money from something, rather than seeng if what I'm interested in can make me money. Seems to work better this way for me.

[gazraa]

but would you say that's because you have had success and know what can work?

For someone dipping their toe in the affiliate marketing pond, would a site that has content they are interested in keep up the motivation more?

I've tried the finance side of things, and it's purely for the financial gain it could bring, but finding the motivation to work on the site when I know little about the subject matter is proving to be it's downfall.

If it was, for instance, all about jack daniels, then maybe I'd want to work on it a bit more.