Below you will find articles for the intermediate and advanced blogger. If you are a beginner make sure to check out my easy guide to starting a blog first.
You have a blog and you’ve been writing for weeks, maybe even months or years, but the traffic is lackluster. You’ve been putting in the time and effort, so where are the hordes of people who should have found your content by now? Where is your audience?
Blogs are rarely set-and-go assets. They require daily work that goes beyond the scope of writing and posting to acquire a growing audience and maximum views.
The six major arms of blog traffic growth are: Calendar, Content, Social, Engagement, SEO, and Advertising. Each segment offers a number of methods any blogger can and should use to increase traffic at supersonic levels.
Calendar
Create an editorial calendar: Create a writing calendar and stick to it. This could be writing Monday-Friday, as an example, and could even include different subjects or themes for each of the days involved.
Regularity: One your editorial calendar has been established, do not – under any circumstances – stray from this calendar. If you plan on a vacation, write posts and schedule them for the days you’ll be absent.
Your schedule is monitored by search engines: As you start posting on a regular schedule and with frequency, search engines will begin scraping your site with the same regularity. Your posting schedule sets the schedule for search engine bots. Imagine that!
Content
Know your material: If you’re writing about how to get rich online and, in reality, you’re flat broke and know nothing about online businesses, readers will know. You don’t have to have a Ph.D. in your field, but you should be passionate about your blogging niche, be able to provide interesting, relevant, and educational information, and be knowledgeable in general.
Know your audience: People who are interested in the topic you blog about – this is your audience. This can vary from blog post to blog post. For example, one post may be geared toward those who understand technical terminology within your field while another post may be geared toward potential new audience members who don’t know much about your topic but want to know more.
Imagery: Include images in your blog posts. Try to use your own photos or manipulate stock photos to create a cohesive look. People are visual and often initially attracted to the imagery.
Video: Selfmade videos are a powerful way to bring people to your blog. Video platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo allow you to upload your own videos, providing you with bits of code to place those videos on your own blog while using their bandwidth and video speed strength. Better yet, these platforms have the ability to drive traffic straight to your blog on their own.
Lists: With long-winded articles, people can get bored which, in turn, can cause a high bounce rate. Break up your content into smaller, readable portions such as lists and shorts bursts of information within subheaders.
Evergreen: Make sure your articles can withstand the test of time. A blog post about “The Best Places to Eat in Portland, Maine” written ten years ago will most certainly have no relevance today when restaurants come and go. Either refresh your posts that have gone stale (updating them yearly) or write “Evergreen” posts that will withstand the passage of time.
Guest Contributors and Posting: Encourage guests posts from those in your field who are admired or well known. In the same vein, offer to contribute guests posts (with a backlink) to blogs within your field of expertise.
Social Media
Inspire curiosity with a great title: Sharing your blog post on social media will display the title and a snippet. That title should be amazing. Create an irresistible blog title that will cause people to click the link with urgency. They must know more!
Find your people: Find groups and communities on social media platforms devoted to your interest or a variation of it. When you find your people, share your posts there and like-minded individuals will follow.
Social sharing buttons: Include social sharing buttons on your blog posts. It makes it easy for people who want to share your information to do so.
Reshare old content: Recently updated content or blog posts that are suddenly relevant again can be reshared on social media platforms. Think about using this strategy at least once per week.
Engage
Use a comment system: Allow readers to leave comments and encourage the use of your comment system by asking readers questions and/or their opinions.
Employ giveaways: Contests and giveaways can have a viral effect, especially if you set a condition for entry by requiring the post to be reposted, liked, or tweeted by the entrant.
Use USG (User Generated Content): A common way for bloggers to gather USG is through Reddit. Pose a question to people in your related interest groups, and utilize their answers. The same method can be used on other social media platforms.
Encourage email signups: Add an email sign-up box on your blog that captures emails to be used by an email system such as Constant Contact. Sending monthly recap emails remind your audience of your existence and brings back readers.
SEO
Use keywords: Use the most relevant keywords multiple times in your copy, in your headings, in your metadata, and in your image alt tags. Don’t overdo it, but make sure they are used more than once.
Use links: Linking to high-ranking, relevant, authority sites is a powerful way to signal to Google and other search engines that you can be trusted.
Crosslink your articles: A great way to “connect the dots” and create a hierarchy of related pages within search engine indices is to crosslink your own posts. Link to related posts that might be of value to the reader for the current post.
Write long articles: If you’re looking for better rankings on search engines, write long articles – the longer the better. Google gives a nearly disproportionate amount of weight to longer articles – the more information, the better.
Advertise
Spend the money: Advertising online can cost a pretty penny, but the stakes are worth it when building your audience. Online advertising delivers highly targeted traffic straight to your site, readers who are genuinely interested in what you have to say. It is definitely something to consider.
Each fundamental strategy for blog traffic growth has multiple facets, and each of these facets can be discussed in great detail. Conduct your own research on each facet and work to employ all items in your daily blogging schedule.
The Wix platform is alluring for new and small
businesses when they are able to get a website up and running quickly on a
limited budget. But after a while, this allure fades with the realization of
major limitations and the need to pay for each and every plugin and module that
soon becomes a necessity.
