How to Choose and Research A Make Money Niche
Today’s Sponsor: Kim Witherspoon
Resources Mentioned: Word Tracker, Ezinearticles, Google
Last time you started learning about the different ways you can research a market to see if it’s profitable.
Let’s pick up where we left off…
b) Search Google
This is easy – enter your broad keywords into Google (such as “Mountain Bikes or bodybuilding” ) and see what comes up. You’re looking for two things:
- The organic results. These are the regular search engine results. Pay attention to the top sites (those on the first page).
What are these sites selling? If many of the top sites are directly selling products or services – or if they carry ads for products and services – that’s a good sign. And if they’re selling similar items, that’s a clue about which particular kinds of products are popular.
Secondly, look at the competition. Are there plenty of sites in the results? Again, that’s generally a good sign, because it shows some demand.
- The sponsored results. You also want to look at the paid ads that appear at the top, bottom and along the sides of the results. If there are only a couple ads, be worried. But if all the ad slots are taken, that’s good – because marketers don’t spend money advertising if there are no willing buyers.
c) Do a Keyword Search
Next, check out a keyword tool like WordTracker.com, Google Keyword Planner or your favorite tool. Enter your broad keywords. Do you see a lot of results? Do you see evidence that people are looking to buy?
Example: You might see searches for product names (e.g., [product name] review).
If you discover a lot of searches and you also notice that some of them are from buyers, that’s a good sign.
Example: A search like “buy [product name]” is a clear indication that the searcher is a real prospect.
d) Check Offline Publications
Now look at offline publications related to your market. For starters, are there magazines devoted just to your market?
Example: If you’re interested in dog training, then you’d quickly notice several dog-related magazines.
That alone is a good sign. But you also want to browse through these magazines and see what type of paid advertising appears in the publication. This will give you a clue about what’s hot in that market right now.
e) Keep an Eye Out for Other Paid Advertising
Listen to the radio and watch TV. Are there any channels or stations related to your market? If not, can you find any specific TV programs related to your market?
And if you watch the commercials, you’ll see plenty of paid advertisements for paid products. Both the show and the commercials indicate there is a demand for products in the market.
f) Look for Offline Marketplaces
Finally, you can look to offline marketplaces to see if there is a demand. You can look for retail shops or entire sections in big stores devoted to your market.
You should also look for offline events, like trade shows, conferences, and workshops in your market.
Final Stage Of Niche Research
The last part of research is getting an understanding of what types of products and affiliate programs exist for the niche. This will allow you to identify what type of products are in the niche and what is profitable.
Look at competitor products, generate your own product ideas, look for voids in the market, and even look at affiliate marketplaces and affiliate programs to get an idea.
When you look at affiliate marketplaces you are just trying to get an idea of what kind of products are available for the niche. This doesn’t mean that you have to monetize with affiliate products. Do this step to get an idea of what is already out there and to get potential product ideas.
Check out affiliate networks such as Amazon's Affiliate Program, Clickbank, Commission Junction, Alibaba, JVZOO, Ebay, Warrior Forum and many more.
Another great way to find affiliate programs for your niche is Googling your main keywords along with the words “affiliate program.”
If you niche was Day Trading you would Google:
Day Trading Affiliate Program.
It's as easy as that.
Next, let's head over to Ezinearticles to get some ideas. Go to the Ezinearticles sitemap. It breaks things down by category and subcategory. From there you can pick a sub-category and drill down to articles. This site is loaded with potential ideas for you to look at.
Bonus tip: There is a very cool website buzzsumo.com that lets you search for top content and influencers based on keywords that you type in. They have an algorithm that ranks the content and influencers based on social shares, page rank, page authority, and more.
This is a great place to look for competitors and influencers in your niche. It can also be a great place to get ideas for content, products, partnerships, guest blogging spots, finding writers and more.
Choose A Niche For Your Blog
Once you do all the research described in this lesson and the last, it will quickly become clear which of your potential markets have the most profit potential. Also, don’t forget to consider your interests. It is really hard to write about a topic you are not interested in so this is key.
