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.

Monetizing your website with Amazon Products

“Content is king!” We’ve heard that a million times.  I’ve probably said it myself about a thousand of that. It’s what brings people to your site. It’s what makes Google sit up and take notice of you and value your site with good rankings. And we all know that good Google rankings mean good traffic.

So, if content is the king, then the ads are the queen. At first glance she may seem to be less important, but don’t run your kingdom without! The ads are what bring in money.  The ads are what changes your website to a cute little hobby to an actual money-producing business.

There are many places you can set up your website, and many ways to get ads established. Most of my current students are using a very common combination, that of a WordPress blog/site and Amazon product ads.

With that in mind, here’s how to get that set up!  First, you’ll set up your affiliate account with Amazon.com. Then, you’ll set up a plugin in WordPress to facilitate the affiliate linking process.  Finally, you’ll set up product links on your posts and pages.

Getting set up with Amazon.com

1. Go to Amazon.com, and scroll down to the bottom. Under “Make Money With Us”, click “Become an Affiliate”. You can also get to this page by clicking here: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/
2. Click “Join Now for Free”
3. Fill in your email address, and click “I am a new customer.” Then click “Sign in using our secure server”
4. Fill in the form, creating a password. Write your password down. Click “Create Account”
5. Fill in the next form, with your contact information.  Click “Next - Your Website Profile”
6. It might make suggestions for a better way to format your address.  If it does, choose the best format and click “Save This Address”.
7. Fill out the information about your website.  When it asks, “What type of site is your website(s)?” select “Blog” or “Content/Niche Website”.  Click “Next” at the bottom.
8. Next, they’ll want to verify your identity.  Enter your phone number.  They’ll display a 4 digit PIN on the screen, and an automated system will call you.  You can type in the PIN or just say the digits. The screen will change to say, “Congratulations, your Identity Verification is complete.”.  Check the box to accept the terms and conditions, and click “Finish”.
9. Your account is set up.  Click “Specify Payment Method Now”.
10. Fill in your tax ID information, and choose how you’d like to be paid. The simplest method to get started is to choose the Amazon Gift Card. It’s not necessarily the best way to be paid, but for now, it’s quick, simple, and it can be changed later. Click “Continue”.
11. Now you’re at the Amazon Affiliate’s Main Page.  In the upper left, under the “AmazonAssociates” logo, you’ll see your Amazon Tracking ID.  It will look something like: “sohmabl-20”.  Write it down so that you can access it another day. Your Amazon affiliate account is now set up. Write down your UN and PW for later use, too.

Setting up the Amazon Link plugin in your WordPress Website.

1. Go to your WordPress website login URL, and login with your UN and PW.
2. On the left-handed nav bar, mouse over “Plugins” and click on “Installed Plugins”.
3. Look through the list of plugins for one named “Amazon Link”.  If you don’t find it, go ahead with the instructions for installing it, below.  If you do find it, click where it says, “Setup”.
4. Choose your country, and enter your Amazon Tracking ID (Affiliate ID) next to that flag. Other things on this page are technical and not necessary at this point. Click “Update Options”.  It’s now configured.
5. If you didn’t find “Amazon Link” in your list of plugins, at the top of the page, click “Add New”.
6. In the search bar, type “Amazon Link” and do a search.
7. Locate “Amazon Link” in the search results and click “Install Now”.  When it’s done installing, you can click into the setup, as above, and configure it.

Adding an Amazon Affiliate Link to your website Using the Amazon Link WordPress Plugin

1. In your web browser, set up two tabs.  This can be done by holding down the “Ctrl” key and tapping the letter “T” key.  
2. In one tab, go to your website dashboard and login.
3. Navigate to the editing screen of one of your blog posts, or one of your pages.  This is done by mousing over “Posts” on the left nav bar, and clicking on “All Posts”.
4. Mouse over the title of the post where you want to place the ad.  Click “Edit”, when it appears.
5. Scroll through your content to the point in the article where you want the ad to appear. Two good places are: 1 - at the top, and 2 - at the very bottom. Click in the content to place the courser/insertion point.
6. In the other tab, go to Amazon.com.  Browse until you find a product you want to promote from that post.  It should be a product that you talked about in the post, or one that relates in some way.
7. Scroll down the page, until you see “Product Details”.  In that section, you’ll see either the “ASIN” or the “ISBN”.  Copy that number.
8. Go back to the WordPress tab, and scroll down past the text of your post.  You’ll see a section labeled: “Add Amazon Link”.  Where it says “ASIN”, type or paste either the ASIN or the ISBN that you got from the Amazon page.  Select a template/layout for your ad from the “Template” dropdown menu. Click "Insert Link". This will put the link in place where you left the courser. In the upper right, click “Update” to save the changes and make them live.

