I have been building niche sites for a while now and can assure you they are still a very common means of generating a passive income online. Although there are thousands of niche sites, there still are hundreds of opportunities to build them for passive profit.
A niche site is a website that caters to a specific audience or target market via content that answers their specific questions, interests, and needs. A niche site may cover topics geared towards a core market interested in hobbies, technology, food, or sports for example.
This article covers twelve facts about passive income niche sites and common questions you may have about them. If you are looking to learn how to make a niche site, definitely check out our passive income niche site guide and this article with over 497 niche site ideas.
1. What Does “Niche” Mean?
According to Oxford Languages, the word “niche” comes from Latin “nīdus” (meaning “nest”) and became a French word in the 17th century. In English, a niche is “a specialized segment of the market for a particular kind of product or service.”
Therefore, a niche website is a site that addresses a very specific (or niche) audience, target market, or segment. The market segment may be defined by demographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioral characteristics. These segmentations may include age, gender, interests, technology, income, city, or country.
2. Are Niche Sites Still Profitable?
Niche sites are still profitable and according to a study carried out by Income School, niche sites with 50k monthly pageviews and posts that are 8 months or older generate an average of $2,815 per month. And niche sites with 200k page views per month generate an average of $7,270 monthly.
In their course Project 24, Income School teaches how to create a successful niche site that could generate a full-time passive income in 24 months. There are many successful members in their community who are creating new niche sites today. You can learn more about how to create a successful niche site following the Income School method here.
You can build niche sites, make them profitable, and then sell them for between x20 to x40 monthly income the site makes. For example, Income School sold their niche site Camper Report for $321,326, Embora Pets for $60,000, and DirtBikePlanet for $37,721. You can also purchase a niche site, improve it, and flip it for profit.
3. How do Niche Sites Make Money?
Niche sites make money via ad placement, affiliate marketing, brand deals, sponsorships, and eCommerce. You can build profitable niches and then sell them for between x20 to x40 monthly income the site makes. You can also purchase a niche site, improve monetization, and flip it for profit.
On average, niche sites sell for x35 the monthly income the site generates. But, some sites are highly profitable, well-monetized niches, and can sell for more. Other sites are in less-monetizable niches that are highly seasonal and will sell for less. Generally, a niche site can sell for between x20 to x40 monthly income the site makes. For example, Income School sold its niche site Kinfeup for $184,000 and Pontoonguide for $74,000.
You can also purchase a niche site, improve it, and flip it for profit. Improving a site can sometimes be done very easily, for example by applying to specialized ad brokers or by adding eCommerce to the site. Other times it may be more difficult, so it’s very important to carry out your own due diligence before trying this (more expensive) option. You can buy niche sites from a variety of places online such as Flippa, Website Broker, or even from Income School.
4. What Are Niche Site Examples?
Niche site examples include BetterBoat.com, 7YearOlds.com, CamperReport.com, and EmboraPets.com. These niche site examples cater to specific target audiences such as pleasure boaters, parents of 7-year-old children, campers, and pet owners.
You have probably consulted a number of niche sites over the last few months that can provide you excellent hands-on examples. Just check out your browsing history and look through the websites you have visited over the past few days.
Did you visit a website that caters to a specific hobby or interest you have? Did you read a blog post written by someone you had never heard of before finding the content? Somebody wrote the articles you read to reply to the specific questions you typed into Google, and it’s a great way for them to generate SEO traffic they can monetize.
5. How Do I Find a Niche?
You can find a niche by looking through a list of niche ideas and basing your choice on your personal passions, interests, and hobbies. You should also consider how popular, seasonal, evergreen, and monetizable the niche is.
It really is best to choose a niche based on your personal interests since building a profitable niche site does require a lot of time and patience to monetize. If you cannot imagine yourself writing 150 to 200 articles about the topic, you may want to consider another niche. We have a list of over 400 niche site ideas here! Check them out.
It’s also important to consider how popular, evergreen, monetizable, and seasonal the niche is. Popular meaning there is traffic looking for information on the topic and monetizable meaning you can make money from the target market. It’s important to know if the topic will be seasonal because your traffic will fluctuate, and if it is not evergreen you will have to update your content often. You can learn more about each of these at the end of this article.
6. What Are Niche Site Ideas?
Niche site ideas include 3D Printing for Beginners, Antiquing in Europe, Office DIY, Leather Shoemaking, No Fridge Recipes, Karate for Kids, Snowboarding in North America, 360 Camera Video Montage, French For Business Purposes, and Music Therapy for Babies.
Notice that these niche site ideas take a topic and niche-down to cater to a specific target market. You could also narrow it down further and chose a micro-niche, or a niche within a niche. For example, North African French for Business Purposes. However, you still want to be sure that there is a large enough target audience for it to work.
For example, 3D printing is a very wide market that can be for industrials as well as hobbyists. Instead of covering 3D printing as a whole, which would be a daunting task, you could just focus on beginner hobbyists. There is a large enough market for it to be a good niche idea.