If you have a couple that seem to be equal, then just choose the market you think you’d enjoy the most.
Today’s task: Complete the research as described above.
Now that you have done all the research it is time to choose your niche. Consider all the things you reviewed today and make your decision.
Tomorrow you’ll start learning how to set up your blog!
How To Install Your WordPress Website
Day 7 - Install Your WordPress Website
Last time you set up your domain name and hosting. Now it’s time to set up your blog. If you’ve done any research on blogs before, you probably already know there are a lot of choices.
So let’s go through some of your options to find out which one is the best…
- Self-Hosted or a Third-Party Blog?
Since I’ve already asked you to buy a domain name and hosting, it’s pretty clear that you’re going to set up a “self-hosted” blog.
Nonetheless, let me share with you why this is important…
You’ve no doubt seen some of the third-party blog solutions. One of the most popular is Google’s Blogger.com. There are also other solutions like LiveJournal.com, WordPress.com and a whole host of others.
All you have to do is register an account on these sites, choose a blog name… and you can be blogging in a matter of minutes. Most of these platforms are very user-friendly, meaning you don’t need to know a lick about scripts or other technical stuff in order to be up and blogging fast.
So why not use a third-party solution? Here’s why:
- No commercial content. Some of these sites flat-out prohibit commercial content. And since you’re going to turn your blog into a money-maker, a non-commercial blog isn’t an option for you.
- The site could disappear tomorrow. When you entrust your content – even your income – to a third party, you’re rolling the dice. The company could go bankrupt. They could sell to another company who changes the rules. Point is, your blog could disappear in an instant.
For example, Google deletes artist’s blog and a decade of his work along with it.
- You have no control over your content. Some third-party blog solutions paste their ads on your site. Some have very strict rules about what you can and cannot write about or what you can link to (which goes back to the commercial content issue again). And all of these sites can just arbitrarily pull your content or change the rules… and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Obviously, a self-hosted solution is best to retain control over your content. But which blog platform should you choose? There are plenty of platforms – just search Google to see what I mean.
For the purpose of this lesson, we will be teaching you how to install WordPress as your website/content management system.
Why WordPress?
- It's free!
- Easy to use
- Manage your website anywhere that has an internet connection
- No HTML or CSS coding skills required
- Themes for designing your website
- Completely customizable
- A lot of users = great support
- Unlimited functionality available with plug-ins
- Search engines like WordPress
Once you have set up your web hosting account, got your “Welcome” email and pointed your name servers to your new web host’s server, you are ready to install your WordPress website! (It may take as much as a day for the change to take place.)
The WordPress platform makes installation easy!
No matter who you have chosen for your web host, go to your cPanel dashboard (look in your “Welcome” email for instructions on how to log into cPanel) and scroll down through all the various options until you come to the section “SOFTACULOUS APPS INSTALLER”.
Click on the WordPress symbol, and it will take you to the next page. Scroll down if you have to, and when you find the button, click on “Install Now”.
You will then need to fill in information for your site in the following categories before proceeding to the next step:
- Protocol: Leave this blank if you want your URL to start with just “http://”—or if you have an SSL certificate for a “https://” sit—or you want “www”, press the drop-down arrow and select the protocol you prefer.
- Choose Domain: There should only be one domain showing—your new one—if this is a brand new web-hosting account. As long as the domain name is showing, you don’t have to do anything.
Tip: One of the first pieces of info you’ll get asked for is where you’d like to install WP – specifically, which directory on your domain.
You’ll want to install it on your “root” directory so that anyone who goes to www.yourdomain.com immediately sees your blog. As such, leave “Install on Directory” blank so that your blog is in your main/root directory.
- Site Settings: Replace the generic text with your site/blog name (e.g. “Web Profit School, Basketball Coach”); and a brief description of what it’s about.
(Do not check “Enable Multisite (WMPU)
- Admin Settings: Resist the urge to allow your admin name to be “Admin”—that is far too easy to hack! Choose something random, like “BlwDl2” as your admin name. (Randomize your password too.)
