What is your Experience & Expertise? Step 2 Niche Blogging 101


In an earlier post on choosing the right niche for your blog, blogging about your interest was considered key to success in Niche blogging. However, you may have interest in a niche, but do you have the experience required to do justice to the niche? Although with passion you can blog about a topic you have little or no experience in, but experience in a topic makes it easier and fun.

Your experience comes from what you do for a living, where you have been, challenges you have faced, situations you have found yourself, books you have read, movies you have watched, etc. You do not need to go to school to have experience; all you need is to be alive.

So, as long as you are alive there is something you know more than an average person and you can share that with the world through your blog.

The first obvious thing to pick as your experience is your profession, then your course of study in school. However, your best pick is to ask yourself what sort of subjects friends and family usually seek your advice. That tells you what you are really good at.

Are you the go to guy/babe for fashion advice? You can start niche blogging about fashion. Do friends and family always come to you for relationship advice, legal advice, investment advice, advice on gadget to purchase, child care tips, admission tips, etc? Brainstorm and find out what family and friends think you are good in. You can also ask a friend to help.

Your experience can also come from a challenge you faced in the past. There could be thousands, if not millions facing the same challenge and your blog might become their only chance of surmounting the challenge. So, you can start niche blogging about the challenges you have surmounted in the past.

Using the guidelines I have given so far list niches you think you have experience to blog about. However, do not forget the earlier list you made on your interests. If you missed it, you can findout how to know your interest.

Now rank the list of niches you have generated so far from brainstorming your passion (interest) and experience, placing the niches you have both passion and experience for on top, followed by the ones you have passion for but lack experience, and finally the ones you have experience for but lack passion. Keep this scale of preference safe, you will still need it.

Related topics

Labels: ,

Niche Blogging 101: Choosing the Right Niche

In an earlier post, I made a case for niche blogging, I will now try to guide you through the process of choosing the niche that is right for you. Note that the objective when choosing a niche is to find an area with reasonable market potential that you are interested in and have enough experience in. Now let’s go through the key considerations. You may need to keep pencil and paper handy. A notepad on your computer or mobile phone may also be appropriate.

Note however, that if you are starting a blog to boost traffic to your website or to promote your business, your niche should be related to your website or business. If you own a business, your niche blogging should focus on your business. In that case most of the considerations here may not be relevant to you. These considerations are for people starting niche blogging from scratch.

What are your Interests?

Your blog should be about your interest and passion. It should be about a topic you are happy discussing. Your blog should be about something you are passionate about. Passion is very important in blogging because it takes time and energy to build a reputation and make money from blogging and without passion you will certainly give up along the way.

So, if you plan niche blogging it is a good idea to focus in an area of you have interest in. So, find out your passion and interests first.

To discover your passion and interests you need to brainstorm. Ask yourself the following questions:
  • What topics do you regularly discuss about with your friends?
  • What are your hobbies?
  • What type of movies do you watch?
  • What do you spend your money on?
  • What types of books and magazines do you read?
  • What types of websites do you regularly visit?
  • What sort of places do you visit?
Using these questions and more, write down as many niches as possible. You will weed down the list later. Next, we will continue on the process of choosing the right niche for your blog. You can also read my article on the benefits of niche blogging to get the picture.

Related topics

Labels: ,

Benefits of Niche Blogging – Blogs for Online Marketing

Yes there are blogs that are broad and successful like the Nigeria Technology Guide, but they are few. Niche blogging is the recommended route for beginner bloggers and there is a reason for that. It is very hard for an individual to succeed with very broad blogs. Broad blogs succeed if there is a team of bloggers with each blogger focusing on a niche.

Most successful blogs have a clearly defined theme some may be broader than others but there is always a focus. Here are a few benefits of niche blogging:

Easier to build a reputation


Focusing your blog on a clearly defined theme makes it easier for people to associate your blog with the niche making it easier to build your reputation on that niche. This makes it easier to develop and position yourself as an authority in the niche. Remember that one of the conditions for making money from blogging is to have a reputation. So, writing a blog about everything will only delay your progress. So, niche blogging is the way to go.

