The first hurdle that new bloggers and affiliate marketers face is finding a profitable niche. Most new bloggers start with a topic that they are passionate about which is good because you will need to create lots of content. If you intend to actually make money with your blog, this topic needs to be one where your target audience is willing to spend money. That’s what we mean when we say “profitable niche”.

How do you identify a profitable niche?

1. First you want to look at your “target audience”. That’s a fancy name for all the people out there who would be interested in your topic. Are they cash poor college students or do they have discretionary income to spend on a hobby, like golfers?
2. Are there enough products that this target audience would love to have that you can earn money when they buy them? Some topics are more geared to information gatherers rather than buyers and you would need to create your own products. Others naturally have tons of affiliate products that you can provide to your visitors and earn a commission when they buy.
3. A profitable niche is also one that you can write about til the cows come home . There should be lots of angles and key phrases to write about over time. New content is key to bringing in visitors — or traffic.

How do you make the most of a profitable niche?

1. If you can, obtain a keyword rich domain name. This isn’t absolutely necessary, but if you can obtain a domain name with your main keyword(s) in the name, so much the better.
2. Keyword research is where it all starts. You will need to find all the major keywords in your market. These will be used for optimizing your web pages and blog posts as well as providing ideas for domain names and products.

Getting help finding a profitable niche

Obviously you can do all the research yourself. It isn’t particularly hard, just time consuming. If you are not getting your blog or online business up and running because you are stuck on this step, I can recommend that you turn to Susanne Myers. She is an online marketing expert in profitable niches and getting traffic to your blog.

Susanne realized that many new bloggers were having trouble finding a topic to blog about and started putting together packets called Affiliate Niche Packs where she has done all the work. How cool is that? She keeps finding and researching new packs. As of this writing she has affiliate niche packs for:

• Migraine Headaches
• Yoga & Pilates
• Social Media
• Divorce
• Link Building
• Article Marketing
• SEO
• Pregnancy
• Stress, Panic & Anxiety
• Home Decor & Interior Design
• Dog Training & Care
• Fitness & Exercise
• Weight Loss & Diet
• Crockpot Cooking
• Blogging

I picked up the SEO Affiliate Niche Pack and here’s what I got in my pack:

1. Two 30-day marketing strategies (one for beginners and one for advanced). You get a detailed step-by-step tutorial showing you what you should do every day for 30 days to get your profitable niche up and making money. Then you get a checklist to refer to each day.
2. A detailed description of the niche and who the target market is. She even gave some sub-niche ideas since this area is highly competitive.
3. A list of 8 affiliate products that you can promote with descriptions and links to the signup form.
4. 100 domain name ideas along with some other words that can effectively be used in case the main domain name you want is already taken.
5. 2024 keywords and key phrases along with # of searches and competitors. She guarantees that all packs will have at least 1000 keywords.
6. 100 blog post or article ideas. A great thing to do with this list is to put the title and a few bullet points in draft form in WordPress. Then when you need some inspiration, just look through your drafts and fill out the bullet points with content.
7. 15 resource boxes. When you submit your articles to article directories or write guest blog posts, you will need to add a compelling author resource box at the end with a link back to your site.

If you are struggling to research and select a profitable niche, I suggest you look through Susanne’s Affiliate Niche Packs to give you a head start. Click Here to browse through her topics.

My friend Kelly McCausey teaches Mom bloggers how to go from “newbie to noteworthy” in less than 3 months. I’ve invited her to tell you in her own words why you should learn how to blog the right way if you want to make money with your blog. By the way–you guys may be interested in this as well

There are thousands of mom bloggers already online. Many of them are making money, and most of them are trying to make money. Do you have what it takes to be a profitable mom blogger? I believe that any mom blogger can start to generate a profit from her blog with the right approach and learned skills. That means you too.

It does take some study and some work. You will not become a millionaire overnight. Now that we have that cleared up let me reiterate that you can make money blogging. It might not be the same type of blogging that you are thinking of right now. How serious are you about making money blogging? You might have to adjust your thinking, your habits, and your schedule, but you can make a profit.

