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When you’re just starting out as a blogger, it can be tempting to start your blog on a free web host, such as WordPress.com, Blogger, or Blogspot.

However, did you know that this is one of the biggest mistakes you can make, and not one that can be easily corrected in the future?

It’s true – while you may have seen many people blogging on a WordPress.com domain, starting your blog there is equal to shooting yourself in the foot, and then trying to run a marathon. Simply put, it’s a terrible idea.

Let me explain why.

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Note: Listen to this post instead using the audio player below, and consider subscribing on your favorite podcast player!


It should go without saying, but some markets are more difficult to compete in than others.

While low-competition markets are easy to break into and even a beginner can establish an audience without any serious marketing efforts, others are difficult to even establish an initial audience. It could take months and hundreds of hours of work before entrepreneurs in these markets experience any return at all.

Fortunately however, expensive markets tend to offer great rewards in return. After all, a market becomes competitive due to the fact that there’s so much money to be made, and competitive markets offer incredible opportunities to scale.

In this article, my goal is to shorten the time it takes you to succeed in these markets – sharing with you tactics and strategies myself and others have utilized to build our brands in competitive industries.

Over the years, I’ve competed in both small, refined niches, as well as major markets like business and parenting.

These are markets that have insane amounts of brand loyalty, and getting a consumer to make regular visits and purchases is very tough, and often quite expensive.

There is a healthy degree of skepticism to newcomers, and establishing any sort of name for yourself, let alone growing an engaged audience, can be difficult.

While my baby product brand is far from being a household name, we’ve managed to carve out our own niche market, and our blog audience and customer base is growing every day. I only mention this to show that what I’m about to share with you actually works, and can be applied to your business regardless of the market. I’ve used these strategies to build my personal brand here as well.

So, without any further ado, let’s begin.

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Not sure which niche you want to enter into? Grab my niche selection blueprint by clicking here and you’ll find your perfect, profitable niche in no time!

One of the most exciting, but also one of the most difficult times when you’re starting business online is choosing a niche.

After all, it’s your niche – the topic you’re building your business around, that has one of the biggest effects on your chances at either succeeding or failing.

The right niche will allow you to build a highly scaleable business in a manner you genuinely enjoy and do well with, while the wrong niche will leave you doomed from the start (I know, because I had this problem for several years in my business career.)

Needless to say, making the right choice is pretty important.

In this article, I’m going to go over an example niche in detail, showing you the exact process I use to determine whether or not a particular niche is right or my students.

In this example, we will be looking at the guitar playing market.

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How many times have you had someone try to sell you the ‘magic formula’ that would instantly take your blog to massive success?

How many gurus have you landed into that sell the dream, tricking you into believing that online success is as easy as buying their (ridiculously priced) program?

Unfortunately, you can’t have it all.

When it comes down to achieving blogging success, it comes down to this:

You can have it good, you can have it fast, or you can have it cheap – but you can only have two of the three.

This means any way you go about it, you have to make choices, and you have to make sacrifices.

Let’s over each one of these combinations so you can decide which will fit your style the best.

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Let’s not waste each other’s time.

If you’re not interested in making a real, full time income with blogging, close this article now.

If you’re content with just making enough to cover your costs and pocket a bit of extra money each month, close this article now.

If you’re looking to make more money than you know what to do with, and you’re willing to make sacrifices to allow that to happen, this article is for you.

One of the biggest mistakes I see people making is pulling every cent out of their business, collecting their business’ profit as a salary.

However, this is a fatal mistake to make.

Success compounds more success, and this is largely because the resources you acquire can be put to work to in turn generate more. Traffic leads to more traffic. Exposure leads to more exposure. Money leads to more money.

If you want to grow rapidly and consistently, it’s vital you take a percentage of the profit your blog is making you, and reinvest it back into it.

There are a lot of options available for you, which we will go over now. 

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I have a confession to make.

Over the last 6 months, I have started another company. I’ve been working on it, building it up, and expanding it. And in that 6 months, it’s truly taken off and is quickly becoming something amazing.

And I’ve got to be honest, it has grown a lot quicker than I had ever expected it to.

Starting out with just a few thousand dollars, our main branch is projected to do around a million dollars in sales this year.

This does not even include our new venture – an entirely new brand we’re launching that is going to one day dominate the industry we’re working in.

Unfortunately I can’t talk too much about that right now due to agreements I have in place, however, I have been named CEO and I assure you that one day you’ll hear all about it.

Anyway, running this new business and launching this new brand has shifted my perspective about blogging, and has truly taught me a lot about this profession we all know and love. I’d like to share with you some of the lessons I’ve learned, which I believe can make us all better bloggers, marketers, and entrepreneurs.

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