I finally give up REPLY

Don't let it go, but I would suggest working in another niche until you have actually made some money.

Not only does it give you more credibility, but it gives you more confidence!

Good luck! Glad you are not quitting!

Without having researched the topic my hunch is that there is not a majorly hungry market out there that really wants to learn how to play basketball.

I think a blog that keeps up with the latest goings on in the NBA could be a hit if you've got some good commentary.

I have a site on jumping higher in basketball that hasnt made 1 sale yet. Im not saying the niche is not profitable but im targeting some good keywords in this niche and im not converting. I have probably had 1000 uniques since I built the site and its not made 1 sale.

If I have never made any money online like yourself I would target something like acne, weight loss or dating if you dont have any problems selling those type of products.

Just look for some long tail keywords say in the weight loss niche and write some articles on them. Make sure you choose a popular high gravity clickbank product in the weight loss niche. Just start doing some keyword research and set up a simple site where you promote your hoplink at the top and bottom of each page on the site.

I would write around 20 articles at least, you should make some sales doing that. At least this would show you its very possible to make money online. Just go where the money is at and try to get the "overflow" traffic, im doing that with success in some niches.

I dropped out of the weight loss niche (or at least I dont promote it anymore, I still have a old site that brings me a trickle of money in the niche) just because I don't want to promote weight loss products anymore because I dont feel good doing so unless ive tried them.

But if your cool with promoting weight loss products (which is fine) then its a good niche to get started in to get your feet wet and see whats possible. You have the converting products at clickbank and the desperate crowd that wants to lose weight.

Just write up some ezinearticles targeting long tail keywords in this niche and you will make some money...im fairly certain of that. How much depends...but at least you will see some money to motivate you Good luck!

I wouldn't give up, although it does not have to be actually giving up. It's just a change.

I would go for a WP blog on your basketball site. really easy to use. love it.
Sebastian

Congrats on your decision

I would drill down on the basketball idea and look for keywords that are buy keywords. I seem to recall in the other related thread that someone gave you lots of cool ideas there.

I would go with a wordpress blog for your site because you can add an rss feed for the nrl scores etc like another warrior has suggested, ease of use, and good seo.

Make a plan for your traffic generation ie week 1 social bookmarking, articles etc and work on each on all your techniques consistently and persistently The key is really repetition and persistence some niches you might throw out a couple of articles and get good conversion others you need to be more active in.

Looking forward to your success post.

All the best

Leanne

I think you should get a coach... A coach would be pretty good for you.




Micah Rush

I would suggest doing some keyword research to see if you could enter a subniche, maybe even something specific like a team. Your advertising could be a lot more targeted too.

Matt

Start a blog about basketball... There are tons of them out there but if that is your interest then do a good looking easy to read blog (i.e No flash headers etc..)

just you and your blog and writing about what you love. Write about the games and waht you liked about those games you watched. Get into your thoughts about who should be traded or who should be fired, etc...

Use advertising on the blog to monetize it. Start out with affiliate products, etc. When you get lots of traffic consistently then start trading your affiliate links for paid advertising.

That's about the easiest way I think, with out a lot of stress. just blog often and make your posts interesting...

If you consistently blog about the games around the league you'll never run out of content. Then in the off season you could give your opinion and speculate trades etc...

You could attract people to you blog by giving away stuff if they guess the correct trades etc... (or whatever) just make it interesting.

Mike Hill

PS. A good Word Press theme would be something like WP-Vybe 1.0 by WordPress Themes for Small Business; WordPress Themes Tutorials

I don't want to be "that guy" in this thread but I can see you are really discouraged and I don't think this is the best way to go. Let me explain for you.

If you start a blog about basketball and write your feelings, news, scores, ect. you aren't giving yourself much room for monetization. Sure, you could offer advertising on the site and maybe find some affiliates related to basketball, but your audience is not going to be buyers.

