How I Make $5,000 Each Month Writing About Emerging Topics

How I find, write, and monetize these topics

Christopher Kokoski

Published in

The Bald Writer

9 min readJul 20, 2022

Future trends behind purple paper — How I Make $5,000 Each Month Writing About Emerging Topics — Image by Author via Canva

I make $5,000 per month writing about emerging topics.

These articles average between 1,200 to 2,500 words each and cover diverse topics across my portfolio of websites.

This article is about how I do it.

My 3-Prong Strategy Makes Me $5,000+ Per Month

To make my strategy work, you need to be able to do three things:

Identify emerging topics
Implement my Topic Domination Strategy
Monetize strategically

In this article, I’ll describe my personal process for all three so, hopefully, you can do it, too.

What Are Emerging Topics?

When we think about emerging topics, a few things probably come to mind.

New trends in fashion, music, and art. But there’s more to it than that. Emerging topics can also be new ideas or perspectives on old problems.

They can be cutting-edge technologies or groundbreaking scientific discoveries. In short, emerging topics are anything that is new, exciting, and worth talking about — in your niche.

That’s a critical factor.

The good news is that there is almost always a way to spin a topic through your niche.

Examples of Emerging Topics

Here are a few examples of emerging topics:

Prime gaming (Amazon is almost always at the forefront of trends)
Outschool (Website about homeschooling)
Homelab (You can build your own server network in your basement. I see no red flags there at all)
Bonjoro (A business platform for video recording and sharing)
Sendfox (Cheap alternative email marketing software)
Tapfiliate (Software for affiliate marketers
Connected Air Fryer

There’s always something new to learn in the world of information technology.

Each year, new technologies and trends emerge that have the potential to change the way we live and work. Here are just a few of the emerging topics that have caught our attention recently.

5G is the latest generation of wireless technology, and it promises to revolutionize mobile connectivity. 5G networks are faster and more reliable.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is another hot topic in IT.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of physical devices linked to the internet that are monitored and controlled remotely — such as thermostats, wearable devices, and industrial equipment.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is another area that is gaining a lot of attention.

AI is a branch of computer science that involves computers performing tasks that would otherwise require human intelligence, such as comprehending natural language or detecting patterns.

AI is being used in a variety of applications, including virtual assistants, fraud detection, research, image generation, and content creation.

These are just a few of the many emerging topics.

What’s important is to spot emerging topics and trends in your niche (or niches) and act on them before anyone else.

How I Predict Emerging Topics

There’s no question that writing about trends is a great way to attract attention and grow your blog. But how do you know which trends are worth writing about?

And how can you be sure that you’re not missing out on the next big thing?

Fortunately, there are a few simple techniques that you can use to predict emerging topics and trends. By keeping your finger on the pulse of the latest news and developments in your niche, you’ll be able to spot potential trendsetters early on.

This is what I do:

Know my niche
Participate in niche forums and online communities
Use free and paid tools

It’s important to pay attention to the people and products that are driving the trends in your niche. Keep an eye on industry leaders and innovators, and see what they’re talking about and doing.

You may also want to join relevant forums and communities to get a feel for what people are interested in right now.

Here are some of the tools and strategies I use:

Exploding Topics
Google Trends
Google Alerts
Keyword Tools
SearchResponse.io
Forums
Use niche products and services
Interact with clients and customers
Reach out to experts
Attend conferences

I’ll share my complete list at the bottom of this post.

Exploding Topics

Exploding Topics is a freemium (mostly paid) tool that is similar to Google Trends. I use it to spot zero-competition keywords and topical trends before my competition.

The cool thing about tools like Exploding Topics is that they tell you trends with strong sustainability.

What does that matter?

Because I can write on topics before they trend, ride out the trend, and drive traffic and revenue for months and years (not days or weeks). You don’t want to write about too many fads on your website.

Fads explode with popularity, then they vanish.

Along with your earnings.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a useful tool that can help you stay on top of people, products, and services in your niches.

By setting up alerts for key terms, you can receive real-time updates whenever something new is published online. This is especially helpful for keeping tabs on fast-moving industries or for tracking competitor activity.

I personally use Google Alerts to stay up-to-date on the latest news and developments in the niches.

I also like to stay on top of topics related to SEO and AI.

By setting up alerts for key terms like “SEO” and “AI,” I’m able to quickly scan through new articles and blog posts to see if there’s anything interesting or newsworthy that I need to know about.

This has saved me a lot of time and energy over the years, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to stay on top of their respective industry.

Keyword Tools

I LOVE using keyword tools to help spot emerging topics.

For topic research, I use tools like Ahrefs, Google Autosuggestion, AnswerSocrates, and SearchResponse.io.

