As I was doing research on Singapore REITs, I find a lack of blogs that focus on this area. There are many corporate info but nothing that shares personal experiences. In this age where people value real content over marketing fluff, the lack of the former lead me to think about creating a niche site that covers Singapore REIT funds.

Since I have not shown you how to create a niche site that earns some online income, I thought this will be a good exercise to show you what needs to be done.

Step 1: Identify the niche

The easiest way to do this is to do what I have done. Start with what is interesting to you. As you explore online, you will notice pockets of information that is missing or incomplete or lack a distinct voice. These are signs that there might be a space for a new niche blog to be developed and  fulfill the market gap.

Step 2: See how much demand is there

Once I have identified the niche, I do some research around the level of interest. This is done through keyword research. It means looking at what kind of keywords people are typing into Google. If I see lots of questions and variations about Singapore REITs, it means there is a natural demand for such information. The screenshot belows gives how I use Google suggest to see a sample of the kind of keywords that peopel are using with regards to Singapore reits.

Step 3: Develop a monetisation hypothesis

It is important to know how I will make money from the site. It might just be a hypothesis but at least I have some idea on how to test. If you have no ideas on how to monetise your blog’s traffic beside slapping on a couple of ads, you might want to rethink about your idea.

Step 4: Decide on your domain and set up your site

It is good marketing practice to pick a domain name that describes your blog. Since my ideas was about Singapore reits, it will be good to pick something that has the term reits in it. If you picked the exact terms for a domain such as SingaproeReits.org, then we called this exact domain match (EMD) because the domain contains exactly the words that describes your blog. If you picked something like ReitsWarrior.com, then it is more of a brandable domain. What you decide depends on your preference.

Step 5: Create traffic funnels to your site

There are a number of way to generate traffic to your site. My expertise is to get traffic from Google. I do this by targeting one article at one particular problem the searcher may be asking. By being focus, relevant and comprehensive, Google might put my article at the first page of the result by the keyword that the user is searching for. Doing this for all my articles ensure that I will have a steady stream of visitors that will either buy my product or click on my ads.

In a nutshell, that is how I develop a niche site to make money online.