Choosing the right topic to blog about can make or break your blog - literally!  Now it may be that you already have a good idea for your blog.  It could be that you already have an existing business that you want to expand, you are very passionate about a subject, know loads about it, and know that a market exists.

Even if you do think you know what you’re going to blog about, it’s still worth spending some time thinking over this and making sure you’ve chosen the right subject.  You’re going to be investing a lot of time into your blog over the coming months, and a little time now spent researching your potential niche will pay massive dividends.

Deciding on, and defining your niche has to be the first step in building any blog.  With hundreds of millions of websites, there is no way any one person, or company, could ever hope to compete with them all.  The key to succeeding online however is not to try.  Rather, you want to find a narrow niche market where you can stand out from the crowd.  It needs to be a niche where there is a market (people who are spending money), preferably (at least for your first time) a topic you are passionate about, and narrow enough that you can compete for visitors attention.

Let’s take a look at those three criteria one at a time…

For a niche to be profitable, there must be a significant number of people interested in the topic, and willing and able to spend money to learn more.  

You might know a lot about a specific method of wheel building for example, but if only 6 other people around the world are interested in it, there simply is no market.  Similarly, targeting children, or the unemployed probably isn’t a good choice since they don’t have money to spend on your products.  A sport like golf however is massively popular, AND tends to be played by people with money to spend!

Being passionate and knowledgeable about a topic will make writing content so much quicker and easier.  I could write for hours on network marketing, or mountain biking, as they are topics I’m passionate about and have lots of experience with.  However, if I wanted to blog about a subject I know little about, like real estate investing or golf, I’d need to spend lots of time researching each post.  

Finally, you need to pick a niche which is narrow enough.  As I’ve already mentioned, the Internet is a big place, and if you want any chance of standing out you need to offer content that is unique and high quality.  Try and target a niche that is too wide and you won’t be able to do it justice.  You’ll be offering a diluted glossary of information at best, and competing with too many others.

Define a very narrow, targeted niche however and you can brand yourself as an authority.  Offer a smaller number of potential visitors exactly what they are looking for, as opposed to offering more generic information to a wider audience, and you’re much more likely to succeed.

Do not rush, or skip this part!

Choosing the right niche really is key to your future success so don’t rush.  Take some time to think about it, and do some research.  Here are a few tips to get you started.

Using Amazon.com as a market research tool

Amazon is a great tool for market research.  Go to the magazines section and have a browse around.  At time of writing, there are over 93,000 titles so there are plenty to choose from.  Start with a more generic topic, such as golf, or computing, then look for narrower sub-niche publications.  If a publisher is producing a magazine about a topic then you know that at the very least there are a few thousand people out there willing to spend a few dollars on the price of a magazine for their hobby or interest in that niche!

Over 90,000 magazine titles should give you some ideas!

If you find topics that you think might interest you, it’s worth getting hold of a copy of the magazines and taking a look at the type of content, what products are being advertised in it, how technical the editorial is, and anything else you can glean.

While you’re at Amazon, another great thing to browse is the ‘For Dummies’ books.  Again, you know that if there is a ‘For Dummies’ book, there has to be a market… they don’t make these books if nobody is buying them!

Using Clickbank as a market research tool

OK, I’m sure you know about Clickbank and selling affiliate products from their marketplace but did you realise it’s also a great tool for researching your niche?

Here’s what to do.  Go to Clickbank.com and click on the marketplace link at the top right of the screen.  You’ll see a search form which allows you to filter and search through all the products available through Clickbank.  The reason this is so cool, is that these are all information products, like ebooks, downloadable audio or video etc.  That means, if there is a product (or even better, several products) in the niche you’re interested in listed here, you know that there are people buying products in this niche on the Internet… and products you could promote via your blog!

The Clickbank marketplace lets you search for info products in your niche

Google as a market research tool

So you found a potential niche, using Amazon or Clickbank, but there’s one more piece of the puzzle.  Ideally, you want to find a niche where other people are spending money (cold hard cash!) to reach their target audience.  If you found any suitable magazines on Amazon and bought one you can tell instantly – are there lots of adverts in the magazine, offering products to this market?

Well if you didn’t find a magazine, or you want more proof, then Google comes to the rescue.  When you do a search on Google, you’ve probably noticed that there are a group of listings that show up on the right hand side of the screen (and sometimes at the top) separate from the main listings.  These are what Google calls sponsored links, or paid listings.  Essentially, someone has paid Google for these links to show their whenever someone searches on specific phrases.  For example, do a search for ‘guitar’ on Google and you’ll see a results page something like this:

Google results page showing sponsored links on the right

Again, if you see a fair few adverts here when you search for keywords related to your niche, you know that people are paying to attract customers.  Take a moment to click on each link and see what they are selling, but the important thing is, are there adverts here, and especially are the same adverts showing up day after day.  You know that since these adverts cost money, people must be buying products in this niche, otherwise companies wouldn’t be advertising!  That means a potential market for your blog which should be profitable.