Build a Loyal Following


Niche blogging makes your blog attractive to visitors who have interest in the niche. For example, a blog about fashion will attract readers interested in fashion. This can lead to a loyal following for your blog, which can guarantee regular visitors to your blog.

Niche blogging will make your blog a focal point for people interested in the niche helping you build reputation and traffic. This will make your blog attractive to advertisers and marketers who are interested in targeting your type of audience. So, niche blogging can make your blog very valuable and relevant for online marketing.

More Search Traffic


Niche blogging does not only help you build reputation with humans, it also helps you build reputation with search engines. Niche blogging will make search engines to associate your blog with the niche, which with time may give you advantage in search terms associated with your niche.

Better ranking for those search terms will improve traffic to your blog

Easier Advertiser Targeting


Niche blogging makes your blog easier for advertisers to target. It also makes it easier to attract advertisers. Since your blog focuses on a clearly defined niche and attract targeted audience via search engines, blogging on a niche makes it is easy for advertisers to decide whether your blog is the right feat.

Niche blogging also attract better targeted Ads on contextual advertising networks like Google Adsense. This leads to more user engagement with Ads on your blog and more money in the bank for you.

Easier to sell Niche products & services

Because your blog is focused on a niche it could become a great marketing platform for selling products or services that will appeal to interest groups in the niche. In fact, the whole point of niche blogging is to create a platform for marketing to a clearly defined audience.

So, if you are starting out in blogging, focus on a clearly defined. Go niche blogging.

Related topics

Labels: , ,

Blogging Misconceptions for Beginners

There are a lot of misconceptions about blogging, below are a few of them. If you are just starting out as a blogger or considering blogging as a business, make sure you understand these misconceptions, as key to success in blogging or any business depends a lot in your understanding of the business model.

In a bid to market e-books and seminars, marketers create some misconceptions about blogging. However, they are just doing their job. Advertising is supposed to be metaphorical, so it is your fault if you buy it completely. Here are some popular misconceptions to get out of the way in your blogging venture.

Blogging is an easy & fast way to make money

A lot of people started blogging because it was marketed to them as a get rich quick method of making money. This has led to a lot of lazy and charlatan bloggers joining the Nigerian bloghood. These lazy bloggers simply copy other people’s content or just scribble very short posts.

The truth is that making money from blogging requires that you build the traffic and reputation of your blog. Doing both takes time. Writing posts on your blog is easy, monetising your blog is easy, building traffic and reputation is the hard part.

Just post a few articles and seat back and watch the money role in

This is another popular misinformation. The truth is that no money will role in with just a few posts. You need to write a new topic each day. You need to promote your posts, manage your blog, respond to comments, share your links on social networking sites, and so on. And you need to do this on a consistent basis.

Making money from blogging is a scam

Because of the way blogging has been wrongly promoted as a get rich quick method of making money, a number of people who have tried and failed in blogging have concluded that blogging is a scam. However, the truth is that people are making money from blogging, yours truly included. Last year, I posted a five figure income (in US Dollars) and I have my eyes set on a six figure income this year. So, don’t be deceived you can make money from blogging but you need to build traffic and reputation first, and that takes time.

Related topics

Labels: ,

How to Create a Blog - Blog Platforms

A blog is a type of website, so creating one will involve some form of web design. Thankfully there are standalone and online blog building software that makes everything easy. These software that simplifies the building of blogs are called blog platforms. You do not have to create a blog from scratch, all you need is to choose a blog platform that meets your unique needs and build your blog with it.

What are Blog Platforms


Blog platforms are software that enable a blogger easily build and manage a blog. They enable you create a blog and also makes writing and editing on your blog very easy. To create a blog with a blog platform, you do not need to know lots about web design technologies like HTML and CSS, though a little knowledge will help.

Blog platforms offer templates that you can easily customise to create a unique look and feel for your blog. While some offer a simple drag and drop or WYSIWYG interface, others will require that you have some knowledge of coding to use them. What all blog platforms will help you do easily is to write, format, and edit your posts, as well as add photos and videos.

