Paid Survey Success

Welcome back.  Do you have your list handy?  Lots of stuff on it?  Good.  Now I want you to get a separate piece of paper and list the top 3-5 ideas from your original list.  These are the top niches you love the most AND ones that you think others will be interested in as well.  After all, you’ll need traffic to your new site if you want to be able to make money from it.

Make sure that your niches are neither too broad or too narrow either.  If you choose a niche that’s too broad you’re going to have a hard time with competition.  For example, the pets niche is very competitive and even choosing dogs or cats would be too broad.  However if you focus on a single breed of dog, like Pomeranians, you could have a niche that’s just right.

So how will we determine if the niche is just right?  One that is narrow enough for you to dominate, but broad enough to have demand?  First of all common sense should give you a feeling about whether a niche is too broad or too narrow, but there are also some tools we can use to put some numbers to our niches.

I like to use two tools to determine if a niche is feasible or not.  The first will show me the demand (number of searches) and the second shows the supply (competition).

The first tool is the Keyword Suggestion Tool at SEOBook.  It will give you mountains of information, but at this stage I concentrate on the daily searches.  The Keyword Suggestion Tool will tell you how many times a day a keyword is searched at Yahoo, MSN and Google as well as a total number for all three.

So, using the Pomeranian example I find that Pomeranian is searched for 2,362 times each day.  That’s a lot of searches, but it probably means a lot of supply as well.  I’ve found that usually the easier niches tend to have between 300 and 1000 searches per day.  Anything less and it won’t be that profitable and anything more and it’s really competitive.  The next phrase down is Pomeranian Puppies and that has 658 searches a day.  OK, let’s look at supply now.

For supply I use good old Google.  A search for Pomeranian yields 3,600,000 results.  Not bad, but I’d like to see that number under 2,000,000.  Searching for Pomeranian Puppies yields just 473,000 results.  Or if I change the search to Pomeranians (the plural) I get just 641,000 results with demand at the Keyword Suggestion Tool being 550 daily searches.  So, either Pomeranian Puppies or Pomeranians should be fairly easy to rank for with enough searches to bring traffic as well.

So, use SEOBook and Google to determine supply and demand and follow these guidelines:

• Demand at SEOBook should be between 300 and 1000 searches per day
• Supply at Google should be under 2,000,000

Do this for all 3-5 of your niche ideas, refining them as necessary.  And if you really love a certain niche and can put a good deal of time and effort into developing a site or blog around it then certainly use that idea even if there’s a lot of competition.  Sometimes the competition drives us to do better than we would otherwise.

Tomorrow I’ll be back to take a closer look at monetizing these ideas and evaluating which one(s) are most suitable to develop further.

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The first consideration for anyone who wants to start a website, blog or online business is typically “What the heck do I make the site about”?  This question can be answered quite easily.  Especially if it is your first site, or if you haven’t had success making money online, start a site on something you enjoy or are interested in.  I know it’s been said many times before, but I think it bears repeating because in my experience it is so true.  The rest of this post will get you started on finding the perfect niche for you.

Don’t get me wrong, you can make good money by building sites that are on topics you don’t enjoy.  However I don’t think this is a good idea for beginners for several reasons.

• First of all when you are just getting started you’ll have so many things to learn that you don’t want to be bogged down excessively researching content.  If you’re not already experienced or interested in your niche you will spend way too much time doing research to write content.
• Secondly, you might be writing about this subject for the next 2, 5 or even 20 years.  Shouldn’t it be something you enjoy?
• And finally, I’ve found that typically when I start a site just for the money I typically lose interest too quickly.

The niches that have high AdSense payouts are typically very competitive and you need to put at least as much time into promoting them as you do creating content.  This means it takes time to build and consequently most people will lose interest before the site reaches it’s potential or they will not have the required SEO skills to bring the site to it’s potential.

It’s important that you choose a niche that you can write about day after day for years to come.  Not only will it keep your interest high, but it will also help to establish you as an authority in that niche.  As your site gets bigger and the amount of content builds people will begin to see you as an authority in your niche and they will return, bookmark you and link back to your articles.

And as this snowballs and you gain more readers and subscribers you will start to become like a trusted friend.  Your site will begin to develop a brand and more people will recognize you as a trusted expert/friend in your niche.  This is when you’ll really start to make money off your site because once you’re trusted people won’t mind buying from you or taking your suggestions.  Why do you think the top bloggers make so much money?  It’s because they have brand recognition and trust.  So start off right and get into a niche that you love.

So, how do we go about choosing a good niche?  One that interests us, we love and can write about with authority and passion.  Where do we go to get an idea of what will work as a blog or website for us?

First get out a pad of paper and take 15 minutes to write down as many topics as you can think of for a website or blog.  What have you learned at your job(s)?  What do you love to do in your spare time?  What things do people come to you for answers about?  Think about everything you know.  People are making money in all kinds of niches from juggling to herbs to cooking and much more.  What do you know about or love?  Don’t be shy, write down EVERYTHING that comes to mind.

Now put the list away and get on with your day.  Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day and your first site doesn’t need to be either.  It’s much more important to lay a proper foundation at this point.  We’ll come back to this list tomorrow, so in the meantime if anything else comes to mind (and it very likely will) just make sure to jot down a quick note about it so you don’t forget.

