A Simple Approach to Finding a Good Blogging Niche, Part IV - Monetization Research

If you’ve been following along the steps in this series of articles, you’ve thought of possible blogging niche topics, and come up with lists of possible content ideas. You’ve looked at keywords and hopefully found some viable keywords for each niche topic.

Remember, that as you learn and grow as a blogger and Internet promoter, you’ll learn about even more detailed research and tools to use for it. For now, however, you’ll have the start.  There is still one more step, and that’s to find out about the money-making potential of the site.

On your blogsite, you’ll be posting content. This will be stories, instructions, and opinions that relate to your niche topic. You’ll also have affiliate links where visitors can see products that relate to your topics.  They could relate in a general way ( rods and reels on a fishing site), or be very specific to a particular posting (like a link to a particular fishing reel that you’ve just reviewed). In either case, if someone clicks on it from your site, and goes to the retailers site and buys it, you’ll get a percentage commission back from the retailer. That’s how affiliate marketing works.

And, of course, the more customers you send, the more money you make.

The next step in the blog niche research process, then, is to see what sorts of products exist that you could promote.  Is it possible to actually make money off of a particular blog niche topic? Here’s how to see:

• Go to Amazon.com

There are lots of Affiliate companies (called “Grantors”), but the quickest and easiest one to use for your research is Amazon.com. They sell so many different products that you can almost always find something there to promote.  In addition, they have a very flexible and adaptable affiliate linking program.

• Search for products using your topic and your keywords.

In the Amazon.com search bar, do searches for your keywords and for products that you think your audience would be interested in.

• Identify a few good products in all price ranges

As you look over the returned results, look at the brand names, and the ratings. It’s good to promote quality items.

Also, look at the prices. When you setup your website, it will be good to promote products from a wide spectrum of price range. You’ll see inexpensive items, at about $20 or less, common items, at $20-$100, midrange prices, like the ones from $100- about $250, and then the more expensive, high-end items that go up from there.

Since the affiliate commissions are paid on a percentage, you’ll obviously get a better dollar amount with the higher-priced items. Still, the items toward the less expensive end of the scale will sell more often.  It’s a good idea to be able to offer items from all ranges on your site. So, if you’re looking at a niche, and all you can find is the low-priced items, that could be a problem, because you’ll only make a few pennies for every sale.  On the other hand, if all you can find costs $1000 each, you’ll not close as many sales.

• Repeat for each niche idea

As always, you’ll do this same research for each of your niche ideas.

When you’ve done this research, you can look over each of your niche ideas and ask yourself these questions in review:

1. Does this niche excite you? How much do you feel motivated or driven to pursue it?
2. What do you know about the niche? Can you think of things to say about it?
3. Are there plenty of good keywords to use to promote and optimize your your blog?
4. Are there good products in a variety of price ranges to promote and make good money from your site?

As you balance the answers to all of these questions, you’ll be able to make a final decision.  Keep in mind that once you get one site up and running, you can return and create a second or a third with the other topics you considered.

Once you have your first niche idea chosen, you can then move forward and establish your domain name and your website!


This article is part of a four-part series on researching and choosing your blog niche. The other articles can be found here:

1. Introduction to finding a good blog niche
2. Brainstorming blog niche and content ideas
3. Keyword research
4. Monetization product research

Mark is currently employed as an Internet Business Coach.

Mark also has other sites and blogs, including Mark's Black Pot - Dutch Oven Recipes, MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.

A Simple Approach to Finding a Good Blogging Niche, Part III - Keyword Research

In the first two articles, we talked about brainstorming topics and content.  With that in place, it’s time to start doing some research and see just what the real world is like. It’s one thing to sit at home and think the world likes what you like, but it’s another thing altogether to see if there are people that actually do.

As I mentioned in the beginning, there are lots of tools and methods for doing in-depth data mining that the SEO pros use.  Eventually, you’ll also learn how to do these things, as you become more and more immersed in the world of blogging and Internet promotions.

However, to get started, we just want to do some solid basic research and know what is already happening in each niche. That will help us to know if a niche is starving, thriving, or flooded.