A WordPress hosted website is hard to beat and
the statistics speak for themselves. Over 30% of all websites use the WordPress
codex for many reasons: a vast repository of completely free plugins and tools,
superior SEO, thousands of free themes, and a much easier platform for
customizing.
With Wix feeling a steady loss of customers to
WordPress, they recently disabled their RSS feed, a tool commonly used to
transfer blogs, in an effort to staunch the steady flow of Wix customers
jumping ship for WordPress by making it more difficult for customers to
transfer data.
If you have an older Wix site, you may still
have a feed. But if your website is newer on Wix, you may have no feed and
might have to take manual steps for a transfer.
Let’s
explore the steps needed to be taken in order for you to transfer your site
from Wix to WordPress without a loss in traffic or SERPs (Search Engine Results
Placement).
1) Sign Up For WordPress Hosting
A web hosting company will give you space on a web server where you can install WordPress. This sounds complicated, but the process is actually pretty simple.
For WordPress sites I personally recommend using BlueHost.com as your web host. BlueHost has been recommended by WordPress since 2005, and currently hosts several million websites. WordPress also comes pre-installed, which makes this whole process much easier.
Disclosure: BlueHost compensates me when you purchase with this discount link, so all of my help is free of charge to you! Contact me if you have any problems transferring from Wix to WordPress.
Once you complete your registration with BlueHost you can continue with the steps below to get everything migrated over from Wix.
2) Get A Temporary Domain
Since your domain is likely tied up with Wix, you can start building your new website straight away on a temporary domain provided to you for free with your web hosting plan.
3) Log In to WordPress
You can log in to WordPress directly from your BlueHost dashboard.
Alternatively, you can log in to the backend of WordPress using your temporary domain with /wp-admin appended to the URL.
http://yourtemporarydomain.com/wp-admin
4) Pick a Theme and Customize
In the backend of WordPress, also known as the
dashboard, navigate to Appearance >
Themes.
At the top of the next screen, select “Add
New”.
Here you can search through the WordPress
Repository for thousands of free themes. Search by popularity, or the newest,
or by using the feature filter to find specific needs. You can even use the
search bar to find a possible theme related to your business through the use of
keywords.
Once you find the perfect theme, download it
and then activate it.
You can customize the theme by navigating to
Appearance > Customize on the left side of the dashboard. And to view your
progress at any time, simply view the site in a separate browser tab without
the /wp-admin in the URL.
4) Create a Menu and Pages
Take note of your existing pages on Wix and
create the same ones on your new site.
Easily create all of the pages you need by
navigating to Pages > Add New.
Title each page, leaving the body blank for
now, and save them. Don’t forget to create a “Home” and “Blog” page. After these
two pages are created, navigate to Settings > Reading to set your Home and
Blog (Posts) page.
Once you’re done, navigate to Appearance >
Menus and click the link to “Create a New Menu”.
Fill your new menu with the top-level pages
you just created by dragging and dropping them over from the left module and
save when you’re done. Don’t forget to set the menu position which is theme
dependent. It is usually the “Main Menu” position.
5) Set Your Permalinks
Navigate to Settings > Permalinks to change
your URL structure which is a good step to take prior to your move.
Change the Permalinks structure to “Post Name”
and click Save Settings.
6) Transferring Your Data
Now that you have your WordPress website ready
to go, it’s time to transfer your data. And this is where it gets tricky. There
are several methods and parts that can be employed. The two main methods are
manual (free) and automatic (paid). With the free manual method, you may be able
to transfer the blog quickly and easily if your Wix account has an RSS feed.
If you want to use a paid plugin to transfer
everything quickly and automatically, skip to Option Two: Automatic.
Option One: Manual (Free)
1) Determine if your Wix website has an RSS
feed. You can do this by navigating to your Wix website and appending /feed.xml
or /blog-feed.xml to your URL. If you don’t have a custom domain and instead
have a Wix subdomain, use the URL:
username.wixsite.com/blogname/feed.xml
or
username.wixsite.com/blogname/blog-feed.xml
If one of these URLs produces a feed,
right-click anywhere on the feed and click “Save As” to save the XML file to
your computer.
Now, let’s import all of your blog posts
through the WordPress RSS feed importer.
In your WordPress dashboard, navigate to
Tools> Import, and under RSS, click “Install Now”.
When the “Run Importer” link appears, go ahead
and click it. Next, click “Choose File” and select the XML file you recently
downloaded, and then simply run the import. Depending on how many blog posts
you have, it may take anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes.
When the import is complete, check to see if
your posts have been uploaded. Navigate to Posts > All Posts and confirm all
of your blog posts have been uploaded.
While the blog posts are there, we encounter
another problem: the images are not hosted on your site. But there is another
quick and easy fix.
Navigate to Plugins > Add New and conduct a
search for “Auto Upload Images”. When the plugin appears, download it and then
activate it. This plugin will look for external images and then upload them to
your server, but only when a page/post is saved.
The plugin works automatically when you open
up any post and save it by looking for an external image and then uploading and
replacing it.