So there you go, more than enough information for you to choose and define your niche.  Of all the criteria, I would suggest that being knowledgable and passionate about a subject is possibly the most important, especially if it’s your first blog.  Next we’ll look at getting your blog online!

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This mini series is going to cover blogging.  Today I’m going to cover exactly what a blog is, how they work, why they are so popular and powerful, and why i strongly recommend you use one as the springboard for any online business.

What is a blog, and why should I care?

Well I’ll assume that since you’re reading this on my blog right now (or via my RSS feed) then you at least have a rough idea of what a blog is, but I always think it’s best to start with the basics.  Essentially, a blog is a series of articles known as posts organised in chronological order starting with the most recent.  The reason they are so popular, is exactly the same reason that they are so powerful and rank well with the search engines - they tend to be heavy on content, are regularly updated, and are very sociable (you can leave comments on a blog and become part of the conversation!)

Content

We want content on our blog for 2 reasons.  Firstly we want to offer great content to our readers, so they keep coming back and think of us as an authority on our niche.  Secondly we want content because it helps to attract visitors (traffic) in the first place.  Search engines, like Google, love sites with lots of (text based) content and so a blog which is updated regularly with high quality content tends to rank well.  Also, very high quality content (often known as ‘pillar articles’ or ‘link bait’) will attract links from other bloggers and websites.

Link bait is just what it sounds like: content that is created specifically with the intention of attracting links. Create a really great post, whether it’s a tutorial, an opinion piece, or a ‘top ten’ style list of tools or resources, and you will attract the attention of other bloggers. If you follow good SEO practices (using good keywords in your titles and headings etc.) then your blog post will appear in searches at Google BlogSearch and Technorati. Once other bloggers see your post, with luck some of them will link to you… Rise and repeat!

The key here is to produce high quality content, on a regular basis. Not every post you write will be great link bait, but you should focus on creating at least one or two really solid posts each week. As you get known for producing high quality posts you’ll get more and more regular readers, and you’ll start to attract links.

Don’t forget, the content needs to be high quality, and regularly updated (at the very least a couple of times per week - probably more in the early months!).  If you follow that recipe (and have picked a niche topic which interests people) you will attract traffic, and regular readers.  If you then add good marketing into the equation you have the start of an online business.

Finally, the best part about creating great content for your blog is that you can re-purpose it.  That means taking a post, or more likely a series of great posts, and re-using them by turning them into a product like an ebook, or an MP3 audio.  That means you can use the work you’ve already done once, to produce more results in the future!

Blogging to launch a business

If you’re looking to start an online business, or enter a new market, my recommendation is to start a blog.  Over the rest of this series I’m going to cover everything you need to know in order to launch your first blog successfully.  I’ll be covering:

• Choosing what to blog about
• How to create your own blog
• Getting inspiration for content
• Promoting your blog
• Building a list from your blog
• Monetising your traffic

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OK, tomorrow I’m posting the first part in my mini-series on blogging, and using a blog as a launching platform for an online business, but right now I just want to share a really cool free resource with you…

I’ve been doing a lot of PPC recently, in particular I’ve been using Adwords to drive traffic to my web design seminar signup page, and a separate affiliate promotion.  I’ve been consuming every morsel of information I can find on the subject from books (Perry Marhall’s Ultimate Guide is my favorite) to articles, ebooks, blog posts and videos in order to increase my CTR and keep my costs down.  Well, what I just found this morning is something I wish I had when I started because it’s one of the best resources I’ve come across on the subject of PPC and Adwords, and it’s really easy to get your head around…

Basically it’s a completely free 5 part series on using Adwords, and you can get your free copy here.

Now don’t let me hear you saying you never get anything good for free!

If you’re not sure whether you ought to be using PPC, just remember that it is without doubt the fastest way to drive traffic, and can literally have you in profit in hours (rather than in weeks or months from SEO).  Even if you’re concentrating on generating your own traffic by creating content (which is what we’ll be talking about in the blogging series) you should still learn PPC as it’s a great tool for testing new markets, promoting affiliate products, and getting an extra stream of traffic and income!