From this point on, when you post a new blog post or content page, you can find a relevant product and put an Amazon ad for it on that page. There are many other ways to set up Amazon links, and many ways to set up other affiliate links, too.  But for now, this process will get your website started on the path to money.

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.

Amazon v California - sales tax on internet sales

A Staring Match for the Future of Affiliate and Internet Marketing


For many years, now, people have been talking about sales tax on Internet sales.  I’ve heard and read about it in various forms.  Scare tactic viral emails have crowded my inbox telling me to write my congressman about bills that haven’t existed yet.  Politicians have debated the need to tax internet sales.  Bla, bla, bla.

For a long time, Internet sales have handled taxes the same way that old-school mail order catalogs did.  That was that there were no sales taxes charged, unless the order originated from within the same home state as the business.  If I’m a business in Utah, and someone else in Utah orders from me, I was required to collect and pay sales tax on internet sales based on that sale to that customer.  On the other hand, if someone from New York bought from me, I didn’t have to collect New York state sales tax.

That has caused a lot of problems over the years, especially as internet business has grown.

See, sales tax is a state thing.  The money is collected by the states, and managed and spent by the states.  Each state decides how much sales tax they’re going to charge, and on what kinds of products.  Some states don’t charge any sales tax.  So, if someone from New York buys from someone in Utah, then, technically, that’s New York’s problem, not Utah’s.

A lot of states have come up with some interesting ways of taking care of this.  In theory, everyone in New York should keep track of all of their internet, mail-order, and out of state purchases, itemize that list on their state income taxes, and pay their New York state sales tax..  Most people, obviously, don’t do this.  Here in Utah, for example, the state has an option for you to just pay an estimated out-of-state sales tax, added into your state income tax form.  It’s easier and quicker than tracking all of your purchases, and it’s not exorbitant, so  most people just pay it.

However, as the internet has grown a bigger and bigger presence in the commercial world, it’s becoming a force to be dealt with.  States are seeing online sales take a bite out of their retail sales tax revenues, and want to bite back.  Several states have passed laws dealing specifically with sales tax on internet sales.

The problem for internet retailers becomes bigger and bigger with each new state law.  They have to update their shopping cart softwares and their accounting procedures to handle each new state’s tax rules and rates uniquely.  It’s becoming very problematic.

The crux of many of these new laws is that the retailer has to have a presence in the state in order for the state to force them to pay sales tax on internet sales.  The way the states are getting around this in the new laws is by declaring that affiliates, who advertise for the big sites and get commission payouts, constitute that presence.  Amazon disagrees, and rather than sink all that money into revamping their online checkout procedures and accounting processes to adapt to each state, they’ve simply pulled out of the states that are passing these laws.  Affiliates in many states, like California, Connecticut, Texas, South Carolina, and others, are finding accounts closed.

What does all this mean for internet entrepreneurs?

On an immediate level, you’ll need to pay closer attention to your state’s laws.  If you’re in a state where certain kinds and sites of affiliates are limited, you’ll need to be aware of that and choose affiliate programs that are still available, and willing to conform to your state’s sales tax on internet sales laws.

Ultimately, it’s going to force the hand of the federal government, and they’ll have to step in and set some uniform and hopefully reasonable sales tax for internet sales.  They’ll have to work out who gets the money from those taxes, however, and that battle will be hard fought.  Will it go to the home state of the buyer, the seller, the manufacturer, or the shipper of the product?  Or even  remain with the feds?

In the long run, you’ll need to pay close attention to bills being proposed in your state legislatures, about sales tax on internet sales, and make your own voice heard. Haunt your state legislature’s website.  Be aware.  Contact your representatives (state and federal) and find out what’s being debated.  Let them know how you want them to vote, and remind them that you also vote.

The next few years will be very interesting.  Be a part of it in your state.







Mark is currently coaching internet entrepreneurs.

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