1. People are looking for information on the topic
2. That there are genuine buyers and not just freebie seekers
3. That there are actual products that you can sell or be an affiliate for. 

1. KEYWORD RESEARCH

Initially, you’ll do your keyword research.  That is, identifying a possible niche and running it through Market Samurai to see if it’s got potential.  You want a keyword that has a decent number of people searching for it (so your new site gets traffic) but also doesn’t have too much competition.

2. MONETIZATION

Next, we ensure that the niche can be properly monetized.  Are there products you can create and sell, or simply affiliate with, within the niche?  If not, the niche is dead and we should move on to another.

To check that a niche can be monetized, we can use the “Monetization” Module inside Market Samurai.

We can also do a Google search and see if any of the top results or Adwords ads displayed on the right have affiliate programs.

Checking sources like Clickbank, Datafeedr, Ebay, Amazon, Commission Junction and ShareASale can identify further affiliate opportunities.

You want to have a laundry list of products you can sell on your site, so when it’s time to build, you know you have an offer for site visitors.

Also, make sure the products you’re identifying are a tight match for the keyword you identified with Market Samurai.  If you identify people as searching for “How to make your own soap,” you don’t want  attempt to sell them a candle making kit.  Yes, people interested in making their own soap might well be interested in making their own candles too, but it’s not a perfect message-to-market match.  You need a perfect match from what your users are searching for and what you’re selling to encourage sales.

3. SOCIAL MEDIA BUZZ

Checking the social media buzz for a niche serves two purposes:

1. Ensuring that people are talking about your niche.  If they’re not, it’s dead.  People must be interested enough in it to talk about it, otherwise they’re probably not buying.
2. Give you a point of entry to use social media marketing in your campaign.  Checking the buzz allows you to identify the social media sites, forums, blogs etc. that are most active within your niche.  When it’s time to promote and build links, you’ll already know the hotspots for your niche.

You can go to each social media site individually and use the search function to check if there’ buzz, but that’s tedious.  Plus, it leaves out blogs and forums, which can be a huge source of conversation and potential traffic.

Instead, use the service WhosTalkin.  You simply search for your keyword and you’ll get a look across all kinds of social media platforms where people are sharing images, articles, thoughts, videos and chatter.  Plus, it gives you an RSS feed for your search so you can subscribe to it in Google Reader and catch everything people are saying within the niche and respond to it once your site is up.

Another place to check is SocialMention.  While this service isn’t as comprehensive as WhosTalkin, it gives you a look, in the sidebar, of the reach, passion, positive & negative percentages and top users talking about your topic.

4. TOPIC TRENDING

You don’t want to climb on a niche bandwagon when it’s just about to die.  So check with Google Trends and Google Insights to identify any patterns in your niche.  Does it peak at certain times? Is it generally climbing upwards or downwards?  Where is it right now in relation to where it’s been in the past?

Don’t beat a dead horse (or niche).  If it’s time in the spotlight has ended, take a pass on it and find another niche with a longer lifespan.

5. VERTICALS & RELATED MARKETS

You may have identified other related markets (that may be more profitable, or could provide you with other categories, topics or subtopics for your site).  We’ll investigate those further to ensure we’ve covered all our bases in our keyword research.  Simply follow the tips above for any related markets, keywords, niches or sub-niches you’ve found.

To identify additional related markets, check with the following sites:

• Keyword Spy
• SpyFu
• SEMRush

With each of the above resources, you’ll be able to get an idea of the advertising spend in the market, as well as other, related keywords you can look into further.

For many businesses, it’s already happening. Here’s the top 11 ways things have changed.

How does this affect your business?

Are you looking at your marketing strategies to move with this shift in society?

Remember that this does not just effect the Internet Marketing businesses. All offline businesses that have a web presence will also be effected.

Do you think there is a business opportunity there……hmmmm

Good niche and keyword research is necessary for affiliate marketing success.  By determining what peoples’ problems are, and if they are a buying market, you can continue on to do the research needed to set up a successful, profitable business.  By performing in-depth niche and keyword research, you can often find long-tail keywords and phrases that are far less competitive, which allows you to make money with much less effort.

