Back in 2011, I launched something I called the Open Niche Project. The idea was simple: I would openly build and promote a niche affiliate website from scratch, documenting the entire process right here on the blog as a real-world niche marketing example.
I had been looking for a way to create something genuinely valuable for both me and my readers. And after years of blogging about internet marketing, I had come to believe one thing with absolute certainty: if the thing being created is not valuable to both the creator and the user, it will eventually die. To have a sustainable business, you must create value. It really is that simple.
The Project Idea
The plan was to work on a new affiliate site for about an hour every day, log my progress publicly, blog about the process weekly, answer reader questions along the way, and prove that someone with a full-time job could build a real business online.
What readers would get was clear: a detailed roadmap they could follow, a real niche marketing example with nothing hidden, and the inspiration that comes from watching someone do the work in real time.
For my part, I would get increased reader engagement, practical experience with a new project, and the satisfaction of helping people through example rather than theory.
The Honest Truth About Public Projects
I should be transparent about something. This was not my first attempt at a public niche site project. I had done a niche super site project about Elvis collectibles years earlier. That site got traffic but never made much money because the niche selection was poor. I also started a project in a forum that I never finished. And I participated in Pat Flynn's Niche Site Duel but lost steam because I was trying to outsource everything while working a demanding day job.
That history of incomplete public projects is worth mentioning because it illustrates a truth that many online entrepreneurs face: starting is easy, finishing is hard. Especially when you are doing it part-time.
The Niche Site Building Process
For anyone new to affiliate marketing, here is the basic process for building a niche affiliate site. These steps are as relevant in 2026 as they were when I first outlined them:
- Commit to the project. Make a public declaration that you are doing this. Accountability matters.
- Do your research. Study successful sites in your space. Understand what works and why.
- Keyword research and niche selection. Find a niche with real demand, reasonable competition, and products worth promoting.
- Domain purchase and site building. Set up your WordPress site, choose a clean theme, and get the technical foundation right.
- Content creation and monetization. Create genuinely helpful content and integrate affiliate offers naturally.
- Promotion, promotion, promotion. Internet marketing is mostly marketing. The best content in the world does not matter if nobody sees it.
Lessons That Still Apply
The Open Niche Project taught me several lessons that remain true today. First, building in public creates accountability that is hard to replicate any other way. Second, the fundamentals of niche site building have not changed much even as the tools and platforms have evolved dramatically. Third, and most importantly, the businesses that last are the ones built on genuine value.
If you are thinking about starting a niche affiliate site, the best time to start is now. Pick a niche you care about, commit to creating the best content in that space, and show up consistently. The rest is details.
Sounds interesting, Mark. I will follow this. I don’t think I’d find any significance in building niche sense for AdSense in quantity myself. But I have met with very mixed success in attempting this with sites I did sort of care about. So I look forward to benefitting from your experience here.
Thanks Chuck. Just to be clear, it will be an affiliate product site — not AdSense.
Trust me, Mark…after Panda and whatever-the-heck-Google-did-to-AdSense-clicks-in-April…I’d much rather look at other options anyway. Affiliate is something I’ve never been able to get the hang of. So I’ll be looking on with great interest!
I understand completely. Should be fun. Mark
Hey Mark – I bet you can guess my response. Sounds fantastic. Let me throw out one thing to chew on…. and many will disagree with me….. IMO 90% of niche failure is based on an improper selection of a layout or theme which gives you a fighting chance to make money. Yep – that’s my belief and I’m sticking to it – for now.
The assumption out there that everyone is a whiz at WordPress, Thesis, Genesis, etc. is way off base. We get frustrated and confused in our site set-up, OR the site is generating good traffic, but the traffic has no reason to convert -thus it leaves.
Great points. I will definitely plan to cover that. Thanks Kent!
