Niche Pursuits Podcast: Find Your Next "Niche" Business Idea!

During this call Spencer and Samara discuss advanced link building strategies for Niche Site Project 3.

Perrin and Colleen discuss linkable assets (building links) for Niche Site Project 3.

In Jake's words: Today I talk to Ryan about building backlinks for his site. In my own sites, I've had some pretty good luck with getting high quality backlinks – which to me is way more important than the quantity of links to my site. As I mentioned, many of the ideas I share were things I originally learned from this post on Backlinko a few years ago. In the call, I share which ones work best for me, and how I put them into action.

Perrin and Colleen complete coaching call 8 for niche site project 3 and discuss the progress of her content and how to start link building and outreach.

Perrin and Colleen do another coaching call. What do I mean by "outreach ecosystem?" Basically, tools. Here's how I define "outreach environment": A place where you can track emails A platform that allows you to use custom templates A way to organize your follow-up A way to keep track of relationships

In our call today, Samara and I discussed basic link building strategies for her niche site project 3 site. On one hand, some people feel like link building is so critical to a sites success; on the other, you have people that never do any linkbuilding and do really well with niche sites. I personally tend to be somewhere in the middle.

Perrin and Colleen have their 6th coaching calls to discuss link building strategies.

Almost exactly 5 years ago was the last day I worked for someone else. I've been self-employed ever since and have been LOVING it! I've learned some important business lessons along the way that I wanted to share with you in today's special podcast episode.

Today, I'm excited to bring you and interview I did with Greg Mercer of JungleScout.com. I don't remember the first place that I ran across an interview with Greg, but as soon as I heard it, it was clear that Greg was a real expert in selling on Amazon. How expert? Well, he regularly does over $400k per month in Amazon sales and did over $500k in December 2015! In addition, Greg has taken those skills for finding great products to sell and leverage that into an AWESOME product finding tool called Jungle Scout. I personally use Jungle Scout all the time to analyze listings and find those hidden gems on Amazon. Greg is offering a 10% discount on Jungle Scout to the Niche Pursuits audience right here. So, in today's podcast, I'm excited to share the discussion that Greg and I have for how he built his Amazon business, as well as his software business.

Hey there…welcome back to another Niche Site Project 3 coaching call! Today we finally started talking about how to actually make some cha-ching from your website. This call was all about monetization strategies for your niche website, both short term and long term.

Perrin and Colleen discuss writing content and outsourcing.

Hey everyone, welcome back to another coaching call for Niche Site Project 3! Are you ready for coaching call 6? In our last call, we discussed how to make your niche website stand out. In today’s call, the subject is all about developing a long term content strategy. These ideas are what can take you from having just a so-so website to having a great website that helps you stand out as an authority. So, not only do we discuss things like types of content and on-page SEO, but we also go into more in-depth strategies like clickable titles and more. Overall, I really hope you can apply some of these strategies into your own business!

Perrin and Colleen discuss launching their website and building out more content for Niche Site Project 3.

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.

It’s that time again – for Niche Site Project Call #4 with Jake and Ryan. If you listened to our last call, you know that Ryan is just about to select a niche and has really be digging into in-depth keyword research following the methods we’ve covered in the last 2 weeks. As I always say, finding a great keyword is only half the battle. The next thing you have to do is create content that deserves to rank for that keyword.

In this call, Samara and I discuss how to find really low competition keywords that are easy to rank for in Google.

In this coaching call for niche site project 3, Jake and Ryan dive into the keyword research mindset for building a successful niche site.

Perrin and Colleen discuss branding and content strategies during this third coaching call for Niche Site Project 3.

Welcome back to another coaching call between Samara and I! If you have been following along, you will know that during our last call, we discussed in depth how to go about picking a good niche for your website. For our 3rd call, we decided to do a bit of review. After Samara dove in with her assignment, she was struggling a bit and wanted some clarification.