- Select Plugins: Enable the Limited Login Attempts plugin by checking the radio button. (We’ll be adding more plugins later).
- Advanced Settings: All you need to do here is enter the email address that you want WordPress to send your installation details to—and press “Install”.
Once you’ve pressed “Install”, that’s it! You can log out, and collect your installation details from your email inbox at the address you just entered.You’ll now be taken to a screen which tells you how to log into your new blog. The link should look something like this:
http://yourdomain.com/wp-login.php .Be sure to write this information down, along with your username and password so that you don’t forget or lose them.
Next, go to your domain name (www.yourdomain.com) to see if the installation was successful. If you see any error messages, delete the blog and try again. Otherwise, if all looks good, then log into your WP dashboard.
Today’s task: Log into your WP dashboard and familiarize yourself with all the links and functions.Tomorrow you’ll start learning about how to customize the form and function of your blog!
How to Find and Install a WordPress Theme
Yesterday you installed your WordPress blog on your domain. Today you’ll discover how to quickly and easily change the design of your blog.
Blog Design
We don’t need to go into too much depth about designing your blog. What you really need to know is to make it consistent with your brand and optimize for results.
The reason we don’t focus on blog design is because WordPress and WordPress themes make it really easy to make a great looking authority blog.
You can start out with a free theme and move to a paid theme as you go. You don’t need to know anything about HTML or web design in order to change the blog’s design. That’s because there are thousands of free and paid (premium) “themes” (designs) available for your WordPress blog.
I recommend that you don't even change your theme until you have ten posts.
Spend 5 minutes or less deciding, because you don't want to spend all day beautifying your site, if not going to make much money.
Most themes look good. Just don't pick an ugly one. At this point, your focus should be on creating content.
Keep in mind that you can get a high-quality theme anywhere from $50 to $100 later.
Tip: If you have a unique theme in mind – or if you want something totally exclusive – then you can hire a WordPress theme designer. Just go to upwork.com and post your request for a theme designer.
Generally, this isn’t necessary, however, since there are thousands of themes to choose from. You’re certain to find something that you like.
However, you can start with a theme and then have a designer “tweak” it to make it more exclusive or to better suit your purposes.
For example, you can have a designer create a new graphical header that better matches your blog’s name and content.
Here are three ways to find a theme:
- Go to https://wordpress.org/themes
- Use Google to search for “WordPress themes” or “WordPress templates.”
- Visit popular theme sites like ThemeForest.
In all cases, a simple search for WordPress themes will uncover thousands upon thousands of results. That’s why you’ll want to narrow down the results by searching for specific kinds of themes.
For starters, you can search for niche-specific themes, such as “weight loss themes” or “dog themes.” You can further narrow the results by searching for the colors or styles you like, such as:
- Columns: “two column” or “three column” themes.
- Colors: “black and white theme” or “blue theme” or your favorite colors.
- Style: “art themes” or “professional theme” or “simple theme.”
You can easily upload, preview and install it right from your dashboard.
If you are using a free theme from WordPress.org, go to your left-hand dashboard menu and click on Appearance>>Themes>>Add new. When the “Add Themes” window opens up, enter the name of your WordPress.org theme in the search bar.
If you don’t yet know the name of the theme you want, simply enter a parameter you want it to match, such as “3-column responsive”—always choose a responsive theme.
You will instantly see a selection of themes fitting those parameters that you can choose from. You will be given the option to Preview them before deciding to install.
If you have purchased or have downloaded a theme to your computer.
IMPORTANT: Keep your downloaded theme zipped.
To find and upload your new/premium theme from your computer to your website:
- Go to Appearance>>Themes, and click on the “Add New” button.
- Select “Upload Themes”.
- Press the “Choose File” button and select your theme (still zipped)
- Click the “Install” button
Once you are notified the install has been successful, you can select your new theme from Themes.
You should now see the theme you just uploaded. Click on it to show a preview, then click on the “activate” link. Your new theme is now installed!
Today’s task: Find and install a theme. More customization tips coming tomorrow!
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