Sneak Peek into Authority Blogging

Surely you have an idea about the topic which I’m going to discuss today that is Sneak Peek into Authority Blogging.

Previously I had discussed regarding Secrets to optimize content for search engines

Today, Surfing on the internet brings up a lot of ideas right? The idea of starting a Blog and making fast money crosses your mind frequently.

You may be Individual or Multinational Company. Whether, you have only $1 in your bank account, or a million bucks – if you want to just share your thoughts with the world, or whether you want to generate more traffic and sales for your business or blogging is for you.

The simple fact is that blogging has brought the internet to the mainstream.

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Blogging allows people with zero technical skills to have a neat, structured and easy to maintain a web presence.

This is exactly why blogging has soared in popularity with MILLIONS across the world.

Most of us start a Blog, not knowing exactly why what or how.

They just do it, some of them write a couple of articles and then realize it’s a lot harder keeping the Blog alive with fresh information about the topic.

There’s no more inspiration and get stuck in "finding the amount of time" to do decent research and writing quality content.

The Blog never gets the chance to succeed.

Steps towards Developing Authority Blog1. Start with the Right Mindset

A good place to start might be looking at the position you find yourself in currently. In other words, how are you choosing niches at the moment and what has been your ‘system’ for finding new subjects to cover so far?

This is an important question because there’s a good chance you’re currently using the wrong strategy and that this may be sorely limiting your potential to succeed.

Avoid This Common Strategy

The most common strategy that you’ll find new bloggers using to find their niches is simple: looking for the biggest niche in terms of audience and then starting to write in it.

An example of this might be to make a fitness blog. Fitness is a massive industry, it applies to everyone and we’ve seen countless other blogs be successful in this area. It’s a sure thing, right?

Well no!

See, the very fact that fitness is such a popular niche is what makes it such a terrible choice for your first blog. If you’re creating a blog in the fitness industry, you now have to compete with thousands upon thousands of other blogs.

Those include the likes of the fitness and Fit Bottomed girls that have been around much longer, that have far more resources to pour into marketing and that have a lot of brand visibility.

Now you’ll write a post on ‘how to get six pack abs’ and you’ll be competing with a hundred million other articles on getting six pack abs.

How can you hope to stand out and get noticed?

Challenges Faced

There’s another problem too: writing for the ‘biggest niche’ will almost always mean picking something that you’re not already an expert in.

Sure, anyone can write articles about sit-ups.

Until someone injures their spine and blames you for it! And if you’re writing about investment strategies, business management or other more complex topics then you may well find that it’s an awful lot harder to keep coming up with new stuff.

This doesn’t just mean you’re unlikely to stick at writing your blog (because you find it boring), it also means that you’re less likely to find more interesting and novel content – as you won’t be up-to-date with the latest news in the industry and you won’t have a full grasp on the subject.

For this reason, people who simply pick ‘popular’ niches to start their blogs in are almost always disappointed to find that after several years of just plugging away on the same topic they don’t actually get anywhere.

Now you have the right mindset for niche blogging, you’re ready for the next step.

2. Write like a Learner

There’s another option for those of you who might not have an obvious topic in mind yet… And that’s to learn something new. So you have no area of expertise and no hobby or skill. That’s fine, most people don’t!

But you must have things that you find interesting. You must have ways you’d like to improve and things you’d like to learn – and this is why you can create an exciting blog around the idea that you’re learning the new subject and sharing what you’re learning at the time.

Wish you were a hacker? Then why not learn to hack and write about your experiences as you learn?

Wish you could speak another language? Why not share your progress and provide tips to that end for your audience along the way?

Why Listen to a Learner?

Now you might be wondering why someone would want to read advice from you if you’re not an ‘expert’ of any kind in your given subject. What could you possibly have to offer?

This is a short sighted view though: actually, writing as a learner has the advantage of ensuring that you don’t scare your audience away with jargon.

Often learners make the best teachers because they find it that much easier to put themselves in the shoes of the people they’re trying to teach. What’s more, this gives your content an interesting narrative as you can discuss your learning journey along the way. This gives your content a bit more of a personal touch and can be fun for your readers.

There’s another advantage to writing as a learner too – and that’s that you will have an easier time.

3. Follow the Money

At some point in the process, you need to think about how your blog is going to make money.

As in the initial stage, you need to think about producing good content and balancing the time and efforts as well, a way of getting some benefit out of it.

This is why you need to think about how you’re going to monetize and whether the niche you’re thinking of choosing will support the business model that you have in mind.

What Makes a Niche Profitable?

So what makes a niche profitable? To understand this fully, you need to think about the options available you have for monetization.

