Month: September 2010

What Does Your Blog Design Say About You?

This is a guest post by Sam Denis who blogs about how to make money online at Venturalist.com

1. Minimalistic – Well, a minimalistic blog design may say two things about you. Either you are a minimalist or you blog for fun. How so? Individuals who are minimalists usually express themselves with minimalism involved in all aspects of their lives. They don’t like clutter. Everything they do revolves around getting things done with the least effort while obtaining the best results. Secondly, blogs that look minimalistic are usually owned by people who mostly blog for fun. They are not obsessed with profit or search engine optimization and therefore they avoid all of this. It does not matter to them if their blog is read by a million people or just one. Their only concern is having fun with their writing material.

2. Complex – I’m sure you have seen blog designs that are just very chaotic and complex looking. I am talking about the ones that have a million affiliate links and contextual advertising. Let’s not forget the million different sidebars and menus. Oh, by the way, these blogs have fancy headers with bunch of different color themes.

These blogs are usually owned by individuals who are all around the place. They are people with great computer skills and drive for money but at the same time may have some attention deficit issues. They want maximum optimization of their blog’s design both for the readers and search engines. They also want to optimize profits. That’s why they have all of those affiliate links along with contextual advertising all around the place. So, if you have such a blog, that’s what I and other visitors may think about you.

3. Use of Earth Colors – Believe it or not, some bloggers subconsciously end up picking earth colors for the blog themes. Individuals who do this are obviously drawn to nature and earth. These bloggers usually blog about political, religious and philosophical issues. These individuals usually use long sentences with fancy words, but do end up having excellent and interesting content.

4. Use of Unusual Colors – Some of the top blogs have unusual colors. What is an unusual color? For me, an unusual color is one that is, let’s say, different. It is sort of red or sort of blue, but not quite. It may look orange, but it is not quite orange. These are unusual colors. I won’t mention any names, but some of the top blogs out there have unusual color themes. These may be a combination of pink and green or a combination of orange and purple. These usually tend to be very technical blogs. They are usually about the latest iPhone app or Honda robot. So, individuals who use unusual colors are not necessarily unusual people, but they are interesting. At the expense of offending anyone, I will still go ahead and say that these are usually nerd bloggers. I consider myself to be one. Nerds who blog tend to use very strong colors because they want attention and they strongly believe in what they are writing about and want to teach others.

5. Artistic Headers – What can you conclude about a blog that has an artistic header? Two things. The blogger has a lot of money to spend or the blogger is talented enough to create a professional header. Usually, from what I have seen, the blogger is rich enough to afford a good header design. In this case, the blog is most likely high traffic blog and one that is pulling in a lot of money from advertising and affiliate marketing. If the header is very nice, I assure you that the blogger is blogging almost full time and that he or she is a known person in the blogosphere. However, if the header was created by a talented person, he or she is not necessarily rich and doesn’t necessarily have a blog that pulls in a lot of money either from advertising or affiliate marketing, but in most cases, the blogger will eventually succeed. A nice blog design and talented blogger usually equals blog success.

6. Blog Pop-Ups – Well, pop-ups are technically part of your blog design. So, what can you tell about a blogger from pop-ups? Before I go on, I want to tell you that when I say pop-ups I am talking about the ones that want your name and email address so you can get a free eBook. These bloggers are usually professionals. They know the importance of getting the emails of blog visitors and creating a huge list. So, if you have pop-ups for your blog, it means that you like money but you are still capable of providing people with free resources that can be used in making money or improving one’s daily life in some other way.

Free Niche Research: Charcoal Grills

I hope you are enjoying this Labor Day with your family. Since one of the most popular ways to celebrate Labor Day is to host or attend a cookout, I thought I’d research grills today. And even better, I am going to dig a little deeper and check out the searches and competition for charcoal grills. Are you ready? Let’s get started!

Top 10 Highest Paying Keywords (from the Google keyword tool)

discount charcoal grills $8.16

large charcoal grills $8.12

meco charcoal grill $8.06

portable charcoal grill $6.96

cajun charcoal grill $6.32

charcoal barbeque grill $5.92

patio classic charcoal grill $5.84

outdoor charcoal grill $5.79

charcoal grill cooking $5.66

patio charcoal grill $5.16

Top 10 Most Searched Keywords (all phrases are exact matches in Google)

charcoal grill 135,000

charcoal grills 110,000

weber charcoal grill 27,100

charcoal barbecue grill 8,100

portable charcoal grill 6,600

charcoal grill smoker 4,400

best charcoal grill 2,900

charcoal grilling 2,900

stainless steel charcoal grill 2,900

charcoal bbq grills 2,400

Resources

Check out “grilling forums” or “bbq forums” and you’ll find a wealth of information. Of course, you can always use your own experience, or that of family members or friends.

Possible Affiliate Programs

Amazon has lot and lots of charcoal grills, many of them with hundreds of very positive reviews/testimonials: works wonders for potential buyers.

Monetization Suggestions

Adsense pays really well in this niche, so if you like writing, go for it.

But don’t forget to create some product page reviews, IPK style.

Also, I encourage you to create a list for grilling fans: there are a lot of searches for grilling: tips, recipes, etc.

Here are some .com domains available for this niche now:

mygrillingspot.com

mygrillingnews.com

mygrillingtips.com

charcoalgrillnews.com

Here are some .org domains available:

mygrills.org

grillsblog.org

grillsnews.org

And some .net ones:

grillsspot.net

grillsinfo.net

mygrillingtips.net

charcoalgrillspot.net

Do you need keyword research? I am running a special over at the warrior forum, and later today I am increasing the price. Check it out if you need keyword research!

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