I’m excited bring you the second coaching call for Niche Site Project #3, between Ryan and Jake! Today, Ryan and Jake start digging into some light keyword research on the top 3 niches Ryan identified after the last call. They discuss some of the possible sub-niches they could go into, and then let that guide them as they dive into Long Tail Platinum, Ubersuggest, and SEMRush to learn more about the kinds of things this audience is looking for.

In this episode, you will hear coaching call 2 between Perrin and Colleen. In this they discuss additional market research and keyword research examples as they prepare to build a niche site.

This is the official podcast for Niche Site Project 3, coaching call 2 between Samara and I. If you are trying to figure out what niche to build a website on, you really need to listen to this coaching call. Samara and I take an in-depth look into how you can discover low competition niches through keyword sampling and competitor research. This step is so critical in the entire process. Before you run off and start building a website, you need to know if the niche you’ve chosen has potential for newer sites (like yours) to rank well in Google.

In this coaching call for niche site project 3, Perrin and Colleen discuss market research and some of the overall goals that they have for the project.

In this episode, Jake and Ryan do a call together and discuss their overall goals for the project. In addition to laying out some of the groundwork they discuss how to get started finding a niche.

Today is a the very first coaching call between Samara and I for niche site project 3. During this call we discuss the big picture goals and strategies for the project. In addition, we discuss how to brainstorm for niche ideas.

In the podcast today, Jake, Perrin, and I reveal who the 3 students for niche site project 3 will be. If you read the blog post published last week, you already know who the 3 students are: Samara, Ryan, and Colleen. However, in this podcast we share just a few more of our thoughts on the project in general and the process for the official coaching calls. In general, we review the students that we will be coaching and some of our brief plans for the calls.

In today's episode, Jake, Perrin, and I chat about the Niche Site Project 3 video finalists. Voting is now open at: http://www.nichepursuits.com/niche-site-project-3-0-video-finalists-vote-now/

Perrin and I sat down recently and discussed the application process for Niche Site Project 3! We are excited to be kicking off this project and can hardly wait to find out who the winning applicants will be for the project. During this podcast, we discuss why we are doing this project and how we are picking the winning applicant. If you would like to hear Perrin and I discuss the project a bit more and perhaps pick up a few insights we haven't shared previously on the process, feel free to tune in!

The time has come to finally write the final chapter of Niche Site Project 1 and 2. As you may know, both of these projects were public projects where I built a website from scratch and shared the results and everything here on NichePursuits.com. So, keep listening to discover the conclusion of both Niche Site Projects.

Today, I'm excited to bring you an interview with someone with amazing genes. My cousin, Jon Haws, is on the podcast today with what I think is an awesome story. That's right, there is another Haws out there that also has the entrepreneurial blood flowing through his veins.If you don't recall, I interviewed Jon about 3 years ago on the podcast and now he's back for an update!At the time of our previous interview, Jon was running a landscape company, but using online resources to help get customers and grow his business. Well, things have changed quite a bit for Jon since that time...but for the better.Jon recently was able to just quit his full-time job (as a Nurse) and pursue his online business ventures full time.

Welcome to another episode of the Niche Pursuits podcast! In today's episode, Perrin and I discuss my last blog post about hiring a great software developer for your bootstrapped business in depth. If you haven't had a chance to read that blog post yet, I highly recommend that you do so here. These blog posts are part of a 5 part series that I'm doing on how to bootstrap a software business. You can read part one of the series right here. Because I've actually been involved in a couple of different software projects, and I highly successful one (Long Tail Pro), I think sharing some of the Long Tail Pro story along the way makes sense as I teach these principles.

I'm happy to bring you another podcast interview I did recently with an Amazon seller. The guest on the podcast today is Pilar Newman. She has been selling on Amazon for about 8 years, and has really honed her skills for finding and selling products through the Amazon platform. Pilar applies a lot of the tactics other guests have shared in the past. However, where she is different is how she is capitalizing on trending items that are selling really well. Rather than selling the actual trending item itself, she thinks of unique items that are complimentary to the trending items. As a result she is able to sell unique products, but still capitalizes on the big trends that are taking place.

