The Barebone Basics To Professional (Money-Making) Blogging Part 2
[This is part 2 of The Barebone Basics To Professional (Money-Making) Blogging . This article is about finding your niche.]
(10:38:11 AM) paongpin312: excited na ako magstart hehehehe (I’m excited to start)
You need a niche topic – preferably something that is regularly searched by people online.
Two years ago, I discovered that people where searching for the keywords “barong tagalog.” This exact phrase was searched an average of 14 times in 25 hours. It meant there were people looking for this famous Filipino garment. Why? Apparently, even in the US, barongs were used in weddings.
In 2007, personally met one of the top Filipino Barong online retailers. At the time, his website was at the very first Search Engine Results Page (SERP) slot when people searched for “barong tagalog”. I figured, “This guy is probably rich.”
I did some mental computations. His cheapest barong is around $40 (Almost P2000). If he sells 1 of his cheapest barong per day, that’s around ($40 x 30) at least $1200 (P60,000). Now that is a VERY VERY conservative estimate because he earns a lot from group purchases (Filipinos getting married usually paid for the barongs of the entire entourage). If a buyer pays for 10 barongs – that’s an instant $400.
Niche keyword targeting gets revenue.
The next question would be -How do you do that? How does one find his own profitable niche?
You take advantage on Search Engine Optimization and Keyword tools like Aaron Wall’s free Keyword suggestion tool. Here’s an example of a keyword search in music (click image to enlarge):
Take a look at the keywords “free music downloads”. It is searched at least 13,000 times in Google daily. You should then test the competitor level for these keywords. Search for it in Google and you will see something like this:
There are over 2 billion other web pages that have those keywords. It is quite a popular term and there are already many websites that target (sometimes unintentionally) this phrase.
OPTION 1, Shotgun Style:Targeting Not-So-Popular domains with each earning a little bit of income.
Eligio and Mito, two technopreneurs, suggested I try out making arcade-game websites. I followed their advice and experimented with the phrase “play make over games”.
The idea here is to go for phrases that are searched at least 1000 times a day in Google. Check the domain name (using a free domain web hosting service) if the keywords are still available. I checked on “PLAY MAKE OVER GAMES” and found that PlayMakeOverGames.net was free. I bought it.
My initial investment was for a domain name ($10). I had some free web hosting accounts so I just used one. In just a week the website was already in Google. When I started with this, the domain name I used ranked #3 (now it’s a dismal #10).
The results of my efforts? $30.85 in six months. For only a $10 domain name and some free-webhosting to pay for, I’m earning – albeit a small amount. Now if I can replicate this in 10 websites, I’d have a bit more, right?
OPTION 2, One big gun style: Targeting an EXTREMELY competitive keyword but offer something more and do lots on online social interactions.
In the Book “Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat” by Michael Masterson, one of the basic techniques for start-up entrepreneurs would be to look at what other people are doing – then do better. Offer a better product or price.
This is how Carl (the young technopreneur) did it for his personal website. Carl targeted the very competitive keywords “Make Money Online.”
When Carl worked on this last year, the #1 SERP slot was held by John Chow (another internet marketer). As luck would have it, John Chow’s website was banned by Google. He fell out of Google.com rankings just at the time Carl was doing link-baiting and SEO.
Natural link building, link baiting, making articles/tools/themes. My title itself – “Make Money with a 13 Year Old.” was the link bait. – Carl
Carl was a 13 year old who was making money online. It was a bit hit. In essence, Carl beat John Chow at the “Make Money Online” game.
It has paid off for Carl. How much does he earn monthly?
Magkano ba starting sa Call Center? 15K? Definitely mas malaki dun. (How much is the starting salary in a Call Center? 15K Definitely a whole lot bigger than that).
Today, Carl’s relaxing a bit and just renting out Ad space for a bit of passive income.
Now you think of YOUR niche. Do your keywords research and bet on a good domain name.
[This is part 2 of The Barebone Basics To Professional (Money-Making) Blogging . Subscribe now to be notified of the next updates]
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