Niche Blogging For Profit

Blogging is not only fun – you can make money with it too. In fact there are many different ways to make money with your blog. Here I talk about just four of the many.

Advertising

Ever since Google came out with their Adsense program, many companies have created similar contextual advertising systems. Simply put you insert a small bit of code on your blog that will display ads related to the content of your blog page. Each time a visitor to your blog clicks on one of these ads, you’ll get paid a certain amount. This amount usually isn’t a lot – between .01 and 2 or 3 dollars on average.

If you really want to make good money with advertising, you’re going to want to sell advertsiing space on your blog directly to advertisers. Once your blog has achieved a following, it should be easy to sell space on your blog. Many well know blogs make hundreds a month just by selling advertising.

Product Sales

Selling affiliate products is another way you can use your blog to make money. Search for your niche plus the words “affilliate product” to find products. Write a post or a page about the product to give your readers an idea of the benefits. If you sell quality items and don’t push by selling, selling, selling all the time – your readers will be more likely to buy.

Pay Per Review

There are companies online that will pay you to review their product, blog, site, etc. Of course how much you get paid depends on how much traffic your blog gets. Keep in mind that both the product’s creator and your readers want an honest review. Don’t feel that because you’re getting paid for the review that it has to be all positive. The review should be thorough and complete, perhaps with screenshots if appropriate.

Membership Blogs

If your blog is suited to a very specific niche and provides quality information, maybe that is unavailable elsewhere or teaches a valuable skill, you could consider running a membership blog where your readers pay a certain amount of money to become a member of your blog. This isn’t the easiest way to make money but if you can pull it off, you’re looking at a great source of residual income.

There are many different ways to market your home business whether online or off. Most important to remember is not to limit yourself to marketing Internet businesses to online marketing and “real world” business to “real world” advertising.

While many brick and mortar businesses know enough to have websites and possibly online shopping carts, few online businesses expand their marketing plan to include offline advertising.

 Business cards are easy and inexpensive to create. VistaPrints offers cards free of cost – you pay only for shipping. Pass these cards out to people you meet at parties, gatherings, work related events and to people you meet throughout your regularly scheduled day.

Brochures (services) or Catalogs (products) – Depending on what your blogs/sites sell you can display brochures or catalogs in local stores.

Flyers – Similar to brochures except flyers are usually one sheet and contain less information than brochures. You can pass out flyers or leave them in doorways to get people to visit your sites/blogs.

Magnetic Signs – Several business supply stores offer custom signs and letters that are magnetized and can be stuck right to the sides or back of your vehicle. You should keep the wording simple and short but that takes advantage of the most space for your money.

As an Internet Marketer you have to take advantage of every traffic source available. Don’t make the mistake of thinking your customer base ends at your desktop.

Writing is a huge part of being a niche blogger so it is always a good idea to be polishing your skill. Writing blog posts can be a bit less formal than articles written for directory submission and traffic generation although even posts should be well thought out, clear and error-free.

Articles should be all that while providing quality information to your readers. Remember the main purpose of every article you write is to get people to click the link to your blog. Here are five tips to help your articles better achieve that goal.

1. Write directly to your reader – The best articles read as if they were written for just one person, the reader. If you want your writing to seem natural, write as if you were telling the information to your best friend (within reason of course).
2. Don’t forget your spell check – Misspellings and typos make an article seem unprofessional and rushed. Use your spell check function but don’t stop there. Be sure to proofread your articles carefully as well.
3. Keep sentences and paragraphs brief – When reading online it is much easier on the reader’s eyes if the groups of words and lines are small. Long sentences are hard to process from a computer screen and end up seeming jumbled and confusing.Paragraphs should be no more than five or six sentences long.
4. Use lists when possible – Internet readers love lists. Lists are easy to scan for interesting information and make it simple for your reader to quickly see what you’re writing about.
5. Inform first, promote last – Never write an article for the sole reason of getting your readers to buy something. Sure you are hoping that they will find your articles so informative and well written that they will want to click over to your blog but your first priority should always be to provide helpful valuable information to your reader.

