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Archive for July, 2007

Blogging Pointers’ Most Popular Articles To Date

Monday, July 30th, 2007

The site has been going strong for a little while now and so I decided to take an opportunity to recap a little of the recent past. This has been an exciting opportunity and have enjoyed every minute of it with all of you.

The most popular articles on bloggingpointers.com

  1. The Bloggers Guide to Time Saving Techniques
  2. Top 50 sites to add to your ping list - Quick Tip
  3. Caution Building Successful Blogs May Take Work
  4. Make Money Blogging With YouTube

Most Recent series posted

Make Money With Niche Blogging - Super Resource Guide

Upcoming Projects

  • I will be transferring the SimplyPlugins Wordpress plugin directory to new, faster servers and making several updates.
  • There is a couple of big multi-part series’ coming your way but will keep the topics secret for now.

6 Must Reads to Jump Start Your Niche Blogging Career

Thursday, July 26th, 2007

Welcome to part four of my Make Money With Niche Blogging - Super Resource Guide. In this post I am going to give you a list of 6 excellent resources to jump start your niche blogging career.

How to Choose a Niche Topic for your Blog

How to Effectively Create Content for your Niche Blogs: An Introduction and Guide

5 Easy Steps to Choose a Great Domain Name for your Niche Blog

Niche Blogs and The Long Tail of Content

5 Ways You Can Monetize Your Niche Blog

Where Do I Find Content for My Niche Blog?

Other Posts in This Series

Part #1 - Make Money With Niche Blogging - Super Resource Guide

Part #2 - Finding and Using Niche Search Terms That Pay

Part #3 - 30+ Search Terms For Your Niche Blog

Part #4 - 6 Must Reads to Jump Start Your Niche Blogging Career

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30+ Search Terms For Your Niche Blog

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007

Welcome, this is part three of my Make Money With Niche Blogging - Super Resource Guide series. In part two I covered how to use niche search terms to drive traffic and make money. In this chapter I will be listing many niche search terms that I have researched just for this series. I would suggest considering top tens and reviews for many of these. For example the first one is “free online preschool game” so you could write a headline like “The Best Free Online Preschool Game Review” which will help to draw attention and interest.

Please note that any misspellings or errors found in the list below are supposed to be there, they are what searchers actually typed.

Search Term List Guide

Searches = Number of searches performed in one month on that exact phrase

Competitors = Number of sites targeting that exact phrase.

Niche Search Terms

Free Category

  • free online preschool game - - 5770 searches - - 650 competitors
  • free online star war game - - 6019 searches - - 554 competitors
  • disney download game for free online - - 7417 searches - - 700 competitors
  • 100 100 dating dating free free online - - 7612 searches - - 808 competitors
  • copy credit free report - - 5684 searches - - 738 competitors
  • free download 7.5 msn messenger - - 10517 searches - - 1890 competitors
  • download free theme vista window - - 8094 searches - - 740 competitors
  • free ware downloads - - 7774 searches - - 565 competitors
  • free dvd decoder download - - 7286 searches - - 964 competitors
  • download english free mp3 song - - 12622 searches - - 908 competitors
  • 100 download free mp3 music - - 4153 searches - - 643 competitors
  • free people search zaba - - 5754 searches - - 686 competitors
  • english free spanish translation - - 28521 searches - - 6930 competitors
  • card free greeting printable - - 11364 searches - - 505 competitors
  • free game to play and download - - 5629 searches - - 771 searches
  • free letter resignation sample - - 7325 searches - - 329 searches
  • free famous restaurant recipe - - 6723 searches - - 1150 searches

(more…)

Finding and Using Niche Search Terms That Pay

Tuesday, July 24th, 2007

This is part two of the Make Money With Niche Blogging - Super Resource Guide series. I’m having a niche tip blowout this week and you are on the receiving end of my excellent resources.

Part two of the series shows you how to find and use niche search terms that will increase your traffic and maximize your profitability.

