Day 2 – How to Pick the Right Topic So You’re Successful
It’s Day 2 Already!
Let’s dig in!
Yesterday I said start thinking about what you would do every day if you didn’t have to go to work… ever and write down 10 things you would be doing instead. Did you do that? If not, please stop and do it.
I did it and here’s what my list looks like:
Go skiing (there’s always a place to ski – somewhere in the world)
Go kayaking
Visit my family
Hang out with friends
Help out at the food pantry
Take a cooking class
Do more photography
Exercise more
Play drums
Ride my bike around town
Clean out my closets
Yes, that last one is weird but if I had time I would want to get some cleaning done because I’d feel better when things are organized (although I don’t have OCD). For some weird reason, I just feel better when things are organized. Maybe other people are like this, too… probably not. Anywho…
Our Lists
Let’s look at our lists. Basically, if we didn’t have to work, we would do things we want to do. They are things we enjoy or things we want to learn or get better at, right?
This next step is choosing the topic for your website and that list should help you choose your website’s topic.
For me, I already do some writing about skiing. I’d really like to learn more about kayaking because I know there’s a lot more to it than I know. With visiting my family, I’ve written some articles about travel so maybe if you travel a lot, you can do that. Helping at the food pantry is great but it might not be a good topic for a website (I’ll explain that more in a minute). Cooking classes is good – just like photography. Exercise and musical instruments are great topics. Bicycling and cleaning/organizing could also be fine
Narrow Down Your List
Ideally, you want a topic that you really enjoy or want to learn more about because that involves passion to a degree. You really like those things and it’ll be much easier to write about them. When you do research, you won’t just be doing it for your website but that research will be something you want to learn more about.
Since the website needs to make money, you want to narrow down your list to topics where there’s something to sell. There should be some demand for those things. Basically, if it’s something that can be bought on Amazon, then it’ll work.
We’ll talk about monetization on day 6 but one way you can monetize the website is by suggesting products on Amazon, so one good idea is to see what’s hot on Amazon. Here’s a page worth bookmarking – it’s a list of the top products on Amazon. You can see the top products overall and then in each category:
You may be tempted to go after the top products overall but there will be a lot of competition for those products, so maybe dig a little deeper. Also, your website shouldn’t be about one product but a category.
For example, a hot product is the “Cards Against Humanity” game (which is actually free, by the way – you can make it yourself… which is interesting) but you wouldn’t make a whole website about that product. Your website might be about games, party ideas or quirky products. Make sense?
Refine Your List – Make it Better
Go through your list and cross of what won’t work. You can also rename things – like the example I gave was visiting my family is actually travel. Helping at the food pantry is one I’m crossing off because it’s just not easy to monetize. The same with hanging out with friends.
Next, do some searches on Amazon. Are there a lot of products about that topic available?
Go and re-order your list by how things look when you search on Amazon (the amount of products). Here’s my list:
Exercise
Photography
Cooking
Travel
Bicycling
Skiing
Organization
Kayaking
Drums / Drumming
Hang out with friends
Help out at the food pantry
Choose Your Topic
In the Internet Marketing industry, we call your topic your “niche.” Basically, it’s what your website is going to be about. Everything on it will revolve around that topic.
For me, looking at my list, I could do exercise but I’m not super passionate about it. Photography is something I’ve done and I’d really like to get better at. Cooking would be good as well as most of the others.
So for this course, I’m choosing photography. That is the website I’ll be working on as we both work on setting up our sites. Yes, I’ll be doing it with you.
Ideas for You If You’re Stuck
If you listed 10 things and none of them sounds good, then start a new list now that you know what this exercise is for. Another way of thinking about this is, what do people always ask you? You’re the person that people come to when they have questions about something, so what is that?
Look around your house or apartment. What are you in to? What are your hobbies? What do you really enjoy doing or what would you like to learn more about?
Maybe you’re good at fixing things. Maybe you know a lot about a certain product that’s out there.
You can ask yourself these questions, which might help:
What interests/hobbies do you have?
What experiences have you had in life?
What questions do people always ask you?
What skills or expertise do you have?
What do you like to talk about?
What are you passionate about?
What gives you energy?
What do you want to learn more about?
