Thursday, January 28, 2016

How to Make Your Niche Website Stand Out: Coaching Call 5 with Spencer and Samara

Welcome back to another coaching call for Niche Site Project 3.0!

Samara is making some great progress with her site and is about ready to start publishing content! Today’s coaching call is all about figuring out a vision for your website, how to make it unique, and a basic branding discussion.

As you may recall, during our last call we discussed in-depth keyword research.  Samara was left with the assignment to find 20 low competition keywords using the methods shown during our last call.

I’m happy to report that Samara SMASHED that assignment and found closer to 100 great keywords to target!  The other students might need to watch out, Samara is the real deal folks!

Now that she has her keywords in hand, I felt like we needed to discuss some bigger picture strategies before she just starts posted articles all willy-nilly.

Some of the big picture items that we discuss:

  • Developing a Vision Statement
  • Finding ways to make your website stand out; being unique
  • Registering a brandable domain
  • Hosting and WordPress Themes
  • Voice and Tone of website

Overall, I think this is a very valuable call and hope you will listen in.

Samara’s Thoughts…

What’s up everybody?

Well here we are on coaching call no. 5, and as Spencer says, “It’s about to get real!” The call might have been on the shorter side, but it still packs a punch!

As I mentioned to Spencer, looking for keywords was totally addictive. I was supposed to find 20, but I went ahead and found more than 100. Once I got into a groove, I couldn’t stop; in fact, I had to be physically removed from my desk! Alcohol and cigarettes have nothing on keyword research!

Today we talked about the big picture. Spencer says it’s important to set out the vision you have for your business from the get-go. This is actually something of a challenge, since I initially thought we were just going to build a regular ‘ole niche site and call it a day. Before the project started, I hadn’t considered the possibility of creating a brand or developing my own product, so it’s hard for me to get my head around that. But that being said, the idea is so freaking exciting. Who wouldn’t want to try to build a long-term business and grow it over time into something big?

As you guys can see in the video, Spencer served up a lot of food for thought in this call. It was helpful to be told to approach my vision statement by answering the question “What problem is your site solving?” It’s easy to get caught up in picking a niche and then rushing to put a site together, but it’s vitally important to figure out what you’re adding to the conversation. How are you helping? What have you got for people? In the past I think I tried to build a site that catered more to Google than to the general public, which was probably part of the reason it was a total flop.

It’s also important to find a way to stand out, especially in the niche I’m going into, which seems especially saturated. Spencer gave two really good examples of gimmicks, so I have to get to thinking about my unique value proposition. I think this part will be fun, as I like to think outside the box.

I’m glad to hear that Google doesn’t give preference to exact match domains. Anyway, an EDM wouldn’t really be brandable, so I need to come up with something short, catchy, memorable and clever that’s specific to my niche but broad enough to allow me to cover a wide range of material. Sounds like a cinch!

When Spencer pulled up the slide about WordPress, I have to admit I felt ill. Roughly 99% of my previous experiences with the platform have all involved lengthy chats with customer support, an insane amount of swearing and, eventually, tears. As a result, it’s very exciting to just have someone tell me what kind of theme I’m going to want to install and to provide guidance during the process.

Spencer has given me about a thousand assignments. From the logo to the voice of my site to the About Us page, there’s a lot to think about and many a decision to be made. I better get to work!

Watch the Coaching Call

If you would like to watch the entire coaching call, please do so below.  Or if you would rather just listen to the audio, please download it here.

Coaching Call 5: Vision Statement and Developing a Brand

Assignment from Call 4

  • Find 20 Low Competition Keywords for Your Niche Website
  • Use the various methods discussed to input seed keywords
  • At least 3 keywords with search volume of 1,000 or more
  • Remaining 17, search volume doesn’t matter

Vision Statement

  • What is the overall goal of your website?
  • What problems are you solving for your readers?
  • Assignment: Develop an overall vision statement for your website

Examples:

  • Microsoft – A computer on every desk and in every home; all running Microsoft software.
  • Nike – To be the number one athletic company in the world.

How to Make Your Website Stand Out

Brandable Domain Names

  • Create a domain that is short and memorable if possible.
  • Easy to spell if possible
  • Get a .com if possible
  • Bad examples: bestsurvivalknifeguide.com and scootersforsalereviews.com
  • Good Examples: NichePursuits.com, OverStock.com, FinancialSamurai.com
  • Brainstorm Help: http://www.namemesh.com/ and http://www.panabee.com/
  • Assignment: Find an available .com that is brandable

Hosting

  • BlueHost – http://ift.tt/Su6OAn
  • Assignment: Get a Bluehost account (unless you already have hosting).

WordPress Theme

Logo

  • If possible, make logo align with your vision, brand, and voice of your website
  • Cheap logo designs at: Freelancer.com

Developing a Voice

Again, this depends on your angle and brand of your website – they should align.

Assignments for Call 5

  • Develop a Vision Statement
  • Consider ways to make your website stand out
  • Find an available .com that is brandable
  • Get a Bluehost account (http://ift.tt/Su6OAn )
  • Install Thrive Themes on your new domain (http://ift.tt/1u3bkGX )
  • Consider the “voice” and tone of your website
  • Over-achiever goal: Write an about us page, contact page, and privacy policy page

Your Thoughts

As always, I hope that you have found some value as you watched this coaching call!  If you have any additional thoughts or questions, please leave a comment below.  Thanks!

The post How to Make Your Niche Website Stand Out: Coaching Call 5 with Spencer and Samara appeared first on Niche Pursuits.



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