ESPN already has the sports news niche locked up and so do a lot of other sites. In order to make money with adverts you are going to have to have a ton of traffic. That is going to take a long time to build up and you are already frustrated. I think it is a terrible idea from the state you are in to just start a random basketball blog.

Not that you can't start a blog related to basketball but if you want to make some money off of it you need to make sure you are writing/researching all your keywords for each post. I would recommend going nichy with these as well. You could do subdomains, or whatever you like but think about a certain team. Write about their merchandise, tickets, anything people would buy. Make sure to do your research. You could use a blog and Ebay Partner Network for starters. Maybe you could find some other affiliates as well.

Think about it this way - if I was a huge Rockets fan did a G search for a Rockets hoody and came upon your blog where you had some interesting articles related to the Rockets and found your Ebay feed would I be a potential sale?

Just my thoughts. Ebay sites convert really well usually and if you do it right with the correct keyword research you are going to save yourself a lot of frustration and possibly giving up. I just don't see a general blog about basketball doing anything that you are looking for. Eventually, you may get lucky and it would take off but this would take forever and I am worried you would give up way before then.

Congrats on your decision of not giving up.

Not to disappoint you, but promoting basketball related clickbank products is not a good point to get your feet wet. As suggested by another warrior, you should go after the weight loss niche.The reason for this is because this market is usually filled with desperate buyers who are ready to stand on their thumbs for getting information about weight loss.

In case you are a member of the Private War-Room, then you must have come across a post by Allen on how he made CB's product sales with absolutely NO promotion of his website following the K.I.S.S [Keep it simple, stupid] method.

This method involves clear crisp product reviews written according to the AIDA [Attention,Interest, Desire, Action] with less navigational links on the side bar. You might want to give this method a try.

I am glad you are not giving up.

I am going to point something out the difference between a TV station and a website. Tv stations have their program all set up for the month - websites don't. Tv station has many viewers - website has targeted viewers. You can easly implement your new program on a paper and do it one step at the time.

Don't forget there are many type of people who like basketball (like me) and these types are ordinary people. You also have gym teachers, coaches, rabid fans for a specific B team - you can call them potencional buyers. These are all mini niches inside your website. You can implement all your ideas on a website but I suggest do it first on a paper.

Do your keyword research
Use SEOBook, Google keyword tool to estimate how many searches you get per specific term.

Hey I already had 2 failures and still not giving up - not that I didn't make any money - I'we lost money as well.

This forum rocks!

Hey Jim,

Well done in making the decision to persevere. DOn't forget all of those picks and shovels. All of the things that you need to play basketball, that are accessories to playing basketball and that are on the fringes.

Examples include:

the coolest, latest,

Basketball shoes
Training kit
Official Replica kit
Basketballs
Bags to carry your kit
Water bottles
Sports towels
Sports shower stuff
Sports injury stuff
Sports diet stuff
Strength training stuff
Strength training equipment
Sports supplements
Energy bars
Energy drinks
Sports psychology and motivational training stuff
Basketball memorabilia
Crazy cooky stuff from the internet...just look for stories/videos like a midget champion high school basketball player with springs on the souls of his shoes...or someone knocks themselves out by taking a shot and it bounces of the hoop and hits them in the face...you get the picture.

These are just a few off the top of my head and I have never even played basketbal. I'm sure there are countless other things. All of these can be sourced and they will all have an affiliate program that you can make money from. Just deliver your content in a cool way, as I'm sure you would and you'll be fine. No sweat. At the very least you'll learn enough to make some money and apply what you learnt in another niche.

I won't disagree with many things that have been said already in that it's a good idea to follow the money but hell, who says you can't make a great site. Do a great job. Make some money.

Go for it.

Need any help...PM me.

Thomas

When you come to the realization that in order to make money online you have to stop being a Webmaster to become a Marketer then you'll see some positive results flow in.

Then, the sky opens up and becomes a starting point instead of the limit when you stop being a Marketer to become an Entrepreneur managing multiple projects.

Everything can be outsourced or automated.

The most important piece is to have your system in place first then build around that system.

Cheers!