What is your Blog Platform Choice


There are many blog platforms, but I will narrow down your choice to two Wordpress and Blogger. Of course, there are others like TypePad and Movable Type, however Blogger and Wordpress are the most popular blog platforms. When choosing a blog platform, you have two choices hosted/online blog platform or a standalone blog platform.

Hosted/Online blog platforms are hosted online. They are a lot easier to use. Using them is as simple as using any other online service like your email or Facebook. They are designed for simplicity and require no knowledge of web technologies. With hosted blog platforms, you do not need to worry about hosting as your blog is hosted free once created.

Hosted blog platforms also offer a free subdomain name, although with a little fee you can use your own domain name for your blog. The only complaint that some bloggers have on hosted blog platforms is that they are less customisable. Hence, bloggers who are customisation freaks often go for standalone blog platforms.

To use a standalone blog platform, you must have a web hosting account, which you will have to pay for. You also need to buy a domain name. You can download the blog platform and install it on the server of your host. However, most hosting services already have blog platforms on their sites all you need is install them. Most of these hosting services provide an easy one click installation for blog platforms.

Setting up and customising a standalone blog platform takes a lot of work and require some knowledge of web technologies, but is worth the effort, because of the flexibility and control they offer. Standalone blog platforms give you more control to customise your blog.

So hosted/online blog platforms offer simplicity and ease of use, but with some limitation on blog customisation, while standalone blog platforms offer limitless possibilities, with some complexities. So, make your choice and create a blog.

Blogger is a hosted/online blog platform while Wordpress is available in hosted/online and standalone blog platform variants.

Related topics

Labels: ,

Traffic & Reputation: a Mountain to Climb for Blogs

Blogging is easy and fun, making money from a blog is also easy. The hard part is building your reputation and traffic. Building your reputation online and building traffic to your blog is the obstacle standing between you and your blogging fame and fortune.

Despite this obvious challenge, most blogging books in the market hype the money making part without showing you how to navigate the challenges. Blogging for Students will do just that. It will show you how to blog successfully and offer techniques for building your traffic and reputation online.

The same techniques that has enabled me gain over 400,000 monthly page views on my blog Nigeria Technology Guide, and over 30,000 Facebook fans, and over 5,000 Twitter followers on its fan pages. The same techniques that has enabled me build a network of online properties that are now nearing 700,000 monthly page views. The very same techniques I will use to increase my online clout in 2012.

The Book is no longer available

Blogging for Students is available for just N1,500. However, if you order the ebook through this blog using the discount code NOM, you will buy it for just N1,300 (over 13% discount). To order the e-book Blogging for Students with the discount code pay N1,300 only to the account provided below and send the discount code with payment details to me. Once I see the discount code, I will know you are qualified for discount.

The ebook is no-longer available for sale

Paschal Okafor
www.naijatechguide.com
Google Plus
www.facebook.com/passyjango
www.twitter.com/passyjango
LinkedIn

Labels: ,

Blogging for Students: Bonus Package

This ebook is no-longer available for sale.

As a bonus when you buy the ebook blogging for students, you get the following:

VIP membership at the forum: No book on blogging will cover everything. Once you buy this book you qualify for VIP membership at my tech forum at naijatechforum.com. There you can ask any questions about blogging and seek advice or clarifications as you go in this your blogging journey. As a VIP I will personally answer your questions and ASAP too. Once you buy the e-book register with the forum and send me your username via email, I will make you a VIP member.

SEO Best practices: although a few of these techniques where covered in the book, I have decided to create a sort of SEO cheat sheet that puts every SEO requirement together to enable you easily ensure your blog is compliant.

Blogging Timetable: As a student, I figured you will need a timetable. This timetable contains daily, weekly, and monthly tasks. This will help you manage your time.

over 50 less competitive niches but potentially profitable: In Nigeria because of the hype surrounding blogging, everyone is crowding the perceived profitable niches like jobs and tech. This is because they see some successful bloggers making money from such niches. But just because another blogger is successful in a niche does not mean you will also be successful.

This over 50 niches list will help you device a niche you can make a name for yourself blogging before the copycats and spoilers wake-up from their slumber.

