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.

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.

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.

Net Neutrality! ...Again

When I heard the fuss about neutrality being raised up again, I thought to myself, “This issue has been around a while, hasn’t it?”  In fact, I remembered having written about it some time ago.  It turns out that was back in 2006.  I looked it up: http://sohoman.blogspot.com/2006/08/net-neutrality-and-you.html  I guess the wheels of regulation turn slowly.

Not that it’s an invalid concern.  Far from it.  It’s very important that the Internet, which has a long, tested, and sometimes sordid history of unregulated freedom, be kept free for all.

Here’s the deal:  There’s a lot of content on the ‘net, not just websites and silly blogs like this one.  There’s TV shows, and movies, and streaming music and talk, and all kinds of media and information flowing through these wires, fibers, and waves.  Much of that content is being provided by some pretty big corporations.  They feel that they should be able to have better service, with faster connections, and better stability than little mom & pop web shops or bloggers.

Others, mostly mom & pop webstore owners and bloggers, as well as a lot of folks that work on the ‘net daily, feel that the same wires, fibers and waves should carry everything.  Equally.  Neutrally.  Hence, “net neutrality”.

What they’re afraid of is that these powerful and wealthy companies will end up being able to restrict the usage of the network of their smaller competitors, or even of those that speak in ways that they don’t like. And in order to preserve that equality that has existed for so long, in order to keep it a free and open forum of ideas, they’re asking for some regulation.

Yes, you heard that right.  They’re wanting regulation, rules, in order to keep things fair and free.  Oh, the irony.

If you’re reading this, it’s very likely that you’re one of the smaller website owners.  It’s likely that you’re not a major, multinational corporation.  So, this is something that you should be concerned about.  Is it possible that they’ll end up squeezing you out of the picture?  Net Neutrality, then, becomes not so much a techie-sounding buzzword, and turns into a real-life concern.

The FCC recently presented some proposed rules changes.  These are not yet fixed, and there well be legislation that could come down as well.  It would be wise for all of us to contact our representatives and let them know how we feel.  To access your representatives, look to http://www.house.gov/ and http://www.senate.gov/





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.

Guest Blogging to Increase Website Traffic

The holy grail of inbound links is an in-content text link where the link text contains one of your strong keywords.  This can be a bit challenging to get set up, because that usually means that someone else has to set it up on their site.  That means that someone else has to like something on your site so much that they take up valuable space on their site or blog talking about you, and linking to you.

This happens, and it’s great when it does.  Really, the only thing you can do to make it happen, however, is by having something really incredible at your website, and then hoping people find it, like it, and link to it.  It’s not practical to say, “Today I’m gonna go get someone to link to me!”

There is, however, a great way to establish these kinds of links and increase website traffic.  To do it, you have to approach other sites, particularly blogs, with the idea that you’re going to give them something they need:  Good content.  You’re going to offer them a “Guest Post.”  In other words, you’ll write a blog post for them to post on their blog.  In the process of doing that, you can establish a link to your website. 

This isn’t anything sneaky.  This is an accepted part of the exchange.  If I’m a blogger, and you provide good content for me, I’m going to allow you to establish a link and increase website traffic to your site as a return of the favor.

Here are some examples of some of my guest posts, designed to promote my Dutch oven cooking blog, marksblackpot.com.  This one, about Dutch oven cooking in the cold, actually contains many internal links.

This one isn’t really about Dutch ovens, but it is about food, so it fit.  I also used it to promote my Utah religious pop culture blog. 

Guesting on Other People’s Blogs

How do you do it?

First of all, read a lot of blogs in your niche.  Find out who are the best, most respected, most trafficed, and most famous bloggers.  Any other relevant blog will do, but the best ones will get you the most traffic. 

As you find these blogs, read a lot of their posts, with the comments, so you get an idea of their point of view and how their audience responds.  Think of a topic that would be good for their blog and good for their audience.  Then, write up a short 3-4 sentence teaser or outline of your topic idea. 

Then you’ll want to contact the blogger and propose your article.  Usually, there will be some kind of email link on the blog, but you might just have to use the comment space of one of their postings.  If you do that, try to pick one that’s about a similar topic.  Tell the hosting blogger that you have an article about such and such a topic, and give them the teaser.  Would they like it as a guest post?  Make sure to leave an email address for them to contact you back, and make sure the comment link (if you’re doing it that way) points back to your blog or site.

Sometimes, the bloggers themselves will put out calls for guest posts.  If you see those, make a note of it, and submit an article or an idea more directly.

