Niche Site Ideas Case Study – Part Two

Welcome back to the Niche Site Ideas Case Study!

Today, in part two of the case study, I’m giving you five reasons why this niche business is my favorite niche site idea. It’s a small, but very profitable business idea that is severely untapped niched that you should take advantage of. It’s one of the twenty-five niches I list in my niche site ideas blog.

If you are not familiar with the Niche Site Ideas Case Study, this is where I build and scale a niche online business. In this case study, I am showing you how I built and scaled a website in the exam prep niche. This is a niche where you sell online exam prep study materials, I will show you exactly how I scaled AssociatePI (my online business) into a successful passive income stream. And how you can do the same.

In every part of this case study, I’m going to challenge you to take action. I want you to build your niche website with me as you follow along in this case study. In part one of this case study, I gave you an introduction to how I make money online with this passive income idea with my website AssociatePI. Today, I’m going to convince you that this is an excellent business opportunity. It’s a small profitable business idea that you should take advantage of.

My Favorite Niche Side Idea – A Small (but profitable) Business Idea

I call it, the “exam prep niche”. In the exam prep niche, we are creating a business by providing study material, guidance, and advice to those pursuing a particular set of exams, designation, certification, or licensing.

Off the top of your head. Can you think of a couple of designations that you or your colleagues have pursued?

Off of the top of my head, I think of the CPA, CFA, CNA, Real estate license, underwriter licensing, Fundamentals of Engineering (FE), and CLU. And those are just the big-name designations and licensing that I could think of without doing any research!

There are THOUSANDS of niche exams, designations, certifications, and licenses with hundreds to thousands of people taking the exams each month. Use your day job, use your college exams, use the designations you earned five years ago, use any exam you have taken to create exam prep materials that you can sell online.  It’s such a simple, small, profitable business idea that not enough people take advantage of.

It is the perfect opportunity to leverage the niche nature of these designations to create your niche business that generates tens of thousands of dollars in passive income per month. It’s possible. I’m doing it now.

This is one of the most overlooked (and easiest) niches. I’m going to help you get started creating your niche exam prep business.

Why This Is My Favorite Niche Site Idea – Five Reasons Why

There are five reasons why this is my favorite niche side idea, and why I strongly believe you should take advantage of this opportunity:

• Validated Market
• Easy to Niche Profitably
• Easy to Differentiate
• Easy Email Opt-in
• High Price

Validated Market

With the exam prep niche site idea, the market is validated for you. If people are searching for this designation and studying for these exams, then there is a clear need for study material.

With AssociatePI, I sell study material for the CPCU® designation. In my research (we will cover how to do this in the next step of the case study) I found that almost 10,0000 people per month were searching for the term “CPCU”. I also found that each exam, there are eight exams you need to pass to earn the CPCU®, had about 500 people searching for the specific exam name such as the exam name “CPCU 540”.

Looking at some industry publications, I found that thousands of people pursue this designation per year and approximately 4% of the entire industry holds this designation.

The CPCU® study material market was validated for me. I didn’t have to convince anyone that they should earn the CPCU®, the industry was doing that for me. People were already looking for study material to pass these exams. I just had to create a better study material.

Easy to Niche Profitably

These sites are easy to niche. There is typically not much competition (depending on the designation that you choose) and even if there is competition it’s easy to differentiate yourself and find a niche within a niche.

With AssociatePI, I found that there were only three other people that offered study material. There was the official organization that sold textbooks and administered the designation, there was one guy selling video courses, and one guy selling his own textbooks. The best part is, none of them were utilizing powerful online business tactics such as building an email list, SEO, and optimizing their website. There was a lot of opportunity for me to improve the study material and carve out my own niche.  As I’ve said, it’s a small profitable business idea.

Easy to Differentiate

Creating a niche site is all about providing a unique product with a unique value proposition that differentiates you from the competition. In the exam prep niche, this is easy. There are a number of ways you can differentiate yourself. Just think about how you can differentiate yourself by offering a different type of study material. You can offer textbooks, online courses, study guides, flashcards, 1×1 coaching, practice exams, etcetera… You can pick one product and become known as the go-to resource for CPA flashcards.

With AssociatePI, I differentiated myself in a couple of ways that made me immediately stand out in the market:

• Online – I sold an online course so people could study on their phone or at work.
• Faster, easier studying – I make it very clear that my study material allows you to study and pass your exams in less time with less hassle.
• Money-back guarantee – I offered a money-back guarantee. If you don’t pass using my study material, I issue a full refund.
• Free information – I blogged, vlogged, and podcasted about the exams. I was the only one producing free and helpful content about the exams. People came to me for my expertise, having been in their shoes and passed the exams. I also gave away a free practice exam, this was my lead magnet to capture email addresses. I was the only one that did this.

Easy Email Opt-in

With the exam prem niche site idea, it’s easy to create an email opt-in to collect those valuable email addresses of potential customers. You can do this with a free course, free practice exam, free study guide, or free exam tips.

Personally, with the AssociatePI niche site, I offer a free practice exam as my email opt-in lead magnet. I generate around 300 new email leads every month just by giving away a free practice exam. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy, it doesn’t have to take you days to put together a free practice exam. Mine is a simple PDF download with ten free exam questions. One page one, I give away ten free exam questions. On page two I give the answers to the exam questions with a detailed explanation. On page three, I give a call to action to checkout my course and upgrade for another 400+ practice exam questions.

High Price

Exam prep material is expensive. Just look at the competition. Typically, you can sell study material for around $500 per course or around $200 for practice questions. Some of the bigger courses, like Bar exam prep and CPA study materials can go for over $1,000.

Personally, I sell AssociatePI courses for $425 for the full course. I also sell a small course that is just practice exam questions for $200. At $425 per course, with a required eight exams to earn the CPCU® designation, that’s $3,400 from one person if they take all eight exams with me. Not bad for one lead!

Bonus – Free Study Material

I should mention, if you are selling exam prep materials, you need to study and take the exam before you can begin creating stud material. But, there is one added bonus to the exam prep niche site idea.

Your employer will pay for your study material. Exam prep material is expensive (as we covered above), but if you are employed in the industry your employer will probably pay for you to pursue a designation or training. Meaning your employer is literally paying for you to start a business!

My employer paid for my study material and my exam fees to earn the CPCU®. Your education benefits the employer, I was a much better employee after passing my exams. I learned a lot about the insurance industry.

Take advantage of this, use this study material to create your own niche website.

Action Step – Your Turn to Take Action

As I’ve mentioned, I’m doing this case study so you can take action and build your own exam prep niche website. Now it is your turn to take action. So let’s get started.

Start by downloading my guide to the exam prep niche, my guide for exactly how to start your own profitable website in this niche. I’ll send you my five steps to get started in the exam prep niche, for free, so you can begin building your exam prep niche website today. Follow along with me and create your own exam prep niche website. I want you to copy exactly what I did, except you will skip all the struggles and guessing that I faced over the 5+ years of figuring out this niche.

It is my challenge to you to start your own website with the exam prep niche. Start today with this guide to the exam prep niche and my five-day challenge to finding and starting your own niche website.

Next Step – Continue the Niche Site Ideas Case Study

Let’s continue. In the next step, we will start getting into the real content. We’ll begin the process of finding your niche.  In the next part of the Niche Site Ideas case study, I will show you exactly how to find your niche product. Click here to see all steps in the exam prep niche case study. 

If the exam prep niche isn’t for you, no worries! You can see all of my online business ideas for beginners (and list of niches) here.