Work Ever

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Discovering your blog’s subject is going to be the most important step you take, as it will determine a few of the next steps, and ultimately, how easy it will be to make a few extra bucks along the way. Pick something no one cares about, and it will be a long road. In picking your subject, you need to follow a few simple steps:

• Pick something you are interested in
• Pick something others are interested in
• Pick something that can make you money

Simple, three easy steps. Now, how do you go about doing this?

Pick something you are interested in

Make sure the subject you choose interests you, and you are familiar enough with it to be able to carry on an educated conversation about it, before doing any research. No need to be a well respected expert, just something you are familiar with. You will be spending time researching and writing about this subject for some time to come, it better be of interest to you.

I started a site not too long ago on netbooks. They are super hot right now, the fastest growing niche in technology. I see them outselling traditional laptops by 2010. A huge market. Problem is, I know nothing about them, and honestly, don’t care to learn. I am a mac guy at heart, have been since 1984. Apple doesn’t produce a netbook (yet). Before going too far, I scraped the site, but kept the domain just in case things change. I really should learn to follow my own rules.

Ok, one step down, time to write a list. Take out a piece of paper, list 5 – 10 things that you are interested in. Write as many as you can. Rank them, based on your interest in the subject. Here is my list:

1. iPods
2. MacBooks
3. Major League Soccer
4. Maui
5. Antique Watches

Yep, strange list, I agree. OK, good, hopefully you have a list too. On to the next step.

Pick something others are interested in

This is important to understand, the more people who are interested in your subject, the greater chance there is of making some decent money. If the only thing you are interested in is antique lawn sprinklers, I am sure there are a few others out there with the same passion, but the opportunity to make some extra money is slim to none.

My preferred method of finding out if others might be interested in my subject is to do a keyword search. I want to find out how many people are searching Google and other sites for my subject. If the number is high, chances are I have a winner.

Keyword Search Tool

or

Google KeyWord Tool

In checking your subjects, look at similar results that may fall in the same category. So when I am looking at iPods, I can include iPod Touch, iPod Nano, etc. in my results. Here are the daily search totals for my list:

1. iPods – 45,000
2. MacBooks – 3,000
3. Major League Soccer – 200
4. Maui – 2,000
5. Antique Watches – 200

Ok, none are too bad. How does your list look? Obviously, the iPods stands out above the crowd. Very high daily search results. My guess is the competition is pretty tough too. MacBooks and Maui are not bad, high enough to interest me. Major League Soccer and Antique Watches are pretty low, but I will keep them on my list just in case. If something on your list has very low results, less than 50, try searching similar terms to see if that makes any difference. If the totals are really low, consider scratching those off of your list.

Pick something that can make you money

Ah, money. That is why we are here, isn’t it? We aren’t blogging for fun, we are blogging for dollars. A good way to get a feel on whether a subject will be profitable or not is to take a look at Google Adwords bids for your subjects.

Google Adwords Traffic Estimator

Enter your keywords, you can do them all at one time. Leave the bid amount (#2 and #3) blank, and select United States for #4c. Go ahead and click continue to get your results. The results will give you an idea of what people are paying, per click in adwords, to advertise their websites. Here are my results:

1. iPods – $.87 – $1.30
2. MacBooks – $1.61 – $2.01
3. Major League Soccer – $1.11 – $1.40
4. Maui – $1.56 – $2.02
5. Antique Watches – $0.49 – $0.61

OK, pretty good, but not great. Antique Watches has low traffic and low prices, off the list. Major League Soccer has pretty decent prices, but low traffic, so also off the list. So, here is my remaining list I will take with me to my next step.

1. iPods
2. MacBooks
3. Maui

I hope you have a nice, narrowed down list. On to choosing a domain name for your blog.