Conditional Bonus: There is also a final bonus, but this is conditional. I will personally promote the first ten blogs that I like from bloggers that bought this book on this blog using the discount code provided. The promotion includes a free review on my popular blog the Nigeria Technology Guide, which gets over 400,000 monthly page views.

The free review will also be promoted via Nigeria Tech Guide fan pages on Facebook (over 30,000 fans), Twitter (over 5,000 followers), and the tech forum. This promotion is worth thousands of Naira, but you will get it free if you buy this book and come up with an inspirational blog.

Note, it is not the first 10 to buy the book, it is also not the first 10 to submit to me. It is the first 10 blogs submitted to me that I like. The blog must also not be in existence as at the time you bought the book and must draw from ideas in the book. (So that is your student project). The blogger must also build content on the blog for at least 6 weeks before sending their links to me.

Blogging for Students is available for just N1,500. However, if you order the ebook through this blog using the discount code NOM, you will buy it for just N1,300 (over 13% discount). To order the e-book Blogging for Students with the discount code pay N1,300 only to the account provided below and send the discount code with payment details to me. Once I see the discount code, I will know you are qualified for discount.


Your Name
email address
Or any proof of payment


Once I confirm your payment, I will send you the e-book to your email address within 24 hour. Pay before 1pm, get it before 4pm same day.

Paschal Okafor
www.naijatechguide.com
Google Plus
www.facebook.com/passyjango
www.twitter.com/passyjango
LinkedIn

Labels: ,

Who Should Buy Blogging for Students

Blogging for student is for individuals with different levels of blogging experience. From the absolute beginner to up and coming bloggers. For some it is a good introductory book on building successful blogs, to others it is a good reference book on blogging.

This ebook is no-longer available for sale.

Blogging for Students is written specifically for the following category of individuals:
  • Absolute beginners to blogging, who may or may not have heard of blogging, but want to learn the ropes of blogging from someone who actually blogs
  • The struggling blogger, who jumped into blogging because of the hype and is now about to drown in the waters of blogging disappointment. Do not give-up until you have read this book. It might just be the lifebuoy you desperately need.
  • Upcoming bloggers who need new ideas to recharge their blogging
  • Business owners, Marketers, PR People, who are looking for an effective tool for promoting their products and services online
This e-book is not for people who consider themselves experts in Blogging.


What you get from Blogging for Students


Blogging for Students is divided into six chapters packed with information to put you on the right path for blogging success.

1) Introduction: This chapter introduces you to blogging and reveals the secret of making money from blogging, yes the secret is out. It also runs down the tools you need as a blogger.

2) Choosing a niche: Niche blogging is a successful technique for building your reputation faster and distinguishing yourself online. This chapter will show you the benefits and niche blogging and show you how you can choose niches that are right for you and yet profitable. A lot of bloggers in Nigeria go into saturated niches like jobs or copying and pasting news, this chapter will discourage you into going for such wild goose chase and if you insist it will show the best technique for entering a saturated niche.

3) How to setup your blog: This chapter will go into how to create your blog from choosing a blog platform and name for your blog to customising your template. All examples on blog customisation will focus on the free blog platform Blogger.

4) How to write your blog post: This chapter will teach you how to write successful blog posts that will drive traffic to your website. SEO best practices are covered.

5) Promoting your blog: This is where you learn how to promote your blog. This chapter may be considered as the heart of the book as this is where you actually get the different techniques for building your traffic and your online reputation.

6) How to make money from your blog: this chapter reveals the different blog monetisation methods, the so called direct and indirect methods. I consider this the least important part of the book. Because I believe that once you have a successful blog you can figure out how to leverage its success. It comes natural.

Blogging for students also includes a bonus SEO cheat-sheet with best practices that will make your blog rank well on search engines for valuable search traffic. Another bonus included is a list of over 50 ignored blog niches that you can make a name for yourself blogging before the copycats and spoilers wake-up from their slumber.


Blogging for Students is available for just N1,500. However, if you order the ebook through this blog using the discount code NOM, you will buy it for just N1,300 (over 13% discount). To order the e-book Blogging for Students with the discount code pay N1,300 only to the account provided below and send the discount code with payment details to me. Once I see the discount code, I will know you are qualified for discount.

