Identifying the Top Blogs in Your Niche
Why Do You Want to Identify Top Blogs in Your Niche?
If you plan on entering a market or are just interested in learning about or studying a certain market then you will want to know where the top sites are located. This is the fastest and most effective way to gather the resources needed to learn about your industry. From current events, who are the top advertisers, the size of the market, and how tough it will be to enter the market, understanding your competition is a key to your future success. It is also a great way to drive traffic to an existing site by interacting with a top blog by either commenting on popular posts to networking with the blog owner for nurturing a business relationship.
How To Identify the Top Blogs
Technorati
The Technorati blog directory has a pretty good list of the top blogs sorted for you by topic. I say "pretty good" because tagging your blog on Technorati used to be considered an essential step into getting yourself established, but now that just isn't the case. Many top bloggers don't even bother adding themselves to the directory anymore, but still, I would say most top blogs are listed here and it's a good place to start your search.
Ask Blog Search
Ask has a pretty nice search engine for looking at blogs that have the keywords that are contained in your niche. You won't see very much spam in the Ask.com index and Ask built their reputation on being able to find clusters, or groups of related sites that supposedly gave a better indication of authority. The problem with Ask is that you are still going to see some strange feeds showing up in your results congesting the page.
Google Blog Search
The leading search engine on the web also does a pretty good job of helping you find related blogs with their specialized blog search. The start page allows you to click through to very general categories and here you will see massive blogs that are very generalized. When you do a search you will get a related blogs list that shows you blogs that have your keywords in their title, plus you will see the search results bringing up certain blog posts that are related to your keyword. I personally use the google blog search quite a bit to find posts to comment on that are related to something I just wrote. The problem here though is that you also get a lot of forum posts, which aren't really blogs but for some reason are included in this index.
As you can see there isn't an all-encompassing tool that will work perfectly to help you find all of the top blogs in your niche, but if you use the three sites above you can start to get a pretty good feel on what's out there.
Where to Put Ads on Your Blog
One of the more popular questions I have been asked when helping someone start a blog is where to put ads in order to maximize revenues. The important thing to remember here is that not every blog is the same, which means that you are going to have to test some different designs and ad formats in order to increase your click throughs, which should mean an increase in revenue from advertisements whether it is through affiliate programs or cost per clicks.
The picture on the left shows the hot zones according to google adsense. These are the locations that their studies show ad placements generate the most clicks. While looking to see what the graph shows and mimicking it on your site might work out just fine, let's dig a little deeper and figure out why those spots are as premium as they are.
The first thing that you might notice is that above the fold ads do a lot better than below the fold. This stands to reason since the user doesn't have to scroll down to see the ads.
You'll also notice that ads on the left do better than ads on the right, which fits in the Western style format of reading a page from left to right.
Users also focus in on the content, so the top of the content area is the best place for ads. However, the end of the content area also does well, and in my research I find that this is a great place for text ads for relevant sites, simply because the user has finished reading your peice and is either looking for more information on the topic, or they are interested in the topic and any related products or services will catch their eyes.
A few additional points that I have noticed personally. Larger banner ads do better than smaller banners. I think this is because the advertiser has more room to put information on a large banner and thus can draw the user in.
I have also noticed banners do well when the user is forced to look over it. If you put a banner between the menu and the content, or if you break up the middle of the content with a banner, those two positions have worked out great for me in the past.
I also like the stripe ads at the top of the blog, you can pick those up by going to Max Blog Press. Text link ads inside your content also do a good job of generating clicks, so if you write reviews or just link to something relevant in your content. You can automatically change the keywords in your blog by using the Ninja Affiliate program.
These are just some of the things that I consider when I'm putting ads on a site. Do you have any additional tips or tricks? If so, I'd love to hear about them in the comments.
Stripe Ads
I'm going to try out a new form of advertising with the addition of the Stripe Ad to my sites. This is the single line of text that is displayed at the top of the site in a nice, clean stripe.
I've also thought about using the Stripe Ad as a call to action which will take users to a specific landing page, maybe of a hot product that I am selling. There are some sites where people I never read our terms of service, so this might be a good spot to draw their attention, or to display breaking news.
Another nice thing about the ad is that you can rotate it between several different ads, which is perfect for testing, and I'm a big fan of testing in order to maximize conversions. If you want to weight one ad more heavily than another you can do that as well.
