Everybody has credit cards and we have those darned banks to blame with their aggressive marketing strategies. Offers here and there, offers everywhere. Just seems you can’t escape plastic nowadays, in the mall, on a business trip or even on vacation. There is always a need for cash and thanks to these small yet terrible plastic cards we get to do a lot with less(carrying cash that is).
They’re not for everyone though, for many a debts have gone wild because of unwise use. Identity thieves also love these compact cash cows they use for their dastardly deeds. For the wise, its a good tool for your business for it allows you to balance the cash flow allowing shuffling of funds with their different cut-off dates. Pissed at your current bank, why not try shifting to another bank, for most offer balance transfers without charge. Just be sure to settle your debts before doing so or risk getting blacklisted by the credit industry.

Way back when I was writing the posts on getting started on niche blogging, I overlooked a very important thing – your domain name. Now we all know that you can create a blog on Blogger, Typepad, Wordpress, etc. for free. Then again, if you are really serious about your blog, then you would want to have your own domain. Choosing a domain name for your niche blog is essential in making it. So how do you go about it?

I am assuming here that you already have chosen your niche – we have already talked about this in detail. Once you have that down pat, you have to generate some domain names that would fit with your overall niche blog strategy. One good thing to do is to choose a domain name that has keywords. This is especially important if you are aiming to get a lot of search engine hits.

So for example, if your niche blog is focused on the Wii, you should choose a domain name that has Wii in it. Of course, Wii.com is already taken so you have to add some other keywords in your domain name. You can try wiijunkie, wiienthusiast, everythingwii, and so on. You would have to check if your chosen domain name is available – that is why you need to come up with several in order to have other options.

There are many domain name checkers on the Internet but I personally prefer typing www.domainname.com (or whatever extension you want) on Google to see if it is parked, taken, or available. Once you have decided on an available domain name, do not waste time – register it at once!

Niche blogging is not that much different from blogging about general topics. The basic premise is still the same. The significant difference is that a niche blog is tightly focused on a specific subject.

When it comes to networking, though, a niche blogger still needs to exert some effort. Just because you are focusing on a particular topic or subject does not mean that you will be getting the traffic that you want for that topic. Not everyone knows that your blog exists. More so, not everyone will see your blog as the authority in that field, especially in the beginning.

One important thing for niche blogging is making comments in other blogs in your chosen niche. Just like with “ordinary” blogging, leaving pertinent comments in other people’s blogs is a good way to make your mark in the blogosphere. For niche blogging, though, you have to be very particular about the blogs where you leave your comments.

The most profitable thing for you to do is to comment regularly and actively in niche blogs that are similar to yours. More so, it would be better to choose those niche blogs which have more traffic than yours. Why is this so? One reason is so that you can increase your exposure. The more traffic the niche blog has, the more chances you have of being discovered by other people interested in your topic. This way, you can also gain more traffic. An other reason is that you can build relationships with these “successful” bloggers and that is always a good thing – basically what networking is all about.

In the previous post, we took a look at the first step in picking your niche, which is to narrow down your interests. The next step would be to assess the potential traffic for your blog. In the interest of monetization, you have to be able to somehow forecast the potential interest that your niche would get.

There are many tools which you can use to determine this point. One kind of tool that you might want to use is a keyword tool – there are plenty in the market. Google has even come up with a new tool – Google Insights – which can help you determine search patterns.

Wordtracker is another useful tool. Ken McGaffin writes about it:

Wordtracker is a great tool for helping you identify and quantify niche markets. Keyword research tells you what people are looking for online and so helps you assess the size of the market for any particular product or service. To explore the size of any market, there are three stages involved:

1. Find the most popular keywords in your niche market.
2. For each popular keyword, see how it is used in longer search terms and use the total predicted volume of searches to estimate the number of people searching for that particular keyword.
3. Add up the total predicted volume of searches for each popular keyword within the niche to give an estimate of the size of the market.

Based on this and your narrowed down list of interests, you can already pick your niche. Do note, however, that the tools mentioned in these posts are only some of the many out there. Do not limit yourself to them.

In the previous post, we took a quick look at how to pick your niche. We looked at two considerations – picking a niche for optimum monetization and picking a niche based on your interest. This time, let us look into more detail on how to pick a niche. If I remember correctly, I mentioned that in my opinion, finding a balance between the two considerations is a good consideration.

So what is the first step? I suggest narrowing down your interests. I am sure that you have at least several interests that you would like to blog about. The thing is, when it comes to starting up a niche blog, you have to focus on one particular topic. So instead of trying to capture a wide range of interests, you should pick out one and focus on it.

How can you do this? This could provide to be a bit of a task especially if you have a lot of interests. How do you narrow them down and actually pick just ONE?

One way to do this would be to search online. Go to sites like Wikipedia and other informational sites. Do a search on several topics that are closest to your heart. Visit many other sites that can provide you with background information on your topics. Once you are done with this background work, take the time to make your decision. That is, pick a few topics that you feel you are most comfortable with. More so, pick a few topics that you think will be sustainable in the long run.

I once heard someone say that there is a place in this world for everyone. I guess we could also say that there is a niche for every blogger. It is a matter of finding the right one. So how do you go about picking your niche?

I have been reading a bit on what other bloggers with experience have to say about this step. In the course of my reading, I found two somewhat different ideas. On the one hand, some bloggers think that if your main goal is to make money, then your main consideration when picking a niche should be to find a niche that is most profitable. That is, people all over the world should be searching for keywords relating to that topic everyday.