If you have many blog posts, you can save them
all simultaneously by going to Posts > All Posts and selecting “Screen
Options”. Change the “Number of Items Per Page” to 999 and then click “Apply”.
This will display all blog posts on one page.
Now you can tick the very top checkbox above
all posts which will then check all blog posts automatically. Change the
dropdown to “Edit” and then click “Apply”. This will open a box under the first
blog post. Click “Update” and all of your posts will be saved, automatically
uploading and replacing all images.
To make sure this worked, navigate to Media
> Library, and confirm all images have been uploaded. It may take several
minutes for all images to appear.
When you’re satisfied that all
images have been uploaded, deactivate and remove this image uploader plugin.
Now that your blog has been moved over, the
next step is to import your pages. Unfortunately, this must be done manually
through copying and pasting the text. There is no automatic importer for pages.
And if you have no RSS feed, all blog posts
must also be copied over manually.
Option Two: Automatic (Paid)
This option will transfer all posts, pages,
and images to your new site with a click of a button. And it’s very inexpensive
to boot! Pricing depends on the number of pages and posts you have.
CMS2CMS provides plugin software for a variety
of platforms, and they are commonly used for Wix to WordPress migrations. You
cannot download this plugin from the WordPress repository.
Change the first box to Wix and the second box
to WordPress. Change the number of estimated pages and taxonomies, and the
system will give you an estimated price. Next, try the demo to see it in
action.
CMS2CMS will provide you with the plugin and
instructions for use. It is easy, affordable, and they have great customer
support with – gasp! – real people at the helm!
7) Make a List of Your URLs
Now that you have pulled your content over,
it’s time to make the final switchover as long as you’re okay with your new
site’s appearance. First, make a list of all URLs (all pages and posts) on your
existing Wix site. For posts, you don’t need to list every single blog post
URL- just note the structure of one blog post URL.
8) Point Your Domain
Who has control over your domain name? If your
domain is hosted by Wix, you will need to transfer your domain to your new
hosting provider. Simply log into your Wix account, navigate to your
Subscriptions and then click on “Domains” in the dropdown. Choose your domain
and then select the “Advanced” tab. Choose “Transfer Away from Wix” and you
will receive a code.
Use this code in the domain section of your
hosting provider to transfer the domain to you.
If the domain is somewhere else in your
ownership, you can simply point the domain to your new server by altering the
nameservers. Your hosting provider will give you the nameservers.
When the domain is pointed to your server, it
often takes 24 hours to propagate globally.
9) Change Your Domain References
Your website is likely built using the
temporary URL. Therefore, we need to change all references to this URL to the
new one.
Navigate to Plugins > Add New and search
for Better Search Replace. Download and activate this plugin.
Now navigate to Tools > Better Search
Replace and you’ll find an easy-to-use interface. This plugin will replace all
references of your temporary URL with the new one.
In the “search for” bar, enter your temporary
URL. There may be variations such as with or without an http or https.
And then choose to replace it with your new
URL.
TAKE CARE TO MAKE SURE THE URLS MATCH.
A full temporary URL should replace a full new URL. If one has a trailing slash
at the end, so should the other. You do not want to replace tempurl.com with a URL with
https:// because it will then be rewritten as http://https//newurl.com in many cases.
When you are certain you have the correct
URLs, highlight all tables, click “Replace GUIDs”, uncheck “Dry Run”, and run
the search/replace.
When finished, you will have to log back in
again using the same credentials, but under the new domain.
10) Redirect The URLs
You’re almost done!
Compare the list of Wix URLs to your new URLs.
There may be some differences in URL structure. If so, let’s create some
redirects to make sure we tell Google and other search engines, as well as
visitors following old links, that the pages have been moved.
Navigate to Plugins > Add New and search
for Redirection. When you find the plugin, install and activate it.
After activating, you’ll notice a message at
the top of your screen.
Redirection needs to make changes to your database.
Click the link and proceed with the updates which take a couple of steps.
Once finished, navigate to Tools >
Redirection. Here, add in your old URL slug and the new one. Then click “Add
Redirect”. You can test to see if the old URL is redirected to the new one in a
new browser window.
Once all redirects are in place, you’re
officially transferred over. Congratulations!
Traditionally,
PDF documents are uploaded to your media bank in WordPress and then linked
through a “Download Now” button. Because PDFs are not images, the WordPress
editor is not able to display the PDF directly on the page or post.
If
you try to embed a PDF by uploading the PDF into your media bank, and then
selecting that PDF to insert into a page or post, you will see a blank image
representing the PDF.
Selecting
the PDF will only provide the title in your text editor. There will be no image
and no PDF link. Simply put, it doesn’t work.
But
there is a way to display PDFs on your WordPress website with a handy plugin.
How to embed PDFs in
your WordPress Post
Navigate
to the backend of your WordPress dashboard and go to your plugins page. Click
“Add New” to search the WordPress repository, and conduct a search for “PDF Embedder”.
Click
the “Install Now” button next to PDF Embedder (there are other options, make
sure to select the correct title!) and after it has finished downloading,
activate the plugin.
PDF
Embedder has “Activate and Go” capabilities, meaning it isn’t necessary to edit
the settings or copy shortcode for this plugin to work. You’re ready to add
your PDFs directly to your website! And it’s as easy as adding media.
