When beginning a blog, there are a few basic questions you should ask yourself before walking down this challenging but potentially profitable avenue. Before we discover the right niche marketing strategy for you, let’s discuss a few tactics that will not only help you determine if blogging is worth your time, but also if they will yield the money-making results you want.
Tactic #1: Blog What You Know
Don’t self-sabotage. Whatever subject you think you would like to write about, be sure you know the topic inside out. Knowing every detail of your subject of choice may not be necessary, but having a strong handle on it will keep you motivated to write and will keep your audience captivated.
Tactic #2: Blog What You Love
You may have a business that you’re invested in and want to supplement your webpage with a blog, but if writing about the entirety of your business seems like too large a project to tackle, start off by tackling aspects of your product or service that you actually love. An aspect of your business that you can write about like a mother would write about her child will help you create a niche immediately.
Tactic #3: Know Where the Money Is
Just about anyone who can type can have a blog. But as an entrepreneur, it is essential for you to understand the profit motive of blogging.
Google AdWords: Don’t have an account? Sign up for one. Through this service you can follow trends on bid prices for keywords. Knowing what keywords are popular and how competitive they are will give you insight into which words you’ll want to use on your blog. Traffic = Revenue
Private Investigation: Learn from your competitors that already have their blogging methods down pat. Niche bloggers that have a long history have one because they have found a way to turn readership into dollars. Read their blogs, take notes, cherry pick the things you like, be open to new ideas. So called spying is a great way to brainstorm
Tactic #4: Make Your Blog Strong and Make its Niche Presence Stronger
You can accomplish this by using simple web techniques that will make you more searchable and interconnected. The following are especially useful and best of all, totally free. And you can’t beat free press-in any niche marketing strategy.
Tag, you’re it: Your blog, as a rule, must have tags. Unsure what that means? Quite simply when you tag a post with certain keywords or phrases, it lumps your blog in with other posts that share that topic. Be sure to use phrases that are directly relative to the blog itself and ideally, to the audience.
Example: Your blog is about analytics? Your tags could be: analytics, trend, market research. Use your imagination, there are a million posts and a million ways for you to connect with your audience with tagging
Make a Connection: Yes, you’re online and behind a computer screen but it’s time to think about your internet connection as a chance to make real connections. You can’t develop traffic if you wait for people to come to you alone. Here are a few tips on how to increase traffic by making connections the old fashioned way
When you’ve finished your spying – it is really reading not spying -, reach out to these bloggers by following their tags, leaving comments, asking questions and making it personal. Remember, it’s a dialogue you’re looking for with your niche blog, not a monologue and if you show interest in others and make your presence known, it instils a mutual curiosity and may drive traffic back to your page. Remember, any good business with a storied history utilizes the old philosophy of give and take.
Accessibility: Ever been browsing on your mobile phone and the site you’re visiting isn’t compatible? Not only is it frustrating in the moment, it can generate bad vibes for the user later. It’s a simple fix, so whatever blog platform you use, enable the page for mobile compatibility. Better yet, build your blog on a responsive theme.
Tactic #5: Monetize Your Blog
How to thrive as a small fish in a massive ocean isn’t as difficult as you’d think, but it’s still about survival of the fittest. You can still compete and thrive if you implement choice monetization methods for your blog such as:
Google AdSense
Affiliate Sales
Ad space
Creating your own products
Providing consulting services
Tactic #6: Know Your Competition
But all the right money making schemes in the world won’t matter if your niche blog’s subject matter or product or service isn’t saleable. Know your competition by using resources like:
LongTailPro: An excellent source for tracking keywords but this resource also provides information on how you can manage your blog’s chance of ranking with that particular keyword.
Know what criteria to use: a popular Niche Blogging Case Study determined that the following criteria help maximize results for situating a new niche blog:
Page Authoroity under 50, number of links are under 30, value of backlinks on that page is under 10, domain authority is as low as possible with a recommendation of under 50, a MozRank under 5, the site age is as low as possible.
Stick with the standard domain: At all costs, it’s a wiser investment to avoid any domain name that ends in anything other than .com.
Tactic #7: Optimize Your Keywords and SEO Your Posts
Cover your bases and start out strong. Each of your niche blog posts should have the following:
1 main keyword
2-5 secondary keywords phrases
You should not have a keyword density that exceeds 3-percent
Your blogs should be at least 500 words long, 1000 or 1500 is even better.
Insert images, videos and visual effects studies show that images and interactive media is crucial to conversion
Use bold, italic and underline where applicable
Keep your permalinks short
Without these essential items appearing in your post, you will undoubtedly get lost in the mix. And remember, you don’t have to inundate your page with blog posts, focus on quality rather than quantity in your niche marketing strategy. Happy blogging!
By-line:
George Meszaros is a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder of Success Harbor. Success Harbor is dedicated to document the entrepreneurial journey through interviews, original research, and unique content. George Meszaros is also co-founder of Webene, a web design and marketing firm.
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Niche Marketing Strategy
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