It’s only been one week into this niche affiliate blogging experiment, but already progress is happening! For one thing, my latest affiliate blog, Candle Fandom, just made its first referral. I only made $5, but that’s money I didn’t have before, and it’s money I earned writing about a hobby I like, that I would have been satisfied writing about even for free.

Secondly, my friend Colette Bennett has already found success implementing affiliate strategies for her Asian skincare blog, Chok Chok Beauty. Colette says:

“I started my blog in December 2015 and had no idea how to set up affiliate links. Lauren gave me a few tips that I really appreciated—thanks to her advice, I racked up $40 in sales in my first week using the system!”

Way to go, Colette! Notice, by the way, that neither of these money-earning blogs are soulless endeavors, but built around topics we like to write about already. I’ve read way too many sleazy affiliate marketing tutorials to bring another of those into the world.

So now it’s time for me to tell you about the affiliate blog I’m building specifically for this blogging series. The topic is this: STEM toys for girls.

STEM, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, is a block of topics that historically have had less female participation. As a result, fewer women than men occupy these rewarding, often lucrative careers. Even at the fairly diverse company where I work as a Web developer, I am the only woman on the team. Plus, when I worked at ReadWrite, it was part of my job to highlight STEM toys for kids, girls in particular, so I know a lot of them already. It’s something I care about a lot!

On the more technical keyword planning side, here’s what I did to verify that this might be a topic that will earn money.

1. I went to Google Keyword Planner and selected “Search for new keywords using a phrase, website, or category.” I typed in “STEM girls.”
2. I scanned the list of result to find Google searches that have low competition, but still get 1,000+ searches a month. That way, I can create a site that Google considers an “authority” on the topic and shows up as a top result for this search prompt.
3. I discovered that “Women in STEM” and “What is STEM?” are phrases that people type into Google between 4,000 and 6,000 times a month, but are listed as “low” competition keywords. Bingo! I’ve decided that these are the keywords I’m going to target.

Notice how even though I’m writing on the topic of STEM toys for girls, I am choosing to target related keywords and not that exact phrase. The same is true for Candle Fandom—candles are a very high competition keyword, but “great scented candles” and “candle DIYs” are not. Just because the topic you want to cover is high competition doesn’t mean you can’t use it for your site if that’s your passion. As a close-to-home example, “Anime” and “Gundam” are very high competition, but “Gunpla” is not. Hence, Gunpla 101!

Now that I have a topic that’s both important to me and potentially valuable to people who search for it, it’s time to set up a site. I immediately bought stemtoys4girls.com (slim pickings, I know) and started generating blog post ideas. Here’s how I am choosing to structure my posts:

• Authoritative posts. As a professional journalist, I love to research and learn new stuff. It’s surprisingly easy to know just a little more than average about things. These posts will outline my findings about topics like “What is STEM?” and other relevant information.

• Tutorials. “How to do X” is one of the most common things typed into Google. here’s a huge gap in things people want to learn to do and actually helpful tutorials to help them do it. I will do this in the form of shopping guides and lists of ways to get girls involved in STEM.

• Reviews. Any Amazon Affiliate “guru” will tell you this is the number one most converting type of content. But I don’t go to many, or any, sites that JUST review stuff. I would wonder, “who are you to review stuff?” So I want to do these, but not overdo them.

Next week, I’ll share how to publish content that makes money—but also expresses your voice.

How’s your affiliate blog coming along? I’m looking forward to your comments. And if you’re not along for this particular ride, we’ll be back to the regularly scheduled Otaku Journalist in two weeks.

Next:

Design and launch your niche blog

How to encourage people to click

Previously:

Finding a topic for your niche blog

I’m one of those corny people who is all about New Year’s goals. This morning I got up an hour early to make miso chicken bento boxes for John and I to bring to work in an effort to stop eating the same boring sandwiches all the time. Of course the early wakeup means I’m already less enthusiastic about this goal, and the truth is most New Year’s Resolutions don’t work. You have to have systems in place for when you inevitably lose motivation. For example, it’d be really smart if I made some bento staples in advance instead of waking up at a time that probably isn’t sustainable for my life.

With that in mind, another 2016 goal of mine is to help you further your niche writing career. The problem with this is that a lot of ways to achieve this goal are dependent on somebody else. You can do the work, but you still need to find somebody to actually pay you for it. And then, I remembered my niche affiliate blog, Gunpla 101, where I write about Gundam, link to Amazon, and make money like that.

In the screenshot below, I’m sharing my exact affiliate earnings from Gunpla 101 for 2015. This chart is a little hard to read, but the “advertising fees” column is my share:

As you can see, a niche blog won’t earn enough to let you quit your day job (at least in my experience), but it can help you pad your income. What would you do with a couple extra thousand a year?

This is a money-making tactic that has worked really well for me, but I realize that a lot of people don’t agree. Some people think it’s sleazy (an opinion I understand, given all the underhanded affiliate marketing guides out there, guides which don’t work for long since they encourage you to game Google) and others simply think it’s too complicated. I want to dispel these beliefs, because I think affiliate blogging is one of the most rewarding ways to make money as a writer, no boss required.

I spent the last week of 2015 writing a guide all about starting a niche affiliate blog that goes into all the details, and that will be up for sale in February. But in January, I want to do a 4-step walkthrough of affiliate blog construction, from topic brainstorming to your first sale.

So let’s start with brainstorming. You might already have a topic, but the trick is finding a good keyword.I want you to use Google Keyword Planner in order to find your own keyword. A good keyword has: 1) low competition from advertisers and 2) at least 1,000 searches a month. “Gunpla,” which is a foreign word that most English ads don’t target is listed as “low” competition and gets 3,460 searches a month, meaning it fits this bill perfectly. If I had picked Gundam, which has “high” competition and gets 6,000+ searches a month, I would have a much more difficult time making money. That may not make sense right now, but it will come to light as we all continue this experiment together.

I just created a new blog in order to test affiliate linking strategies for my book called Candle Fandom, but I’ll be generating a new keyword just for this experiment. I’ll reveal my keyword next week, and we’ll talk about generating blog post ideas based on our keywords and setting up a basic site for them to live on.

Affiliate linking is my favorite way to make money as a niche writer. Since it relies on finding keywords that are sort of obscure, it’s like it was made for people with niche interests and hobbies. I’m really excited to embark on this experiment with you, fellow writers. Let me know in the comments if you’re with me on this, and feel free to share your keyword with me and I’ll offer advice!

Next:

Choosing keywords and content types for your affiliate blog

How to design and launch your niche affiliate blog

How to encourage people to click your links