Here’s some ways to start a blog that won’t work very well.

• the willy-nilly-slap-something-up approach,
• the kiss-up-to companies approach,
• the controversial approach to get attention,
• the fake-it-till-you-make-it approach, and
• the guilt-my-family-and-friends-into-reading approach.

Go ahead if you want to try them. You might see a flare-up of popularity before everything goes down the drain. If you do try them you will learn some good lessons, but you will also waste some valuable time.

While you are working on building traffic to your blog you can add affiliate links and become an affiliate marketer. You don’t have to have your own product to sell; you can sell an already finished product for a commission. You can also use your sidebar as a place for an ad network. They find the advertisers; you wait for the profit.

Just because anyone can start a blog for free does not mean that there isn’t a necessary skill set. The good news is that the necessary skills can be learned and developed by anyone with the will to learn. There are profitable bloggers of all age levels from middle school to senior citizens; and of all skill sets from drop-outs to college grads. Blogging is a good thing to know. Most websites have them and the skill of blogging is a marketable asset in and of itself.

Just doing what you can and hoping for the best will only get you so far. If you want your blog to make a profit then you need to study and learn the best way to do just that.

January is a great time to get off to a good start making money with your blog. Kelly is going to make it extremely easy and affordable to do that. She’s reduced the cost of her 10-week hands-on training from $89 down to an amazing $29. If I were you, I wouldn’t wait to see how long that will be available. Click Here to start making money with your blog.

Chris Cobb

I’m very honored to introduce you to Nicole Dean, the person I turn to for all my PLR article questions. Nicole has been providing professional “private label rights” articles for years and I have never been disappointed with the quality of her products.

Nicole’s going to talk with us today about professional PLR articles and reports and how they can grow your business.

If you already know what PLR is and just want to start shopping, here’s a link to Nicole’s site where you’ll find TOP quality professional PLR articles and reports:

ExploreEasyPLR.com

Nicole: Hi Chris. Thanks so much for inviting me here today to talk about one of my favorite topics – PLR.

For your readers who don’t know yet what PLR is, you’re in for a big treat. Blogging is about to become super fun, more productive, and, hopefully, more profitable for you.

Here’s a short video that explains PLR.

To sum it up, PLR stands for Private Label Rights content – and, in the instance of articles, which is what we’ll talk about today, it refers to a package of articles that you can purchase and use on your blog. But, it’s not like syndicated content or reprint articles in two very special ways.

First, you can CHANGE PLR articles as much or as little as you’d like. I recommend you edit them a bit just to add “you” into them.

Second, unlike the articles at places like EzineArticles.com or LadyPens.com – you don’t have to link to anyone in them, so you’re not promoting other people, unless you choose to.

I hope that makes sense. If you have any questions, swing by my site and we’ve got more information about what PLR is and how you can use it:

ExploreEasyPLR.com

ok. Let’s dig into Chris’ questions. They’re really good.

Chris: Why has PLR become so popular these days?

Nicole: Great question, Chris. I think there are a few different factors that have increased demand for PLR lately.

1. Most people are aware of what PLR is and the benefits of using it.
2. There’s more quality PLR available. It used to be that the word PLR meant “junk content”. I hope that I’ve been instrumental in changing that – one PLR article at a time.
3. There’s a better understanding about what you can do with PLR now than there was when I started my site back in 2006.

Chris: Is there a consistency with all Private Label Rights as to the rights for the buyer? Or do you have different rights depending on the seller?

Nicole: Every site has different rules, but there is a general consistency with PLR site owners. Pretty much every site allows you to use the content on your blog and to edit or customize it. Beyond that, it’s best to check with the site’s rules before purchasing.

Chris: What percentage of the content needs to be changed for the maximum effectiveness?

Nicole: That really depends upon what you plan to do with the content. If you’re putting it into an info product or in an ecourse – and the search engines will never see it, then you really don’t “have” to change it.