Using the embedder with
the classic editor
Create
a new page or post and select the “Add Media” tab.
Just
as would with a normal image, select the PDF from the media bank or upload it.
When you are done with the selection, a piece shortcode will be automatically
created and populated within the text editor.
Most
likely, you won’t be able to see the image in your editor. But if you save the
post as a draft or publish it, you will be able to see it on the front end.
Voila!
The PDF will automatically resize to fit the container where it is placed.
To
change the sizing, you can find the plugin’s settings in your dashboard under
“Settings”.
In
the PDF Embedder settings, you can change the width or height of the PDF
display. This will change the dimensions for all PDFs embedded with this
plugin.
Changing
the width to 300 and keeping the height set to max will yield this result:
If
you would rather not change the universal settings, you can alternatively
manipulate height or width by editing the shortcode directly. This way, only
the PDF you’re working on is affected.
You
can find more shortcode manipulations for PDF Embedder here.
Using the embedder with
the new block editor
In
the new block editor or with builders such as Divi, you can create columns and
blocks with definitive widths set so that you don’t need to edit the size of
the PDF.
In
your new post, set the columns and blocks as you would like the post to appear.
Within the chosen column where you want to embed a PDF, click “Add Block”.
The
block editor will provide an option for PDF Embedder as its own block. Select
this option.
You
will then see “Click Here” text to insert your media.
The
PDF Embedder settings are set to max size, but the PDF will display perfectly
to fit the max width of that specific container.
Embedding a multi-page
PDF
The
PDF Embedder handles this for you and there are no additional steps that need
to be taken. Once the PDF has been embedded, only the first page will show. But
if you hover over the PDF on the front end, directional tabs will appear at the
bottom, enabling the user to easily flip through the pages within the
container.
And
that’s it! Not so terribly tough, is it? We hope this article helped you!
If you have your domain registered with
GoDaddy and a hosting account with BlueHost, you do not need to transfer domain
ownership to Bluehost. In fact, it’s highly advisable that you keep your
domains and hosting accounts separate in order to minimize loss in the event of
account corruption or disruption.
To use your GoDaddy domain and build
on a BlueHost hosting account, you must change the nameservers of your domain
to point to your Bluehost account.
Step One: Copy and paste the
BlueHost nameserver details
Take note of the Bluehost nameservers. They
are:
NS1.bluehost.com
NS2.bluehost.com
Step Two: Change the
nameservers on GoDaddy
Log into your GoDaddy account and go to your
products page. Under the Domains heading, select “DNS” next to the domain you
want to point to BlueHost.
Scroll down to the Nameservers heading and
click “Change”.
You will be given the option to choose your
Nameserver type. Default is the option set for hosting on GoDaddy. To change
your nameserver destination, you’ll need to select “Custom”.
Enter the nameservers for Bluehost, copied
from above, and then click “Save”.
Step Three: Make sure the
domain is entered in your BlueHost account
**Note** It usually takes a full
24 hours for nameserver DNS propagation from the GoDaddy servers. Therefore,
you might not be able to work with your new site under your domain for a full
day.
Option One: If you set your
up Bluehost account with the domain name in question, you won’t need to add it
again. Build your site, if you haven’t already, within the /public_html file.
Option Two: If this domain
is new to your BlueHost account, you will need to add the domain as an “Addon”
domain.
Navigate to “Domains” in your BlueHost
account.
Next, select “Assign a domain to your cPanel
account”.
Enter the domain that is not already
associated with the account. Do not use the http:// or www headers.
BlueHost will analyze the domain and verify
ownership by checking to see if the nameservers on GoDaddy have been properly
set to the above BlueHost nameservers. Since you have done this already,
verification will be complete.
Under Step 3, make sure “Addon Domain” is
selected.
Step 4 will ask you to choose your Addon and
subdomain directories. It will automatically assign and create a directory
based on the name of the domain you entered. As long as you are okay with this
creation, click “Assign this Domain”. Otherwise, you can enter a different
folder name.
You are done! It’s a good practice to wait a
full day before beginning your build or working with the website after a
nameserver change. This is only due to the delay in full nameserver change
propagation which is typically completed in 24 hours.
With the ever-expanding reach of the Internet and an audience of web
surfers that continues to grow on a minute-by-minute basis, you can still
easily make money by niche blogging. You don’t have to start with a huge
following or be famous to attain a reasonable, money-making digital reach.
There are only three things that are required. The three Ps of
blogging:
1. Passion
2. Patience
3. Perseverance
Passion: Don’t pick a blog topic on the basis of profitability alone. Select
an appropriate niche for you. What do you love? What consumes your thoughts?
What topic do you annoy your friends with the most? If you find a niche
involving your passion, you’ll never run out of topics to write about.
Patience: Realizing profit from blogging takes time. It
will never be instantaneous. It takes time and effort to develop an audience
and organic traffic through a healthy relationship with search engines,
otherwise known as SEO.
Perseverance: Haven’t made a dime after a month? Don’t give
up! Keep developing content, keep to a regular schedule, and have fun while
doing it. If you build it, ‘they’ will
come.
