It is always best to, early on, move from the "niche" right into the actual business model. If you want to create a REAL online business based around your blog, then we definitely need to think of it as a business and not a topic. In this episode, we make that bridge into business. I introduce a one-page business plan idea and begin taking about how to TEST your business idea before investing a bunch of time into it.

Also, there's a blooper in here that I left in. :)

So, today again, we are going to continue on our series to creating and growing a profitable blog-based information business online.

In order to be able to go into a market with your blog and make a dent (and make money), you need to be pretty in-tune with what they need and want.

In this episode, we talk about how to learn what they want. We talk about how to use surveys to find out, and ways to get people to answer your survey - even when you don't have a blog yet.

And so now, what we are going to talk about is the next step in evaluating a niche. And in this one, we are going to get a little bit into surveying; which is actually a skill that is going to become handy to you throughout your career in this particular business. But what we are going to talk about specifically today is how to find out what your market needs and wants. It's a very important thing because we have looked at demand, we have looked at what the level of money flowage (I know it's a made up word, but I'm going to use it anyway) :-) in this space, but now, if you are going to personally enter that particular market you need to be really in tuned with what people need and want.

In order to be able to go into a market with your blog and make a dent (and make money), you need to be pretty in-tune with what they need and want. In this episode, we talk about how to learn what they want. We talk about how to use surveys to find out, and ways to get people to answer your survey - even when you don't have a blog yet.

Hello! Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging where we are going to continue on our series to creating and growing a profitable blog-based business online.

Now, part of evaluating a blogging niche isn't just looking at the demand and size of the audience, but also looking at the potential for monetization.

In this episode, we'll talk about 4 important things to look at when judging the amount of money which is flowing in a particular market.

Once again, welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging!

Continuing in on our niche selection process, we move into evaluating the market itself and whether it has legs.

What is the most important thing to consider when it comes to competition? What is the #1 most important rule when it comes to selecting a money-making niche?

Also in this episode, we also discuss 5 indicators to look for.

Hello! Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging where we are going to continue on our series to creating and growing a profitable blog-based information business online.

This episode is for those aspiring blog owners who don't come into this with a pretty solid idea already.

Where do you start when you know you want to build a profitable blog-based business, but you don't know which market you want to enter yet? You gotta start somewhere, right?

In this episode, we start off with 4 questions to ask yourself to begin brainstorming possible niche ideas for yourself.

Then we'll move into 4 criteria to use to evaluate your own personal "fit" for each of those ideas.

Lastly, we'll discuss possibly the most important (and psychological) component you MUST look for in a solid niche idea.

Hello! Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging!

As we continue with our ongoing step-by-step series to building up a blog-based business, we're now going to launch into the first step.

What MOST people do is get a bright idea then immediately go out and buy a domain and hosting.

But, let's slow down... Because, if you want your blog to be PROFITABLE, there's a wrong way and a right way to start.

So let's continue on our series to starting up a blog based information business online.

Today we are going to talk a little bit about the very first step that you need to take in order to start a profitable blog. It's a little bit different than what many people do because we have to ask ourselves...

"What is the first thing that most people do when they want to start up a profitable blog?"

Hello there! Welcome to the new episode of Coffee Break Blogging!

In this particular episode, I'm actually going to do something different. I'm going to record a video of me actually doing this particular podcast just basically recording it. The video is not probably going to look very pretty, I'm literally just going to point the webcam on myself; but I'm going to try a little different. I'm going to try putting this thing up on YouTube and just kind of see what the heck happens.

But anyway, from there let's just go and move on to the topic of the show.

Hello, there! David Risley here! Welcome to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging! ;-)

With episode 33 of Coffee Break Blogging, we're still working on setting up the framework for moving forward on the 7 Stages of Building an Online Business.

In this one, I talk about how to do all that we're going to talk about... but while holding down a full-time job. Specifically, I'm going to cover 7 specific strategies in order to build leverage. If you have a full-time job, but want to build up your blog-based business on the side, then give this episode a listen.

So in this episode let's talk about my 7 Tips For Growing Your Blog While Having A Full-time Job.

This one came in from Karen. And Karen, you are the first person to submit a question to me for the podcast since I brought it back so I appreciate that very much. So, this question came from Karen and her blog is KipKitchen.com. And her question is probably one that many people feel. And it is this:

"So far, we have been doing the maintenance of our food blog KipKitchen.com ourselves and it is often tough. We are not PHP programmers. Fixing broken links and other webmaster tasks are difficult to handle. Many internet marketers advise us to outsource the work but we have concerns as we are not making money yet. What would you recommend?"

So, this is a great question to bring forth early on here because I know this is one that many people feel. You are up against that technical glass ceiling, so to speak, where you don't really know certain things with your blog or possibly you just straight up do not have time to do it but yet you do not want to spend any money at all because you are not making anything yet.

First thing that I want to do before I talk about a solution to this is I want to talk about that catch-22 situation that you are in, Karen. It is a very common catch-22 but realize this...

You are going to continue not to make any money with your blog if you spend all your time doing all these things or trying to do these things that you are not any good at.

And that is probably the basic foundation of the advice that you are getting from many of these other marketers is the fact that you do not know how to do it, you should not be trying to spend your time figuring it out.

And I agree with that advice because here is the thing...

If you want to make money with this blog at KipKitchen.com, you are going to need to do certain things to allow the money to come to you. Probably in the order of building your list and building products to sell, making offers... Those are the things that are going to be the shortest path between where you are at and bringing that business in. And that really is where your time should be spent.

Any time that you are spending not doing that but instead going around and trying to fix broken links or doing little maintenance tasks on your blog, that is time you are not going to be spending building those assets that are going to make you money. So it is a catch-22 but it is definitely one that is self-imposed and I would encourage you to question the assumption that you can't spend money if you are not making it yet.

Now, if you go out into the real world (and what I mean here is go off the internet), you probably will see that no business out there is going to making money before they ever spend anything. Generally, we kind of know that there is going to be an initial investment upfront in order to put the place of business upfront, to invest in product that you can sell, things like that.

In the regular world, we tend to have that expectation that for some reason when it gets to the internet, we think the rules are different and that we should be able to build up a nice income stream without ever spending a dime. I don't know where that expectation came from because it is actually not true.

And this situation is proof of that concept.

So you need to be willing to spend money before you've actually made it. And in fact, I've often found, and I've experienced this myself that your best chance of success is going to be found when you invest a little bit of money into it. Because until you have invested a little bit of money into it, it is almost like it's less serious. And that when you finally invest a little bit of money you got a little bit of skin in that game, you are more likely to pull it off so you didn't waste your investment.

So with all that being said, I encourage you, Karen, to focus on what you need to do in the short term to build your business and be willing to outsource those things that are not an effective use of your time.