If they respond favorably, then write the article, proof it, making sure that it contains good keywords and links.  DO NOT put any affiliate links in the article.  Let the hosting blogger do that if he or she wants to.

Finally, email it to the hosting blogger.  If they like it, they’ll post it, and you’ll both get the benefit.  You’ve helped them with good content, they’ve helped you with a quality link that will be in front of lots of their viewers.

Getting Guests on Your Own Blog

A great way to get started with this of increasing website trafficis to seek out some guest posts for your own blog.  If you’re nervous about contacting established bloggers and feeling like a beggar at their doorstep asking for handouts, then ask them to write a guest post for your blog first.

The contact will still be the same.  The only difference is that you’ll be asking for content instead of pitching it.  If you have an idea for a topic, suggest it, but allow them to come up with their own posts as well.

The Illogical Extreme

As I got to thinking about this, it occurred to me that you could create a blog, write a few posts of pillar content, and then recruit other writers to guest post.  The entire blog could be nothing but guest posts about a relevant topic! 

Interesting...





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.

What to write about

As I’m teaching people how to do an ecommerce blog, one of the biggest challenges for most is: “What do I write about?”  It’s bad enough that most folks I work with are already intimidated by writing in the first place.  It’s especially daunting for those that are blogging as a tool to promote an ecommerce website.  Think of it.  Just how much can you say about children’s bedding, or diamond tennis bracelets?

Once you get past the fact that a decent ecommerce blog should be more than just product reviews that are really not much more than thinly veiled ads, what is there to write about?  Here are some thoughts:

In an ecommerce blog, don’t write about your products, write about experiences

First, take a step back from your products.  Ask yourself, “What experience do these products provide?”  If your website is selling tents, sleeping bags, and camp stoves, then the experience behind them is enjoying the outdoors.  If you’re selling nutritional supplements, barbells, and yoga mats, then your experience is getting healthy.

When you get past the products and onto the experience, you’ll find there are lots of things to write about.

Get ideas for your ecommerce blog from the world around you.

As you go about your daily life, your mind is constantly going.  You think of things and you get ideas, many of which relate to your website’s niche topic.  At the end of the day, you look back and you might get the idea that you didn’t think of anything at all that day that relates, but in reality, you probably did, and you probably encountered a lot of things that relate to your topic.

The problem was that you weren’t in a position to jot it down, and so you forgot it a few minutes later.  Or, you shut yourself down by telling yourself it was a bad idea.  Maybe both.

The first problem is easy to fix.  Carry a notepad to jot down your ideas when you get them, or use a notepad function of your cell phone.  Use something you’ll always have with you. Then, when it’s time to blog, you can look through your ideas, pick the best one, and start writing.

The second problem is pretty easy to fix as well.  Simply jot down EVERYTHING.  Sort out the good ideas later.

Do the thing you’re promoting

I once worked with a lady who had decided, because of her extensive research, that paintball guns would be a great thing to sell.  She built her site and input her products, and then when she got to me and I told her it was time to start creating content she went into a tizzy.

Why?  She had never even held a paintball gun, never shot one, and had definitely never been in a game.  She had absolutely NO idea what to write about, or what to say in her ecommerce blog.

Go and do.  Then come back and write.

Don’t be an Expert

This leads me to a final point.  When writing, don’t worry about being an expert.  When I first started my Dutch oven cooking blog, I hardly even knew how to cook.  Now, I’ve got a four-book deal with a publisher to write cookbooks for the Dutch oven.  The key is that I never CLAIMED to be an expert.  My approach was simple:  I’m learning how to do this, and I’m going to share what I learn.  You can come a long for the ride, and we can learn together.  Before long, readers will naturally trust your opinions and they’ll treat you like an expert.

You have plenty to say in your ecommerce blog, and you can share it with people who want to read it.  These will be the same people who will eventually buy it from you.  It all comes down to credibility and comfort.  Be real, be human, share your life as it relates to your topic.  Get personal!  You’ll have plenty to say!





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.

Panda Eats Up Lame Content and Spits it Out!

Some more thoughts on the value of valuable content:

For a long time, one of the biggest promotional strategies of the ‘net has been to establish lots of “content-based” links by writing an article and submitting it to hundreds of article directories, each one with a link to your website.

There were several problems with this.  One was that often these “articles” were thinly-veiled sales letters.  For example, if a website was all about baby strollers, the marketer might pick a few featured items, grind out 500 words about the features of those particular strollers, title it something like, “How to shop for a baby stroller”, and off it goes to the directories.  Or, it might have a brief overview of what, in general, makes up a baby stroller, with a few keywords.  

