creating an industry standard piece worth in this field?

[Makaveli2007]

I'm thinking about making a website in a field that doesn't seem very promising when it comes to potential search traffic (if I ever got a no.1 ranking for the main keywords for which Id probably need up to 10,000 links...)

However, I think I could create something like an industry standard piece, a type of document that would shed a lot light on an issue (a certain study) many people are wondering about in this field. I even happen to know somebody who is one of the main researchers in this field (mentioned many times by some of the other sites) and could probably ask him to help me conduct his study and mention his name to grant the whole study authority (Im friends with him & its really something useful).

So what Im wondering: Say this works out and I get 1,000 or so natural links to this study. Should this help me get decent traffic one way or another (direct traffic and/or search traffic) even if the keywords in this field dont look like a whole lot of people are searching for it (and assuming Id probably not get to #1 for them in the first place as the top sites have 5-10,000 links and are a decade old)? The field itself is actually a big field, though with countless websites (even though it doesnt seem as if too many people were searching for it).

EDIT: Im not wondering whether this can make me a million or something, Im still a beginner and what Im looking for is to gain experience and build a website that can make me say 50$/month or so on adsense.

[wheel]

You should absolutely do this.

You've got some missing pieces. You were getting the 1000 links just by publishing the material on a website? You're an optimist :). And you'll need more than one article by an expert to create a good website. But all that's stuff you can learn as you go along.

[Makaveli2007]

Hehe 1000 links are optimistic I know. It was really just a random number I threw in. The thing is it is a field where people try to help each other and nobody's really in it for the money (unfortunately monetizing might be a probelm in this field though I think its possible, like I said my goals are moderate to start with!;)).

I had asked 2 people in that field if they'd be willing to give me a link once I start my website before and one of them said sure the other webmaster said "maybe, well see ;)", so I guess getting links in this field is easier as people dont have that high threshold to link out.

Plus the expert is really one of the leading experts in this field and this study would be very revealing and Im hoping many people would link out to it.

I guess I should simply do it and worry about search terms, later? If the field is big enough and not something like "pizza delivery in a small town of 30,000" there should be enough potential in it, hm?

[jimbeetle]

Yeah, don't worry about getting your feet wet, just dive right in. And as Wheel said above don't start off limiting yourself to one article; look forward to building a series or collection of authoratative pieces and you'll give yourself much more chance at success.

[freelistfool]

I agree with the other members. Give it a try and you'll learn a lot. Before I put up my first "real" website I decided to put up a test site as a proof of concept. Last month my test site made just a little more than your monthly goal in adsense.

[Makaveli2007]

thx for the advice. Tomorrow college is over for the rest of the week and Ill finally put the nail in the coffin of my long-time friend procrastination!;)