Kent,
This is the first response that’s made sense since I’ve been involved in affiliate marketing for 20 mths. now. Earnings equal less than $35.00 | Expenses exceed $500.00. I can get visitors to my sites, yet no one ever buys or clicks on my ads. I’ve struggled with design and feel that it is one of the biggest reasons for my lack of success with WP and internet marketing. Not to mention the recent phishing attacks one of the themes you mentioned. Of course they won’t admit it nor offer a solution.
My other comment is to Mark. Is this going to be another how-to promote a learn how to make money on the internet product / website? Because I have yet to see anyone show how to set up a site that promotes tangible goods i.e. golf clubs etc.
Nope — no internet marketing products. Not sure what the products/niche will be yet, but definately not Internet Marketing related.
Hi Mark:
This is a wonderful idea and I’m sure lots of people will benefit from this. I’m really excited about it. I have also bought the Unstoppable Affiliate and would love to read your blog posts – are they available anywhere else or only on Facebook?
Well, I will be doing full blog posts here weekly and daily short posts on facebook. Does that make sense? How do you like UA so far?
Mark, it’s good to see a fresh post here! My RSS reader has been feeling lonely 😉
I’m really excited about what you have planned here. I have been doing something similar myself, and it is a whole load of fun (and is starting to shown signs of great potential).
I will be reading with great interest!
All the best,
Tom
Yep Tom, I know. One reason that I am doing this is to get some focus back on the blog. Been distracted by lots of other junk. Sorry about that. M
Hello,
I am very interested in this project. I feel experienced in all the steps until you get to promote, promote, promote. I need to get a lot better at that!
Thanks for your information. I have several sites to apply those promotion steps to!
Sincerely,
Levada Pendry
We all can get better at that. Traffic can be the hardest part, and it requires patience. One of my first discussions will be about mindset and expectations. We’ll be talking about how to prepare mentally for the “promote” part. –M
Mark,
Can you show how to promote something other than a “How to Get Rich on the Internet” product. I want to promote golf equipment and the only sale I’ve made so far is to myself in order to keep my CJ account from being deleted.
Kent: Poignant comment as I too have become frustrated with one of the WP themes you mentioned. It sure wasn’t what they sold me on and support is difficult for someone with no prior HTML / CSS design knowledge.
I’m so frustrated at this point that I stopped going into my computer room.
Yep — we will not be promoting an internet product, and the niche will not be internet marketing. -M
Mark
you are doing a wonderful thing here … there is so much junk being overly promoted … and most everyone is confused with too much information overload …
this is the first comment I have ever made to a blog but I had to in this case …
thank you so much for doing this … this is what I … and I am sure many others need to finally get started the correct way …
again … my heartfelt thanks and God Bless
David
Wow. It is very cool that I get to reply to your very first blog comment. Thank you so much. I’m thrilled to have you following along. M
Mark to the rescue! I decided months ago that affiliate marketing was a perfect fit for me and since then I have been stuffing my poor little head with waaaaaaay too much information. I’m a great learner, but for some reason I cannot dive in and start putting things into action. I know that it will be a huge help for me to watch you taking things step by step…. hopefully rescuing me from my information overload and lack of focus. I’m really looking forward to this!
I think affiliate marketing really just boils down to a few key things. So, we should be able to make it simple. In the end, you are simply matching offers with buyers. You need both offers (affiliate products) and buyers (traffic) to generate the matches (using sales copy).
Pretty simple really.
M
Step 1.2 : your friends and blog followers will commit to harassing you to finish and document every piece of this one 😉
I know I can count on you! I am thinking about doing some videos, so I will be looking to you for some transcription if that happens….M
Hey Mark
I’m watching you now! 😉
Well done for puting it on the line. Maybe I will set myself a goal of matching
your effort and see if I can get some traction also on my site.
No Slacking now…. You have put yourself out there as an example 😉
All the best
Sean
Keep after me. I typically need encouragement of this type. Lots of distractions on this end. Thanks! M
Ok, this is going to be cool! Can’t wait to watch the progress and learn, learn, learn!
And another bonus for you – wrap it all up into a killer tutorial ebook when you’re done! 😉
And I second that thing about your friends buggin’ ya to finish, too! LOL!!
