Niche Research Tools: Finding Hot Topics for Blog Posts

I’ve told you before that I like to use auto-pilot sites and blogs to bring in passive income. I’ve gotten a lot of questions about how I find great niches to attack with these auto-pilot sites. I addressed these questions in the auto-pilot group, and I thought I’d mention them to you because they can be used in conjunction with keyword research to find hot blog topics to post about. Hot topics with low competition equals traffic to your blog!

Before I mention these free research tools, if you have any interest in earning passive income from auto-pilot sites, you’ll want to check out the auto-pilot members group (and claim two free case study e-books).

Believe me when I tell you that finding a good niche isn’t easy, but it very much becomes second nature after you do it for a few months. You begin to notice patterns here and there, which lead to hunches, and those hunches can then be validated pretty easily. Provided you know how to validate them.

So here are some of the free online services I use to validate my niche research. Using these services will alert you to what people are searching for today, and if you can tie what they want to one of your new blog posts, you can capitalize on this extra search traffic.

So here they are, in no particular order:

Yahoo! Buzz
———–
http://buzzlog.buzz.yahoo.com/overall/

The Lycos 50
————
http://50.lycos.com/

Google Trends
————-
http://google.com/trends

Trendhunter Popular List
————————
http://www.trendhunter.com/popular

AOL Hot Searches
—————-
http://hotsearches.aol.com/

eBay Pulse
———-
http://pulse.ebay.com/

current.com’s Google Current
—————————-
http://current.com/topics/76253632_google_current?sort=currentness

Barnes & Noble Bestseller List
——————————
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/bestsellers/top100.asp

You probably noticed a pattern in the above, which should point to another success factor that you should try to address with your niche research: find a hot niche, attack it quickly, and generate traffic ASAP. That’s how you capture search traffic and Page Rank. Provided that your blog is seeded with content and you’re using the Google XML Sitemap plug-in, your new posts should be ranking in Google’s index very quickly.

Emulate Success to Get Success

Have you ever wasted time trying to “figure out” what works, when all you had to do was ask someone who already knew?

I have! And I felt like a complete dope for it, too.

People will tell you that making money online is hard. Phooey. Find someone who’s already doing it, and copy their success. Like Ewen Chia. Take a look at his site and see how well he is doing.

Now THIS is someone we can learn from! Download his system (it’s super cheap!) read it during lunch, and get your business running in an hour or two. Begin making money in a day.

Ewen flat-out defies anyone to make online marketing any easier than his plug-and-play system makes it. He’s confident that you can pistol whip all your online marketing demons and pile up mountains
cash like nobody’s business.

So, what’s in his program, Autopilot Profits?

Here’s a small sample…

• How to find the money online. Go where the money is, and you can practically pick it up by the barrel.
• The hungriest crowd in history. Give them what they want and you’ll make money. Simple!
• How to find an offer that people cannot resist.
• 9 guerrilla tactics for generating mountains of traffic with little or NO money, often in less than 24 hours.
• The optional website you can create that is super easy to do, yet generates huge traffic for any offer you make.
• How to get paid twice a month, every month, automatically like clock work.
• The “lazy” way to pile up the money. This might seem like cheating, but it’s a 100% legit way to squash your competition.
• How to be on your way to making big bucks just minutes from now.
• How to skip distractions and focus your time on only what counts.
• Exactly what to do with no guesswork and no fluff, just the essentials.
• Forget technical stuff. All you need is a keyboard and web browser (and you already have that!).
• The plug-and-play system that generates profit 24/7 without being chained to your computer.

And you can start IMMEDIATELY. This isn’t a slowly build it as you go system. This is a “fast and astonishingly profitable” system that rolls money into your bank account faster than you ever thought possible. Provided you get to work, of course! Get it now!

P.S. This is the LAST, FINAL reminder I’ll send on Ewen’s program. I know a LOT of you have already grabbed it — congratulations to you!

The Riskiest Thing You Can Do Is _ _ _ _ _ _ _!!

