Yesterday I created my first niche website! It’s still a work in progress, but I am determined to work on it and give it a go - and I’ll let you know how it runs!

I have been on a big learning curve over the last few weeks, and I’ve only just scratched the surface of what there is to learn about IM out there. I have found a stack of fantastic resources so far, and today I wanted to bring to your attention two helpful - and free - e-books that gave me the beginner’s knowledge and confidence to have a go at the niche website caper.

How to Develop Money-Making Niche Sites with WordPress

The first is by Caroline Middlebrook, and it’s called How to Develop Money-Making Niche Sites with WordPress. Now, this is a fantastic little book for anyone who is a beginner with WordPress. Caroline takes you, step by step, through the process of finding a host, installing WP, finding an adsense-ready theme, installing the theme, modifying it, and managing your links.

For those of you who have used WordPress before there is a bit of of information here that you can skip over, but there are also some fantastic tips and important tid-bits of information that will help you to properly manage and design your site. However, you may still be left scratching your heads over how to choose the right niche. Caroline herself recommends this next book - and the two really do work together.

The $5 Mini-site Formula

Written by Josh Spaulding, the $5 Formula is a short, straightforward guide on how to research and chose a niche. Josh argues that if you can find enough ‘deep’ niches, and set up a number of niche sites, you can make a living online by earning just $5 per day from each with adsense - and perhaps some affiliates into the mix, too.

The best thing about this book - in my opinion - were the links to two excellent free market research tools, as well as an explanation of how to use them. The two sites Josh recommends are Spyfu.com and the Free SEO Book Keyword Tool(aff). Josh tells you how to use both of these tools to choose a profitable niche - though actually coming up with the right one is up to you - he just tells you the numbers that will make it worth your while!

If you’re interested in niche marketing, I would recommend you download both today. They are reasonably short, straightforward, and both gave some very useful advice to beginner like me.

Caroline Middlebrook - How to Develop Money-Making Niche Sites with WordPress
Josh Spaulding - $5 Mini-site Formula

I also suggest you take a bit of time to wander around Caroline’s blog - it’s an interesting read from a rising internet marketer.