I’ll see you back here tomorrow with your list so we can take the next step in finding that perfect niche to start a website or blog about.  Please make sure you subscribe so you won’t miss anything in the coming weeks and months.  By subscribing you don’t need to come to me, I’ll deliver everything right to you.

Until tomorrow…Have a great day!

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Paid surveys are a quick way to make money online, but after some time many of us decide to build something more lasting, something that will continue to make money for us without any continuing work on our part.  One way to go about doing this is through the monetization of blogs and websites.  A good site in a good niche can continue to pay you months or even years after you’ve put any work into it.

Of course the first question that needs to be answered is “What the heck do I create that website or blog about?”

Step 1:  Make a List of the Things You Like to Do

Everyone has things that they enjoy doing, reading about and learning about.  Take some time and make a list of these things.  One easy way to do this is look around your house and see what things you have there already – magazines, pictures, books and collectibles all provide clues.

Next take a look at the bookmarks in your web browser or the blogs that you subscribe to.  These are another good source of inspiration.

Personally I have a very diverse set of interests and I’m an avid reader both online and off.  This means I’ve got tons of books and magazines at home as well as hundreds of bookmarks and blog subscriptions.  Plenty of fodder to get ideas for new niches.  Of course being interested in something doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m knowledgeable or any good at these things.  This brings us to the next step.

Step 2:  Make a List of the Things You Are Good At

This list is much harder for some people, but it doesn’t need to be.  One very good way to find out what you’re good at is to ask your family and friends.  I’m sure there are some similar questions that continue to come from them.  That’s because they know you’re good at something or consider you an expert.  For example I constantly get questions about computers, the internet and traveling.  That’s because everyone who knows me knows that I am very knowledgeable in these areas.

So, listen to the questions people are asking you.  Maybe you get questions about video games all the time, or dog care and grooming, or cooking.  Could be that you’re the person who does the bartending at all of the functions you go to or maybe you get called to help with car repair questions.  Whatever it is there is usually something that people consider you the expert at or very knowledgeable about and they will continually come to you with questions about these areas.

It’s important to note here that the list of things you’re interested in and the list of things you’re good at will probably be different.  There will be things that you are interested in that you’re not good at and there will be things that you’re good at that you’re not interested in.  The key is to find the matches.  Things that you are both good at AND interested in, that’s where you’ll find the best niches for you.

Is your goal to make money with your new site?  Of course it is, so now you’ll need to make one more list.

Step 3:  Make a List of the Things You Can Make Money Doing

The great thing about the internet is that with enough visitors and some creativity you can make money from just about anything.  Note that I said “just about anything”.  Before you put time and effort into your new niche you’ll want to do some basic research to make sure this is a topic that you can make money from.

This is actually not that hard.  You’ll want to stay away from popular search terms initially because it just takes too long to break into some areas.  So, don’t start a site on “Dogs” unless you’ve got 60 hours a week to devote to it.  You can however choose one specific breed of dog and start a niche site.  For example a quick search for “Pomeranians” on Google tells me that there are roughly 1.3 million pages ranking for this search term.  Doing a search with the SeoBook Keyword Tool I find that there are 582 daily searches for “Pomeranians”.  Those two quick searches tell me that there is decent potential and limited competition for this particular niche.

Now that you know there’s enough interest you want to think about ways you can monetize and make money from this niche.  Consider all of the following options:

Google Adsense – You can find the potential for keywords in each niche with Google’s Adwords: Keyword Tool.

Affiliate Sales – Check at popular affiliate sales sites Commission Junction and Clickbank to see what types of products you might be able to sell on your site or blog.

Direct Advertising – Search for similar themed sites and see if they are offering direct advertising.  If they are chances are you can too.

Selling hard products – If you are an artist maybe you can sell your paintings or photos on the site.  Consider writing an eBook on your subject.  Good eBooks can sell very well.  If you are good at making something chances are you can sell it on the internet.

Selling services – If you’ve got a travel related blog maybe you can partner with a local travel agency to offer special themed trips and packages.

By making this list you’ll start to get some idea of ways you can make money from your site and more importantly how well they will work.  If AdWords shows you that most of your keywords have bids under $1.00 then you can probably rule out AdSense as a significant source of income unless you have a lot of traffic to the site.

However if you can find a good partnership or offer a unique product or service you won’t need hoards of traffic to make money.

Step 4:  Find the sweet spots.

Looking at your three lists you should see some areas that overlap.  Ideally you would like to have a niche that is on all three lists.  That way you like it, your good at it and you can make money writing about it.  I know this is a tall order, so if you find a niche that overlaps just two lists that’s good too.  The next best combination in my opinion is an area that you’re interested in and can make money in.  Even if you don’t know that much yet you can learn while you teach others.  Many people find this is the best way to learn.  If there’s something you’re good at that makes money this can be good as well.  You may get bored more easily creating the site, but you’ll be much faster writing about it since you’re an expert.

If you’re lucky enough to have an idea that overlaps all three lists then by all means run with that idea.  You have the knowledge, you’ll be having fun and you’ll be making money.  Who could ask for more?  Once you have a site like this making money work becomes more like play!  Good luck and go get started!

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