If you start out in a very competitive field, you will work yourself to death trying to make money, which is likely to cause you to burn out quickly.  This often results in people giving up before they really have a chance to succeed.

By doing careful research, you can find keywords and phrases that allow you to rank your website or blog high in the rankings much easier, meaning targeted traffic will easily find you.  Some affiliates market products without a blog, site, or email list, but this makes people finding you much more difficult.

Writing articles, blogging, using social media, and forum marketing are all great strategies that will help lead to affiliate marketing success; but be sure to research your niche thoroughly before you jump in blindly.  It will save you much hard work and frustration, and increase your chances of success tremendously!

Research, research and research.

Just remember that there are many tools out there to help you with your research, some are free, cost cost only a few hundred dollars and others can cost you thousands a year. Again, research and ask questions from others on places like the Warrior Forum, and get their opinion on softeare before you commit yourself to the expense.

Some of my personal favourites are Micro Niche Finder and Market Samauri.

So don’t go jumping in blindly and wasting your time and money on a niche that just won’t make you any money. Do your research and you won’t look back.

Blogs then evolved to become excellent Marketing Tools as well as a medium to make money off of. There are a few different ways to earn income from blogging. Here are a few:

• Adsense ads- The popular search engines offer a way to earn a little extra money with any blog or website. The idea is to place these ads on your site and when a visitor clicks on an ad from your site, you earn a pre-determined amount of money. The more clicks you can get from your site visitors, the more you can make. There are some rules, so if you choose to go this route, be sure to learn what not to do before signing up for their programs.
• Product Reviews- There are some websites that you can sign up with that can help you connect with other companies who need people to review their products and get them some exposure on your blogs. Usually the main requirement for this is to have a blog that’s been around for awhile and has a fair amount of visitors. Those companies would pay you a specified amount to review their product on your blog.
• Contextual Links- Some business or website owners will pay a blogger to post one of their links within their blog posts. It may be the owners themselves contacting the blog author or a company that acts as the middleman. Those businesses will find blogs that relate to their companies sites, so the links provided on the blogs will be search engine friendly. This is a great way to earn some extra traffic for a site.
• Sell products- Blogs are another way you can sell your own products from. Those who have businesses selling home décor items or food container items use blogs a lot to help sell their products and make more money online.

What skills would be helpful?

There isn’t much skill involved in this type of business except the ability to market your blog. You would want to research blogging as much as possible to learn some of the tricks of the trade to get your blog popular.

What Tools would be needed?

Your main tool, besides a computer with an internet connection, would be a blog. There are many blogging programs out there to choose from. Some are free to set up with, while others require a monthly or annual fee to get started with.

The paid versions of blogging programs can help you connect with other blogs and increase your blog’s traffic. The free versions are extremely easy to set up and most are extremely popular amongst bloggers, so finding people to connect with wouldn’t be too hard to do.

How to get started?

Sign up with a blogging program and start posting entries to it. Make sure you’re blogging on a regular basis, which would be about 2 times a week. Blogs that aren’t updated regularly tend to get lost in cyberspace.

Market your blog as much as possible. Get listed on blog directories, get on other people’s blog rolls and comment on other blog author’s posts to get some exposure to your blog. The more traffic you can drive to your blog, the higher your chance of making blogging a lucrative way to make money.

Most of the blogging programs will have a sign up for adsense ads already included in their set up feature, so getting started with that will be easy. If you want to provide product reviews and contextual links, you will want to be blogging for awhile and have a fair amount of traffic coming to it.

When your blog is ready, find the companies that will help you connect with businesses that want to pay to have their products reviewed or have their links embedded with your blog post entries. Once that’s set up, you can start earning some extra income with your blog. 

Blogging is an easy way to earn some extra cash if you plan to work hard at marketing it. The ones successful at blogging for money use every route possible to get their blog well known in the internet communities. The ones that don’t, tend to earn only a few cents a week.

Become one of the more successful bloggers and make your blog your business and not just a hobby to partake in once in awhile. Your pocketbook will thank you for it.

Until next time.