On the other hand, some bloggers think that your main consideration should be finding a topic that you are passionate about. The rationale behind this is that you should be able to sustain your writing. More so, your passion will be reflected in your writing if you pick a topic that you truly care about. Of course, it goes without saying that you should be knowledgeable in the niche that you pick.

So which is which? I suggest that you create a balance between the two considerations. It is understandable that you would want to choose a niche that has potential money making opportunities. Then again, if you could choose a subject matter that has both money making potential and is of interest to you, wouldn’t that be a much sweeter deal?

In the previous post, we discussed what kind of blog you should start – a niche blog (a blog focused on a particular topic) or a composite blog (much like a personal journal which covers a wide range of topics). Let us focus on the niche blog for the moment. I mentioned that a lot of blogging experts tend to lean towards the niche blog. Why is this so?

I came across a post on this at Tzuvelli, a blog focused on strategic blogging and monetization. The blogger lists 12 reasons to start a niche blog, I’d like to share some of the most important points (at least from my point of view).

1. Creating a local niche blog creates the opportunity for you to get from behind the computer and go out into the community.
2. Blogging is no longer simply an ethereal prospect but you can truly connect with your readers.
3. If done right, you could leverage your blog to become well known in your community.
4. With a local niche blog, you can leverage those high cost AdWords in a meaningful way. It is easier to write content related to keywords like car insurance, mortgages, lawyers because you can relate it to what is going on in your community It is easier to write about these things because you know what is happening in your community.
5. It will become easier to build a group of local contributing writers to where you could eventually move into an editorial position. Manage and expand.
6. A local niche blog with strong ties to the community would probably be easier to sell. And likely more profitable, since you can get higher add revenue.
7. Depending on your location there may not be very much competition.

What do you think, convincing enough?

All successful blogs started from something small – much like many businesses. If you are just starting your blog and you want to eventually monetize it, you should probably start with one basic question: what is your blog going to be about?

Way back when it all started, a blog functioned much like a diary did. Much like people wrote down their thoughts in their paper journals, bloggers started to write down their thoughts online and shared them with the rest of the world who were connected to the Internet. Today, blogs have come a long way. Many blogs are not like personal journals anymore (though there is still a proliferation of these blogs). In fact, many blogs today focus on specific topics. These blogs are called niche blogs. As the name implies, niche blogs target a specific niche and stay focused on it.

So if you are going to start a blog, what sort of blog is best for monetization purposes? I suppose it really depends on what your ultimate aim is. For example, you just want to make a little extra money on the side. Perhaps for this purpose, you can make your own personal blog which does not really focus on one particular topic. This kind of blog can still make money through pay per post web sites. (We’ll talk about this more later on.)

Many experts suggest, however, that you figure out a specific niche that you want to focus on. They agree that niche blogs are the way to go if you want to really monetize your blog seriously.

In the next post, let us take a look at how to start a niche blog.

For the longest time, we have been focusing on topics with regard to businesses and corporations using blogs to help increase their visibility. It is in fact a very rich subject which we can expound on more. However, a conversation that I had with a colleague the other day gave me ideas.

She is a working mother who is in dire need of an extra source of income. She earns quite well but the burden of her family’s finances and bad financial decisions in the past is catching up with her and really stressing her out. Knowing that I have been involved in blogging for quite some time, she approached me to find out more about it.

Don’t get me wrong – I was happy to help her out. What really struck me, though, was her question: Can I make money off blogging?

Indeed, can one make money off blogging? The answer is a resounding yes! Yet what bothered me – and still does, actually – is the fact that there are people who are new to the concept of blogging and that their primary consideration is to make money.

I can foresee some smiles forming as my words are being read…idealistic, idealism, and rose-tinted glasses are some words that are probably entering your minds right now. What is wrong with that kind of thinking? After all, this is a blog focusing on everything about business, right? So making money as a primary consideration should not bother me.

Then again, I would like to think of blogging as more than making money. I would like to think of this activity as providing content to those who are looking for it. With this perspective, monetization seems secondary.

(Disclaimer: I am planning to focus on blog monetization for the next few weeks so don’t take this post as a rant against it! Just voicing some thoughts out loud.)

Photo courtesy of groovehouse

I never really thought that I would be thinking of business models when it comes to blogging. As such, I found this particular post detailing the different blog business models quite interesting – even thought provoking. Bryan, on OneMansGoal outlines three different types of business models which can help you make money through your blog (or blogs for that matter).

The Superblogger
He calls this group “super” because the people behind these kinds of blogs run a big operation. They may focus on only one or two blogs but their idea is to operate in the long run and haul in income while they are at it. The majority of their time is spent on constantly improving their blogs, marketing them, and establishing brand awareness.

The Niche Blogger
This blogger type is a bit different from the previous one in that the focus is on more blogs. As such, the effort and activity are not centered on one or two main blogs but more spread out on a network of blogs. The main concept behind niche blogging is to set up the blogs in such a way that they can attract a lot of readers and then not spend too much time in maintaining them.

The Blog Broker
The blog broker works behind the scenes – he sets up blogs or even purchases them. He then develops them in such a way that they can earn money. Here’s the money making point – he then sells the blogs for more than what he paid for them or more than what he spent on them.

So which business model do you fall under?