In my last post I wrote to you about Ewen Chia’s Autopilot Profits. I received several emails from folks who couldn’t believe it was true, but judging by the sales, disbelief didn’t stop a lot of you. Or maybe it was just the stupid low price?

Anyway, here are a few questions I received. I thought these might help . . .

Q. “Is this difficult to do?”

A. Ewen says it’s so easy, a monkey could do it. Well, maybe if a monkey can work a mouse and keyboard, he could. It’s not THAT easy. If it were, everyone would be doing it. It requires some work, but
it’s definitely not over your head.

If you can balance your own checkbook, you’ve got more than enough brain power to do this, provided you’re willing to put forth some effort.

Q. “What will I need to do?”

A. Without giving too much away (only buyers get to find out the details) you have to be able to read and follow simple, clear instructions. If you choose to go the simplest, easiest route, Ewen does about 95% of the work for you. Bottom line - You can make some serious money with an embarrassingly small amount of effort. What does this sound like? A business in a box, right!

Q. “What else do I need to buy to make this work?”

A. Ewen recommends you get a couple of OPTIONAL tools that are completely affordable, but you can actually start without them. I did. Or rather, I used my OWN tools.

Q. “Do I need a website?”

A. No, you don’t need a site at all. You don’t need to hunt for a winning product to sell, either. You don’t need sales copy, employees, inventory, or even an idea. Told you this is simple. But your shiny new Wordpress blog would sure help.

Q. “Is this an ebook?”

A. It’s a set of step-by-step tutorial videos. Play a video, follow the instructions, play the next video, etc.

Q. “How long does it take?”

A. You can get everything set up in an hour or two. Setup is simple to allow you to focus on marketing.

I know Ewen doesn’t go into a lot of specifics in his letter, other than how simple and easy this is to do. That’s his style. But he is one of the most respected names in the industry, and he isn’t going to waste his time and reputation on something that DOESN’T work. So you can be extremely confident that it does work, and work well — at least for him!

Second, the price is low. Low-low. You spend more than this when you eat out or go to the movies.

And third, you’ve got eight full weeks to decide if it’s right for you or not. You risk NOTHING by purchasing.

But by NOT purchasing, you risk LOSING a whole lot of money you COULD HAVE made, had you grabbed it while you could. Make sense?

Sometimes the riskiest thing of all is doing nothing, while the safest is taking a simple action. I’m an action kind of guy. That’s just me. Get your copy here. Everything you have in your life right now is the result of an action you took. Everything you DON’T have in your life right now is the result of an action you did NOT take. Don’t lose out. Grab your copy of “The Turnkey Money Machine That Prints Non-Stop Profits For You Automatically, The Lazy Way,” today.

You Can’t Stop It, Even If You Want To

Would you believe a system that sends you non-stop cash, even if you don’t want it to? Neither would I! But . . .

When I was a kid, computers were great big things hidden deep in the recesses of large corporations. Whenever there was any kind of error, employees always blamed the computer. “It’s a computer error, so sorry, we’ll get it fixed!” That doesn’t include my Commodore 64 running the latest copy of “Lemonade Stand” from a 5″ floppy.

One time I heard of a guy getting a check from his phone company for $1000, a huge sum of money to a kid. He wasn’t owed this money, and when he contacted the company about it, they said they would fix it. So they sent him another check . . .

. . .and another check . . .

. . .and another check . . .

This went on every day for two months before it finally stopped. WOW! I was so excited! Maybe some big company would start sending ME big checks for no reason! I never did receive those checks from the big computer in the company basement. But that didn’t stop me from dreaming.

I forgot all about that guy and his non-stop checks until today, when I visited Ewen Chia’s site. Check out his headline:

“The Turnkey Money Machine That Prints Non-Stop Profits For You Automatically, The Lazy Way . . . Once You Turn On This Plug-And-Play In-A-Box Money System, It Can’t Stop Sending You Cash…Even If You Want It To.”

The stuff of fantasy, right? But then he goes on to show proof. Really BIG proof. And this is no computer error.

