Niche Forums and Blogs

[Ned Storm]

This is a restored post by Menard:

Always coming up with an idea, but not really doing anything with it before the next idea comes along.

In the past, the only affiliate which has done anything for me has been the DVD affiliate.

Adsense has been lingering with only a few pennies here and there, but has been beginning to pick up steam within the last few months. Obviously having Adsense on pages people actually visit would be helpful.


A few things I have noticed, or at least think I have, about surfing habits, search engines, and human nature in general:

(1) Search engines, Google in particular, seem to favor domains with pertinent keywords in them ahead of content and/or page names with those same keywords in search returns.

(2) People are more likely to associate the name of a business or domain with its authority on a particular subject (i.e. Joe's Garage does a better job on oil changes than Slum-mart...even if the same mechanic works in both places simply because the name of the place and Joe's Garage being a specialized business rather than generic both infer...whether it is true or not).


I have tried the generic forum route without much success. Of course, I have tried a more specific forum route, though with my interests at heart and have learned that my interests are apparently not very popular.

How about aiming for other people's interests?


I am going to be taking some of the domains for which I had high hopes for building a site for them, but which just won't materialize, and use them for forums and blogs. Such as turning CBRig.com into a CB and shortwave radio enthusiasts' forum. As well new domains such as EconolineForum.com which I specifically registered to start a forum for Econoline owners as well van enthusiasts and automotive discussion in general (I rather...ahem...borrowed the idea from ExplorerForum.com Angel).


I'm not wanting to bog myself down in forums. It seems, though, that niche domains do get traffic and serps. The idea is to get traffic to the domain to increase Adsense earnings. Of course, it would be nice to make it a successful forum, but even with minimal activity so long as the traffic is there it should more than pay for itself.

Any domains which don't produce can be trimmed off when it comes time for renewal and I can seek out other niches.

Promotion won't be a problem as, taking a page from Ned's book (which he probably wishes I'd stop readingIcon_biggrin), I have my own network of sites built up which I can use to promote any new sites now without having to find other promotion resources.


Even though I have been in need of, as most of us are, income sources, with moving and essentially starting over I am wanting to get some kind of serious income flow going. I am ahead right now, financially, and, as odd as it may seem, being ahead gives me even more drive to stay ahead.

In moving, I will be trying to take some work with me (transferring within the same company if available) and looking for new work.

I did quit one of my jobs as things came to a head finally (seems I like to be paid for working and they apparently consider that as optional...not to mention that I have been getting damn sick and tired of the company's doing away with all safety standards and am just not going to put myself in that position anymore...not for anyone, and especially not for the likes of them).

Things aren't going to be jumping right away on this plan as I have a lot of work ahead on packing and moving which is going to keep me occupied.

Hopefully I can get some of this off the ground before I move; if not, at least I have some projects for myself when I get there.

[Ned Storm]

Some good observations there Menard!

I make 3 figures a month from Adsense and it is a combination of high-traffic, low PPC (smart-priced pages) and very low traffic but high PPC pages that generate the Adsense income.

The other program that I have high hopes for is eBay. I have made a few $100 in affiliate income from a handful of sites in the recent past. This is something that could be applied to a camper van site. There must be lots of camper vans listed in eBay auctions and related products.

Now I have completed a PHP/MySQL script that inserts eBay listings into a blog automatically. So if you blog about your particular vehicle, relevant Ads for the same type of vehicle could appear after your post and before the comments. Blogging is better to make money than hosting a forum IMO since you are setting yourself up as a guru/personality/enthusiast on a particular topic where people read your posts for advice, and learning etc. Then they can comment with questions or praise etc.

Forums on the other hand suffer from Ad blindness and people go there to socialize, grab answers and leave and spam IMO. Even if you own the forum, you are an admin and not necessarily seen as an expert or trustworthy source of information on your subject. But a blog tends to revolve around the "blogger" more than the community IMO.

What you say about keyword relevance is true in my experience. In fact I go out of my way to keyword optimize sites for organic search.

I recommend that you start a blog about camper vans. You are an enthusiast, you own one and are good at writing content and taking photos. So it is a no-brainer IMO. Then monetize it with eBay listings (I can help you with that).