However, I don’t really teach about rewriting PLR content for your blog. I teach my customers to “improve” or “enhance” the PLR that they buy from me to make the web a better place. There are so many different ways to do that. I cover it in depth in this video:

Chris: What is your one favorite use of PLR?

Nicole: Oh goodness, Chris. One favorite? Well, if I had to answer with just one, I would have to say using PLR for list building. As internet marketers, we have to be constantly working on building a list of raving fans, right? So, I would recommend that, if you only used PLR in one way, it would be to build that relationship with the people on your list – by sending them regular articles or reports (in this instance, created with a mixture of PLR and the information from your own head).

Chris: What do you look for in a Private Label Rights supplier?

Nicole: Well, I’m obviously biased, but here’s the honest to God truth. I am a PLR snob. I’ve personally wasted money on junk PLR in the past and it’s been frustrating. In fact, that’s why I started my site – from my own personal need for quality content.

So here are the criteria that any PLR site must meet, in my not-so-humble opinion, before you spend any money with them.

1. There should be a name and face behind the site. I see too many “anonymous” PLR sites on the web. Who the heck owns them and why should you trust them if there’s no one with a reputation behind the site? Heck, how do you know the content isn’t stolen? I wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole, let alone give my credit card information to them.
2. Who’s writing the content? Many PLR sites sell recycled content. It’s PLR they’ve purchased with “unlimited rights” which means they can resell it. That’s not the case at Easy PLR (ExploreEasyPLR.com). I have my own team of writers, here in the US and Canada who are highly educated and who speak English as their first language.
3. Is the PLR content limited? Many PLR sites sell an unlimited number of each item on their site. Not me. I limit articles and reports so that only a small number of people get access to each set. You can see how many are available of each set. In fact, my shopping cart keeps the accurate inventory and when they’re gone, they’re gone.

Chris: Do you favor PLR membership sites or those that offer single PLR products?

Nicole: If you’re new to using PLR, don’t sign up for any membership site just yet. Choose a site like mine where you can just buy what you need, when you need it. See if you’ll use the content and then, you can always make a decision to join a membership site later.

Here’s the link one more time if you’d like to learn more about PLR Content:

ExploreEasyPLR.com

Nicole: Thank you so much, Chris, for inviting me here to spend time here on your wonderful blog. I greatly appreciate it!

Warmly,

Nicole Dean

Internet Business Marketing Blog

You’ve heard that people can make money online with a blog. You may know already that you need to pick a niche or a topic for your blog instead of just blogging about anything that comes to mind.

Here are some classic mistakes you should avoid with your niche blog:

Mistake #1: Act Without Thinking

Instead–fully understand your niche, have a plan in place and know what it will take to make it successful before you invest time, money or other resources.

Mistake #2: Waiting

Instead–Once you decide on which niche to go after, and have taken the proper time and course of action to ensure it is a good one (namely profitable) then go for it! You don’t want to wait too long because once the creative juices start flowing, you need to tap it. Remember that it will never be the PERFECT time. Get it going and perfect it later.

Mistake #3: Limiting Your Scope of Influence

Instead–Tell everyone you meet and know about who you are, what you do and how you can help them. You can sell your products online, but you can also use good, old-fashioned word of mouth. Put a link to your niche blog in your personal email signature.

Mistake #4: Listening to naysayers!

Instead–Don’t let them rain on your niche marketing parade! Be confident in the work you have done to ensure this is a good idea, that this will work and that you do know what you are talking about! There will always be critics and those who bring negativity to the table. Truth is–they probably wish they had an exciting venture just like you.

Mistake #5: Going it Alone

Instead–Surround yourself (even if virtually) with other niche marketers–people who really understand what you are going through, who can offer specific advice, and who have walked in your shoes. Here are two great ideas: Join the My Bonus Blog family to receive tips and information for bloggers and affiliate marketers and join Lynn Terry’s Elite Forum to get personal help on your website and interact with niche marketers just like you.

Blogging can certainly be fun and profitable. In looking through my survey results, it seems many of you need help with blogging and where and how to start. With any project, the best place to start is at the end. In other words, what is your eventual goal? Do you want to make money with your blog? Do you just want a platform to write to the world? Do you want your family and friends to know what you are up to? So take a few minutes to write down how you visualize your blog, say, a year from now.