Ewen really is making this kind of money. He spends minutes per day on his system. Minutes! And he’s making money hand over fist, as we used to say. Of course, this Ewen. We mere mortals don’t have his resources or contacts, but a solid business is a solid business, regardless of who is running it.

To top it all off, he says it’s so easy, a MONKEY could do it. Well, I’m not sure about the monkey. But I guarantee you and I can do it. Here are the details of Ewen’s system. One thing I can say about Ewen is that his products are almost always priced at bargain basement prices, and this is no exception.

By the way, that guy who was getting all the checks when I was a kid went to town once a week to try to give them back. They wouldn’t take them! Finally, when the phone company got their “computer” straightened out, they knocked on the guy’s door and demanded he return all the checks. I always thought he should of hidden in the dark recesses of HIS house, but he was honest and gave all the checks back . . . except one. He said that was for his trouble!

With Ewen’s program, no one will be knocking on your door. It’s 100% legitimate, legal and honest. And maybe your earnings will make those $1000 checks look like chump change. Check it out.

$500 to $2000 in 4 months with PLR Content

Before we dive back into the final tips for getting the most out of article marketing, I wanted to present a short case study — really just a usage example — of PLR content.

Chris Marshall uses PLR content very effectively, and in a conversation I had with him, he shared some of his tips for rewriting PLR content to get the most value out of it.

Chris started in PPC advertising, so he knows a thing or two about optimization. Before Chris began using PLR content, he was doing quite well in AdSense compared to most average users. He went from
doing about $500 per month with just 15-20 sites, to spring boarding to $2000 per month and 170 sites, in just 4 short months using PLR content.

Chris attributes this growth directly to his usage of PLR Pro content.

Now, is $2,000 a lot? Well that depends on your perspective. For auto-pilot sites, $2,000 a month for little maintenance effort is better than a kick in the pants. And if one can attract search traffic to PLR-driven sites, just how powerful do you think the marketing benefits are of using PLR content in your article marketing efforts?

Right, pretty powerful. And fast.

I asked Chris what he would say to someone considering using PLR content from PLR Pro. And his response:

“I think the guidance from me would be that you get regular content very cost effectively, if you don’t expect miracles. Just make sure you keep up with the packs - i.e. don’t put them to one side and think ‘I’ll sort them later.’ Don’t just cut and paste — find a way to put your own touch to them, whatever that may be.”

PLR Rewriting

One of the biggest problems that people have when they get their articles is that they don’t know how to rewrite them. This is the beauty of PLR Pro’s content. It is already expertly researched, targeted, and written, so you can use the existing content and structure as an outline of sorts for your new article.

It’s not really that hard; all you need to do is look at the article you are rewriting, and just break it down into bite-sized chunks so that you can digest it effectively.

The most common strategy is to read each paragraph individually and then rewrite it in your own words. This is a very effective form of rewriting, and generally takes me about 15-20 minutes per article (a 75% time savings).

The second way you can go about the rewrite is to do a mind map of what is covered in the article, and then write about each of the major points. Mind maps are simple to learn, and are fantastic for keeping ideas, taking notes, and rewriting articles.

So those are the the two primary ways to rewrite articles. They’re not fancy, and it’s not out of this world stuff, but it works. As a side note, there are plenty of services out there that will compare an article side by side, and tell you how different they are from one another.

In the next e-mail — the final one on article marketing and PLR content (about time, yes?!) — we’ll look at a few tips to make sure your articles spread like a virus, bringing you backlinks from article directories and through syndication.

Favorite Opportunity of 2008

Here’s what this is all about . . .

Just last week I was on the phone with my friend Ken (he works for the datacenter where my servers are located) and he gave me a great auto-pilot idea that he gleamed from a book he just read. This type of thing is right up my alley, as I’m always looking for ways to turn a profit with auto-pilot income.

Well, one of my favorite ways to monetize an auto-pilot site is by using Ebay (you’ve probably heard me talk about Build a Niche already). Plain and simple, Ebay payouts are huge! They pay anywhere from 25% to 75% of their fees on ANYTHING purchased. It doens’t matter what a visitor clicks on, I get paid on anything they buy.