There was little in these, or most other articles that was truly informative or inspiring. If you check the table in my last post about internet content, these articles would go in the “lame” box in the lower right.

These are web pages that end up as what some people call “flotsam and netsam”.  These are pages that are mere clutter that clog up the ‘net and make it that much harder for people to find the real information that they’re wanting.

So, last spring, Google revised their ranking algorithm in an update referred to as “Panda”.  A lot of those marketers that had relied on their copied and spun articles with linkbacks found their rankings plummeting.  Those that relied on automatically generated content pulled with searches of keywords and scraped and copied text found that their sites had disappeared from top slots in Google’s search engine results pages.

Here are just a couple of good, informative updates on the subject:

• How Does the Panda/Farmer Update Impact Affiliates?
• Lessons Learned at SMX West: Google’s Panda Update, White Hat Cloaking & Link Building

What this all boils down to is that Google is, once again, establishing content as king.  Good, useful, informative content, that is.  One by one, the quick, easy ways to magical Internet ranking and wealth are disappearing (if they ever existed in the first place), and steady, real, honest writing is winning the day.

Here are some ways to get good ranking and good traffic:

• Write (or pay good writers to write) good content for your websites.  This is true both of blogs and of ecommerce, products-based websites.
• Write good content for external sites, like reputable articles directories and content sites (ezinearticles.com, squidoo.com, hubpages.com).
• Make good sensible comments on other people’s good content (in blogs or other discussion sites.  Even if the links are no-follow, it will help establish your credibility and attract directly clicking traffic.
• Submit good content to other people’s blogs as guest posts.
• Make a good, useful blog yourself.
• Use social networks like twitter and facebook wisely, to draw viewers and generate real buzz.
• In affiliate marketing, give people more content than ads, rather than the other way around.
• Make all of your writing and content rich in good keywords that are not already flooded in the marketplace.

These are the ways to make your site the most attractive and useful to visitors, and to make it more respected and ranked by the search engines.

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.

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.

Do's and Do Not's of Social Networking

We can tell you to click here and click there, fill out this form and make a post over at that other website, but it's often not easy to truly understand what's going on in Social Networking.  It's true that a lot of the flavor of a meal is discovered while you're eating it.  In other words, you'll learn a lot about using social networks simply by being on them.  Still, here are some general guidelines of how to approach them so that you'll do better right from the start.

Do These Things:

1. Find your audience - Using your keywords to search through profiles helps filter out a lot of people who have no interest in your business or your products.  Spend your time and efforts on people who are more likely to buy.
   
2. Actively participate - Find your audience, and interact with them.  Before you know it, they'll be checking out your website and making you money.  But first, just join the party.  If you sit quietly in the corner and watch, nothing will happen.
3. Share good content, not just your own - If you're at a party, and someone is monopolizing the conversation, talking only about themselves and their own accomplishments, it gets pretty old pretty fast, doesn't it?  Share some links and info about other, still relevant, sites you've found, and people will like following you.
   
4. Be a source of value - Along the same lines, if they can count on you for the good stuff, the useful info, and the exciting news, then they'll be excited to see something you've posted.
   
5. Use the same avatar - From one social network to another, it's a good idea to use the same avatar or profile image.  This is a part of your branding efforts.  Use your company logo, if it works as a small image.  People will begin to recognize you.  (One time at church someone came up to me and said, "Hey, I saw you out on the 'net the other day.  Man, you are EVERYwhere!")
6. Update your site and blog, so you have something to talk about on the 'network.
   

Don't Do These Things:

1. Don't just plug your products - It's OK to mention your own products and your own blogs every once in a while, but if your twitter feed or your facebook page is nothing but ads, I'm going to unfollow you fast.  Visit with me, don't just sell to me.
   
2. Don't use tools to add millions of friends/followers - I recently tried a tool that got me thousands of twitter followers overnight.  Most of them were clogging my twitter feed with ads for diet pills and cheap mortgages.  When I posted about new blog entry, I got a couple of dozen hits from twitter.  Pretty lame percentage out of thousands of followers.  I've seen other things like this happen all the time.  Quantity is great, as long as it's a high quantity of good quality friends and followers.  Remember: find your audience!
   