In order to have a successful blog or website, people have to find you. A vital part of that process is having good keywords that the search engines can match up to people’s searches.  A good keyword is one that’s fairly popular (meaning people are actually searching for it), and yet is not too flooded in competing sites.  Here’s a process that will help you find those keywords.  You’ll do this process for each of your niche ideas.

• Start with a general keyword

In our example in the last article, we used “Fishing” as a possible niche topic.  That one is probably too broad, but let’s start with it anyway.  Go to Google.com, and type that into the search bar. As you type, Google will drop down a list of similar keyword suggestions. These are popular, similar searches.  That means that these are possible keywords that people are actually searching for. Write these down. In my browser, it showed, “Fishing License Utah”, “Fishing Report”, “Fishing quotes”, and a few others. Save that list for later.

Do the search.  You might see a number close to the top that says something like “About 500,000,000 results” or some number. This indicates how many websites Google knows about that are using this keyword. It’s usually a huge number.  If you don’t see a number, but only see ads and pictures, then the number is way too high to display.

Scroll to the bottom of the page, and you’ll see another list of suggested search terms, like:

fishing youtube
fishing tips
fishing videos
fishing gear
fishing games
fishing report
bass fishing
fishing knots

• Begin narrowing

Obviously, your first, most general search will be way too broad, and will need to be narrowed.  Let’s try some more.  Click into one of the suggested searches. The first one I tried was “Fishing tips”, with “About 211,000,000 results”.  That’s better than before, but it’s still way too many websites.  I’ll need to keep looking for my keywords.

• Narrow further

Next, I clicked into “Bass Fishing”.  Right away, I saw that this one had “About 10,600,000 results”.  That sounds like a huge number, still, but in the scale of the internet, that’s actually reasonable.  This one could work.  When you find a keyword in this range, look at some of the websites in the list.  Click into them and begin exploring them.  Are they commercial sites or informational sites? What sorts of information are they sharing? If you see websites that you’d like to emulate, write down the addresses for future reference.

And always write down the keywords you’re exploring, and the numbers you find.

• Try a different branch

After you’ve played and explored some with the keywords you’ve gotten, go back and explore another “branch” of the same “tree”.  In our example, maybe I could try “fly fishing” or “angling” to see what kinds of new keywords I could generate.

After a while of this exploration and research, you’ll have a list of good possible keywords, and you’ll have a good idea of what’s happening and what’s available within the niche you’re considering.

Do this same process with each niche topic idea on your list, and you’ll have a lot of good information.  You’ll probably start to see some real trends in the niche ideas you’re exploring and you might even be starting to formulate some thoughts on which ones might be better options than others.

Still, there’s one more step to come...


This article is part of a four-part series on researching and choosing your blog niche. The other articles can be found here:

1. Introduction to finding a good blog niche
2. Brainstorming blog niche and content ideas
3. Keyword research
4. Monetization product research

Mark is currently employed as an Internet Business Coach.

Mark also has other sites and blogs, including Mark's Black Pot - Dutch Oven Recipes, MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.

A Simple Approach to Finding a Good Blogging Niche, Part II - Brainstorming

In the first article, we talked about the 4 factors that make up a good blogging niche topic.  If you’ve read some of my other postings, you’ll recognize some of these things as the factors that make a great website!  There’s a lot of overlap.  Still, as you’re choosing your niche topic, you’ll want to approach them from a distinctly unique angle, in a process.

• What do I like?

First, we need ideas.  What possible things can you come up with?  Begin by brainstorming possibilities.  Ask yourself some questions, like, “What do I love to do?”, “What am I good at?”, “What things do I know a lot about?”, or “What do I like to do for fun?” Even simply looking back at your life experiences, your jobs, your education can give you ideas.

Write every idea down. Sometimes, when people are brainstorming they’ll say, “There are no bad ideas.” That’s not true. We all know some ideas are bad. It’s just that at this stage, we’re not going to worry about whether or not an idea is good.

Yet.