See you tomrrow for the start of the blogging mini series…

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Without traffic any site, blog or content you create is meaningless! Traffic is the lifeblood of every online business. All things being equal, the more visitors you send to your blog, sales page or offer, the more money you’ll make (duh!), so long as that traffic is targeted (if your traffic consists largely of young, single mums and your product is about dentures you’re not likely to make many sales!)

There are many ways to get traffic to your site and they basically boil down to one of three groups – you can buy traffic, borrow traffic, or build traffic. All three are viable and you need to know how each works:

Buying traffic could mean PPC (Pay Per Click) where you set up an advertising campaign and pay a small fee every time a visitor clicks on a link to visit your site. It could be that you place banner adverts on a site, or pay for sponsorship in an ezine or newsletter. It could even mean traditional offline advertising.

Borrowing traffic is a little less obvious but basically mean leveraging off of someone else’s success. By networking, and joint venturing with others who are more successful than yourself you will not only attract some of their traffic, but you’ll also learn a lot by partnering with them.

Finally, building your own traffic by creating killer content means you’ll never be short of visitors – or customers! Write good articles, develop good software, put together a great ebook. No matter what medium you choose, if you create great content of real value you’ll draw people to you. Become known as an authority in your chosen niche and you won’t have to go looking for visitors, they will come to you!

The best source of traffic…

Ideally you want to get traffic from all three of these. PPC is great because you can get instant traffic right now, and there’s nothing worse than building a site and sitting there waiting for people to visit - it’s worse than watching paint dry! Take the time to learn how to do it properly though, because it’s easy to spend money on PPC without seeing much of a return. Perry Marshall’s book is by the the best I’ve read on the subject.

Borrowing traffic is more of a long term technique - you need to build a reputation, and relationships with other bloggers, webmasters and list owners in order to set up JVs. The great news however, is that by creating high value content, you start to build that reputation while also building your own traffic.

Starting with a blog

That’s why I usually recommend that people start with a blog. Start writing every day, and as your blog and readership grows you start to build several assets…  Your blog becomes an asset in itself which attracts visitors, and can be monetised. The content you post to your blog also becomes an asset which can be repurposed, as articles, reports, audio products etc. Finally, if you use an autoresponder and place opt-in forms on your blog you build a third asset in your list.

So every time you write a post, every time you update your site, you’re building these assets up, you’re attracting more visitors, and you’re branding yourself as an authority in your niche.

With that in mind, I have a series of articles planned for the next week which will focus on blogging, and in particular using a blog to kickstart your online business. Be sure to check back and in the meantime you can get a headsup of what I’ll be discussing in my Business Blueprints report (Just fill in your name and email at the top of this page and I’ll send it your inbox!)

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Internet marketing is a long term income source. Sure, you read the sales letters and emails and hear how ‘Mr X’ earned $45,322 in one day, and these types of massive incomes are possible, but only after building a massive list, an awesome reputation for your content, and some serious JV parterships.

While the long term goal of virtually all online businesses is building a responsive list (you are building a list right?) many people, when they are just starting out online, need a way to make money right away. While there might appear to be many options available (from paid survey sites that will pay you next to nothing to all manner of scams and schemes) there is only one method I have found to make quick money reliably - offering your services via freelancer websites.

The flip side of outsourcing

A lot has been written in this industry about outsourcing, and how it’s the key to scaling your business and being efficient with your time. Even in the early stages of an online business, outsourcing can play a vital role in getting things done and leveraging other people’s talents (As Russell Brunson talks about in his free DVD). But rarely do I hear people teaching newbies that they can use outsourcing in a different way, to make money rather than save time.

Put simply, outsourcing is paying someone else to perform some task(s) for you, at a price. Typically you might have a report or series of articles written, some software developed, SEO performed on a site etc. Outsourcing websites such as GetAFreelancer.com and ScriptLance.com act as a virtiul agent, matching buyers with providers and also offering some middle ground for any potential disputes and payment issues.

Making quick income from outsourcing sites

If you have the right skills, and are able to pitch them well, you can earn money fairly quickly. The first thing you’ll need to do is head over to GetAFreelancer or ScriptLance (there are others, but these two tend to be the best) and sign up for an account (aon Scriptlance you want a provider account, not a buyer account!) Then you can search for projects to bid on.

The type of project you bid on will obviously depend on your skills, and they range from article writing, market research, transcriptions, programming, web design, SEO and more. Just be sure only to bid on projects where you have the required skills, and can perform the task to a high standard.

