| There is no surefire way to pick a profitable niche. | | | | merged list: |
| Even professional bloggers admit that they | | | | 1. Basketball |
| sometimes choose a niche that doesn't get | | | | 2. Being a Good Parent |
| enough traffic or make enough money to make it | | | | 3. Bird watching |
| worthwhile. So don't worry if the first blog you | | | | 5. Determine The Traffic Potential |
| start flops. Just try again. Perseverance is the key | | | | There are a lot of ways to do keyword research |
| to success. | | | | and determine the traffic potential for a niche. To |
| Here are 7 simple steps to choosing a niche that | | | | simplify things, you aren't going to worry about |
| is right for you: | | | | competition, you are only going to concern |
| 1. Make A List Of Your Passions | | | | yourself with demand. |
| Write down all the things you are passionate | | | | Go the Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool |
| about. If you aren't passionate about the topic | | | | (which seems to be working again). Type in the |
| you write about, it will show! Passion is one of the | | | | primary keyword(s) for the niches you selected in |
| biggest keys to keeping people interested in your | | | | step 4. Then you will come up with a list of |
| blog (yourself included). This is the most important | | | | keyword phrases and their search numbers for |
| step in choosing a niche. If you don't follow any of | | | | last month on Yahoo owned Search Engines. |
| the other steps in this post, make sure you write | | | | Note: If Overture doesn't work, try the free |
| about something you are passionate about. | | | | wordtracker keyword tool. |
| Here is an example of what your list of passions | | | | In my opinion, you really want to see more than |
| might look like: | | | | 10,000 searches a month on Overture for the |
| 1. Basketball | | | | main keyword, otherwise it's going to be really |
| 2. Playing Video Games | | | | hard to get decent traffic to your blog. |
| 3. Officiating Tennis Matches | | | | Let's go back to the example and turn your list |
| 4. Internet Marketing | | | | into a primary keyword list, with a list of the |
| 5. American Idol | | | | Search Engine traffic. It would now look like this: |
| 6. Reality TV | | | | 1. Basketball - 37845 |
| 7. Being a Good Parent | | | | 2. Parenting - 33457 |
| 8. Model Rocketry | | | | 3. Bird watching - 5500 |
| 9. UFOs | | | | At this point, you might think that bird watching |
| 10. Bird watching | | | | was out of the picture, but what if you wanted |
| 11. Carpentry | | | | to write about birds, in general? What if you |
| 12. Ridding the world of Ants | | | | wanted to write about your favorite bird, the |
| 13. ... | | | | hummingbird (which had 17354 searches last |
| 2. Make A List Of Things You Do Well | | | | month)? It is still possible to get a lot of traffic to |
| Write down all the things you do well. It is | | | | a bird watching blog, but for the purpose of this |
| advisable to ask other people for input on this. | | | | post I am just covering a quick and easy method |
| Find out what other people think you are good at. | | | | to analyze the potential traffic. You can expand |
| They might mention things you haven't thought | | | | your traffic analysis by looking at other related |
| of. You might also show the final list to your | | | | keywords if you like. |
| friends and family to get further input on the list. | | | | 6. Determine The Blog's Money Making Potential |
| An example list of things you do well might look | | | | Common sense might suggest to you that there |
| like this: | | | | are products to be sold to people looking for each |
| 1. Basketball | | | | of the things in our example, but is there a way |
| 2. Officiating Tennis Matches | | | | to be sure? |
| 3. Cooking | | | | Here is a quick and easy method you can use to |
| 4. Teaching | | | | help determine a blog's money making potential. |
| 5. Running Marathons | | | | Go to Google or Yahoo and do a search for your |
| 6. Open Heart Surgery | | | | primary keywords. The more advertisers you see |
| 7. Being a Good Parent | | | | paying for sponsored results (Pay Per Click ads) |
| 8. Model Rocketry | | | | the better. If you don't see anyone bidding on |
| 9. Calculus | | | | those keywords then it may be more difficult to |
| 10. Bird watching | | | | monetize your blog but not necessarily impossible. |
| 11. Sailing | | | | The sponsored results are the ads that show on |
| 12. ... | | | | Google and Yahoo at the very top and the right |
| 3. Merge The First Two Lists | | | | hand side of the Search Engine results, under the |
| Take the lists you made in steps 1 and 2. Write | | | | title "Sponsored Links" on Google and "Sponsor |
| down all the things that are in both list 1 and list 2. | | | | Results" on Yahoo. |
| This will give you a good idea of things you can | | | | So, for our example, I went to Yahoo and did |
| blog about as an expert. However, you don't have | | | | searches for each keyword and wrote down the |
| to be an expert to blog about something. If you | | | | number of ads I saw: |
| are really passionate about something, but aren't | | | | 1. Basketball - 10 |
| good at it or are just learning about it, you can | | | | 2. Parenting - 10 |
| still blog about that topic from the perspective of | | | | 3. Bird watching - 10 |
| someone trying to improve in that area. | | | | From our quick test, it looks like all three niches |
| For Example, if we merge the example lists from | | | | are capable of being monetized. Sometimes you |
| step 1 and step 2 the list would look like this: | | | | will type in a word, and there won't be any |
| 1. Basketball | | | | sponsored results. For instance, go over to Yahoo |
| 2. Officiating Tennis Matches | | | | or Google and type in "underwater basket |
| 3. Being a Good Parent | | | | weaving". When I tried it, there were no paid ads |
| 4. Model Rocketry | | | | on either Search Engine. That is probably a good |
| 5. Bird watching | | | | sign that there isn't much money to be made in |
| ... | | | | the underwater basket weaving market. |
| 4. Choose Your Favorite 3-5 Niches | | | | 7. Make Sure You Have Time For The Niche |
| Out of the list you compiled from step 3 (above), | | | | Is the topic so broad that you just don't have |
| which ones are you MOST interested in blogging | | | | time to blog about it yourself? For instance, if you |
| about? It doesn't matter if other people write | | | | choose basketball as your niche, do you really |
| about it. It doesn't matter if it's extremely | | | | have enough time to cover ALL basketball news |
| competitive. Just write down the top 3-5 things | | | | on your blog? If not, then you either need to: |
| that YOU want to blog about. It's okay if you are | | | | A. Start a group blog with enough other people to |
| down to 1 niche at this point, but 3-5 would be | | | | cover the topic. |
| better. | | | | B. Narrow the focus of your blog. In our example, |
| NOTE: At this point you have at least one niche | | | | maybe basketball is too broad for you to cover. |
| you could start writing about. However, if you | | | | If so, you might choose to cover your favorite |
| want to make money from your blog, you need | | | | basketball team or write about funny basketball |
| to do more research. | | | | moments, etc. |
| From our example, let's say that you would want | | | | There you have it, 7 steps to choosing the |
| to blog about the following three things from your | | | | perfect niche for your blog. |