That will come later. So, don’t tell yourself, “That’s a dumb idea,” or “No one will ever buy that!” Remember that writing an idea down doesn’t commit you to doing it. It can always be crossed off the list. So, there’s no reason to not write it down.

Also, give yourself a few days to let your mind wander and remember things to add to your list. You might not think of it all in one sitting.

• What about content?

Once you have a few ideas in your list, it’s time to develop them. With each niche idea, ask yourself, “What could I say about this topic?”  Begin to brainstorm possible content ideas that could be a part of the niche.

Let’s say you love to go fishing. You might think of these things as possible content pieces:

1. What baits work best to catch what kinds of fish?
2. Where are the best places to fish in your area?
3. How to setup a fishing pole
4. What are the different kinds of lures, and why do they work?

That’s a good start. Again, write everything down, and give yourself some time to think of ideas.  If you find it easy to think of content ideas, then that’s an indicator of how connected you are to that niche. That’s a good sign. If you’re struggling to think of things to say, that could be a red flag.

Do this process with each of the topic possibilities you brainstormed in the first step. Once you have that done, you’re well on your way to finding your perfect blogging niche!


This article is part of a four-part series on researching and choosing your blog niche. The other articles can be found here:

1. Introduction to finding a good blog niche
2. Brainstorming blog niche and content ideas
3. Keyword research
4. Monetization product research

Mark is currently employed as an Internet Business Coach.

Mark also has other sites and blogs, including Mark's Black Pot - Dutch Oven Recipes, MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.

A Simple Approach to Finding a Good Blogging Niche, Part I

If I had to choose one factor that would determine the long-term success or failure of a blog, it would trace back to the very start. The core question of each blog should be: “What is this about?”

Personal blogs where authors go off on tangents and rant about their feelings and opinions on a myriad of topics are great for personal expression, but when it comes to building an audience, it’ll just be too scattered.  It’s true that they might hit on a post that strikes a nerve with readers and spikes their traffic, but they won’t be able to sustain that for the long haul.  The blogs with focus and clarity are the ones that build audience, traffic, and ad revenue.

So, how do you find that niche?

There are a lot of factors that go into a great blog niche, and no one of them should make the final choice.  It’s always going to be a balancing act. Here are the primary factors:

1. Your own interest and knowledge -  It’s tough to blog about something you know nothing about, and have no interest in. Sure, you could do research and dig in, but, really, how motivating is that?  A few months in, will you still be willing to put the consistency into it if you don’t care?
2. Content - Can you think of or find information that’s relevant and interesting on an ongoing basis?
3. Keywords - Are there keywords that are of interest that aren’t flooded in competition? Good keywords in the right places will be critical to successful search engine optimization.
4. Monetization - Are there a good mix of products that could be promoted to the niche’s audience? Again, if you’re just doing a personal blog to shake your fist at the world, this isn’t an issue. But if you want to make some coin at it, you’ll need to consider this well up front.

It’s important to note that a blog or a website is in constant motion, and in constant state of revision.  You, as a blogger and site promoter will be constantly learning and growing and building on your site. The steps that I’m about to show you in the next few articles are designed to help you make a good, informed decision about the niche you’ll have.  That way, you’ll have a good foundation that can be built on, and you won’t have to tear it down and start over later on.

It’s important to note that these steps are intended to be simple and to get you do a good, solid decision quickly. Advanced SEO experts can use many tools and in-depth research to gather deep wells of data that can be sorted and manipulated to arrive at useful decisions.  This can take weeks or months to learn, and many, many hours to implement.  It’s good to learn these things, eventually, but it’s also best to learn them as you’re developing and improving your existing site, rather than to overwhelm yourself at the beginning and get mired in a swamp of meaningless numbers.


This article is part of a four-part series on researching and choosing your blog niche. The other articles can be found here:

1. Introduction to finding a good blog niche
2. Brainstorming blog niche and content ideas
3. Keyword research
4. Monetization product research

Mark is currently employed as an Internet Business Coach.

Mark also has other sites and blogs, including Mark's Black Pot - Dutch Oven Recipes, MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.