Research like a hedgefunder

Most successful investors read a lot, especially current events and news.

While they may enjoy it, they also do it as part of their job.

They need to know what’s happening politically, economically, socially, etc.

I love reading the news.

It’s a good thing too because like investors, it’s kind of a necessary activity as a website publisher.

Necessary is probably overstating it, but it helps with publishing niche sites.

I’ve come up with many article ideas as a result of reading various news publications and websites.

For this newsletter, I’ve often been inspired by SearchEngineJournal.

While general news sites like CNN can work, niche-specific sites are better.

If you’re in the sports niche, read ESPN.com (and others).

If you’re in the SEO niche, read SEJ.com.

If you’re in the investing niche, read the Wall Street Journal (and others).

If you’re in the car niche, read Car and Driver (and others).

Yes, it’s probably worth subscribing if there’s a subscription option.

And no, you don’t read this stuff to copy them. You do it for ideas.

For example, back to our basketball shoe niche, when I visited ESPN.com I noticed some talk about NBA playoffs.

The first question that occurred to me from a shoe angle was “which shoe brand won the most NBA championships over the last 10 years?”

That’s not a hard data-centric article to write.

Boring and tedious, but not hard. This research is easily outsourced.

You get a list of all the teams and players who won NBA championships over the last 10 years and find out which brand of shoes they wore.

Tally it up and

You could chart it, table it, and so on.

This is something you could easily update annually.

BTW, I’m curious as to the answer, so if anyone tallies this, let me know.

What else?

So I decided to check out Car and Driver.

I go there whenever in the market for a car which is not often.

I noticed an article titled “Tested: 2020 Corvette Z51 vs. Cayman GT4”.

Yet another “vs.” article.

I love these.

I do tons of them.

Imagine all the “vs.” articles you could write in the basketball shoe niche.

You’d never finish them.

You’d no sooner make a dent in the list and new shoes would come out.

Which means you’re probably best off comparing the more popular shoes.

“Vs” articles apply to so many niches.

You only have to get your hands on two products which nets you two reviews and a comparison. Add a third product and you get another review plus two more comparisons. It grows exponentially.

If I were in the auto niche, the Corvette vs. Cayman article prompts me to check out local pricing for both cars.

I do so.

They’re expensive.

And then I’m reminded about the two different dealerships where I bought/leased vehicles.

I could review those dealerships. I’ve dealt with both extensively; first buying/leasing and then several rounds of servicing.

Since my current lease is expiring in 4 months, I’ll be doing some test driving which will be plenty of reviews and “vs” fodder for articles. That’ll be fun.

I came up with all those good ideas by reading regular sites.

What about reading news and current events just for fun (and turning off the publisher brain)?

Go for it. I should say give it a try.

I stick to pretty regular working hours but I tend to have a mind toward this biz whenever I’m online.

It’s not like it’s taxing. I just happen to get some inspiration for articles and content.

Why not just stick with Ahrefs and other keyword research tools?

By all means, do so. That works.

However, I really love going after different angles and content ideas.

More importantly, I like looking for content ideas that will be fun to write and will make money.

Jon D

Jon runs the place around here.  He pontificates about launching and growing online publishing businesses, aka blogs that make a few bucks.  His pride and joy is the email newsletter he publishes.

In all seriousness, Jon is the founder and owner of a digital media company that publishes a variety of web properties visited and beloved by millions of readers monthly. Fatstacks is where he shares a glimpse into his digital publishing business.