The Methods to My Madness – Thinking Up a Site Idea

I thought I’d go into a bit of detail about how I go about creating a new websites to shed a bit of light on the process for any newbies out there. This isn’t meant to be a step-by-step guide on how to build sites because I’m sure some of my methods are pretty old school, but this is what works for me.

Here are the categories I’ll be addressing:

• Thinking Up a Site Idea
• Creating Content
• Design, Layout and Navigation
• Building the Website
• Marketing and Promotion
• Monetising the Site

I’ll write a separate post for each point in the coming days. First up:

Coming Up with a Site Idea

You can be the best writer or web designer in the world but if your site ideas are crap then you’re probably not going to get very far. Coming up with a topic can be frustrating but if you can get a good one then you’re well on your way to success.

• Think of things I love – I’m not one of these people who will just chuck up a site on any random topic that I think will make me money. I want to build sites that I’m proud of and that are useful and to do this I’ve got to pick a topic I’m passionate about. My main passion is travel, narrowed down to backpacking, throw in a bit of working abroad and these are what most of my sites revolve around.
• Think of my target market – For a site to produce an income it has to be treated like a business and identifying a target market is, I think, essential to building  a money-maker. I find the best target market to go for is people like me. If I belong to my target market then I know exactly what sorts of things they want to know. As an example when I moved to London I started hanging around with Aussies and Kiwis, reading their magazines, going to their pubs etc. As a result, I know loads about this niche and I’ve aimed my living in London site squarely at them (and other working holiday types). This has made writing content really easy because I know what their questions are and have the answers. I think it will also help down the road when I go to sell ad space because there are loads of companies who target this lucrative market directly.
• Check out the competition – Before I spend loads of time whipping up a site, I do a few Google searches for some keywords that fit with my idea. If there are loads of great websites from big players then I might think twice about using the idea. If there are a bunch of crappy sites that are never updated at the top of the search engines and I know I can build a better site then I’ll go for it for sure.
• Aim big – I always aim to be the best site for whatever my topic is. It doesn’t always turn out that way but I don’t think there’s any point building a site that doesn’t aim to be the best. I always tend to bite off a bit more than I can chew and attempt to build super huge sites that cover everything in my niche. I often have a zillion categories and page ideas and end up trimming things down as I realise the site would never get finished if I include everything I want to.

Loads of webmasters use tools to help estimate the number of searches done across the web and look for info on which keywords pay most with Adsense and build sites that way. This method has been done to death. Any topics with high paying keywords and a high number of searches will be have loads of competition. It’s one thing to go for a topic with lots of potential visitors but when there are a zillion sites vying for that traffic, all of a sudden it doesn’t seem so appealing.

I think the key to coming up with a great idea is marrying up something you’re passionate about with a niche that pays well in an area that’s not already completely saturated with websites. It’s tricky but spend some time brainstorming because if you can nail it at the beginning it’ll pay off later.

If you think of a topic you love but don’t know a lot about it yet – learn! Devour as much information on the topic as you can and become an expert. If you’re not interested in becoming an expert then you’ve chosen the wrong topic! Get out there and get some first-hand experience with whatever it is you’re writing about. Don’t do things half-arsed… become an authority on your topic and it will show and it will pay off.