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.

Getting a Good Domain Name

Getting a good domain name can be a bit of a challenge.  Back in the day, before the internet - You remember the Jurassic Period, right? - when you wanted to start a business, you might have to check if anyone else in your city or state had the same business name.  Now, you have to make sure that nobody else in the whole world is using your name!

Here’s a step-by-step guide to finding and registering a good domain, so that you can use it to brand your company forever!

Brainstorming

It’s a good idea to start with a lot of ideas.  When I say a lot, I mean at least 15-20 possibilities. When you start testing your ideas, you’ll find that at least half of them are already taken. So, the more you start with, the more you’ll have as options at the other end.

Start with some keywords that relate to your niche or your topic. If someone does a search for that keyword, you’ll rank a little bit higher.

Testing

Then, go to a domain name registration site (like http://www.securepaynet.net/?prog_id=500694) and test each one. Test the “.com” version of the domain. There are lots of others, but “.com” is so branded in people’s minds, that they’ll often type “something.com”, without realizing that it actually should have been “something.net”

If the test comes back as “available”, then check the price. If the price is around $10-$15, then keep it on your list. If the price is any higher than that, like, $200 or even more, then it’s a “premium” domain, which is one that someone else owns and is trying to resell. Don’t bother with those. Unless, of course, you have a lot of extra money sitting around and you’ve gotten bored with just throwing it out the window.

Of course, if the domain test comes back as “unavailable” or “already taken”, then just cross it off your list.

In either case, the registrar will probably suggest some similar names. If any of them look good to you, add them to your list. Be careful, some of them in the suggestions might also be premium domains, costing lots of money.

Winnowing, Choosing

So, if you started with about 20 possible names, then you might have about 15 after the testing.  Maybe you added 2 or 3 of the suggestions.  So, you’ll still have a pretty good list.  Now you get to narrow it down.

First, let’s weed out the problem ideas.  Take out any that have strange or ambiguous spellings.  Don’t do cutesy things like spell “Quick” as “Kwick”. “Something4u.com” is full of problems. If someone just hears it, how will they spell it?  If they spell it wrong, they’ll end up at your competitor’s website.  These things look great on a road sign in front of a brick and mortar store, but on the web, they just mess you up.

For the same reason, I don’t like to use dashes or underlines to separate words, like this: “heres-my-web-site.com”. It might look better, but it’s clumsier to speak and harder to remember.

A short domain is good, but don’t chop it up and abbreviate it just to make it shorter.  That can make it harder to spell and harder to remember. Sometimes it’s best to just spell the words out.

Also, avoid using someone else’s name or trademark in your domain, even if you’re promoting their products. It can still get you into trouble.

Once you’ve removed the ones that are unavailable, and the ones that are bad, you’re left with a few good ideas.  At this point, since there’s not problems, you could simply use the one you like the best.

Purchase

Once you’ve chosen your domain, then simply go back to the registrar (http://www.securepaynet.net/?prog_id=500694) and buy it.  Here are some things to consider.

You’ll have the option to get what’s called a “Private Registration”.  This is to protect your personal contact information from being made public in the vast domain name database known to techies and spammers as “Whois”.  All domains are listed in this database, but you can keep your email address and phone number out of it. It costs extra each year, but it’s worth it.

Also, most domain name registrars have the option to “Autorenew”.  This means that they keep your credit card info on file and ping it for payment each year.  If you’re not creeped out by the thought of your info on their secured servers, I strongly recommend doing this. Then, you won’t be surprised to find out that your domain name accidentally lapsed, and was snapped up by someone else.  This actually happened to a friend of mine.  They were nice, though, and offered to sell it back to her for only hundreds of dollars...

Following these steps will help you to establish a good, brandable, usable domain name for your website that will continue to help you get customers for years to come!





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.

The Four Components of a Successful Website

There are, really, lots of things that can make or break a website.  This guru and that sage will talk, talk, talk about their particular angle and their particular strategy and charge you anywhere from $49.99 to $49,999.99 to teach it to you.  Each of these things being taught can be sifted down into four basic components: Content, Optimization, Monetization, and Promotion.

Content

This really is the core.  Everyone may say that “Content is King”, but few understand why, and there are several reasons.  The easiest reason to understand is simple:  That’s what Google looks for. Google values good content, good information, and it’s ranking calculations are set up to reward that.

