Start a Targeted News or Blog Site

Some of the most successful news sites or blog sites are highly targeted websites, aiming for a specific type of person. Specific sites are more likely to attract search engine traffic, more likely to get passed along within a community and also attract higher-paying advertisers than more generic websites.

Here's how to start a targeted news or blog site.

Select a Specific Topic or Area of Interest

The more specific you can get, the better.

Instead of "online business" which is a hugely crowded market, a much more specific website would be a blog about "raising venture capital for an online business."

You can also target specific locations. For example, "San Francisco Restaurant Blog" has a very good chance of making its way around the SF foodie network.

Stay on Top of Current Events in Your Field

It's crucial if you're blogging about a specific interest that you stay on top of the industry. There are a few ways to do this.

The first is to subscribe to RSS feeds from various blogs in your industry. Whenever a piece of news hits one of these blogs, you should be the first to know.

You can also use a news and website aggregator like YourVersion to stay on top of non-blog websites.

Write with Personality and Insight

Let your personality out and let your thoughts be known. In many markets, what's being talked about has been beaten to death so many times that people choose blogs based more on the personality than the news they carry.

Of course, you still have to provide Grade A content. This often comes in the form of your own personal insights rather than just facts.

One great example is the Rich Jerk website. The Rich Jerk isn't teaching anything that the internet marketing community doesn't know. In fact, it's very basic information. But his personality is so interesting and so insulting that people can't help but read the entire website - and by that time feel like they have to buy.

Apply Proven Marketing Techniques

Make your website search engine friendly. Start building an email list. Find other people in your industry that you can partner with.

Add Google AdSense to start monetizing your site to start with; but don't underestimate what others would be willing to pay for an ad placement on a prominent site in a specific industry.

For example, if you own a health website, you might be getting $5 CPM from Google. But an advertiser who sees your site as good branding to be associated with might be willing to pay as much as $15 CPM - sometimes more.

Starting a targeted news or blog site is a great way to build a solid reputation in an industry. You can make more money than a broader website, with less work to boot.