Back to the beginning, the very first thing you need to start blogging is a subject or a topic. In blog lingo, that is called a niche. There are several ways to choose a niche. First look at topics you already know something about–your hobbies, your job, or topics that your friends go to you for advice. Another technique is to look for subjects you want to know more about and you can blog about things you are learning. You could look for hot topics on sites like Google, You Tube, eHow, etc. and take advantage of the popularity of a niche. Take a look at Let’s Start Blogging For Money webinar recording for additional tips for picking a niche and researching keywords.

Next, you need to decide whether you want to use a free blogging platform or whether you want your own website. I started with a free service to get my feet wet, but soon felt limited and moved the blog to my own website. Two of the more popular platforms are Blogger, a Google service, and WordPress.com. You may have heard of WordPress, the free blog software. WordPress.com uses that software, but it is a self contained service.

With the free platforms, the domain name or web address that people will type into their browser to find your blog contains the platform’s name. For example, if you want your web address to be “Jewelry Making”, your Blogger address would be www.jewelrymaking.blogspot.com. And of course, your chosen web name would need to be unique or not taken by someone else.

If you want your own website, you will need several things:

1. Domain name or web address
2. Website host — a server to store all of your content
3. Blog software — WordPress is the most popular and is free
4. A theme for your blogging software — either free or premium

I have given you a list of resources I recommend on the blogging tools page. Once your blog software and theme are installed on your website server, you are ready to start blogging.

While starting your blog is a relatively easy step by step process, making a financial success with your blog can be a bit more challenging. Internet Marketing Success is full of great blogging success coaching. Subscribers to My Bonus Blog receive a discount code for this valuable resource.

Do you have specific questions about blogging and where to start? Please post them in the comments. Once you have 3 approved comments, your links become dofollow. Please–no spam!

Chris Cobb

I had the privilege of spending some time on a friend’s ranch in Cuero, Texas this past weekend. Kevin Fowler, the ranch owner, taught me to drive his tractor. I was thinking that learning to drive the tractor is like learning to make money with your blog. Having a good coach, persistence and patience are essentials for both blogging for money and driving tractors

I thought you might get a laugh out of watching me on the tractor. Enjoy!

The first step was to find a good coach who would explain the concepts thoroughly and even ride shotgun for a while. Then the coach needs to know when to let you go solo, yet be available for questions and offer tips and encouragement. Sometimes it seems you take a few steps forward and more steps backward, but you must persevere. Just when you think you will tip over, you experience victory. And all the while, the coach is off to the side cheering you on.

The very best way to find a blogging or Internet marketing coach is to meet one in person at a conference like NAMS or ISS. The next best way is to subscribe to a few marketers’ lists, get their free reports and determine if the information they provide actually help you take a few steps forward. If so, what else do they offer that can get you further towards victory?

Could I have learned to drive the tractor from a free report? Maybe. But the hands on coaching certainly got me to victory much sooner.

Do you need some help making money with your blog? Click on the following links.

Free blogging and affiliate marketing reports, tips and other subscriber information

Hosting for your blog with a WordPress installation included

Website and blogging outsourcing services

Blogging Webinars

WordPress, in my opinion is the best software to use for your blog.  As with any software, you have to learn how to use WordPress properly. I especially like that you don’t have to download software to your computer which means that you can update your site content from any computer, netbook or smart phone.  It’s no wonder that it’s become so popular.

You’ve probably heard that WordPress is incredibly user friendly – and it is!  Still, most first time users find it overwhelming at first.  If you ever tried to tackle WordPress on your own and felt like giving up, you’re not at all alone.  There’s a lot to take in at first.

Being the techy type, I just learned it on my own with some help from friends who helped me when I got stuck.  The more I got to know it, the more I realized that WordPress is both simple and complex all at the same time.