So what is a blog ‘niche’, anyway?
A blog niche is a smaller, more defined category or market segment.
Examples:
Main category: Dogs Niche category: Dog training
Main category: Book Reviews Niche category: Contemporary Young Adult Fiction
Main category: Hollywood Gossip Niche category: Arrested A-listers
The perfect niche for you could be absolutely anything – the
possibilities are endless! Think about what you love, where your passion is.
Then take that idea, and narrow it down a little further. You could whittle it
down based on geography or to a subcategory within your passion, or both.
If you think there wouldn’t be any interest in your field of choice,
you would be wrong. No matter how prosaic or boring you think your passion
might be to others, there will be a surplus of web surfers out there who will
manage to find your musings. And you, in your little corner of the massive
World Wide Web, may just be the one to inspire and engage on this front.
There are also ways to organically
capture and drive traffic to your blog with surfers who wouldn’t have ended up
there ordinarily – but we’ll get into that later.
The 10 Most Profitable Blog Topics
Naturally, there are blog categories that are more profitable than
others. This doesn’t mean that you should jump into one of these categories.
However, if your passion involves any of these ‘biggies’, you might want to
consider using a part of that theme in your niche selection.
Each of these categories has a number of topics that can be
extrapolated and developed.
1. How to Make Money Online
This is the obvious number one money-making blog category, aptly and
hilariously so. This article serves as a niche in this very category: making
money from home by niche blogging.
Successful Niche Example: Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse teaches people how to run a successful money-making blog on his site ProBlogger, and rakes in an estimated $40,000 per month in doing so.
Darren Rowse took the main theme of making money online and turned it into a niche by showing people how to earn an income online through blogging. His success is stunning and only proves that niche blogging certainly does pad the bank account.
2. Personal Finance
This category isn’t about making money, but about money and asset
management. It can be broken down further into investing, currency, budgeting,
saving, and other aspects of personal finance.
Successful Niche Example: Rosemarie
Groner
Rosemarie Groner’s successful money and household budgeting blog called Busy Budgeter brings in an estimated $86,000 per month, give or take.
Groner took the main category of personal finance and helmed a niche
blog on family budgeting geared toward disorganized people. It was the perfect
gap filler that she now dominates.
3. Health and Fitness
New fitness and diet fads, healthy living, and online weight loss
venues are all the rage.
Successful Niche Example: Jessica
Castaneda
Jessica’s fitness blog Easy Living Today is positively attractive, and she’s bringing in a reported $20,000 per month by staying active in life and on the keyboard.
She began a blog within the main category of health and fitness and
narrowed it down to her niche of meal planning, especially for busy moms. It
was a home run of an idea.
4. Recipes
How many times have you looked up recipes online? A recipe site
along with its numerous recipe and food niches can bring in plenty of traffic.
Successful Niche Example: Jennifer
Debth
Jennifer Debth’s website and blog called Show Me the Yummy pulls in a whopping $46,000 per month.
Jennifer began a blog in the main category of recipes, and then made
a niche for herself by creating and posting “easy” recipes. Because of this
strategy, she dominates the search engine results with listings for easy
recipes.
5. Beauty and Fashion
Again, the possibilities are endless. From make-up tutorials to
hairstyle directions to before-and-afters, to clothes design or reviews,
anything goes!
Successful Niche Example: Chiara
Ferragni
Chiara’s fashion blog The Blonde Salad has been running for ten years and has turned into a monster. Her own fashion brand and website brings in an estimated $200,000 per month.
Chiara began a beauty and fashion blog with a high emphasis on
making her own identity and brand stick out. By doing so, she became a top
influencer in fashion years ago.
6. Personal Development
Otherwise known as life coaching, this category draws in the crowds.
I’m sure you can already think of a few people off the top of your head who are
life coaches or gurus dedicated to self-improvement and achieving happiness.
Successful Niche Example: Gina
Trapani
A simple site dedicated to life hacks, Gina Trapani’s site Life Hacker is reported to bring in $110,000 per month.
This personal development site filled a great niche with simple, fun
life hacks. These tidbits of wisdom are perfect for sharing, and she went
viral.
7. Arts and Crafts
Widely-searched and investigated, DIY arts and crafts sites score a
ton of traffic.
Successful Niche Example: Abby Lawson
Abby Lawson’s site is a mix of home organization and decorating that people have come to know and love. Her site brings in an estimated $41,000 per month.
Abby began a blog in the arts and crafts category but truly narrowed
it down to focus on organization and home decorating crafts for families and
moms. She owns the area now!
8. Parenting
As the population grows, so do the number of people entering
parenthood. First-timers gravitate toward parenting wisdom in droves.
Successful Niche Example: Heather B.
Armstrong
This personal blog isn’t so much about parenting but involves
motherhood with some snark and comical attitude. Heather Armstrong’s blog Dooce brings in an estimated $50,000 per month.
Armstrong began a blog in the parenting category and infused it with
her own brand of humor, distinguishing herself from other mommy blogs easily.
9. Travel
Travel blogs capture traffic from all types of users. People do
their research before taking a vacation or traveling to a location for work.