Here are some more ideas to help you (not in any order):
phones
computers
sewing
cars
computer programming
taking care of kids
weddings
how to pick up women
how to clean things
how to mix drinks
how to use a computer
how to find a job
saving money / finances
how to live minimally
living green
coffee / tea
sports
fantasy football
hair / makeup
fashion / clothes
health topics
home remodeling
senior housing / nursing homes
boats
motorcycles
counseling
flowers / gardening
interior design
landscaping
mortgages
painting
dogs
cats
swimming pools
learning languages
sales training
brewing beer or wine making
home security
identity theft
life coaching
get out of debt
writing books
dancing
going vegan
how to sell a car (I’ve done this kind of website (and sold it), it was fun)
using social media
how to draw cartoons
retirement
nursing
diabetes
how to be a DJ
making gift baskets
party planning
aviation
self defense
property management
real estate
audio
home theaters
website design
gymnastics
skin care
tattoos
wigs
beards
beads / beading
embroidery
musical instruments
logo design
spirituality
home day care
handbags
jewelry
maternity clothes / pregnancy
camping
billiards and pool
chess
golf
horseback riding
skateboarding
tennis
business
betting
games
parenting
software
doomsday prepping
How’s that? Got a few yet? You can also go to Amazon.com and take a look around if you need even more ideas.
Some of the most lucrative niches are:
bad credit loans
cash advances
mesothelioma
dating
but that means they’re also really competitive. It’ll take you a while to get enough traffic to bring in any revenue. You probably don’t want to go after these topics on your first go. First get a few sites under your belt before going after these.
Think about your website as something you’ll work on for years. You’ll be putting up great content about it and then working sub-categories of it as well. For example, with photography I can talk about cameras, lenses, lighting, filters, image processing, tripods, camera cases, fixing cameras, iPhone photography and so on. It’s a very good sized topic and I’ll be able to add content for a long time. Your topic should be the same way. You can use photography if that’s what you’re into.
Some Qualifiers
There are some topics you want to stay away from, so here are some tests you can run to make sure your topic qualifies as something good to have a website about.
News/Trends I’d stay away from is anything that trends – like news. It’s good one day and then it’s not relevant a week later really.
Too Narrow For example, I have tinnitus and I’d like to learn more about that but it’s not big enough. There’s really only so much you can write about it. I could do 1-2 really great articles about it and that would be about it.
Go With “Evergreen” Topics What we want are topics that will always be searched on – they’re flourishing all year round. My skiing topic sort of falls into that area since it’s really only done about 6 months a year in the Northern Hemisphere. Sure, it’s winter on the bottom half of the world but they also speak different languages there. I’d really only make some revenue for 4-6 months of the year.
Don’t Attach Yourself to Something Else What I mean here is don’t go so narrow/detailed that you’re basing your whole website on a product or something that might not always be there. For example, maybe you like your GoPro camera. Well, what happens if something better comes out and 2 years from now nobody is using a GoPro anymore? You’ll have to start over. Instead, choose a topic above that one – so video cameras or creating videos.
Types of Websites
There are different types of websites that we can make. I have a few of these types.
Information Website
This is what most people taking this course will do and it’s the main type of website. You center the website on a topic and then write articles about that topic. You’ll organize it into categories and keep expanding by adding more categories with articles in those categories.
Review Website
With a review website, you’re going to review products or services. If you’re a cook, then you might make a review website about different kinds of cookware and appliances. If you’re into health and exercise, you might have a site reviewing fitness products (this is a good niche, by the way).
How-To Website
This kind of website explains how to do things, obviously.
It might be about:
how to save money
how to fix things
how to be a parent
how to use a computer
how to maintain pools
etc.
These are great websites to own because people have problems and they now think of searching for an answer online. There are a lot of products to be sold, too, so you can make money using Amazon and other kinds of monetization.
Help Website
This is similar to a how to website but you’re offering help on a particular product or service. I have a website that offers help using Facebook and it gets a lot of traffic. The only problem is, you’re latching on to something else. So if Facebook stops being popular, that website I have won’t be useful anymore. You can do sites like that but just be warned. It’s better to offer help on something that will always be around.
Directory Website
I made a lot of money with some directory websites I’ve had. You can still make money with them but there are a lot of big players out there now, so it’s not as easy. If you find a topic that doesn’t have much competition, then have at it. You’ll want to get a WordPress theme (which we talk about soon) that has website directory software built into it if you do this kind of website.
Business Website
This course isn’t about business websites – meaning, a website for your business but you could use the ideas here and apply it to your business – for sure. You’ll just write a lot of articles about the industry you’re in and you’ll get more traffic to your website that way.
Homework
For tomorrow, make a final decision on your niche because we’ll be setting up your website. Rank your list in case your top idea doesn’t turn out to be one we can work on – we’ll dive into that tomorrow.