Which, I’m going to discuss in upcoming days in great details.

One such option is a Google AdSense or banner ad that is placing the ads on your website.

This is actually the least profitable form of monetization though because you’ll be sending your visitors away from your site every time they click on an ad.

What’s more, you should consider that if those advertisers are willing to pay for your traffic, they must have a way to make more money from them than you are.

4. Demographics: Choose Your Target Audience

Thinking about your audience is an entirely different approach to your niche selection and can be an interesting way to come up with a topic to cover.

If you choose to operate in a large niche like fitness, then you will likely find that you struggle to stand out and compete with the other blogs there. We have discussed this already. Fortunately, though, there are some ways you can have your cake and eat it.

One option is to take a broad category but to aim your blog at a very specific niche.

Honing in on a small target audience is a great way to make your blog stand out in a crowded niche and it creates some great opportunities for marketing and for promotion because you now have a specific crowd you can appeal to and a number of ways you can reach them.

This way, you go from being a ‘small fish in a big pond’ to being a ‘big fish in a small pond’.

For Instance Fitness Industry

What demographically based slants are there that you can pick from then?

Here are just a few ideas that might be able to get you started:

• Location-based slants (Bangalore, Mumbai?)
• Age
• Gender
• Illnesses (fitness for diabetics)
• Interests (fitness for the fashion conscious)
• Careers
• Sexuality
• Religion (Christian blogs are very popular)
• And of course there are many more – so get creative!

Choosing Your Audience

Of course, any niche you choose is going to affect the type of audience that you end up writing for.

Some topics will naturally appeal to older or younger readers some will appeal to one gender more than the other etc.

This is just one more reason that you need to think carefully when selecting your niche.

As stated, no niche has it all – and one that is highly profitable won’t necessarily have the best demographic.

So to provide the best guidance in selecting your niche, let’s consider what makes a great target audience.

Here are some considerations:

• Passion and commitment to the subject (here’s where something like a football team is ideal)
• Free time (meaning they have more spare time to spend on your site)

  Disposable income (so that they can spend more money on your products)

• Personality (you want them to be friendly participants in your community)
• Impulsivity (or at least, a willingness to spend money on products)
• So ask yourself, what type of audience meets all those criteria?

As mentioned, the ‘silver surfer’ is a particular demographic that’s very popular at the moment, mainly because they have a lot of spare time and a lot of disposable income.

This means they are more likely to spend a lot of time on your site and to spend money on the products and services you are offering.

5. Researching Your Niche and Finding Topics

We’ve looked at whether a niche has ‘evergreen content’ or not but how about content with a full stop?

Of course, any subject matter is going to have something to write about but it sure is easier in some areas than others.

Ideally, you want to find a topic that is still active and that is still evolving. This way, there will consistently be new things you can discuss. Ideally, though, you want new topics that will remain evergreen.

In some ways, this makes fitness or bodybuilding less than ideal. After all, not much tends to change in the world of bodybuilding or fitness from one month to the next. Press ups will always work your pecs and sit-ups will always work your abs.

There are only so many countdowns of exercises for each body part you can write!

So how do websites on this topic overcome that limitation? One method is that they look at studies and research on the topic to find new ways to train and new suggestions.

Researching Your Niche and Coming Up With Topics

Once you have your niche, it’s definitely a skill to keep coming up with new topics and new articles to write. In order to do this, you need to make sure you have as much ‘input’ as possible. In other words, the more you keep learning on your subject, the more information you’ll have to recombine and make into new topics. What’s more, providing yourself with lots of information from other blogs and magazines will hopefully inspire you to come up with topics that will perform well.

So where can you get this inspiration and this information? A few good examples include:

• Other websites
• Magazines
• Books
• Podcasts
• YouTube

Don’t just follow the exact formula of posts in other media though. If you do this, then yours will be unoriginal and likely derivative. Instead, think about ways you can learn from the nature of the article, rather than copying the specifics.

So if you like the way one article combined two topics, how about combining two different topics? Or if the article had a unique structure, how about applying that structure to something else?

It can also pay to read about things that aren’t related to your niche at all – or that are vaguely related. This can give you, ideas that you can then apply to your own topic, or it can provide you with more opportunities to combine topics and come up with something new.

The more you read, the better your writing will be and the more ideas you will have – it’s that straightforward!

Another tip is to make sure you keep your eyes open for new topics and that you do more research to discover newer ideas.

Conclusion

Finally, don’t be afraid to go straight to the source for breaking news and ideas. Go to expos in your niche, watch the games live if you’re writing about sport, check the patents if you’re writing about technology… even consider calling someone from high up in an organization to get the scoop.