Thanks. But usually what happens is that I end up learning more from my readers. I love hearing what people have to say about stuff. There are a ton of smart people that read this blog. It should be really fun. -M
Hi Mark,
I’ll definitely be watching you. I’ve been trying for 2 years now to get my website up & running. I just seem to be unable to grasp all the details of what is needed to actually monetize a website successfully.
I did just purchase the ‘Unstoppable Affiliate’ course and have learned a ton of info from it. I just might be getting some of my confidence back and will be trying along side of you.
I still do have one question though. “How do you set up multiple niches on a single server?” Maybe you can cover this as you go along.
Thanks for all you help,
Ellen
Well, 2 years is long enough. The time is now. Let’s cover the server thing right now. Do you mean “multiple web sites” on one server? Or do you mean multiple niches on one website (usually not recommended by me).
For the simplest shared hosting case (like HostGator or BlueHost, etc) and multiple web sites on one server, you simply register the domains that you want to use and “point them” at your server. Then you tell your server that you have multiple domains there.
Tell me more about your server (like do you have CPanel) and I can give you some better directions.
Does that make any sense?
Thanks,
mark
Hi Mark,
Yes, I want to set up multiple web sites on one server. I use BlueHost which has CPanel.
I guess I need to know how to point the sites to my server. I’m such a newbie when it comes to this part. Are there any written instructions that I can follow?
Thanks, Mark!
Ellen
Just to get you started, Ellen. These settings are set at your domain registrar…wherever you bought the name (for example, GoDaddy, NameCheap or wherever). It’s referred to as the DNS settings. And to know where you point them, you have to check with the Welcome letter you received when you signed up for hosting. For example, if you are using Bluehost…it might be NS1.BLUEHOST.COM in the first field, NS2.BLUEHOST.COM in the second field, etc. And keep in mind that, once you change these settings at your domain regsitrar, it can take some time (up to 72 hours) for the setting to be visible everywhere in the world. You might see them right away, but it might also take some time.
Hi Chuck,
This makes sense to me, now. Thanks!
Ellen
Mark, you might also want to spend some time describing how you chose your niche, once you do so. Obviously, this process will always vary from person to person, depending on interests and strengths…but I believe this is one of the places where people get really hung up. I think there are a lot of people out there who can talk about article marketing, building a list, et al. But I think many of them skip over those first steps. How do you find the products you’re going to be pushing as an affiliate? What sources do you review to find them? How do you weigh them in terms of potential, etc? Are there concerns and fears of inadequacy that you have to address as you weigh these options (i.e., there are already other great and well-known sites in this niche…should I just skip it, or how might I compete or find a chunnk of that niche?) I dunno…maybe it’s just me. But I suspect others may struggle with the same things.
You are very correct here — I often find this to be the hardest part.
Man, we have a lot to cover, don’t we. LOL
Thanks for the reminder. Keep ’em coming.
Sounds like just what I need. I’ll be watching.
I think this is a fantastic idea Mark!! I will definitely be following along and try to learn as much as I can from you. You and Andrew Hansen are both great marketers but more importantly you two are people I follow because of your desire to help others. I appreciate all that you do!! Looking forward to this!!
Hi Mark:
I’m enjoying UA. However, I’ve not been able to find any good keywords to target so far. I think Andrew has given us many options instead of finding keywords within strict parameters so I’m floundering a bit. I like Josh Spaulding’s “strict rules” when doing research as then I know whre I am! I’m now considering using one of the keywords in the niche pack he gave us.
This is why I think it’s brilliant you’re going to go through the system and it’s exactly what would help the most.
Thank you so much
Sandra
When will you be starting this project?
Very interesting idea and I will be following this closely.
Thanks for letting us ride along.
Great idea! I have become a fan on facebook, so I can see your progress! I hope it will work and I also hope I will get some ideas from this! Thanks man!
Awesome Mark! I like your altruistic attitude and know that it will come back to you with dividends.