Please help me with some tips to delve into the SELF-HELP niche.

Hi, its your business that your trying to building, so you'll have to constantly conduct marketing tests and then make the proper adjustments in your business to produce optimal results. With that being said here are some tops for some of your questions.

1.If you can build unique quality content, then this is a great way to build credibility and trust in your market. Just look at all of the top content sites out there, all of them have quality content.

2.I don't know, conduct marketing tests.

3.Same as two.

4.If you want to build long term success you think an autoblog would keep people interested in your content? What would prevent other marketers in your niche from setting up an autoblog? There is very little diversity in the content when these mechanisms are implemented. Its better to invest in your content so that you can consistently produce something that your readers will come back for.

5.Conduct market research. Use keyword analysis and try and come up with as accurate of assumption as you can.

I would recommend writing out a detailed marketing plan before you start to give yourself a nice outline to follow. Best of luck.

Doug

What ever happened to making money from what you are good at?

Do you have any idea how competitive the 'self help' niche is and how unethical it is to build trust with readers when you have 'no desire' to learn about the subject. This niche deals with people's emotions and you have no right there if you are not even remotely interested.

$10 says you never succeed with this as you have just clearly shown you have no interest in it besides the 'potential' for income.

OK, Ill try ...

1. Deliver quality - consistently. That way you are unstoppable!

2. They are all valid options and they all work well. You can use them all in your approach and other options too such as developing your own products.

3. There is no ideal Wordpress theme, but there may well be an ideal combination of plug-ins.

4. AutoBlogging is a no-no. So that means No - No and er ... No!

5. After 6 years of persistent effort, my main site does 5 figures passively.

Hope that helps you in some way.

Friend, you can succeed online, but it is not an easy task. Anyone who says different is being ... ahem ... somewhat economical with the truth.

Steer clear of short-cuts, concentrate on building a business & good luck.

Will

Wow, that's some amazing set of ideas to get me started. I'm getting to doing the keyword research right away... guess that's a fairly good Step 1. I'd appreciate any further help on this, and some tips on how I should go about it (the process bit).

Hi Ultimate, The self help niche is pretty much my only niche, and I have been working in it, writing about it and promoting various products from weight loss to hypnosis, to confidence, and obviously subliminals. In answer to your questions:

1. In this instance I would set your blog up as a brand, rather than brand it to yourself. This also means that you could detach yourself from it in the future - that people follow the brand rather than you.
2. I would always recommend promoting affiliate products and keeping Adsense off your pages - in my experience the pennies from adsense are insignificant compared to affiliate product sales - essentially they are a leak which your visitors can escape to rather than clicking on something which will really make you money.
3. This is personal preference, blogs, magazines, or blog / review site styles can all do well here.
4. I am not a fan of auto blogging, some will say it works, but I have never been able to pull it off, you will still need to do seo / backlinking for your site in any case..
5. This depends entirely on YOU - your knowledge and experience, the amount of work you put in etc. I don't think self help is too overly saturated, certainly not as competitive as IM imo, and there are always plenty of terms you can rank for - to start with longer term ones, but as you grow your site, and yes hopefully within 2 months you can get decent rank for decent terms too. I don't think it is especailly hard to rank for self help type keywords generally - obviously it varies tho

Venturetothetop mentioned the ethics - I think ethics are important as yes, some of the issues in self help obviously cover serious issues which affect people's lives. Perhaps steer away from anything really "deep", and just review different forms of personal development generally - i.e. hypnosis, subliminals, paraliminals, nlp... then move into more specific areas but again nothing to close to the bone - perhaps confidence, self esteem, memory, weight loss - keep away from serious illnesses and disorders basically.

Related to this I think it is important to have an understanding of the product too - and many vendors will give you review copies, advice and materials. This will not only clear you from an ethical perspective if you have actually used the product, but it will make you more credible - you will be able to write something unique, and share your own thoughts and experiences, and this will help you to stand out and get a following.

I would recommend taking a simple approach and setting up a blog / site in one area rather than getting carried away and covering everything - this could be one area such as hypnosis / subliminals / eft / tapping, or perhaps one niche such as weight loss, confidence, motivation, memory, money mindset. You said you are intrigued by self help - which areas? Write about something that interests you, that's how I started, I am genuinely interested in many areas of self help - nlp, hypnosis, confidence, business mindset and read a lot for work and pleasure.

Do some research now - type in "confidence blog" "weight loss blog" "self help blog" or type in some product name reviews "product name review" and see other people who have built sites in these niches - focus on the ones who are primarilly reviewing / writing about products on an affiliate basis rather than people who are just documenting their journey or blogging for personal interest rather than affiliate reasons.

I hope this helps, and I hope you enjoy the niche!
Dan

Anyone else find the thread title a little ironic?

But you asked some good questions...
1. If you're not the expert, then try to align yourself with people who are. See if you can find some other blogger who has a following and ask if you can interview them.

BUILD YOUR LIST. You've got nothing without a list.

2. Ideally, come out with your own product. Start with affiliate products, to test to see what sells, but I now believe owning your own product is the way to go. And this is likely easier than you think. A recorded interview with an expert is a product, for instance.

Hope that helps...