In my previous posts on writing niche blog articles, The Art of the Rewrite and How to Create ‘Fast Food’ Articles, I discussed some of my ideas on this kind of writing. In this article, I’ll go over some methods I’m trying out on some of my niche blogs, particularly on domains I’ve converted from other uses, and what some of the results have been. Oh, and I’m going to try to stretch out the food metaphor again so I hope you’re not hungry.

Grizzly’s Keyword Buffet Method

Grizzly, one of the Make Money Online 3 Musketeers, suggests writing long, keyword rich, articles. He describes the ins and outs of this method in this article: I Don’t Write Long Posts Just to Annoy You…. The basic idea is to write long, rambling but coherent, articles where keyword combinations that relate to the blog and the post get used about 3 to 4 as many times than they would in a shorter article.

I’ve tried his technique on a niche blog on a current trend, writing articles between about 1000-1500 words on the topic. I’ve seen a slight uptick in Google search hits on these articles so I’ll continue to try this method on that blog.

The quality of the articles is pretty poor though, essentially a mash-up of PLR articles and short excerpts and rehashes from news reports. Does this matter? I’m not sure that it does but I’ll be watching click-thru and conversion rates and seeing how it performs. Don’t ask me for the link to it, it’s just too ugly. As Cousin Eddie would say, “The bread pudding is especially runny tonight.”

Selling the Sizzle

Another approach I’ve been trying is to sell the sizzle. With this method, my goal is to further entice a searcher who’s interesting in info about a topic to click an ad to find out more. The idea is to write so that the next logical step for the search engine seeker is to click on a related ad. It’s like a restaurant serving more profitable steaks on a sizzling platter because it attracts attention of those who’re about to order.

For example, here’s one I wrote on Salmon Fishing in Alaska on my fishing blog (this site used to be one of my ecommerce sites and still is a little bit). In this article, partially generated using Instant Article Wizard, I superficially discuss taking a salmon fishing trip to Alaska. The Adsense ads that appear, surprise, surprise, point to various Alaskan fishing lodges and other related vacation offers. I even had to look up some of the spots advertised outside of Adsense since I had even sold myself on the idea that such a vacation could be a lot of fun.

The key here is to leave the searcher still searching for an answer but more hungry than ever to find it and to cause the casual visitor to become intrigued by the idea. If the answer, in the form of an ad, is sitting right in front of them they’re likely to click it. I’m just now starting with this niche blog writing method so I’ll have to revisit it later to see how it does as search traffic builds.

A Big Hearty Meal

Here’s something that doesn’t work so well. You write a post that answers a search visitors question so well that they don’t need to search any further and certainly don’t need to click on an ad to find answers.

This is what I see with my VB Notebook for .NET programming blog. I get a substantial amount of search traffic there but, since my articles provide in depth answers to the questions posed by searchers, few have any need to click the ads. Adding a rotation of complementary geek friendly affiliate sales offers helps some but programmers and other tech savvy niches aren’t the easiest ones to sell on clicking ads.

The lesson here is that if you write good, complete, articles that leave the reader full, they won’t want that wafer thin mint you offer them at the end of their meal. Plus, if your target audience is picky for whatever reason, they may not even want to see your advertising dessert tray.

You Still Want Fries With That?

I’m still trying out my “fast food” method on some other niche blogs where I offer up a short article or video with the hope that the searcher will want ‘fries with that’ and click an ad. You can see an example of this in my music video blog, Guitars On TV.

This method seems to perform OK but I’m suspecting that the low content articles probably reduce the search traffic potential and causing occasional dreaded PSA ads to appear in Adsense. If I were going to punch up the guitar video blog or my handful of other blogs along the same writing lines, I’d create longer articles to fit in more keyword and long tail combos.

Experience is a Good Teacher

I encourage you to keep trying new ideas to see what works best in your niches. Experience is a good teacher, especially when you can learn from someone else’s mistakes and ideas they’ve tried. What are your thoughts? Do you have any niche blog writing experiences you want to share?

Features, Niche blogs
articles, How To, niche blog, writing