A nice thing about the Stripe ad is that you can customize the look of it to match you blog, with options on the font type, text size, alignment, and colors.
If you want to add the Stripe Ad to your blog then visit MaxBlog Press and download it yourself!
Differentiating Your Product
If you want to run a successful business, then you can't compete solely on price. Offering the lowest price and hoping to make it up in volume is the easy way out, the lazy person's guide to increasing sales and it doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to turn more of profit. If you really want to grow your business and make more money, then you are going to have to figure out ways where you can charge more money for your product and to do that you are going to have to differentiate from your competition. There are several ways that you can set yourself apart other than price, so let's take a look.
1. Associated Products - Can you bundle additional products to go along with yours, thus increasing your total profit on the sale? If you are buying a hot tub, normally they also try to get you to buy all of the spa products that you need to use.
2. Deliverability - If you are offering an informational product, what forms are you delivering that content? If you competitors are all selling ebooks, maybe you can offer the same thing in audio files, or better yet, video and charge more for these upgrades.
3. Support - Do you have customer support readily available on your site? Can the customer call, email, and use live chat? Hit all of the options so you allow them to get in touch with you however they feel comfortable.
4. Guarantee - Are you confident that your product will deliver? You can translate that confidence into a guarantee, which can lead to you charging a higher price.
All of these things work to set you apart from the competition, plus there are plenty of others. If you have any tips then I'd love to hear them in the comments.
Getting People to Pay More for Your Product
Everybody who sells a product or service knows that if they can keep their costs the same, and they can get just as many people to buy their product or service, then by increasing price you will increase profits. The trouble is that in every simple economics class you learn about the supply and demand curves. If you increase price, then you decrease the number of people who are willing to buy from you at that price. Still, there are things that you can do in order to sell just as much product for a higher price, you just have to work a little bit harder. Here are some tips how:
1. Make it FREE - Now I don't mean give it away. I mean that make it appear that they are saving so much money by purchasing for you that it isn't costing them anything. Let's say it's a hybrid car for example. Would you rather pay $10,000 for a car that you are going to have to fuel up for $1,000 per year over five years, or $12,000 for a car that you NEVER have to fuel? Right, you are charging $2,000 more in order to give the consumer a FREE $3,000 in saved fuel costs.
2. Increase the Value - Some people want the bare bones, and some people will pay more for the finer things in life. One way to increase the price of your product is to add something of value that consumers are actually looking for. Let's take a look at the car example again. You can sell a bare bones truck for $2,000, but if you put in an air conditioner that costs you $200 you can sell it for $2,500. Most people are willing to pay for the air conditioner, so by adding that value you just made yourself more profits. It's not just addition functions or products thrown in, but it also goes for higher quality and increased durability.
3. Demonstrate a Return on Investment - This is even more important when you are dealing with a business-to-business transaction, but it applies to consumers as well. Let's say you are comparing two products, one shows that it can increase your business by 10% and the other by 20%, you obviously are going to go with the one that increases your bottom line by the bigger amounts.
4. Branding - This is tough and not something I really recommend. Research shows that it costs a LOT of money to establish a brand in a market place. If I'm going shopping for medicine I know I also fall for the brand name trap over the generics, but I'll give myself some credit and say I want to maximize the placebo effect. =)
How to Find a Successful Niche
The key to making money online these days is to find a successful niche to market to. You aren't going to be the giants out there like Wal-Mart and Best Buy so why are you trying?
The first thing for you to figure out is what exactly a niche market is. Let's use the example of music. Most of the giant department stores like Wal-Mart only carry a small percentage of artists, and even though only a limited selection of albums from those artists. A niche would be insound.com, which carries more alternative or lesser known artists.
So how do you find your niche to be successful in? Well here are a few tips for niche research that I have to help you come up with some ideas.
What's in the News?
Find out what is going on in the world and which current events are getting a lot of attention. Pay attention to morning shows on network television which have several different segments on books, movies, and new products hitting the market. These shows do not put items on the air that they do not think their viewers would be interested in hearing about, so you can let them do the market research for you!
Make a List of Things You Are Interested In
It's going to be much tougher to succeed in a market you do not care anything about. I have found that the best way to get traffic to my sites is to write content. That can take many shapes and forms, but knowing about a topic and writing about it is the single most important thing you can do to grow your site. How tough is it to write about something you aren't interested in? I've done it, and my work suffered from it. Make it easy on yourself and only get into a niche that you are interested in.