Another very important reason is that it’s what people are mostly searching for.  Yes, it’s true that people are shopping online, but before they shop, they look for information.

Finally, it’s what gives your website substance. That’s kind of intangible, but it’s what makes people value your site.  It gives you authority. And that helps people when they want to buy.

Additionally, your site’s content has to be focused.  It has to have a good clear topic.  A blog that rants about politics, and then about religion, and reviews movies, and then gripes about the price of groceries might well be a good creative outlet for the author, but it’s not going to build an audience.

Optimization

Of course, if people can’t find your information, it doesn’t much matter, does it?  Your content and your pages have to be set up to contain good keywords, in the proper locations, with the right kind of interlinking.  In other words, even if you have a great hand of cards, you still have to play the game right.  With each of those things in place, your site will be easy to find, and people will come to know it as the place to go for your topic.

Monetization

That’s a newly coined word (pardon the pun) for “how to make this website pay off!”  There has to be some connection to making money, or it’s just a hobby.  There are lots of ways to do this, and they all have advantages and disadvantages.  You can sell products directly from your website, processing credit cards and fulfilling orders.  You can promote the products of other websites through an affiliate program, receiving a percentage of each sale. You can host ads on your site.  A single site can often employ many different streams of income.

Promotion

Finally, the site is ready, so now all it needs is traffic.  Good optimization will be valuable in this process, but there are more ways to make it work, too. Social networking is one way that’s both growing and practical. Paid internet advertising is now more affordable than ever, and it’s the most trackable methods of all. Site owners can be very strategic and get the most impact for their investment.

Over the course of the next few posts, I’ll be covering each of these in more detail. With this overview, however, you can either plan your upcoming website, or you can see which component needs the most work!

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.

Writing a Blog Post

I’ve been blogging for about 8 years, now.  In the bloggosphere, that’s a long, long, long time.  Over the years, I’ve developed a pattern of steps that I follow when I make a blog post.  I don’t always follow it, and sometimes the lines between some of the steps get blurry.  But I always realize that the more closely I follow this pattern, the better my results.

•  Idea

I have a google doc that I keep for my blog ideas.  When I’m out on the web, and I read something that hits me I add it to that list.  If someone tweets or blogs something cool, that merits more than just a comment or a retweet, I post that to my list.  The document is broken into three separate lists, one for each blog I write.  It’s set up with a shortcut on my desktop, and I also can access it from my smart phone.  No matter where I am or what I’m doing, if I think “I’m so blogging this...” I can preserve that thought for later.

Then, when the time comes for me to actually write the blog, I open up that document, and I’ve got a lot of things I can write about.  I just pick one and go.

Sometimes I’ll go out actively looking for ideas.  I’ll check Yahoo’s main page or Google Trends to see what search terms are hot, and see if any of them could be related to my topic.  I’ll go to BBC.com or CNN.com and search for a few of my go-to keywords to see if there are any current news stories I can resource.

• Research

Sometimes getting an idea is its own research.  By that, I mean that while I’m out doing my normal “keeping-up-on-things” reading, I find a great topic that makes me want to write.  Other times, I get an idea from some other situation, and I’ll have to do a bit of research and reading to get some background.  Sometimes, I’ll just have to do a little fact-checking.  In any case, it’s good to base your writing on some facts.  Or opinions...

• Thoughts

Often, my first bit of writing is just actually jotting down some notes.  When preparing this post, for example, I wrote out all of these bullet points.  I just get a few thoughts down, maybe in a sentence, or maybe in a list.  That’s enough to get me started.

• First Draft

Now, I’m ready to write.  I’ll start filling in sentences and paragraphs around those ideas that I listed out in the previous step.  Or, I’ll flesh out those skeletal bits that I jotted down, either from my research or from my first thoughts.

It’s important to me, while I’m in this first draft, to not block myself.  So, I don’t usually pay too much attention to logic, sensibility, punctuation, rules.  I just write. 

Yes, my first drafts are a mess.  You got a problem with that?  I don’t.