They might just find your content!
Successful Niche Example: Heather and
Pete Reese
Mr. and Mrs. Reese run a family travel blog called It’s a Lovely Life. The money they make from the blog supports their traveling lifestyle. Imagine making around $170,000 per month just from a blog – because they do!
The Reeses ventured into the travel blogging category, and emerged
with their own particular niche of traveling with the family and with kids.
10. Marketing
Advertising has primarily moved from paper to digital, with the
latter offering a larger variety of ways to market a business such as email
marketing, website design, landing pages, pay-per-click ads, and more.
Successful Niche Example: Neil Patel
Neil Patel is one of the most prolific and successful bloggers in the history of blogging and he focuses on website marketing. He’s publicized his own earnings of over $350,000 per month.
Mr. Patel began a blog in the marketing category and owned his own
niche with online marketing. A very successful move.
How Can You Find a Great Niche?
If you’re looking to make money online, which you surely are, the
blog niche should be profitable. You
want to find a niche that has the potential for making money. At the same time,
this niche should be something you know a lot about, something you’re
passionate about and be within an area where you would contribute to the
community through depth of knowledge.
It might seem like a tall order, but we have some steps you can take
to help find your perfect blog niche.
Pick something you love to talk about
If you love to talk about it, you probably know a lot about the
subject. It is fundamentally imperative that your chosen subject is something
you love to discuss because you’ll be writing up articles on the subject on a
regular basis, hopefully daily. When people are out of fresh ideas, that’s when
they drop the ball and stop posting on their blog. And if they’re not posting,
they’re not making any money.
You don’t have to be an absolute expert by any means. The passion
you imbue into your posts is what makes the real difference. Each topic should
be something you’re absolutely excited about. Your excitement will be
contagious and your post will stimulate dialogue. That’s what you want!
Do Market Research
The subject you pick should have a steady amount of interest and
there are a few ways to determine online interest level.
Visit Google Trends and search
for your term using a five-year analysis.
For example, let’s say you wanted to enter the recipe category and narrow it
down to healthy dessert recipes. Running a check on ‘Healthy Desserts’ yields
the type of chart you want to see.
The numbers on the left are not the number of searches completed,
but the interest level on a scale of 0-100. What you want to see for interest
is a steady interest in the middle. In this case, ‘Healthy Desserts’ provides a
great opportunity for a niche blog.
If you receive a chart that appears to be declining over time,
you’ll want to try another topic. Another type of chart to avoid is one the
varies wildly and often hits zero.
As you can see, the subject peaks regularly during the holidays but
spends most of its time near the bottom. A term yielding these results would be
difficult to monetize.
Take a look at the competition
You can get a great idea of the competition you’ll face with a Google search. Conduct a search and see what results come up. Once again, we’ll use the ‘Healthy Desserts’ key term.
There are a couple of things you’ll want to take into consideration
on the search results.
The first is the number of results pulled at the very top. This
example shows 570 million results. That’s your competition and it’s quite a
large number. This doesn’t mean there are 570 million website competitors, but
rather pages, many belonging to the same website.
If you scroll down to look at the top results, we find that most of
the results reveal an article based on this topic, but not a website itself. So
if you were to start a blog called Healthy Desserts, there is potential to run
the search engine results because keywords in a domain name have more search
engine power than in an article title.
So far, ‘Healthy Desserts’ is looking good.
However, if you find too much direct competition, you can break this
topic down even further by doing a related search. Scroll down to the bottom of
the search results, and you’ll find searches related to ‘Healthy Desserts’.
“Easy Healthy Desserts’ or ‘Healthy Desserts for Kids’ are possible
contenders.
The next step is to see how many monthly searches are conducted for your search term. Head on over to Google’s Keyword Planner and navigate to ‘Keyword Ideas’.
Conduct a search for your niche idea’s key term. Again, we will try ‘Healthy Desserts’.
Perfect results. This is what you’re looking for. I think we may
have inadvertently discovered a blog niche with amazing potential.
The results show high monthly searches of 10k – 100k. This is an
enormous amount of potential traffic. Better yet, the competition is low. This
competition relates to PPC advertising.
Try a few different variations to find your best possible niche.
Test Profitability
The goal is to make money. You can easily see if your niche idea is
profitable by investigating ads placed for your key terms. If companies are
shelling out money to advertise on Google, the site is making money from the
placement of these ads.
Your main term may be too broad for PPC ads, but if you find ads
placed under related searches, your niche is likely profitable. Otherwise,
companies wouldn’t be paying for ads based on those key terms.
If companies are paying for ads within your niche subject, they’ll
pay for ads on your site. That’s how you monetize. That’s the end game. You can
use Amazon Adsense or profit with affiliate marketing or a combination of both.
Common Mistakes Made by New Bloggers Looking for a Topic
There are a few common pitfalls many first-time bloggers fall into
while trying to find the perfect blog niche.
Forcing or searching for your passion
Let’s face it, not everyone has something they are absolutely and
utterly devoted to. If you are not sure what your passion is, don’t force it.
Because that’s not passion.
Being passionate about something happens over the years. That
yearning and burning about a particular topic is a drive that is developed over
time, and not suddenly discovered.