Anyway, when I heard that this idea involved Ebay, my ears perked right up. I listened intently — I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Literally, couldn’t believe it. So I checked it out. I hopped on Ebay, moved about to verify the opportunity, and then kicked myself. Hard. Why didn’t I think of this??? I’m a smart guy, how did THIS escape me?

So then Ken told me about the author. Maybe you’ve heard of Alex Goad? Well, I’ve also heard his name kicked around here and there but never really paid much attention because I figured he was just one of those “hypey” and bogus Internet marketing gurus out there promising the world and not really delivering.

But Ken said Alex’s book came with his highest recommendations (and that’s something that doesn’t come lightly from a man who has been marketing on the Web since 1994 and who I trust because of his savvy advice).

Well, I loved the auto-pilot idea, and then with Ken’s recommendation, that was all I needed to hear to give this guy’s book a shot — and to say I was blown away with the information inside is putting it mildly!

I was up until 3:00 in the morning devouring everything in this book. In fact, I was able to pull out several outstanding ideas right away from only the first few chapters. Some of these ideas are completely new, “I can do that?” ideas. And some are complementary ideas that I can use to add to my existing projects.

That one I metioned above I conservatively estimate will be worth $12,000 to $16,000 this year in added revenues. Sure, I won’t retire on it, but it’ll make 2008 much more comfortable for me! Needless to say, this is certainly changing the direction of my upcoming projects.

And that’s why I’m telling my friends, colleagues, and customers to take a look.

To put it another way, if you have any kind of web business, whatsoever (or are even thinking of one), you need to head straight over to this site and check it out. Trust me, you’ll be more than pleased with this offer — it is without a doubt my FAVORITE OFFER OF 2008. I say that with ZERO reservation. Check it out here.

Good luck with it! Get in touch with me as you start implementing some of these ideas — I’d like to compare notes. And being a tool guy, I’ll be building some neat tools to automate some of these ideas even more!

Update: I turned a profit within one week using the arbitrage method. One of my readers e-mailed me last night saying that he locked in 10 supplier agreements since reading the book just a few days ago!

Ingenious Way to Target a Niche

I’m sure you’ve noticed that this group is very tightly focused around blogging: specifically, learning to blog for six figures, redirecting traffic to blogs, and monetizing blogs. I rarely step outside this framework.

Until today. You probably realize by now that I’m a fan of multiple income streams. And I like to remain current on breaking developments in all of the industries I follow. That means that I end up following a lot of clunkers and dogs, because 95 percent of new developments are just noise. But that makes finding the truly memorable and outstanding programs all the SWEETER.

I’ve found two of those memorable programs.

Desperate Buyers Only

In one of the best-written e-books I’ve ever read, Alexis Dawes completely changed how I view niche and auto-pilot income. The concepts are so incredibly simple, yet effective, I’m actually embarrassed that I didn’t think of them myself.

Alexis will show you how to target an insanely narrow niche, and still make great money from it. There’s always been a balance. I use keyword analysis to help me find good, profitable niches. But one of the determinants of profitability is search traffic. Desperate Buyers Only allows you to target niches with less traffic, and therefore less competition, but still make great profits by increasing the conversion rate and profitability per visitor.

Simple, ingenious, and I’m so glad I found it. Check it out for yourself — I think you’ll be impressed.

1% M.O.L.B Wealth Formula

Alex Edevane really turned me around with this product. I ALWAYS go into these types of programs rather cynically, looking for holes. I just can’t stand all of the ridiculous claims, screenshots of income statements, or pictures of cars and mansions. After all, it’s just another affiliate program.

But Alex can back up his claims with a program that works — provided you work it. This is a solid blueprint for success, and while I think the content can be improved a great deal, I also feel that this is the single best way to get started in affiliate marketing today. Just like Blogging in Action is the best path to a six-figure blog, 1% M.O.L.B. is the best path to starting an affiliate marketing career.