If you only want to use WordPress to publish content, it’s pretty darned simple.  The visual editor operates like any basic word processor.  You enter content, press publish and voila! you’ve got a blog post for all to see.

Think of WordPress as being three things at once.

1. It’s a Content Management Script that runs on your web server, letting you enter content as easily as writing an email.
2. It’s storage for your content in a database on your web server.
3. Finally, it sports a Theme which determines the look and feel of your blog.

Entering content is easy.  The database takes care of itself.  Once you want to customize it or to alter your design and manipulate the database for special needs, you have to tap a whole other area of knowledge and that’s where many get stuck.

There’s good news and bad news for those who want to learn more about managing their WordPress site.  The good news is that there’s a huge resource of documents and a large community of developers and users who are willing to answer your questions.  The bad news is that there’s a huge resource of documents and a large community of developers and users…

The trouble for newcomers is usually that they don’t know how to ask the right questions to produce the answers they really need.  In other words, you don’t know what you don’t know! Then once you zero in on the right question, the answer can be so complicated you would swear it was written in a foreign language.

My advice?  Don’t give up.  It does get easier over time. Keep asking questions.  To get the best answers, provide as much information about your problem as you can.  If you’re persistent, you’ll find that things come easier over time.

There are two great learning tools that you will want to check out. The first one is Kelly McCausey’s WordPress Orientation sponsored by Mom’s Talk Biz. Kelly presents live web conference sessions to answer all of your questions. And once you pay the very low price for the first one, you can keep coming back for free, so as your expertise grows and you feel confident to try new things, Kelly is there to take you to the next level.

The second learning tool is a self-paced eCourse from Traci Knoppe called Beginner to Blogger in 4 Weeks. You can either take the online course or order the DVD with all the courses to play on your computer. Traci takes you step by step in video + PDF formats so you can go back and review the techniques as many times as you like.

My Recommendation:

1. Start with Traci’s course to get familiar with the basics of WordPress ==> Click Here For Beginner to Blogger
2. And then attend Kelly’s live web conferences to ask your questions and learn from other attendees questions. You will probably get some tips you haven’t even thought of ==> Click Here For WordPress Orientation

WordPress is easy, flexible, convenient and is my software of choice for blogging. Learn it from a couple of excellent teachers. You can do this!

What is a blog review and why would it get more traffic to your website? A blog review is an in-depth analysis of a blog covering everything from layout to whether it achieves your stated purpose. After you have poured your heart and soul into creating your blog, sometimes you need a fresh set of eyes to point out some things, that if tweaked, could double your traffic overnight!

One of the highlights of my trip to the Niche Affiliate Marketing System workshop (NAMS) in Atlanta last month was meeting Denise Wakeman, founder of the Blog Squad and a genuine blog expert. She also consults with businesses and individuals on building their online brand and visibility.

I’ve discussed several times how important it is to get your web visitors to Know, Like & Trust you. Building an online brand through a blog and other social media outlets is critical to the KLT factor.

During the NAMS conference, Denise chose 3 lucky attendees from about 50 volunteers to perform a review of their blog in a workshop format. She went through a fairly in depth review for the attendees and the volunteer pointing out ways that they could improve their blog, thus getting more traffic and ultimately more sales. This was one of the more popular sessions of the entire conference.

I decided during the conference that I absolutely needed to have Denise review a blog of an author friend of mine that I have been helping with her website as well as getting her books published.

Last week Denise spent a full 75 minutes in a webinar format (so it could be recorded as a video) combing through every aspect of Cindy Bradford’s blog. I was totally in awe of not only the thoroughness of the review but also the explanations of why certain things should be changed in her opinion. They all made so much sense. You know how sometimes you just don’t see something right in front of your face until someone points it out to you? And I’m so glad that I parked my pride at the door and listened with an open mind.

I immediately started making the changes that I had noted during the webinar and am anxious to go back and listen to the recording again to pick up on other suggestions. In fact, I will probably need to replay it several times. And I’m thrilled to report that traffic has already almost doubled on a daily basis!