While you may not have this devoted passion, you likely have a deep
interest in something. Maybe many things. Starting a blog and blogging about
that topic will help develop that passion we’re talking about.
But the wrong thing to do is go searching for it. As I said before,
it’s not something to be discovered or awakened within. It is something you
cultivate over time.
Choosing a category that is too broad
If your category is far too broad, fewer searches will find your
blog posts. You’ll be drowned in a sea of competitors and related searches. And
there will be nothing to set you apart.
If your subject material is too broad, you’ll fail to motivate a
large enough crowd. Without motivation, you won’t gather a regular audience.
This is why it is truly important to whittle down your blogging idea into a
smaller, more profitable niche.
Shying away from competition
Healthy competition is great in a free market society. Competition
keeps prices low, improves quality, provides choice, inspires innovation, and
encourages all participants to do better
in general.
Don’t be frightened of the competition. If you discover a great
niche with plenty of traffic and there is another blogging competitor out
there, don’t toss the idea simply because you think, “Oh, I’ll never capture traffic with that competitor.” If the search
traffic is there, you will capture your fair share.
You can also learn from your competition. By studying your
competitor, you can see what works and possibly improve upon the idea. This is
how competition generally makes us better.
Not blogging regularly
A profitable blog niche doesn’t pick up and fall off over and over
with days and weeks between posts. A successful blogger makes an editorial
calendar and sticks with it. You should post daily, Monday through Friday.
If you find yourself lapsing between posts and going longer and longer
between each one, your blog is going to fail. It can be difficult to find new
and interesting topics to post, but do your best. Each piece doesn’t need to be
worthy of a Pulitzer. You can throw in some light-hearted and quick posts. Just
as long as you keep blogging!
Choosing a blog niche based on profitability alone
While you want to be profitable, if you know absolutely nothing
about the topic but jump right on in for the profit potential, it’s not going
to work. For many reasons.
Your articles and blog posts need to be good. They need to be
passionate. If you know squat about the subject, it won’t do very well at all.
Readers will know that you’re a poseur.
You’ll also find it incredibly difficult to come up with topics to
write about. If you’re not knowledgable or passionate about the subject, you
won’t be inspired to write. Your blog posts will drop off and you’ll eventually
give up.
Not defining your Unique Selling Point
Your USP (Unique Selling Point) is what defines you and sets you
apart from the competition. What makes you different? What makes you special?
Why should your audience pay attention to you instead of that other guy?
Your USP can be based on a number of things. It can be based on your
credentials, your personality, your humor or lack thereof, your knowledge, and
your style.
Also, the way you deliver your information and blog posts is a large
slice of the USP pie. What’s your style?
Summary
Remember the three Ps of
blogging:
1. Passion
2. Patience
3. Perseverance
Definition: A blog niche is a smaller subcategory
within a larger, broad category. It could be a subcategory or a subcategory.
The ten most profitable
blog categories:
1) How to make money online
2) Personal Finance
3) Health and Fitness
4) recipes
5) Beauty and Fashion
6) Personal Development
7) Arts and Crafts
8) Parenting
9) Travel
10) Marketing
To find a great niche, you should pick a top you’re genuinely
excited about, one you love to discuss. Do the market research and check for
keyword trends, competition, and search volume. Also, make sure that your niche
has profit potential!
There are plenty of places you can visit online to register a domain, but its best to stick with one of the big ones trusted by millions. There have been hundreds upon hundreds of domain registrars over the years that popped up and fizzled out. If you purchase a domain name on a lesser known online venue, you risk the chance of losing your domain name permanently if that registrar sinks. Avoid the risk by utilizing a mainstream domain name registrar.
Bluehost is my favorite domain registrar, because when you order a web hosting package your domain registration is free. Since you will need web hosting to get your website online anyhow, you might as well take advantage of this freebie.
If you already have web hosting, or just don’t need it at this time, then
Pros
? Its
Inexpensive. There are some domain name registrations
as low as $1.99 per year. These are variants of the .com or.net URLs. The .com
URL registrations are only $11.99 per year.
? A Free Domain! If you purchase one of their many hosting packages (which start at $2.75 per month), you are entitled to one free year of domain name registration. More info on the hosting packages here.
? Standard
Easy-to-Use Tools. The domain interface includes
domain forwarding, DNS management, and transfer lock at the click of a button.
? Auto-Renewal. Easily switch your domain to auto-renewal to prevent domain
registration lapses. You can easily change it back to manual renewal if you
would like to let the domain expire.
? Domain
Lock. This free option prevents unauthorized transfers
of your domain. Your domains are automatically set to locked upon purchase. You will need to unlock your domains in Bluehosts domain interface in order to initiate a transfer.
Cons
? Additional Cost for Privacy Protection. Upon domain registration, there is also the added but optional cost of privacy protection for the WHOIS domain database.
? No
Free SSL. Bluehost doesnt offer free SSL certificates
with a domain name purchase. They do, however, offer a free WordPress SSL if
you have a specific type of hosting plan. Otherwise, the SSL certificates are
the normal rates of around $75 – $100 per year.