7. What Are The Most Profitable Niches?
Some of the most profitable niches are also the most competitive and include health, fitness, personal finance, news, medical topics, and technology. These niches are profitable because they interest such a wide range of people across the world and could therefore generate millions of monthly monetizable page views.
The above-mentioned niches are highly competitive because so many bloggers and companies are established authorities in the domain. Some are also YMYL, or “Your Money or Your Life” topics (learn more at the button of this article) making them very hard to rank for as a beginner.
However, tiny niche sites with very little traffic can generate thousands of dollars a month if they are well monetized. For example, one Income School student is making $10,000/month with only 15,000 monthly pageviews (source). That is an extremely small niche site! But it’s making more than some sites with x10 the traffic.
8. Can You Make Passive Income With Niche Websites?
You can make passive income with niche websites since you are not paid based on an hourly or per-project rate. According to a study by Income School, niche sites with 50k monthly pageviews and posts that are 8 months or older generate an average of $2,815 per month in passive income. Money can be made via ads, affiliate marketing, and eCommerce.
In order to make money from the traffic you generate to your blog, you have to monetize it. Otherwise, you will not make anything. One of the easiest ways to monetize traffic is by turning on ads. You can use Google Ads or an authorized broker to do so.
Other ways to make passive income from a niche site include affiliate marketing (or referring products or services you like), sponsorships, eCommerce (eBooks, courses, print-on-demand, dropshipping), and lead generation.
9. What is an Amazon Niche Site?
Amazon niche sites are websites built for a specific audience using Amazon’s affiliate program as a means to generate income by referring products. These sites were popular from the early 2000s to about 2015. However, Amazon has since lowered affiliate commissions and Google does not rank these sites as well since they are often low-quality.
Google wants to provide the searcher with the most relevant response to their search query. However, many Amazon niche sites were just embedding amazon products and reviews to try to get a click on their affiliate links, providing the reader little to no value. Therefore, these sites no longer rank well (unless you provide value) and are not as profitable since Amazon lowered their affiliate commissions.
A better way to refer to Amazon products would be to purchase the products, test them yourself, take photos, and create a truly personal review. It’s also super important to say exactly what product you suggest and for which purpose. Watch the video above to learn more and check out Income School if you like their content.
10. Do Amazon Niche Sites Still Make Money?
Some Amazon niche sites may still make money but their income has more than likely declined since the early 2000s. As of April 20th, 2020, Amazon drastically reduced affiliate commissions in a variety of categories. For example, Beauty product commissions went from a 6% to 3%.
Amazon literally cut affiliate commissions in half or more in some categories, from Amazon Fresh (3% to 1%), Furniture, Home, Home Improvement, Lawn & Garden, Pets Products, Pantry (8% to 3%), Grocery (5% to 1%), Headphones, Beauty, Musical Instruments, Business & Industrial Supplies (6% to 3%), and Health & Personal Care with a decrease from 4.5% to 1% (source).
Amazon niche sites are less and less a viable way for independent bloggers and affiliate markers to make a passive income online. In the video above, Ricky and Jim from Income School discuss how they dealt with these dramatic changes and the reason why they have left Amazon Niche sites behind.
11. Where to Learn How to Make a Profitable Niche Site?
You can learn about how to make a profitable niche site in Project 24 by Income School. This internet marketing course teaches independent bloggers how to create a successful blog with the goal of making a full-time passive income in 24 months.
Income School contains a full 60-step course that takes its members on a journey from creating their first niche site to monetizing it to make passive income. We are members of their course and highly recommend it for those who are truly interested in making a passive income niche site.
12. What Niches are Trending on YouTube?
Niches that are trending on YouTube include Gaming, Health, Fitness, Entertainment, Product Reviews, ASMR, Music, Food, Tech, Education, DIY, and Unboxings. You can find niches that are trending on YouTube using Google Trends.
We have a list of almost 500 YouTube niche ideas but if you are interested in finding out if they are trending, Google Trends is an awesome tool for this. Watch the video above to learn more about how we use Google Trends to see if a niche is trending in Google search or on YouTube.
If you are interested in building a successful passive income YouTube channel you may also be interested in Project 24! Not only does it contain a full niche site course, but Project 24 also has a 60-step YouTube course.
Related Questions
Do niche websites still work? Yes, niche websites still work and can be profitable. According to a study carried out by Income School, niche sites with 50k monthly pageviews and posts that are 8 months or older generate an average of $2,815 per month.
How do I make a Micro Niche website? To build a micro-niche site, choose a popular and monetizable niche you are interested in, create a website using WordPress, write relevant and helpful content, wait for your content to rank (can take up to 8 months), and then monetize that content for passive income.
How do niche blogs make money? Niche sites make money via ad placement done by brokers, affiliate marketing, brand deals, sponsorships, selling services such as consulting, eCommerce including physical products, digital products, print-on-demand, dropshipping, and lead generation.