If you’ve got your blog up and running and doing the typical traffic getting techniques like SEO, backlinking, article marketing, etc., I highly recommend that you budget a comprehensive blog review by Denise Wakeman. It was absolutely a valuable investment for me and I’m certain it will be for you too.

Here are a few other resources Denise has to offer:

• Free Business Blogging Video Course
• Online Visibility Secrets
• Build a Better Blog

One of the several ways to get more readers to your blog or visitors to your website is to establish high value backlinks to your website from other websites. In other words, visitors and the search engines can find your website address on someone else’s website. The other visitors can click on that link and land on your website and the search engines put a little tick mark on your scorecard because someone else knows about you. JHK9WHWUEBVC

Most of the articles you read about backlinks focus on using them for SEO or search engine optimization purposes. Although no one knows Google’s algorithm for sure and how they score backlinks, most SEO experts agree that you should spend time building your inventory of backlinks.

Why would Google or any search engine care how many backlinks you have? Consider who their customers are and just like any business, they want to deliver a high quality product to their customers. For example, when you type a search word or phrase into a Google search box, Google really wants to provide you just what you are looking for in the first couple of pages. So if I have an blog on your subject and Joe has an article on your subject, which one does Google like better? There are many factors, but if all else was equal except that my blog had backlinks from 5000 websites and Joe had 1000, most likely, I would get a higher ranking for that search term from Google than Joe.

Let’s take that one step further. If you get a restaurant recommendation from a well known, highly trusted source for Sally’s Mexican Cantina and also a recommendation for Joe’s Burger Shack from a total stranger, you are probably going to give a higher mark to Sally’s. Why? Because the source was well known and followed by many people.

Search engines, also, give higher marks to well known, trusted sites and getting a backlink from one of them is worth more than many backlinks from total strangers. So back to our example, if my 5000 backlinks were mostly from low pagerank sites and Joe’s were mostly from sites with pageranks of 6 or higher, then his high quality backlinks would probably trump mine.

Now that you know that you need high value backlinks, how do you get them? For that answer I turned to one of my trusted sources, Lynn Terry of ClickNewz.com and SelfStartersWeeklyTips.com. On a recent blog post about page ranking, Lynn commented:

“I check the top 10 results at the 3 major search engines, searching the keyword phrase I’m trying to rank for. If my page is not there- in the top 10 results – I close my browser and get back to work!”

She has been very successful in getting traffic to her sites and getting ranked on the search engines. A recommendation from her goes a long way with me.

She and Paul Short have come out with a terrific product with a step-by-step guide to getting high value backlinks. I got it right away and I have seen a substantial increase in backlinks. In fact, the Quick Start Guide started producing results on the first website that day! This is not a slick overhyped ebook! Heck they don’t even have an eBook Cover! You get the URLs, the tools, the Know How and the Action Plan. It can’t be made simpler.

I’m using Lynn’s simple model and you should too. Click Here to check out 5000BackLinks.

Regards,

One of my survey questions asks “What is your biggest challenge with your blog?” The answers are varied but many of them boil down to “How to Start a Blog?”

I have a good friend that wrote her first novel and wanted to self publish the book and asked me to help. I told her that getting the book published would be easy but she would need to use the Internet to get the word out in order to sell the book.

“What would I need to do?” she asked. I suggested she start a blog and blog regularly. “A blog?” she queried. “I don’t know how to do that.” I asked her if she had seen the movie, Julie & Julia. She said she had seen the movie and I pointed out that was what Julie was doing. “I can do that!” she exclaimed.

OK, then. I installed the software for her and she has been a great blogger and has posted a new blog every other day for the past 4 months. It has been very effective for promoting her book because she not only demonstrates her writing skills, but also connects with her readers on a personal level.

Keep in mind that your readers are real people! That may be a duh! statement, but sometimes new bloggers, in their quest to just get started and start selling something, forget that as they sit alone at their computer. One way to avoid that “robot” feeling is to pretend that you are writing to one close friend.

If you are ready to start a blog and just need help in getting your hosting account set up and the blogging software installed, I can help. Click Here to order your blog starter kit.