How to Profit With Niche Search Terms

Millions of people hit the search engines everyday hunting for what ever happens to be on their mind at that time. Your job as a niche blogger is to cash in on their misspellings, brain farts and don’t forget their niche interests. You can use niche search terms as article titles, blog titles and of course content, to put yourself at the top of the search results and bring that niche crowd to your blog. The process of making money is the same as on any other blog, Google Adsense, Affiliate Marketing, Advertising and Product Sales such as ebooks or web templates are the top of the list. Basically, the only thing niche blogging gives you differently than a standard blog is less competition on your blogs search terms therefor the possibility of making more money is high.

How to Find Your Own Niche Search Terms

This is probably the most asked question in the world of niche marketing and I will tell you how I do it. Although my methods are in no way ground breaking or new, they are tried and true by many and won’t cost you a dime.

Step #1 - Brainstorming

Grab yourself a piece of paper, something to write with and a place to sit. Think of everything and everyone you have seen that day and write it down. Did you see a nurse at the gas station? How about a city bus at the stoplight on your way to get lunch? Once you have all of these down start brainstorming different words that associate with what you wrote. In other words when I think of a nurse, I think medical, doctors, illnesses, health, blood pressure, hospital, emergency and the list goes on. So write all of these down, this process forces your brain to do the work. It is very difficult for many of us to sit down and think of all these topics out of the blue, but my method will help.

Step #2 - Research, Research, Research

With your list in hand open up a new (more…)

Make Money With Niche Blogging - Super Resource Guide

Monday, July 23rd, 2007

Niche Blogging - Super Resource GuideOf all the ways to make money online, niche blogging or niche marketing has long been a favorite for many. I myself have had and currently have niche blogs running and just so you know I actively make money with them. The biggest question ever asked about niche marketing is, how do I find a niche category? Through the course of this Super Resource Guide I will provide you with many niche search terms I have sourced just for this series, how to find other niches on your own, how to build traffic through the use of Article Marketing, also known as Bum Marketing and more.

I will be providing many links and resources found specifically for this series and have included no affiliate links of any kind. This is 100% genuine research for you and as such, I would like to ask that if you find any of this information helpful, leave your comments below and of course Digging it wouldn’t be bad either.

Part #1 - A little about how niche marketing works….

A niche is basically a sub-category of a more popular main category. The idea behind niche marketing is to target a mid-sized audience with little competition against you, essentially owning the market. The financial gain usually comes from advertising, affiliate sales or sales of your own merchandise to your targeted audience.

If we wanted to find a new niche we could run a Google search on lets say “health care” it returns 374,000,000 results, but if I narrow my focus to “caring for diabetics” I only get 20,800 results. That is a significant drop and thus we have found a potential niche market. Each one of those results is a competitor so to make as much money as possible we need to get the least amount of competitors therefor the best chance of bringing traffic. Now 20,800 is still a lot of competition so you would most likely want to take this even further. A search on “caring for diabetic children” returns only 24 results, Now the odds are in our favor. It is important to know how many people are searching for this topic and I will explain how to do that in a later part of this series. Do you feel the suspense?

Quick Tip #1
When searching Google for competitor results, always place your search term within quotation marks. This will give you exact results tailored to your criteria.

Never jump into a niche topic without first knowing your potential customer base. If there is little interest you won’t make money and essentially waste a lot of time and possibly money with domain purchases and such. I typically go for a term with less (more…)

President Bush, Congress, Who Has The Power To Digg You?

Saturday, July 21st, 2007

You can talk to the President, Congress or anybody else until your blue in the face, but the only person with the power to put you on the front page of Digg is you.

Most of us already know, but for those of you that don’t, making your way to the front page of Digg.com can bring a wave of new readers, sometimes thirty thousand visits strong in one day. As expected, the goal of many is of course to be on the receiving end of this traffic burst, which can be very challenging to say the least. So how do you get there?