Check out the proof yourself!

If you decide to use either of these programs, please shoot me a quick note to let me know what you think and how it’s working out for you. I’d love to compare notes. Who knows, maybe we can give each other a leg up!

Work the Keyword Plan

Are you sick and tired of being kicked around the Internet by your competition and the big SEO firms? Are you fed up with typing your keywords into Google, only to see a hundred of your competitors
ranked higher than you?

And have you resigned yourself to never knowing how to optimize your site to get it onto the very FIRST page of the search engine rankings?

Well . . . do something about it!

Yes, even if you don’t know the first thing about keywords and SEO, it no longer matters, because you have access to the perfect program for getting your site to the top of the rankings, and it’s called Keyword Elite.

And it’s so simple, my nephew could do it. I’d say my son, but he’s only three, so actually, HE can’t do it!

Several keyword group members grabbed their copy when I first wrote about Keyword Elite — good for you! You’re fed up with lousy traffic and low profits, and you’re going to do something about it. That’s an excellent step in the right direction. Experiment with the projects — you’ll be amazed at what you can uncover. Exactly what are your biggest competitors’ hottest keywords and ads? How are their pages optimized?

By getting your site onto the first page of the search engine rankings, you can quickly and easily explode your traffic and make a ton of money by doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling your sales . . .with little or no extra work. It’s all a numbers game after all.

I did get a few questions that I’d like to address, so here they are:

Q. “I am the least technical person in the world. I already feel like I’m in over my head. Can I do this?”

A. Yes! First, forget everything you’ve ever heard about SEO that made you afraid of it. Second, know that you will not have to do anything technical to use Keyword Elite. Third, know that hundreds of other people, also afraid of anything technical, have successfully used Keyword Elite to get their sites ranked on the first page of the search engine rankings for their key search terms.

Bottom line: even if you have a complete techno-phobia, you CAN DO THIS.

Still not sure? There is an eight week money back guarantee. So you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Q. “Do you have proof that this works?”

A. Of course. Click this link and watch the first three movies. You’ll see sites go from obscurity to front page rankings. You’ll also see the tremendous boost in traffic they get. Then look at the profit results and imagine that they’re piling up in your account!

Q. “I’m still skeptical that Keyword Elite can get my site ranking high on the search engines, and I’m skeptical that it will impact my bottom line greatly.”

A. Just watch the videos and prepare to be blown away! Even if you have NO interest in getting your site ranked high in the search engines, go watch the movie just for entertainment. I promise, it will rock your world.

Additional Passive Income Streams Through Blogging

About a month ago, I shared with you the secret of auto-pilot income, and how you can quickly create passive streams of income with a piece of free software. If you don’t remember that software,
you can refresh your memory here.

Although I use it extensively, some others avoid it because of its complexity. It’s not that it’s difficult to use — it’s actually an easy, wizard-based program — but it’s hard to perfect. If you are interested in creating streams of passive income, but are looking for a simpler solution, continue reading for some great options to help you pay the bills while your long-term blogs gain a toehold in the blogosphere.

Niches in a Box

The most comprehensive package in this group, Niches in a Box is a COMPLETE niche package, including a full niche site, templates, a blog, 52 blog posts, hundreds of PLR articles, and an e-book that you can sell. These sites are hit or miss — I have some that perform very well and some that perform poorly for the same effort. It includes an installer, and you can have a niche canvased in one day with this package.

Niche Video Site Builder

Made by the same people who make Niches in a Box, the Niche Video Site Builder is a very easy and fast way to get a niche video site online. What I’ve been finding that works is creating a “video” subdomain or subfolder in another niche web site, and adding value with You Tube videos. My stats show more repeat visitors this way, and it also helps for promotion purposes. Quick and painless, but revenue has been less than exciting. I’ve also been experimenting with my own video site software creation tool, but I’m not ready to reveal that just yet.

Niche Elite

Made by the same folks who make Keyword Elite and SEO Elite, Niche Elite is another complete Niche package, but this one IS TERRIBLE. No source files are included, making editing difficult (the whole
point of PLR), and if you ever cancel your subscription, they demand a fee for you to continue using the product that you already purchased.