Your Name
email address
Or any proof of payment


Once I confirm your payment, I will send you the e-book to your email address within 24 hour. Pay before 1pm, get it before 4pm same day.

Paschal Okafor
www.naijatechguide.com
Google Plus
www.facebook.com/passyjango
www.twitter.com/passyjango
LinkedIn

Labels: , ,

Blogging for Students: How to Blog Build Reputation & Traffic & Make Money

Do you want to make money on the internet sharing your knowledge and insight? Do you want to develop an online voice that will bring you recognition and fame? Are you ready to learn how? My new e-book Blogging for Students will teach you how to blog, build your reputation and traffic, and how to make money from your reputation and traffic.
This ebook is no-longer available for sale.
Blogging for Students e-book cover

Blogging for Students is available for just N1,500. However, if you order the ebook through this blog using the discount code NOM, you will buy it for just N1,300 (over 13% discount). To order the e-book Blogging for Students with the discount code pay N1,300 only to the account provided below and send the discount code with payment details to me. Once I see the discount code, I will know you are qualified for discount.
Your Name
email address
Or any proof of payment


Once I confirm your payment, I will send you the e-book to your email address within 24 hour. Pay before 1pm, get it before 4pm same day.


Why Blogging for Students


The name may be misunderstood to mean that the book is for students. Not exactly, it is for anyone who wants to learn how to blog successfully. In order words, the student blogger. However, the book will be great for students who are smart enough to be considering potential income opportunities after graduations.

Blogging for students will explain what blogs are and what they are used for. You will also learn how to choose topics to blog about and setup your blog on a free blog platform. How to write quality blog posts and build traffic and reputation using search engines and social media sites.

Blogging for student also includes a bonus SEO cheat-sheet with best practices that will make your blog rank well on search engines for valuable search traffic. Another bonus included is a list of over 50 ignored blog niches that you can make a name for yourself blogging before the copycats and spoilers wake-up from their slumber.

Paschal Okafor
www.naijatechguide.com
Google Plus
www.facebook.com/passyjango
www.twitter.com/passyjango
LinkedIn

Labels: , ,

Converting Low Bounce Rate on Blogs & Websites

Low bounce rate is desired by most bloggers and web publishers. This is because it is used to measure the engagement of a blog or website. But, do not forget why you want an engaging website or blog in the first place. Blog engagement is a journey, not a destination. The aim of an engaging blog or website is to convert visitors into customers.

Every Click should count


Bounce rate is lowered by reducing the number of visitors that leave your blog without viewing another page. However, the additional page they view should count. Claiming low bounce rates with page views that bring no value to your blog or website is meaningless. In fact, it is better they bounce than incur additional cost in server time for you.

Placing meaningless links on a blog just to gain low bounce rate is not useful. Links should be added in such a way that when clicked they bring you closer to converting the visitor. To do that the link should answer likely questions generated by the referring page.

Creating content that converts


To make additional page views on your website useful, they need to be related to the referring page and offer additional information about its content. For example, an article or blog post about a product could include links to specs and reviews of the product as well as link to a shopping cart.

Your contact details and information about your social network presence should also be prominently positioned so that if the visitor does not convert now, you can still convert him later through your social media campaigns.

The point of these series of articles on bounce rate is to remind you of the bigger picture. As a blogger or web publisher you should not focus so much on signals, but understand why they exist. Bounce rate exists to help you measure the engagement of you blog or website, but the ultimate goal is to drive-up conversion.

The reason you want visitors to stay longer on your blog or website is to convert them and not just to reduce bounce rate. Low bounce rate is of no value without conversion. Focus your bounce rate reduction campaigns to making pages that will lead to conversion more accessible.

Related Topics

Labels: , ,

How to Reduce Blog & Website Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to your blog or website that leaves without visiting another page on your blog or website. Although I have argued earlier that bloggers should not focus too much on bounce rate, you should not ignore it entirely.

The point of bounce rate is that it is a signal for measuring how engaging your site or blog is. A low bounce rate is often assumed to mean that visitors disapprove your website, so they cannot stand it and leave as soon as possible. However, in practice this is not always the case.


