In this series of articles “How To Make Money Blogging” I'll take you through the exact process to make money online and become a successful blogger by following a simple and proven method.
From the years I've been around the Internet, one question always presents itself from people learning the Internet business, which is ‘How to make money blogging…' or indeed how to make money online by leveraging the Internet.
One of the best ways to understand the concept is to think of making money online as baking your favorite cake.
You see those of you who are keen bakers, know that there are three critical steps, needed for a successful outcome:
- The correct ingredients
- The correct method & how those ingredients work together
- The correct cooking temperature & time
If we use this baking example and apply it to building an Internet business, you'll quickly understand the concept of what works online.
So let's start with our first process – how to make money blogging by selecting the correct ingredients.
How to Make Money Blogging – The Correct Ingredients
There are many people trying to build an Internet business with their eyes closed. Randomly grabbing any ingredients they think they need, and hoping for a successful outcome.
This ‘random grabbing', involves buying lots of different products and not using them, being attracted to shiny objects, jumping from company to company, and working hard without a real focus.
So let's start with our first ingredients you need to make money blogging…
- Researching your market
Researching Your Market
Researching your market simply means making sure there are enough people who want to buy your stuff. This is done by finding people who are searching for solutions to their own problems.
This is how you identify niche markets.
All too often I hear of people producing great products that nobody wants to buy because they failed to conduct any proper research – just like a friend of mine some years back…
Arrow points to the typical set-up!
Having worked in the property business for over 25 years a client of mine called Richard worked on designing and building a mortar board for bricklayers to put their mortar on.
The board would be at the correct height, reducing the bending and lifting by the bricklayer allowing them to get more done.
Before Richard's invention, builders used a square of ply board placed on a stack of bricks.
Many people concluded that the mortar board was a fantastic idea, it was revealed at a prestigious building expo and won many design and innovation awards.
So what happened..?
Well Richard developed the solution to a problem in his mortar board, gained the backing of his peers and went full steam ahead into production.
However what Richard didn't do was approach the builders themselves to see what they thought of the board prior to production, after all it was the builder who was the end-user.
Richard missed out on one essential ingredient of his project by not researching the end-user, and by doing so he gained a statistic that he rather didn't want…
That his double garage could hold just over twenty thousand units of product…
If you fail to research your market then you'll fail in business.
Richard's product failed because he developed it with the intention of telling the builder what he needed – and builders don't like that!
How To Make Money Blogging – Conduct Proper Research
The Internet gives everyone access to people and information, with the ability to conduct accurate primary and secondary research about a particular subject.
The following resources are an initial point of reference to start your research
- Google Adwords Keyword Tool
- Discussion Forums
- Networking Events
- Social Media
Google Adwords Keyword Tool
The Google Adwords Keyword Tool is where many people start their research. In order to use it you must have a Google account the navigate to Adwords and tools.
The tool will give you data based on what people are searching for. You will find people looking for solutions to their problems with typical question based searches such as ‘How to' or buying keywords such as ‘The xxx Product review.'
When you study the data you will find patterns emerging, and common threads where you may identify gaps in the market.
In addition to Google software such as Market Samurai provide data to identify the keywords but summarises your competition and will find products for you to sell based on the data it provides.
Discussion Forums
If you spend any time on a discussion forum you will quickly identify who is active, what the typical discussion points are and the main problems people raise in the course of reaching their goals.
If you are looking to make money online by developing an Internet business then the Warrior Forum has been active for many years. Spending some time on there will quickly identify what people are searching for and form a solid base for conducting your primary research, and help you highlight whether there's a demand for your product or service, or indeed highlight a niche market that you can cater for with other products and services.
Networking Events
In the years I've been involved with the Internet business and making money blogging, I have attended a good many networking events and spoken with people face to face.
This type of interaction is so different from speaking to people online. The conversations are much more open and fluid, at networking events you can quickly get a feel for who is in the room, their needs, wants and desires and in most cases I can tell you that people just want to learn how to make money online and be helped by someone they can trust.
Social Media
Social media such as Facebook gives you access to lots of people, but more importantly people who are active. Your research can consist of surveys to specific types of people. I have used Survey Monkey in the past and can work effectively if you structure your questions in the right way.
Social groups can be another indicator although choosing the right groups to study is key as there are a lot of nonsense groups that fill their time posting spam, so keep away from those.
One of the keys to successfully make money blogging, is to conduct proper research, and yet many people fail to conduct any research at all because they either don't know what they're doing, can't be bothered or think they'd be better off tasking themselves with profit-making activities.
Well, the fact is, if you fail to research properly, then you'll end up like my friend Richard, who threw much of his life savings down the toilet and had to return to work after he failed to research his market properly.
Join me in part two of “How To Make Money Blogging” when I'll be discussing how to identify your ideal client or customer.