Niche Mania

I’ve been using Niche Mania more and more over the past few months because it works. The site designs are less than stellar, but the PLR articles are very good quality, and the kicker is that distribution is incredibly limited to just a handful of people. Spend five minutes rewriting each article, add your own video with Niche Video Site Builder, add some content of your own, and you have a powerful, unique niche site. Really good stuff, and the proprietor is friendly and responsive. Unfortunately, this site has seen a lot of changes lately, and it seems to be getting more and more unreliable each time I login.

Build a Niche

Build a Niche is a unique entrant in that it interfaces with eBay, along with contextual advertising programs of your choosing. It has an amazing amount of flexibility for how simple it is to use. Login to your control panel, and follow the buttons from left to right, and follow the large numbers on each page. Voila! Site complete. Build a Niche is the easiest niche package to get started with, so it’s ideal for newcomers to VRE or page building.

Conclusion

The bottom line is don’t let any difficulties with software or tactics keep you from building your auto-pilot empire. Persevere, continue creating and populating your long-term blog, and try your hand with different programs. They all carry trial periods or money back guarantees, so give them a shot to see if they’re more to your liking.

The Smart Money in Hot Dogs

A hot dog vendor in the street makes a few cents every time he sells a hot dog. But look at what he’s had to do to make that few cents:

• buy a cart
• secure a location
• stock the cart
• stand out there day after day, working 6 to 12 hours a day.

Now, somebody somewhere set up the deal that sold the hot dogs to the wholesaler who then sold them to the vendor. Even though the broker did very little actual work, he made as much money as the
hot dog vendor.

(Actually, he probably made a lot more money, since he has no overhead.) Doesn’t seem fair, does it?

Yet in almost any business, there are those who do most of the work and make a little of the money, and those who do very little work, and make most of the money.

Ebay is no different.

If you sell stuff on Ebay, you’ve got to get the stuff to sell, photograph it, list it, deal with customers, HOPE that you make a profit when the auction closes, pack the stuff, ship the stuff, and pay Ebay exorbitant fees for the privilege of doing all this work.

But there are people out there who are making money on YOUR auctions! You’ve never met these people. You don’t know who they are or even where in the world they are . . . but they’re there. And they’re not doing ANY of the work you’re doing. They’re simply sending people to Ebay to buy your stuff. And they get paid very well for doing this.

Do you want to be the one doing all the work and getting a little bit of money? Or the one doing a little bit of work and making far more money? So a quick recap on Build a Niche Stores:

#1. It’s A Proven Money Making Concept

These sites WORK. My most valuable properties all have Ebay content on them.

#2. The software is Incredibly Under-Priced

For a one time fee of LESS than a hundred bucks, you get the website builder software, an unlimited domain license, nine easily customizable template layouts, a user manual, access to the member area, and free updates for LIFE.

#3. The eBay Affiliate Opportunity Is Huge

No other affiliate opportunity combines this vast of a product inventory with such an established brand name, coupled with Ebay’s outstanding affiliate commissions. The credibility is unparalleled and the potential is limitless.

#4. It Builds Real Search Engine Friendly Websites

You can build websites that are as professional looking, as content rich, and as search engine friendly as any other website building platform on the Internet, only your sites will have a built in means of making money from Day 1.

#5. You Can Build As Large A Website Portfolio As You Like

You pay a small one time fee and then you can build as large a portfolio as you like. Want just one store? 10 stores? A hundred stores? It’s completely up to you, and you will never have to pay another software fee, no matter how many stores you end up building!

Check it out for yourself. Review the testimonials. See the sites that real customers have built. You’ll be happy that you did. I haven’t talked to a SINGLE person who didn’t love the concept AND execution of these stores.

Try this: make a TWO-WEEK COMMITMENT to yourself. Get the software and build a store a day until two weeks is up. Then follow my traffic blueprint to market your stores. Then it’s only a matter of time!

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