If you make certain that your articles stick to these five rules you will have n problem attracting traffic to your site. People will want to be there and they will be glad to keep coming back and that’s your real goal.

Yesterday I wrote about writing ebooks. Well today we’re going to take a step backward and talk about article writing. I’m going to tell you how I get through writing my articles.

Being an Internet Marketer means writing…a lot of writing. It isn’t always easy to get into the mood to write even after a couple cups of caffeine. So how do I push myself on those days when writing seems too much of a daunting task?

I start by reading around online within the selected niche (I write blogs about many different subjects). I usually use Bloglines for this but occasionally I just peek and Google Blogs for a specific topic. I write down three or four title ideas and number 1 through 5 under each title.

The numbers under the title is for the main point of each paragraph in the article. Once you throw in an introductory paragraph and a conclusion, you easily have a 500 to 700 word article.

Remember to run spell check and avoid keyword stuffing – two subjects I will go into more length at a later time. Finally pay close attention to the article directory’s Terms Of Service and their feelings about resource and affiliate links.

Eventually you’ll want to consider moving from writing articles to writing whole ebooks as well. Ebooks are a great way to market a bunch of niche-related affiliates in one place as well as further establishing yourself as an expert. If you decide to sell your ebook, you can even make a little side income.

While writing an ebook is not as easy as writing a simple article, the procedure is very similar. A giveaway ebook can be a few as five or as many as 200 pages. I think 5 to 20 pages is a good number to start with.

Start by deciding on a topic and choosing a clear title stating what you ebook is about and designed to  capture the reader’s attention.

Do some brief preliminary research and write down what you already know. Basically brainstorm until you have at least five decent concepts for the book. The next thing you want to do is write an outline of the ebook. Now is the time to do any additional research needed to flesh out your ebook.

Now, as you’re writing, go along as if you were writing one long article followed by another long article. Pay close attention to transition phrases like therefore, next, and afterwards.

Also keep in mind that you will probably have to edit and rewrite your first draft a few times before it will be ready for release. Oh, and don’t forget to add your affiliate links throughout the ebooks.

No matter what the endeavor, when you are first starting out it is best to read and research as much as possible. This holds true for niche blogging as well/ It is important to understand the ins and outs of picking niches, writing content, and marketing sites. Aside from this blog (of course) there are several very good ebooks, available for free, that can help any niche blogger from newbie to old pro.

1. Knock, Knock- This ebook is written by the famous Internet guru Seth Godin. Godin is popular for his easy writing style and concise way of breaking things down. Knock, Knock is the earliest ebook I could find of his and while it deals with building websites, it offers a lot of useful information about design.
2. Who’s There- Godin’s follow up ebook to Knock, Knock, this one is actually about blogging and how to earn money with blogs. Anytime I feel burnt out and need a refresher I go back and read this ebook again.
3. Encyclopedia of Free Online Advertising- Although the writer of this ebook, Luke W Parker, called it an encyclopedia, it is more like the frugal blogger’s bible to me. Every method of advertising that you can think of is included and rated based on three criteria: Quantity (how much traffic you’ll get), Quality (how targeted the traffic is), and Time To Deliver (how fast it takes to get the traffic). Terrific for when you think your blog needs a new type of boost or you’re just interested in making more money.
4. An Insider’s Guide To Writing Articles - It’s no secret that I consider article writing to be one of the best free advertising methods. This ebook by John Colanzi walks you step by step through the article writing process. Definitely worth a look.
5. Practical Introduction To Google Adsense- This ebook was released last July by Digital Resale Rights and My Adsense Empire. Although it does discuss how to earn money with adsense, it is the in depth explanation of adsense and its features that I found most useful. If you’re at all confused about any aspect of Google’s Adsense program, you’re likely to find the answer you’re looking for in this ebook

 Affiliate programs are an important element to a niche blogger. Good affiliate products are easier to sell and therefore make more money for you.

