Deranged Penguin

There is a lot to be said for consistency. One tendency I had early on was to ping pong from thing to thing, and not settle down on a particular topic or interest area. Since watching most of the livestream of WordCamp Portland last weekend, though, I’ve really tried to buckle down and get serious about what it is that I’m trying to do. One thing the Cheezburger CTO said that has stuck with me is that you can rapidly prototype a concept that might have a community around it, but no matter what you decide to try, move forward on that and devote your time and effort to finishing the cluster of tasks that will take the concept live. If it doesn’t work, at least you’ll know. But you won’t have seven unfinished projects.

This site is doing all right, and I believe that the core mission (giving great information and resources for folks who need them) is coming along. However, that leaves me with the open question of how to build income streams alongside building trust. Darren Rowse has a fantastic post about Amazon associate profits that explains how to leverage something like a partner program with a bookstore/mega-mall, and of course that’s something I’m hoping to duplicate with Powell’s. The keys are traffic and persistence – Powell’s may be a core sponsor of the site, but unless I’m going to talk about stuff I’m reading or stuff you should read, it’s a dead link. If I stick with it (or, you could say “start doing it already”), there’s a never-ending opportunity to talk about business and marketing concepts as I review books. It’s a way that I can add value by focusing on new ideas, and it also develops a category of posts that are distinct from but related to the central themes of the blog. The density of affiliate links in such posts is compensated for by the brain power exerted in writing the review and grappling with the concepts. So that’s a big step that needs to happen here, and something I’m adding to the list of “do every week.”

I’m happy, too, that my cheap computing site is starting to get some traction. It meets the value equation head on – giving good reviews (and hopefully funny ones) of Geeks.com products and also talking generally about cheap computing options for folks. I think the tie-in to the mothership is somewhat understated at the moment, but it’s getting some attention and hopefully I’ll have more time to develop the relationship between the two sites.

(It’s actually pretty simple – if you’re going to make money on affiliate marketing you need to keep a sharp eye on the bottom line. You don’t need a premium laptop to make money online; you need something with a keyboard and a screen. You don’t need to waste money on guru courses, you need to read extensively about affiliate marketing best practices from people who understand that “best practices” means “build a relationship first.” So the one fits with the other – find cheap tools and free resources to get off the ground. When you start making money online, you can buy yourself the super-awesome new Macbook. Until then, tighten the belt and write until your fingertips are numb.)

I’m leveraging the incredible power of the Acme People Search Forums to get lots of good ideas (if you visit, set up an account and say hi – I’m “derpengy” on the forum). These folks are committed and amazing, and there’s incredible value to be found there. The same is true of Wealthy Affiliate, which by the way is still running the one dollar, one week trial of Wealthy Affiliate University. Everything I’m seeing there is echoing what I learned at WordCamp: Focus, focus, focus.

So for the remainder of this week I’m going to be writing out the basics of finding and monetizing a niche blog. I’m going to use Der Pengy as the example, but we’ll start generic and discuss what matters to you, dear reader.

Want to help out? Give me some suggestions of niches in the comments. I’ll pick one that I’m at least a little bit familiar with and we’ll go from there.