• First Edit: Flow & Logic

The reason I don’t have a problem with messy first drafts is that I know that I’m going to clean them up long before the public sees them.  My first edit is where I look the posting over and clean up the logic and the flow.  Top to bottom, does it make sense?  Some posts, I organize chronologically, like I often do when writing a recipe at Mark’s Black Pot.  Other posts may be organized in a more “inverted pyramid” format.  Sometimes, in a more personal blog post, it’s OK to ramble.

• Second Edit: Proofread

Now, it’s starting to make sense.  It’s time to clean up by the rules.  Check for punctuation errors, spelling errors, clumsy sentences, redundancies...  There are a lot of grammar nazis out there, and I’d rather not give them the fodder.

• Third Edit: Keywords & SEO

The next edit is possibly the most important.  I go through the article and tweak sentences to include more keywords.  More of my main keywords, more long-tail keywords, and more keywords to draw people to my affiliate links.  More, more, more!

Another thing to add at this stage is links.  Establishing internal links to other relevant topics that you’ve blogged about before will draw clicks to those entries, as well as boost search engine value as well.  Make sure that you’re including keywords in your link text, and not just saying “click here”.  Links to external websites will also help to establish you as a credible, connected source of information.  You can also contact the people you’ve linked to, and they’ll sometimes mention you as well, spreading the link love!

• Rest, and Re-read

This is a strategy that I’ve just recently discovered, but I haven’t done as much as I need to.  Once a blog entry is written, it’s a good idea to let it rest before posting it.  This does a few good things for you.

First, you’ll re-read it a few hours later with fresh eyes, and possibly catch writing errors and problems that you missed before.  It might not be as clear as you’d originally thought, or there’s a spelling error you didn’t see.

Second, if it’s a very personal or emotional blog post, you can stop yourself from saying things that get too many people mad at you.  While courting controversy is sometimes one way to gain traffic and readers, it can also undermine your credibility if you handle it wrong.

• Posting

Now it’s time to go public!  Copy and paste your article into your blog host and click the publish button, right?

Almost.  There are a few more things I do here.

The first is to find some pictures to include.  Even though I don’t always do this, especially in a conceptual blog like this one, it’s amazing how much a good graphic will dress up an article.

I’ll also, at the bottom, interlink it with my other blogs.  Yes, I do that, even though they’re not always (or even often) relevant.

Also, I’ll find some relevant affiliate products (usually books at Amazon.com) and include those in my blog.  And don’t forget to tag the post.

• Promoting

The final step is to go out and tell the world that it’s there.  I post a spot up on facebook and twitter, with a clever, leading and enticing phrase to draw people there.  I’ll also put it up on a pinging service, like pingoat.com, or ping-o-matic.com, to notify blogging aggregating sites as well as search engines that I have new content.

This is a pretty exhaustive list of steps, and some even might consider it exhausting.  But to do them all each time will end with better written posts, that rank higher, are better connected, and eventually make you more money.






Mark is currently in the curriculum Department of an internet and SEO training company.

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

How to Monetize a Blog

Let's suppose that you've been blogging for a while.  Maybe it's just a personal blog, or maybe you've been blogging about one of your hobbies.  Maybe you're blogging for your job, or to promote a product-based website.

Maybe you're just starting a blog, and have only posted your first bits of pillar content.  Maybe you've even just put up an introductory entry or two.

Let's talk about how to set it up to Make Money!

Now, I'm not talking about simply clicking into Blogger.com and clicking the "Monetize" tab.  Yes, that will set you up to start showing Google ads, which can potentially make you some money, once you get the traffic.  I'm talking about a deeper process which will set your blog up for success, rather than just getting a few hits and trickles of money from time to time.

Step One: Identify Your Audience

Who are you writing to?  A lot of this will entail deciding what you're writing about.  If your blog flits from idea to idea like a social networking butterfly, you'll find that you don't have a clear audience, and you'll have few consistent readers, and no money.

A large part of identifying your audience is identifying the keywords that they're searching for.  This goes back to the keyword research that has been taught many times before.  Using tools like Trellian's Free Keyword Discover Tool, or Google's AdWords Keyword Tool can help you determine the demand for your keywords.

Also, read other blogs and see what others in your niche are talking about.  These will help you to identify areas that your audience is interested in.