Domain.com has been around since the year 2000 and was one of the very first registrars in existence. It holds a large percentage of the worlds registered domain names and is considered one of the safest places to register.
Pros
? Its
Inexpensive. There are some domain name registrations
as low as $2.99 per year. These are variants of the .com or.net URLs. The .com
URL registrations are only $9.99 per year.
? Free
SSL. Every domain name registration gets a free SSL
certificate which is normally quite pricey. Most hosting companies charge $75 –
$100 for a standard SSL certificate and implementation. Be aware that the free
SSL certificate is only valid if you host on their platform.
? Standard
Easy-to-Use Tools. The domain interface includes email
and domain forwarding, DNS management, and transfer lock at the click of a
button.
? Auto-Renewal. Easily switch your domain to auto-renewal to prevent a domain
registration lapse. You can easily change it back to manual renewal and/or let
it expire.
? Domain
Lock. This free option prevents unauthorized transfers
of your domain, a classic and nefarious mode of Internet property theft. Note
that domain lock is not automatically turned on when you purchase a domain at
Domain.com. You must manually activate the product they term NameSafe in the security section of
your domain management console.
Cons
? Additional
Cost for Privacy Protection. Upon domain registration,
there is also the added but optional cost of privacy protection for the WHOIS
domain database. Other registrars provide this freely in their domain
interface.
GoDaddy
Ever since the infamous GoDaddy
name jumped onto the scene with its sexy and controversial ads, it became an
instant mogul in the registrar business. Since then, it has also risen to the
top for website hosting, creating a one-stop shop for website setup. GoDaddy is
another great place to call home for your domain.
Pros
? Its
Inexpensive. While .com variations of a URL will cost
you slightly more than Domain.com at $11.99, other versions such as .online or
.club will only cost you $0.99 for a yearly registration fee.
? Domain
bundles. When you choose your URL, youre offered
bundles of the same URL with different extensions at 67% of the cost. This is a
great opportunity for trademarked business names. This includes the .net, .org,
and .info variations – the next top three domain extensions.
? Privacy
Protection Included. Your name, address, phone number,
and email remain private in the public WHOIS directory. Extra privacy can be
purchased at an additional charge which prevents third parties from accessing
your sensitive information.
? Instant
Website Start. You can start your website for free on
a limited website builder. This a great option to have handy if you need an
immediate web presence.
? Standard
Easy-to-Use Tools. The domain interface includes email
and domain forwarding, DNS management, and transfer lock at the click of your
mouse.
? Auto-Renewal. Easily switch your domain to auto-renewal to prevent domain
registration lapses. With GoDaddy, your domains will automatically be set to
auto-renewal upon purchase. You can turn off auto-renewal to let the domain
expire.
? Domain
Lock. This free option prevents unauthorized transfers
of your domain. Your domain is automatically locked against transfer when you
purchase the domain. If you would like to transfer the domain to a new
registrar or new ownership, you will have to unlock the domain in the GoDaddy
console.
Cons
? Website Builder is Only free for a Month. The instant website builder
is only a trial and the true per month cost is not displayed upon checkout.
Thankfully, it is inexpensive with four plans to choose from starting at $5.99
per month. But if you dont cancel or modify your order before the first month
is through, you will automatically be charged on a monthly basis.
? No
Free SSL. There is no free SSL upon domain name
registration. However, GoDaddy offers a free temporary standard URL with some
web hosting packages..
Namecheap
Namecheap is another wildly popular domain
registrar that offers domains, hosting, security, and managed WordPress
hosting.
Pros
? Its
Inexpensive. The .com URL extensions are only $10.98
for yearly registration, sometimes coming down to $8.88 during regular
incentivized specials.
? A
Very Inexpensive Website Builder. Namecheap offers
website hosting PLUS a website builder at only $2.88 per month when you
purchase a domain through them, which is insanely cheap. Hence the name?
? Free
Privacy Protection. Namecheap touts the offer of free
privacy protection now and forever. All you have to do is visit their WhoisGuard
page and click Activate Now.
? Standard
Easy-to-Use Tools. The domain interface includes email
and domain forwarding, DNS management, and transfer lock at the click of a
button.
? Auto-Renewal. Easily switch your domain to auto-renewal to prevent domain
registration lapses. You can easily change it back to manual renewal and/or let
the domain expire.
? Domain
Lock. This free option prevents unauthorized transfers
of your domain. Your domain is automatically locked against transfer when you
purchase the domain. If you would like to transfer the domain to a new
registrar or new ownership, you will have to unlock the domain in the Namecheap
console.
Cons
? No
Free SSL. While the SSL certificate for your new
domain isnt free, Namecheap only charges $3.88 per year, which is a far cry
from the normal price gouge of $100 per year still held by many hosting
companies.
? Email
Is an Additional Fee. Namecheap offers two free months
of private email under your new domain name. After that, you must sign up for a
subscription. Even the hosting plans do not come with included email.
We hope this breakdown of the best domain
registrars helps you make a decision. Either way, you cant go wrong with the
top registrars in the business. Each one is unique in their own way, and each
one is affordable.
Do you have a different favorite domain registrar? Tell
us who and why in the comments below.