Blogging - Niches - Monetisation

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Updated 5 years ago

Kia Ora once again from New Zealand, WA friends and colleagues.

Hamish the Blogger

There are people here at WA, not least of which are Kyle, Carson and Jay, who can give better advice on commercial Blogging than I ever could. Much of what I have written in my previous two Blog posts, as well as what is to come today, is distilled from the thoughts and advice from many people at here at WA, from whom I have learned, as well as from wider research and personal experience.

I am a writer first and foremost, both creative and functional. This has included a significant period writing content as a freelancer for clients, who also taught me some things along the way.

I am a writer who has chosen to attempt a living by Blogging. I write content everyday (though I do not publish everyday).

My attitude is that every day is an opportunity to learn from others and also by my own experimentation. So what I write here is derived from both of these sources. It is not necessarily the right answer. The right answer is what works for you, with your niche, your style, your affiliate partners and ultimately your target audience.

Hamish's Blogging Series

Today will be the third, and last installment, on the subject of Blogging from me.

This wee series has been published with the intention primarily of helping folks who are brand new to Blogging, but also I hope has been, and will be, useful for some older Blogging hands, in reminding of the basic and enduring principles of the craft.

I want to address two subjects today, which are the subject of perennial questions and discussion, mainly initiated by new members, here at WA. These two areas are niches and monetisation.

Niches

'Steampunk a Niche - A Case Study - 27 Jan 20' is a Blog post, here on my roll, which was written, really to show how easy it is to turn anything into a niche and what potential there is for monetisation in just about anything, it does not address specifically the selection of a niche.

In this post I will go into a little more detail in response to both private message and public forum questions I have been asked in regard to niche selection.

Things to Consider

One often hears the advice to pick a niche that you are passionate about and I think that most people set out with that intention. However, reality shows that thousands of Bloggers give up within weeks or months of starting because the subject they have chosen either, offers limited inspiration, or does not provide an enduring interest upon which to base a Blog. There are ways to avoid this;

1. 10 subjects - To select a niche write down the 5-10 subjects that you think you know about and in which you believe you interested in. This should be a spontaneous quick exercise don't think about it for too long because if you have to think too hard it probably doesn't qualify. These could be subjects that you don't know about, but which you are inspired to learn about. You can learn and become authoritative at the same time.

2. Select 3 - After writing the list turn it over and walk away for half an hour. Come back after 30 minutes with a highlighter turn over the paper and select the 3 that immediately take your attention.

3. 10 Blog Post Titles - Now for each of the titles write down 10 Blog titles that you could write about. Whichever one is the easiest for you to do this may be your best choice. If it is easy for all 3 then you have subject material for other website niches. You could launch 3 websites simultaneously (not for the faint-hearted but I have LoL) or keep the others in reserve for when you have confidently established your first niche.

4. Market Research - Now you have to satisfy yourself that people are looking for what you want to write about. The best recommended way to do this is to go to Google Trends and test what the results are for you subject. See what level they are achieving and if they are trending up or down. The best advice I have found is look for a niche which is getting traffic but not over competitive. An example I saw recently was Rock climbing; too big and highly competitive so narrow it down perhaps to something like free climbing or climbing in a particular environment or particular climbing techniques, being careful to ensure that both Google Trends and your keyword targets are plentiful and effective.

5. Keyword Research - Once you have landed the niche then onto keyword research for your blog posts using Jaaxy or whatever tool is your preference and keep testing this against searches in Google to see what it attracts.

6. Revenue Stream - Having got this far its really important that you check to see what kind of revenue items may be available to you. A good start is to check if there are any businesses or companies who are advertising or searching in relation to your niche topic or keywords. If there are, then you can probably monetise your Blog.

Monetisation

There are a number of ways that you can go about monetising a Blog. The 4 main ones are:

Advertising
Direct Sales
Lead Generation
Affiliate Linking

The first three I know little about, other than what I have read, though I know there are many others who are members of WA who do. They will employ these and other multiple methods based on their experience and expertise. If you are sponsored by someone who is adept at these methods they are likely to coach or mentor you in the techniques once you have established the basics with the last.

The last, Affiliate Linking is what WA teaches with some reference to advertising, and helps us to develop to a point. Thereafter, it is for us as owners of our own businesses to experiment, test and adjust to get to where we want to be with our business portfolios.

Golden Rules For Blogging

The most important rules for Blogging are to write often, write quality, and write for an audience that you know exists and has an appetite for what you are writing.

You can write the most beautiful, inspiring prose in the world but if no one is looking for that subject, the answer to that problem or to build their knowledge in that area then that is all you are doing; writing beautiful self-indulgent prose LoL.