Start by visiting the Digg site and see what everyone is interested in. Digg users are very loyal followers and they know what they like. The most commonly Dugg articles I have found as of recent are focused on:

  1. Technology
  2. Politics
  3. Digg or (being Dugg)
  4. Humor

Incorporating any of these topics into your content may genuinely boost your chances of being Dugg. Now understand this doesn’t mean you have to be running a tech site to stand a chance. Take a look at the title of this post for example ” President Bush, Congress, Who Has The Power To Digg You?”. In this article I am giving tips to get Dugg, but was able to incorporate not only politics but also two popular topics in politics, Bush and Congress. Coming up with a creative title is half of the battle, so find some ways to include popular keywords in your titles.A great title is all you need to get people interested, the content is what will keep them there. As with blogging in general, write great, informative content and having something to do with the title is nice too. Top ten lists, reviews and criticism are always popular choices of writing and can go over well with the Digg users.

Get a jump start on the process and ask your friends, family and local grocer to Digg you. People tend to be more apt to digging your article if other people have already started the process. Nobody likes to be the first. This is not cheating and most likely your competitors are already doing this.

Finally you may consider crossing everything and closing your eyes until some thing happens. It is not as painful that way:)

Oh and now while I’m thinking about it, If you dugg this article then please Digg it.

The Readers Choice Series - What do you want to know?

Friday, July 20th, 2007

The Readers Choice Series, here at Blogging Pointers is designed to give you the reader an opportunity to decide the material. Is there something you want to know about blogging, social media, marketing or something else in this area? I will be picking four of the most asked readers choice questions and explaining each one in a four part series written next month. That should give you ample time to share your questions with me.

So, if you want to be heard, want to be answered or just interested in refreshing your mind on a specific topic, let me know what interests you in the comments below or if you prefer you can email me privately at the address listed:

patric.herber@451press.net

I am sure there is something you have wanted to learn about blogging in the past or present. This should be fun for all of us. I especially am looking forward to the challenge because who knows what you guys are going to want. I guess we will find out just how savvy I am!

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Ultimate WordPress Plugin Directory

Wednesday, July 18th, 2007

I am pleased to announce the arrival of the Ultimate WordPress Plugin Directory. I have heard many bloggers in search of new resources to find WordPress plugins and until now your options have been the WordPress Plugin Directory or The WordPress Plugin Database and don’t get me wrong both are great resources but there is always room for something new. I have often wondered why nobody ever combined the two and then, what about all of the little unknowns floating around Google, well that is the basics of this project. The directory has many plugins for you to start with and I will be adding to it regularly. I hope to give credit to many of the “unknowns” and of course the favorites.

There will also be a Plugin Spotlight post once a week, where I will choose a random plugin or you all can submit your favorites and I will briefly highlight that plugin for everyone. I am going to attempt to list the many newly developed plugins as they arise and please feel free to let me know of any you have found.

After many, many hours of research I realized how many plugins there actually were and decided rather than doing a list I would build a site just for them, nothing fancy, just a place to house the directory in some sort of an order as opposed to a random list that so many have attempted before me and without any further ado, you can now visit the Ultimate WordPress Plugin Directory.
I look forward to this new project and hope to see you there,

Patric Herber

BloggingPointers.com

Productive Content Research for Bloggers

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007

Intro - - Welcome, this is part five of the multi-part series The Bloggers Guide to Time Saving Techniques. This series covers the ever important topic of time management and how it directly relates to your success as a blogger. I will be covering some key issues many bloggers, myself included, have battled with in the past and how you can overcome them with a few simple tricks to managing your time more efficiently.

First, I wanted to mention that you don’t have to try and write multi-part series’ or two thousand word posts everyday in order to satisfy your readers. Many bloggers, yes even pro bloggers, use what they term as “filler content” at least two days a week. Filler content in short, is very simple posts often times its a quick review of another blog/product or a simple link list thats sole purpose is to fill a void for that particular day. Filler content is often a great thing to post for the weekend, just to add something new or use it if you fall behind one day. I very highly recommend that you keep a couple simple posts like these on hand for those slack days when there are no thoughts present in your head, it happens to all of us, and is sure to happen to you.