But what makes an affiliate product good enough to sign on?

• High Quality Valuable Products – the product should offer something of real value to your customers. Avoid cheesy or duplicate products like the plague.
• A professional pitch page or an easy pitch to make.
• Some type of resources to assist you in marketing the product.
• A fair percentage per sale. Some products offer 60% or 75% commission but the products are hard to sell due to price or low quality. Better to make a smaller percentage on a better product.

Some of the best sites to look for affiliate products are Commission Junction (my favorite), Clickbank, Amazon (low % but tons of products) and AzoogleAds.

Today we are going to cover the last part of the niche marketing concept. – getting traffic and getting readers to keep reading your blog.

The first thing you should when your niche blog is all set up is submit your URL (domain name address, usually www.something.com) to all the big search engines. Here are the links to the ones you should at least start with:

Google: www.google.com/addurl.html

MSN: http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx?FORM=WHWL

DMOZ: http://www.dmoz.org/ click on suggest URL

Yahoo!: http://www.yahoo.com/ scroll to bottom and click on suggest site

Currently Ask.com doesn’t accept URL submissions so you have to wait for their bots to crawl your site before you’ll be added to their directory.

You should have added the All-in-One SEO plug-in to your WordPress blog. If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend you do so. It will help the search engines notice your niche blog and get you propelled to the top of the rankings faster.

Also, once you have the plug-in installed and activated…you have to use it. Fill in all the appropriate fields for every post and page that you want people to visit. (you don’t have to bother doing this for your privacy page or FAQs or anything like that)

Now that your pages and posts are set up to be picked up by the search engines. And the search engines know you exist, it’s time to think about article marketing.

Article marketing is simply writing short (between 400 and 700 words) articles about your subjects involving your niche. You then take these articles and submit them to some of the hundreds of article directories out there.

There are a few reasons why article marketing is a such an effective method for getting traffic:

• Good article directories already have a high rank on Google and Alexa so your articles will appear on search engines (high up usually on page one) almost immediately.
• Other bloggers and website owners who have related niche sites will use your articles giving your site all-important backlinks and a runoff of their traffic.
• Publishing several articles on a subject makes you something of an expert in the eyes of readers on the web. If people like what you have to say, they will click through your bio link to read more.

Additionally, you may get offers for guest blogging which can be a good way to network and build up your name (or brand) even more. Finally, you can make a decent part time income off article writing with the right site.

I used to submit my articles to a dozen directories but now I just stick to the two best ones (in my opinion):

Associated Content: I love this directory. Not only do you have the chance to get paid up front for your article, they have a huge reader base and they pay for page views  on a monthly basis. I know people who make a couple of hundred dollars alone through AC. Plus they are marketing their site. Essentially, you are getting paid for them to advertise your site! Just make sure you carefully read the terms of service so your articles have a better chance of getting accepted.

Ezine Articles: This directory doesn’t pay for your articles but they have probably the largest reader base and the best ranks through Google and Alexa. Your articles are likely to be picked up through Ezine Articles for use on other sites which gives you an even better chance of getting traffic.

Start with two or three articles for each niche blog. make sure the articles are significantly different from the articles you have on your blog; otherwise the directories may reject your submissions.

Oh I forgot to mention the best thing about article marketing, it’s completely free if you decide to write your own articles. If writing isn’t your forte (strength) you can “farm” out the articles for a few bucks per article.

Once you have a marketing strategy in motion, you will need to periodically maintain interest in your blog through article marketing (one or two a month should suffice) and new posts.

Posting on your blog should be consistent but you get to set the schedule. You can post every day, every other day (which is what I shoot for but often fall short), once a week or even every other week as long as you are consistent. naturally the more often you post, the more likely you will keep interest in your site from your faithful readers (remember- it’s all about them)

Now you have all the basic knowledge to start and run your own niche blog. Good luck and check back often for the latest and greatest tools to help you succeed in the world of Niche Blogging!