I would select a relevant dot com domain name for this topic and plan and execute say 10x 500 word posts regarding the top keywords you find relevant to your niche. You can use the Google keyword suggestion tool or related search suggestions to get an idea, but I think you know this already?

For example with a blog it may have a domain name of campervanman.com

Then the posts might be like:
url: /buying-camper-van
Title: Thinking of Buying a Camper Van
1st paragraph: I finally decided that it was time to buy a camper van to realise my dream of traveling ...

But based on keyword research.

All the best with the move.

[Menard]

Expanding on Ned's suggestion, I have registered a domain for a blog about camper vans (RVs, Travel Trailers, and other campers as well).

The dotcom was taken, though just parked, so I chose the dotnet.

JoeCamper.net "Life on the Road for the Average Joe"

Just the template is up for now.

[Ned Storm]

I imagine that it would be hard to find a relevant and short dot com domain name.

But .net works for the likes of problogger.net (a six figure a year blogger).

I expect to get my script for eBay listings fully working tomorrow. It worked offline in my test environment, but there seems to be something wrong with the new version of WordPress exposing tags to my script when I tried it on my established site and a matured post.

[Menard]

I considered making an offer for the dotcom as the owner of it is actually named Joe and probably had some intention for using it, but, like many of my domains, he has probably just not gotten around to it or lost interest in it.

I decided not to make an offer as getting the dotnet is relatively cheap compared to a dotcom ($6.64 a year, and I registered it for two years) and spending more than necessary on a domain is contrary to my plans as the idea is to earn more from adsense than the domain cost me.

Actually the dotnet is not so much of a memory problem as confusing it for a cigarette associated character; as when I first typed the url into my browser, I accidentally typed JoeCamel instead.

[Ned Storm]

Menard, here is the site where I am implementing my new ideas: Weight Loss Tips This is actually a .ws domain name so if I can generate income from this domain (which most webmasters would think totally sucks with all the hyphens, www. included in all the links and .ws domain), anyone can follow in my foot steps, hopefully.

So far the home page is PR2 and gets about 100 visits per day. But the site sucks in terms of making money, it has generated income but now I am using it as a case study to really make some regular monthly income from it using eBay and probably Google revenue streams. But at the same time it will be a satisfying site for information-seekers to land on.

Plus, I will teach all the readers here how to replicate my results with their own sites and niche topics.

[Menard]

My first real post has been published on the blog; a little content heavy perhaps at over 1700 words.

http://joecamper.net

[Ned Storm]

It's looking good Menard! I wouldn't worry about the length of your post since the interesting read will hopefully hook in regular readers that bookmark or subscribe to your site.

Having sites that are of interest to you make it almost effortless to post to like I do here. So eventually there will be so much original content that it will be hard for search engines to ignore.

Many webmasters struggle to or hate writing, so it is a gift to be able to churn out long articles like you do. I know that I have a problem going beyond about 5 paragraphs.

[Menard]

My next niche blog is going to be on power outages, and dealing with them.

I originally thought of making it a post on Joe Camper, but it was becoming obvious that it was going to be quite a heavy post.

With getting some camping gear, and getting my van, I had started checking out generators; especially since I found one on sale at a real good price.

I've always had backups around for emergency power outages. Battery operated fans and lights in the summer, as well extra blankets in the winter.

If someone were to look in my freezer, they would see lots of blue ice in there. I keep them around for the possibility of power outages in the summer; take a small box or otherwise some sort of tube, stuff a battery fan in one end and the blue ice packs in the other end, and you've got an improvised air conditioner.

In checking out the prices on generators and looking further into them, though the concept of having one may be comforting, the cost of running one can be prohibitive. Hence, my article was going to be on the economics of running a generator and other resources, such as kerosene and propane space heaters, and alternatives to those.

The domain is going to be PowerOut.org

[Ned Storm]

Sounds interesting! Most places I have lived have had reliable power where if the mains trips out, it only seems to drop a few cycles where the lights blink or and computers reset.

One place I lived had poor quality underground cables in the street which sometimes blew and workers had to dig down and fix them which took a few hours.

So how long are the power outages in your area?

Another angle to cover might be where the power is regularly down due to the state running out of money so having to shut down the power stations like they do in North Korea.

UPS (Un-interruptible Power Supplies) for domestic use may be another topic to cover.