As you may know, I recently published a blog post sharing my recent success on Amazon. Today, Perrin and I sit down and have a more in-depth discussion on the subject. The overall content is very similar to my last blog post where I share the fact that my new Amazon FBA business just clocked in at $40,639 in sales.

I'm excited to bring to you another podcast interview with Matt Paulson! If you recall, I had Matt on the podcast about a year ago and he delivered tons of value. As a result, I thought it would be great to catch up with Matt and have an update on his business at MarketBeat.com. Not only does he give an update on the astounding revenue and income numbers of his business, but he also shares some great advice for email marketing. You can follow along with Matt on his blog at MattPaulson.com. In addition, I HIGHLY recommend that you check out his new book that was just released, Email Marketing Demystified: Build a Massive Mailing List, Write Copy that Converts and Generate More Sales.

Today on the podcast, Perrin and I discuss 6 examples of successful websites using long tail keywords. In general, if you are interested in building websites that get traffic from long tail keywords (and often really long tail keywords), then this podcast will give you some ideas and get you motivated. Overall, if you are interested in learning more about how to apply these long tail keyword strategies in your own websites, please check out Long Tail University (our keyword research training course).

Today, I am sharing a discussion that I did with Travis Jamison from Supremacy SEO and AMZtracker.com. Travis is someone that has really figured out how to rank his products well for tons of long tail keywords in Amazon. During the interview, he dives into how he finds keywords, how he strategically uses keywords in his listings, and how he gets reviews. In addition, Travis is also the created of a software tool called AMZtracker.com.

Today, Perrin and I discuss SEO. Can you believe it already been a year since the big PBN update? This PBN update had a big impact on aPennyShaved.com (the Niche Site Project 2 website) and other niche site we were working on. As a result, we have drastically changed how we do SEO and link building. We haven't talked about these strategies too much, but we definitely are still actively doing keyword research, creating content, and building links for our sites. In fact, I've gotten emails and comments from people asking if we would ever talk about SEO again (rather than my recent Amazon FBA frenzy). So, I felt like it was finally time for an update on what our current strategies in 2015 are for search engine optimization, external and internal link building, content, and so much more.

Today's guest is not just selling a private label product. Zach Vohries from Zackees.com has created a truly original (and patented) product and brought it to the market. Zach had a unique idea and was able to go from idea to selling in about 2 years. I love the story that Zach shares because he has reached the point that all of us should be striving for (at least I know I am). He's created something unique and defensible; he truly is "the one" for his product category. So, what is the product that Zach created? The product is Zackees LED Turn Signal Cycling Gloves; and you can see his product on Amazon right here. In addition, they also sell the Zackees Rechargeable Coin Cell Charger here.

The time has finally come for me to reveal how well my new Amazon FBA business is going. I’ve shared a bit about how I got started selling physical products on Amazon; including the fact that I made about $4,400 in my first 40 days. I’ve also been busy interviewing others for the NIche Pursuits podcast and just generally digging into the Amazon FBA business because I saw so much potential. Today, I want to discuss the revenue of my Amazon business over the past 30 days. In addition, I want to touch on my “authority” site project and why shifting my focus away from it was clearly a good move.

We’re super excited to have an absolutely killer guest today: David Bryant from ChineseImporting.com. Some people, though, are just so far ahead of the game when it comes to important products from overseas. David is one of those people. Just how far ahead is he? You might want to sit down. Starting in 2008, David built a business that now sources over 300 products from China and generates over $1 million in annual revenue. The crazy part? He’s only 30 years old! That’s what you call a whiz kid. David’s here to school us in the importing arts. So check it out and listen up.