3. Don't spew out flow - Some people want to post every detail of their personal existence.  I don't care if you're in a Starbucks having a mocha venti grande.  I also don't care to read about how long it took you to get to work this morning.  Unless you make it relevant to your topic, leave it out.  I don't mind if a part of your social networking posts are personal.  That's what shows you're human.  But don't just share the mind-numbing dullness of your dreary life.
   
4. Don't friend everyone - Not everyone is your audience, and not everyone is interested in your products.  Don't waste your time on people that won't buy.  If someone friends you and you can tell they're just looking for a bigger list, you don't have to friend them back.
   
5. Don't use the same accounts for personal networking and business networking - The more I work this, the more I realize it's much more effective to split them into separate accounts. 
   
6. Don't post too much - There's a guy on my Facebook friends list that shares good, informative content.  That's great, right?  Except he posts every 10 to 20 minutes.  I don't have time to read all that, and it clutters up my profile.  Even good content, 5-10 times a day, can get annoying.
7. Don't post too little - You're easy to forget, and if you wait too many days in between blog posts, or Twitter tweets, it's tough to build up an audience of readers.

Like I said before, as you use the social networks, you'll learn more and more how to make it effective for you.  There are many more tips and tricks that you'll pick up along the way.  Many of the tips that I learned were shared with me by other users!  Keep learning and you'll do well!


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.

Listening to an FTC Lawyer: Clear as Mud, But it Covers the Ground

I recently sat in on a webinar given by the site "Blog with Integrity", with speaker Mary Engle.  Mary is the FTC's Associate Director of Consumer Protection.  I learned a lot about the new FTC guidelines, especially as it relates to blogging.  This is particularly timely, as the guidelines go into effect as of today, the day of this writing!

I came away from the webinar with a slightly more clear understanding of the concepts behind the new FTC guidelines, but I'm still a bit confused about how they want them to be implemented.  As I listened, I got the sense that they, too, haven't fully defined the details, and that they're still in the process of interpreting them.

FTC Guidelines for Existing Laws

The impetus behind the new guides is that a lot has changed and adapted since the '80s, when the laws were put into place.  The advent of blogging, social networking, and a vast landscape of interconnectedness has come along since then, and now they're trying to apply those existing laws and regulations to new circumstances.

That's OK.  A well-written law should be able to be applied fairly to new situations.  It does, however, make for some generalities that can be difficult to detail.  One thing that Engle mentioned is that these new FTC guidelines, by themselves, don't have the weight of law.  They are designed to show the application of the current laws.

Disclosure, Not Deception

The idea is that whenever someone writes or talks about a product or a company, the reader or viewer should be able to know if there's any connection between the writer/speaker, and the product or company being discussed. 

So, if I post to my Facebook page that I'm gonna hit McDonald's for lunch, do I have to add a disclosure statement?  Well, probably not, but it depends:  Did McD's pay me to say that?  Am I getting my meal for free in return for mentioning it on Facebook?  If so, I need to say so.  If nobody paid me anything, or gave me anything for free, I can say whatever I want.

What if I blog about my family life, and I put affiliate ads on the site?  Do I have to tell people that the affiliate links make me money?  Again, that depends.  If it's a big graphic ad off to one side of the blog, it's a pretty safe bet that everyone "gets it" that it's an ad, and that I'm getting compensated for it in some way.

On the other hand, what if I blog about a book, and put a link to that book over at Amazon?  In that case, it's a little less obvious and should probably be disclosed.

The overall focus, according to Engle, is to eliminate the deception.  If a blogger writes about something, the readers should be able to judge his/her fairness.  Did they get the product for free?  Were they paid to write?  Are they getting commissions for recommending a particular book?  The audience needs to know.

Linking to a Website.

Let's say that you blog primarily as an effort to promote an ecommerce website.  Let's say that you sell products at the site, and you want to blog about them.  You'd definitely want to disclose that, to be in compliance with these FTC guidelines.  Fortunately, that's not too hard.  "Come check out these products at our website! (link, link, link)"

Testimonials

Having testimonials on your website is a great way to build customer confidence.  If you get a spontaneous email about how good your product is, or how quickly you delivered it, then you've got gold, and you should post it on your website.  However, if you offer discounts or other premiums in return for testimonials, that has to be disclosed.

My Own Disclaimer!

The things I've said here are the things that I gathered as I was listening to the FTC presentation mentioned above.  I don't really know how the FTC is going to enforce these.  Frankly, I'm not convinced that they're too sure, either.  My best recommendation is to take some time and listen to the webinar and learn for yourself.  They can also be contacted via email with questions: endorsement@ftc.gov. 




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.