Advice on my blogging idea

[queen_sheba]

Hi there

wondered if anyone could chime in just to help me get it close to being right first time.

I want to do a blog about my new puppy and throughout his life. Obviously I want to make money out of it (great for buying more toys and treats so I need to monetise it - either through selling a clickbank training product or Amazon things like collars, leads and toys or even pet insurance.

So I need a TLd, easy enough. My question is - do I highly specialise in one keyword string - eg clickertraining tld but allow the content to be more varied - such as "today I tried a new toy with him"...talk about the toy, sell it up blah blah or will I be penalised for this? I don't want it to be a purely training site as people looking for new toy ideas or information about diet etc may not want to stay and look around. I wanted it to be highly personalised, not just "another training site" trying to sell you something....this will be tried and tested methods in real time with real pictures and video clips...

secondly, most information products/ebooks are written in American - eg color, organize etc so if I optimise it for uk - they will hate the fact i'm referring them to an american product. (i'd rather optimise for usa, more money in it too) I was told to look for local searches in numbers - what exactly does that mean? - USA is quite a big country!

Finally keywords. Is there a post on here that you rate highly for a step by step guide to choosing keywords (particularly to do with local search volume vs competition - i understand the actual keyword thing itself)

I also have a great tld with good EMD for a product based site, blogging about "megadeals" within the niche - who's selling what at good prices! Anyone had experience with this? Is there money to be made on product sites? Is it just a straight amazon referral?

any advice on one or all of my topics would be gladly appreciated

 

[mazgalici]

I will start making a lot of cute videos on youtube with the puppy with the watermark of the site

 

[queen_sheba]

Yes he's very photogenic

 

[jhonson5]

Your idea seems to be something new. But don't forget to update your blog daily and as mazgalici said, do some YouTube videos too. Twitter is also choice able.

 

[travanx]

I am doing something similar with my girlfriend and trying to use that to link to my real life business site. It seems as though making real blogs like this and playing around with them is much more interesting than spinning a bunch of garbage and spamming everything with useless junk. People read real blogs.

 

[poweronics]

You can also post at relevant forums to gain some traffic to your site in addition to other tools used quite often.
Thanks.

 

[queen_sheba]

thanks for the advice so far - any specific tips on the areas I mentioned?

I ended up buying adogblog with org at the end as dog blog gets about 90000 global searches a month. Then I will build it up from there...along the lines of training, insurance, toys etc...

those are the things I need help with the most, I'm pretty good at the social networking side of things but would like to solidify my knowledge on keywords related to global/local searches and competition for niches...

 

[HelenGreen]

Hi there

wondered if anyone could chime in just to help me get it close to being right first time.

I want to do a blog about my new puppy and throughout his life. Obviously I want to make money out of it (great for buying more toys and treats so I need to monetise it - either through selling a clickbank training product or Amazon things like collars, leads and toys or even pet insurance.

So I need a TLd, easy enough. My question is - do I highly specialise in one keyword string - eg clickertraining tld but allow the content to be more varied - such as "today I tried a new toy with him"...talk about the toy, sell it up blah blah or will I be penalised for this? I don't want it to be a purely training site as people looking for new toy ideas or information about diet etc may not want to stay and look around. I wanted it to be highly personalised, not just "another training site" trying to sell you something....this will be tried and tested methods in real time with real pictures and video clips...

secondly, most information products/ebooks are written in American - eg color, organize etc so if I optimise it for uk - they will hate the fact i'm referring them to an american product. (i'd rather optimise for usa, more money in it too) I was told to look for local searches in numbers - what exactly does that mean? - USA is quite a big country!

Finally keywords. Is there a post on here that you rate highly for a step by step guide to choosing keywords (particularly to do with local search volume vs competition - i understand the actual keyword thing itself)

I also have a great tld with good EMD for a product based site, blogging about "megadeals" within the niche - who's selling what at good prices! Anyone had experience with this? Is there money to be made on product sites? Is it just a straight amazon referral?

any advice on one or all of my topics would be gladly appreciated

You might want to offer review on products or services, maybe without linking to them. IMO, people like coming to their own conclusions, making their own decisions, and Googling to find their own products instead of following direct links.
For example, you mentioned pet insurance. Googling around, I see a lot of pet insurance review websites - but none of them seem to be blogs. Many times, people will trust a personal website (such as a blog), as opposed to a review website, because most people realize that "review" websites are only there to make a commission off referrals.
Maybe become a mini Consumer Reports on insurance, which is a very un-regulated industry... Talk about which plans are cheapest, what they cover and what they don't, exclusions, how they deal with pre-existing conditions and congenital diseases, co-pays, deductibles, etc. Maybe even offer cheaper alternatives for those who can't afford it, such as United Pet Care or Pet Assure (both vet discount programs). I think people will react positively to a "real human" reviewing products and services.
Good luck! Hope to see your website when it's up and running

 

[yayaaga]

Thank you

 

[queen_sheba]

thank you for what? dog training isn't exactly a new niche and unless you have a brand spanking new puppy that's keeping you awake at night I doubt you would be able to speak from the heart and make the website what i hope it to be....