Well, I know this particular portion of the series is about product research, but I wanted to mention everything above to give you an idea of what to keep your eyes open for when you are doing your research. So with that said, content research is a very important step in the blogging process. Whether you are in need of a little inspiration or researching the hottest news in your niche, you will find yourself hitting the dusty internet trail in search of new material.

I often tend to keep a Firefox tab open while I am writing, so I can hit google to verify what I said is correct. There is nothing worse than getting an email from someone saying your material is outdated or that program doesn’t have that function anymore, something like that. So to keep this from happening, anytime I use a fact or mention, I quickly verify to make sure it is still accurate, because things change and on the net they tend to change quicker than usual.

So that is one tip, always keep a tab open for verification research as you write your posts. This willprevent you from bringing everything to a halt opening a new tab so on and so forth.

Try to research non time sensitive material in advance. I cant stress this enough, every time you do something in advance you save time and headaches down the road when its time to write.

When you are researching stay focused. It is very easy to lose track of what you are doing online. I have started searching for some new web host and an hour later found myself wanting to buy a new video game that I just spent forty-five minutes hunting for the best deal. So keep focused on your searches or you will easily double your work time.

Always check the biggest resources for your topic first. Jump over to the biggest blogs and see what they have been writing about or maybe they wrote your same idea a few months ago. By no means should you copy their writings it is against the law and just plain ethical, but using it as an inspirational piece is often why they write it, to inspire.

But, don’t forget the small guy. Even though by now you have scoured the biggest resources available to you, you should not stop there, everyone that started out was once a new guy. Which means that you can find equally great content from many of the smaller resources.

Let Google do the work. Google is a very powerful tool at your fingertips, that holds a vast amount of information. If you are searching for something specific wrap it with quotation marks, this will pull only the results that math that phrase exactly. Imagine how much time you can save if you cut the results down from two million to two hundred, its a lot.

Let the content come to you. Sign up for (more…)

One Blog to Another - Multiple Blog Management Syndrome

Monday, July 16th, 2007

Intro - - Welcome, this is part four of the multi-part series The Bloggers Guide to Time Saving Techniques. This series covers the ever important topic of time management and how it directly relates to your success as a blogger. I will be covering some key issues many bloggers, myself included, have battled with in the past and how you can overcome them with a few simple tricks to managing your time more efficiently.

Operating multiple blogs can be a real handful. Many people find the most difficult task to be, designating enough time for each one. When you get to the point where you are running three, four or five blogs or more, your oldest blogs tend to suffer as you work on the newest ones. Postings start to slow from one a day to a couple a week and sometimes worse.

One of the biggest tricks to efficiently running multiple blogs is schedule, schedule and schedule some more. Set yourself up with a dry erase board or a calendar and actually write down a generic schedule for each blog. As unforeseen things come up, and they will, add that to the schedule. This plan gives you some insight as to what you should be doing for the week, day or month.

In part two of this series I shared the technique of writing post for the future and scheduling them for a later date. This is very handy for running more than one blog. Your calendar can say some thing like:

Monday - Write five posts for blog #1 and leave at least six comments on other blogs for blog #3.

Tuesday - Write five posts for blog #2 and reconfigure affiliate ads on blog #1.

Wednesday - Write five posts for blog #3 and leave at least six comments on blogs for blog #2.

Thursday - Leave at least six comments on other blogs for blog #1 and create new FAQ page for blog #3.

Friday - Routine maintenance on all blogs, check links etc. catch up on emails and comments.

Saturday and Sunday - Respond to emails, write some posts if you like or enjoy a cold one and kick your feet up.

This is only an example but a calendar like that would definitely (more…)

About Blogging Pointers

From the step by step detailed tutorials to assist in the set up of your blog, to the most current news on the blogging front, we've got you covered. You will find powerful articles on supercharging your blog to make it profitable, on kick starting your advertising and maybe even one or two that will make you rethink your positions, or refine your writing techniques. This site is a tool for you to use as you need it, a gift from one blogger to another. We welcome your feedback and comments. Get out there and keep blogging.

Blogging Pointers Author(s)

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