Competing and winning bids

Now I need to be clear on this - DO NOT try and compete on price. As tempting as it might be to put a low bid in to secure a project, it is likely to backfire. There is a lot of competition on these sites, and someone will always undercut you. You’ll either lose the bid, or worse, be forced to accept a project for less than you wanted. The key to being successful is to compete only on customer service, and that starts from the moment you place your bid.

Bidding for projects

Most bidders will place a generic bid, something like “We can perform this task to a high standard…” but you want to stand out from the crowd. Firstly, spend some time reading the entire project specification carefully and think about what skills are required, and whether you can complete it quickly and to a high standard.

Then write out a proper bid giving an introduction to yourself, your thoughts on the project (offer ideas/creative input) and if possible showing examples of previous work. Be specific about the project to ensure that the buyer notices that you are not offering a generic response. Make your bid reasonable (don’t bid too high) but at the same time don’t make it too low either, and certainly don’t be afraid of making it quite a bit higher than the lowest bid they already have. You don’t want to seem too eager to win the project in my experience, your confidence in your own skills should shine through and be enough to win the bid. You can do this by proving your skills, rather than just telling them. Be sure to explain why you are perfect for the project, and include examples of similar work you have done in the past (This probably means having a portfolio of work ready for viewing).

What you’ll find is that most (probably 75% or more) of your bids won’t be accepted, they will simply choose the lowest bid. However, some will notice that you have taken the time to give a proper response, written in good clear English, and offered some creative input - and they will accept your bids!

Those few bids you do win can really add up, and probably take you a lot less time to complete than all the low end projects you’d have to do in order to earn the same amount. If you have tried this approach and not had any bids accepted just keep trying. I put in over 20 bids last month, and only had 3 accepted but those 3 earned me over $4000. I’d have had to do a lot of $30 projects to do that competing on price alone!

Feedback, and long term success

Of course, your customer service doesn’t stop once your bid is accepted. My approach is always to over-deliver: give the best possible service you can. The reason for that is two-fold. Firstly, just like eBay, these sites have a feedback system and getting good feedback from buyers will help you secure further bids in the future. Secondly, a buyer who is happy with your work is likely to have further work for you in the future - you want to build a relationship with them to ensure that you are the person they come to next time.

Outsourcing for profits

Outsourcing often gets associated with bad workmanship, but it doesn’t have to be that way. I have experience on both sides of the fence, since I’m a buyer and provider of projects. I find that I can bid very profitably on projects which are prefect for my skill set, while outsourcing time consuming and monotenous tasks very cheaply. The key is to be very specific about what to bid on, and to be throughly professional at all times. Using the freelance sites can be a great way of supplementing your income, while building your online business and assets (websites, email list etc.) and is also great experience for when you want to outsource projects yourself.

Resources:

GetAFreelancer.com

ScriptLance.com

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Even if you’re not an expert in a niche, it doesn’t mean you can’t become an authority in that niche. I consider myself to be somewhat of an authority on mountain biking. I’ve been riding mountain bikes for over 20 years, and have ridden many different bikes in some amazing locations around the world. A couple of years ago I rode my bike solo from John O’Groats (The most northern tip of the United Kingdom) to Land’s End (The most South-western tip), a ride of over 900 miles. Next year, I’m planning to ride the Great Divide route from Canada, down through the Rocky Mountains, to the Mexican border!

So I do consider myself an authority, and often friends will ask me for advice on what bike to buy, or how to set up their brakes, but I’m not an expert mountain biker – I know lots of people who are much better riders than me.

Similarly I don’t consider myself an expert web designer, and often I’ll see a site designed by a really talented designer and be blown away. However I am an authority on the subject since I’ve been building sites professionally since 1999 and I also teach web design, both through private consulting and my 1 Day Webmaster seminars.

So you see, you don’t have to be the expert in your field, but you do want to be an authority. And by creating content, and exposing people to that content, you are proving yourself as an authority.

Content is key

That’s why I consider content to be the number one starting point for an online business. Every article you write, every blog post you put up, every video you record, acts as an advert for you and helps to brand you as an authority. Create enough content of high enough quality and you’ll become known as the ‘go to guy’ in your niche… and once that happens you won’t have to fight for traffic, because people will be fighting to do joint ventures with you!

Content also has a wider meaning in this context. Ideally you want your name to become synonymous with your niche. You want every search for your primary keywords to return multiple pages with your name on. Whether those results are your own sites or blogs, articles you have written, profile pages for social networking sites, or discussion threads on forums, they are all content and all add towards your authority.

So keep that in mind whenever you are producing content of any type, be that blog posts, articles, forum posts or anything else. Remember that every word you write is an advert for you and for your business. Get out there and create content, become an authority, and reap the rewards!

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