Bounces occur for different reasons; your job is to ensure your blog is engaging and not to focus on bounce rate. You should also ensure that when bounces occur you gain from it. For example, bounces due to affiliate marketing or CPC could have some financial benefit for a blog.

However, if you own a business website or sell on your site bounce rate is an important measure of engagement as the only link you want visitors on your website to click is the one that leads to conversion for your business. So if you want to reduce your bounce rate here are a few things to do on your website or blog.

Have a Clear Navigation


Make the navigation of your blog or website clear and simple. Do not try to be too creative, most web users do not have the time to waste trying to figure out how to navigate your blog. Use standard conventions for your navigation. And make sure your links can be navigated on all devices.

Recently I visited a website of an insurance company that I could not navigate on mobile because of the way the navigation was designed. I had no option than to leave. So, before shouting over how high your bounce rate is make sure the navigation on your blog or website is easy to use.

Link to related content


Visitors to your blog will not visit any other post on your blog or website if they find no link to take them there. You should provide link within your content pages that are related to the subject on the page or that will enable your visitor take action based on the content on the page or blog post.

For example, a product page should contain links to a gallery where visitors can view more photos of the product. It should also link to a shopping cart or a contact page so that visitors can take action for conversion. For a blog post, links to existing blog post that are related to current post should be added to new blog posts.

If users do not easily find an inbound link to click on they will leave without visiting any other page, resulting in a bounce.

Optimise your pages for keywords


If your content pages are not targeting the right keywords, most visitors coming through search will bounce back since your content is probably not what they were looking for. So to keep visitors on your site or blog, pay attention to keywords and ensure you are attracting the right crowd.

Do not just target keywords for the sake of it. Make sure that the contents on the page and links within your content pages satisfies the targeted keywords.

Related Topics

Labels: , ,

What Value is Low Bounce Rate to Blogs

One metric that bloggers usually watch when accessing the health of their blog is the bounce rate with the aim always being to make it as low as possible. However, a low bounce rate is not necessarily good news. It fact, it could mean missed opportunity to earn with your blog.

Your focus as a blogger is to develop good content on your blog what users do with your content is not entirely up to them. Metrics like keyword targeting, unique visits, traffic sources, time spent on site are far more important metrics for blogs than bounce rate or pages per visit.

So what is bounce rate?


Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that visit a page on a website and left without clicking another page on the website. So if a visitor enters your blog and do not click any link on your blog to view another page on your site it is regarded as a bounce.

Note that if the user clicks a link to another site on your blog, closes the browser, or spends enough time on a page for the session of your analytics software to timeout it will be regarded as a bounce.

So why is low bounce rate important?


The theory behind bounce rate is that bounces occur because visitors do not like your blog, or your blog is not engaging enough, is hard to navigate, or contains low quality content. Hence, bounce rate is often used as a scale to access how engaging a blog or website is. In such a scale low bounce rate means an engaging blog while high bounce rate means the opposite.

However, this simplistic view of bounce rate is not true for all types of websites, blogs especially. Bounces do not always occur because of disapproval of visitors. For example, a visitor clicking on an out bound link on your blog is not necessarily doing so because he hates your blog, but to get more information, which is why you included the link in the first. Note that Ads on your site and clicks to your social networking pages will also result in bounces.

Bounces contribute to pay day


Bloggers should not focus too much on bounce rate. Ads on your blog will result in bounces. So, if you use CPC or CPA advertising, they will result in bounces. Why complain about a bounce if it contributes to your pay day? Most bloggers are in it for the money.

Having too low bounce rate with CPC or CPA advertising means you are losing money or your Ads are not properly placed. It is time to monetise those low bounce rate. Remember, you may go out of business soon with your low bounce rate, if you do not make enough money on your blog to pay your bills.

Stop chasing low bounce rate


To have a perfect bounce rate on your blog you should avoid out bound links, write half hazard content with read more links all over the place, remove links to your social networking pages, and remove all ads. But what value will that add to your blog. Your focus should be writing quality content, proper keyword targeting, and easy navigation. These should be your focus not bounce rate.

Related Topics

Labels: ,