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.

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.

Making More Money Blogging

Everyone wants to make more money, right?  It seems that no matter how much you have, it would always be nice to have a little more.  As I look at all of the blogs I run, it seems to me that with a little effort, they could all be making me more money.

Over at Problogger , Darren Rowse spelled out three things that could make a blog more successful.  Really, these are the same principles that could make ANY website better.  His ideas to make money blogging are:

1. Increase traffic to the site.
2. Increase conversions of first-time visitors into subscribers of an email list.
3. Increase sales conversions.

His point in the article is that even a slight increase in all three of these areas can add up to a significant increase in the bottom line at the end of each month.

Increasing Traffic

There are, of course, a lot of things that can go into this, from SEO, to linking, to use of social networking.  Before deciding what can be done to improve a site, however, I think it’s important to take a look at the analytics and see where you are.  How can you fix things if you don’t know what is broken?  By the same token, if you know what’s working, you can turn it up!

Email List Building

A major part of internet marketing is, of course, the email list.  If there isn’t one already (like most websites), it’s vital to build one.  First time visitors to your site need to be aware that they can sign up, and be aware of a good reason to.  Is there a freebie giveaway for the signup?  There has to be a benefit.

Increasing Sales Conversions

If a higher percentage of visitors become buyers, then you build your income exponentially.  The same number of visitors makes you more money.  It really makes a lot of sense to put effort into your site’s layout.  Streamline the purchase process.  Make the products more prominent.  Make it easier for people to find and buy your products.  Whether your site is eCommerce or affiliate, the principle is the same.

It’s also valuable to spend some time figuring out what your conversion rate is.  Out of all the pageviews your site gets, how many of them do something you want them to do, like buy something, or click through an affiliate ad?  Before you can improve something, you have to measure it.

There are many different ways to accomplish these improvements.  The first step, really, is knowing where you are now, and where you want to be at the end of the year.  That will help make money blogging!





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.