Step Two: Get in Front of Them

This step comes in two parts:  First of all, providing some great content that interests them, rich in those keywords they're looking for, is a great way to get your blog discovered.  Ultimately, the writing is the stuff that's going to bring people to your blog anyway. 

The other part of it is to discover other places on the web where your audience likes to hang out.  Are they in Facebook?  Or, an even better question would be, "Where can I find them on Facebook?", because they're probably already there!  They're probably reading other similar bloggers.  They're probably participating in forums.  Go find them, and join in with them.  Comment on their Facebook profiles, and join the discussion on the blogs and forums.  Mention your own blog.  Join the community and be active in it.

Step Three: Offer Them Something They Want

Now let's talk about making money off of this audience you have.  Now that you've gotten to know them, and they've gotten to know you, you can start recommending products to them. 

Ask yourself:  What are they wanting?  What do they need?  Find affiliates that are selling those items and sign up with them.  That's not as difficult as it might sound.  There are so many sources for affiliate products. Try some of these:

• Clickbank.com - Good information products, electronically deliverable.  Some of the highest payout percentages in all of affiliatedom
• Amazon.com - No matter what your niche or who your audience is, chances are, Amazon has a book about it.  They've also got a lot of other relevant products.  Plus, your can set up your affiliate link to click directly to individual products.
• The Google Affiliate Network - This source can connect you with hundreds of affiliate companies.
• A Product-based Dropshipping Website - Don't forget that product website that you're setting up, either!  Link to your site, and directly to products that you're blogging about!
  

Remember that monetizing a blog is much, much more than just putting ad codes into your site.  It's about the core of your blogging.  It's about developing a connection, a relationship to your audience.  Then, they'll trust your recommendations!

Mark is currently in the curriculum Department of an internet and SEO training company. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including Mark's Black Pot - Dutch Oven Recipes, MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.

Whither the keywords META?

Search engine gurus have been proclaiming for some time that the use of the META keywords tag is pointless. Fewer and fewer search engines are paying any attention to it at all, they said.

Here's the history of it: Back in the day, when search engines were new, and directories like Yahoo ruled supreme, the keywords META tag was the be-all, end-all of search marketing. You had to have the right keywords in your tag, and you repeated them a lot.

Sadly, as soon as you get something good, someone figures out how to abuse it. People who wanted to "game the system" started including many, multiple instances of keywords and keyword phrases into their keywords META tag. Sadly, the pornographers were among the first to engage this one. It got to be like an arms race. "Oh, I see you've included "sex" 100 times in your tag! I'll include it 300 times in mine!" It got to be absurd.

Not long after that, they also started including irrelevant words in their keywords META tags. Sites started appearing in searches and leaving the searchers heads scratching. "How did THAT get there?" There was a time in the early 90's where you couldn't do a search for ANYTHING, it seemed, with out at least one naughty site appearing in the list.

Well, it's no surprise that the search engines realized that this wasn't gonna work. Searchers were starting to mistrust the results they were getting.

Google came along and started indexing the results based on the words that were visible in the text, and valuing the sites based on how many inbound links a site was getting. Before long, other search engines were starting to devalue the keywords META tag.

Last week, Yahoo, the longest holdout, announced that they no longer valued the keywords META tag in the search results. After a short test, and a clarification, it's now pretty safe to say that the keywords META tag is pretty much useless in search engine optimization. Yahoo no longer uses it. Bing.com says they don't use it. Google never did.

So, what good is it?

I, personally, still find some value in it. I work a lot of websites. Blogs, commercial sites, etc... It's not easy to remember and keep track of exactly which keywords I want to focus on when I'm editing and updating each individual page. If I put the keywords that I've researched to be strong in the META tag for that page, I have a valuable reference. I can look them up and remember what they are, and my edits and my tweaks will always be centered around those words.

Silly reason, you say? Well, I can't count how many times I've used this handy reference. Having some words in the tag doesn't hurt your ranking, even if it's not helping.

To recap, then:

The key to on-site search engine optimization is to use your keywords in the right places. Currently, those are:

• The page title tag
• The domain name and/or the URL
• The visible text of the website
• The page-to-page linking within your site
• The description META tag
  
• The ALT text attributes of your images

The key to off-site optimization has always been quality links from other sites and pages.

Go to it!


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