Perrin and I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Scott Voelker from TheAmazingSeller.com and discuss his FBA business. He has been able to build up his Amazon physical product business to revenues of $35,000 per month since starting in October 2014 (about 9 months). In the interview today, Scott shares what has worked in his business, and how other can go about finding great products to sell and hopefully replicate some of the success he is having.

We’ve got another (much more exciting) update about our Amazon FBA business. It’s been a week, our products are live, and we’ve finally got some hard numbers to report.

It’s been a while (about a month to be exact) since we’ve recorded a podcast on our Amazon FBA business. And believe me, we’ve wanted to talk to you guys about it. But we couldn’t because our business was at a total stand-still (more on this below). But today, we’re back at it, and we’re ready to fire up another podcast episode about our Amazon FBA business. And you’re going to love this one. We’ve got a lot to share, a lot to be excited about, and a lot of big dreams to chase. How’s it all come together? Check it out.

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Arial",sans-serif; color:black;} Welcome to Episode 64 of the Niche Pursuits podcast. Today we welcome Steve Chou. Steve and his wife own the ecommerce store, bumblebeelinens.com. Steve also has a blog and training classes on starting ecommerce stores on his other sites, mywifequitherjob.com and profitableonlinestore.com. Steve gives us the story of how he and his wife started their store which sells a large product line of personalized handkerchiefs and linens. Since its inception in 2007, the store now has earnings in the high six figures.

We are excited about today’s episode which will be part 1 of a 5 part series on howto bootstrap a software business. Along the way, we will look at my software company, Long Tail Pro and how it became my most successful venture and we’ll also tell you, the listener, how to go out and start your own successful software business.

Perrin and I are excited to bring you the income reports for the authority site and my amazon product. We also discuss a pivot I am making in my business based on these numbers. The details of these income reports can be found in this blog post from last week. Here's a quick rundown of what we discuss on the podcast today: Last month our authority site brought in $912.70, mostly from Kindle books, and some Adsense revenue. However, at this point we’re facing a bit of a reality check: we’re now 10 months in to this project, and the traffic is not growing like we had hoped. Currently we’re spending $3,000-4,000 per month on content creation and marketing. Over the past several months we’ve spent $15,000-20,000 and only realized $7,000 revenue. On the other hand, my Amazon product launched March 28 and saw revenues of $4,400 in the first 30 days. This started as a very casual side project, but we sold out of the first batch of 105 units in 40 days for an initial revenue of $6,000. Looking forward we’re planning to increase profit margins through lower freight costs and lower price per unit due to economies of scale with our manufacturer. The difference in momentum between these two projects is allowing for a pretty clear decision in our business focus.

Today’s episode of the Niche Pursuits Podcast is a Q&A session with Perrin and I talking all about selling physical products on Amazon. A few of the questions covered are: What are your thoughts about going outside of Amazon? Another common question we get is Why Not Go Direct? A few people have been asking about selling through Amazon’s FBA program in other countries. Can you estimate costs associated with a product? Where and How do you get samples? Can you source from the US? What due diligence can you do around suppliers on Alibaba? and others

Today, Perrin and I get behind the microphone and discuss how to start and grow your own business through Amazon’s FBA program. By following several key steps, I was able to sell $4,399 in product in just 30 days. Perrin and I share the process and answer some questions taken from the blog. This is a very real business, which I hope to scale and see monthly earnings quadruple. The potential rewards are, in my opinion, much greater than a niche website.

Today, I share a discussion between Perrin and I on the importance of being unique with your business. In particular, we have a more in-depth discussion about being the ONE, as I wrote about in my last blog post here. This is an interesting topic that may seem pretty obvious to some people, while others may be completely oblivious to the subject. In my opinion, to build a defensible business that can stand the test of time, that business needs to be doing something unique.

Perrin and I have launched a couple of books on Amazon Kindle and we have been surprised by their success. In this episode, we discuss the latest earnings and other successes from both our authority site and our kindle books.