Do Keyword Research
You can't go after general keywords, so get specific and then see if there is anything related to the keyword you can use. You also want to check the traffic numbers because if nobody is searching for your term, how many people are actually interested in it? Not many.
I personally recommend the SEO Book tool and using Google's keyword tool.
Now you have three simple steps to help you find a successful niche to make money online. If you have any other tips and tricks you've used in the past to discover a niche market to sell in then I would love to hear about them in the comments.
How To Increase Your Ad Earnings
There are several different things you can probably do right now to optimize your site's advertising and generate more revenue. The first and most obvious is to get more traffic, but that can take a lot of time and effort to do. Instead this article is going to focus on how you can make the most out of the traffic that you already have.
Ad Positions
It's important to note that not every blog or site is going to be the same. I can't just tell you that by putting an ad in such and such a place this is going to be your click through rate. What I can give you is a general idea of what locations work the best. First off, don't just look at other sites in your niche and think that since they are doing it one way, it must be the best way. You do want to start by thinking about where on the page your reader gives their full attention. Most likely this is above the fold and either towards the left of the page or right above the content. This has been reinforced by the heat map released by the Google Adsense team. Another great location for advertisements is the footer area right below your content area. By using the top left, above the content, and below the content strategy you are probably going to be on the right track, but since every site is different you should split test and experiment to find out which locations give your specific site the most clicks and then stick with that format.
Adding Additional Ad Space
This one seems like common sense but I see plenty of websites out there that do not seem to be utilizing all of their ad space. Where are the natual points for a reader to pause on your page? On blogs you will find it just after you end the article and before the comments section. This is a place where the reader considers what they want to do next so it's a great place for related articles, a link to have them subscribe to your feed, and for advertisements related to the post. Another great place is after the comment section. If a reader goes through the comments then when he or she comes to the end of the list they once again will be looking for more places to go. Why not give them the choice to click on an ad so you can make some money?
You can also find more advertising space with text links. These work great in two places, on your navigational menu and in the content itself. Just make sure that the link text and site you are linking to are a fit to what the content is about, so that way the user gets what they are expecting.
Do you use any other techniques to make money with your advertising? If so I would love to hear about them in the comments section.
How to Make Money With Your Blog
It doesn't seem that long ago that the great debate in the blogging world was if you could or should make money from your blog. Now that it is widely accepted the question has become how you can make money, or how you can make more money off of your site. If you want to know how I make money with my blogs then take a look at this list of top revenue sources.
Direct Sales
Your blog should be centered on a certain niche and that niche should allow you to sell something to your audience that they actually like or want to buy. You need to make sure that the content that you are producing is highly relevant to what you are trying to sell in order to maximize your return.
When you are starting out and building an audience it is a great time to learn about what kind of needs and wants your readers have. If you listen to what your readers are looking for then you are in a great spot to produce just that. This method is sometimes easier than building a great product and then trying to build traffic around the topic. Start with the traffic and then build a product catering to that audience.
The best thing about direct sales is that after you produce your product you get to keep all of the money from what you sell. The down side is that it can take a lot of time and effort to create a new product or service and if you don't think you can do a better job at it than someone else, it might not even be worth it.
Affiliate Marketing
The next best thing to selling your own product or service is selling someone else's wares for part of the profits. Do your research and find out what your readers are interested in and then partner up with companies that offer those kinds of products. The down side to affiliate marketing is that you only get to keep a part of the sales, but the plus side is that you don't have to go through the work of creating the product or service either.
Advertisements
This is the most popular choice of generating revenue for most blog owners, but I feel like it's the least profitable. If you are going to seek fee-based sponsors for your site then it's still best to match them to your audience, so you can plug offers in your posts and feel genuinely passionate about what the sponsor has to offer. If you do a good job of integrating your advertisers into your site then they are going to see a bigger return on their investment. This means they will be more interested in renewing or paying higher fees down the line.
Selling Text Links
This used to be popular, but with google cracking down on sites both buying and selling text links, I would recommend you faze this out of your business model.
These are just a few of the best ways to make money with your blog. If you have other methods that you use and have success, let's hear them in the comments.