SearchResponse.io is a newer free tool that is still in beta testing.

The tool serves up all the People Also Ask and People Also Search data from Google. It updates regularly so you can find tons of searches that, together, form patterns for what is emerging in your niche.

As a blogger, I find this tool to be an invaluable resource for spotting emerging topics.

By identifying these trends early on, I can produce content that my readers are actively searching for, which helps to boost my blog’s traffic and keep my audience engaged.

In addition, by writing about emerging topics, I can position myself as an authority on these subjects and build my brand’s reputation. If you’re not already using SearchResponse.io to spot emerging topics, I highly recommend giving it a try.

By following these tips, you’ll be able to stay ahead of the curve and identify emerging topics before they become mainstream.

How I Write Emerging Topics

Once you identify an emerging topic, it’s time to apply the Total Domination Strategy to completely cover it before anyone else.

This approach involves creating a lot of content on the topic.

Be relentless in your coverage and make sure that your blog is the go-to source for information on the topic. With this strategy, you’ll be able to capture a large audience and build a loyal following.

Here is how I apply Topic Domination:

Do your research. Once you’ve identified an emerging topic, it’s time to start digging in and learning everything you can about it. The more knowledgeable you are, the better positioned you’ll be to provide valuable insights.
Topic domination. Use free and/or paid tools to collect the most popular questions and subtopics around the emerging topic. Drill down as far as you can into super micro-niche subjects connected to your big topic. Use common sense to think of every What, Who, Where, Why, and How question someone might possibly ask about the topic.
Develop a plan. Once you know what you want to write about, it’s time to start putting together a plan for how you’re going to cover the topic comprehensively. That might mean writing a series of blog posts, creating an infographic, making videos, or putting together a whitepaper or e-book.
Become a Publishing Machine. The next step is to produce content (for example, an article) on every one of those topics related to the big topic. This may take a while but the faster you get quality content out, the better. I’d write at least 1,000-word articles but aim for 1,500 to 2,000 words. And then make sure you interlink the articles to build even more topical authority.

I used this approach today to find 1,000 subtopics that I will filter for competition.

Then, I’ll prioritize the content and start publishing.

This is My Blog Post Outline Formula for Emerging Topics

No reason to waste your time (this article is long enough already but we are almost done).

My blog post outline:

Make sure the readers know they’re in the right place by mentioning the topic in the first sentence.
Tell them what they want to know right away. The Project 24 blogging program calls this the “answer target.” It’s usually bolded or otherwise highlighted.
Answer the main question/topic first, then answer or talk about all the related subtopics in priority (and relevance) order.

I get the other subheaders from the People Also Ask or People Also Search sections from Google search results.

Usually, I include at least one featured image and usually one related YouTube video. If there’s not a YouTube video specifically on the topic, I might make one that is short and to the point.

I prefer lots of short sections with direct answers. I want each section to be long enough to give a good answer, but I do my best to leave out any fluff.

At the end of my articles, I’ll link to a couple of my other related posts on my site and maybe mention any research resources I used to get the information in the article.

That is about it.

It’s a pretty straightforward outline that I repeat over and over again on my websites to generate a full-time income.

Speaking of income…

How I Monetize Emerging Topics

I monetize emerging topics with display ads and affiliate marketing.

If I did email marketing, I would make sure to insert a call to action in every new blog post. If I had a service or a course, I would sell it. If I had a book, I would pitch it.

I basically turn all of the ad settings on Google AdSense on.

Typically, you’ll get approved by Google if you set up your website correctly with the required pages and publish around 30 or so full, categorized posts on your website.

If I were you, I’d do that as soon as possible.

Then, once you hit a few thousand page views per month, I would join Ezoic. I believe a thousand page views per month is still the minimum.

The good news about Ezoic is that, once you’re into the program, it’s easier to get other websites you build in as well.

I currently have three websites on Ezoic.

Since I’ve reached the premium ads level, all of my newer websites also get the benefit of higher earning ads. Many bloggers move to Mediavine at 50,000 page views and Adthrive at 100,000 page views on a single site.

I plan to move my biggest website to Mediavine next year. It’s possible that I may even be eligible for Ad Thrive at that point.

Regarding affiliate marketing, I would join Amazon affiliates once you reach 1,000 page views per month.

I would make sure to put affiliate links on your most trafficked pages and on pages with buying intent. Those are pages such as the “best throwing stars for a ninja battle.”

My Favorite Tools to Write Emerging Topics

I mentioned several tools already but I want to make a clear and simple list for you to follow.

I’ll list the free tools first:

Now the paid tools (none of these are affiliate links):

Final Thoughts

Emerging topics sometimes coincide with overlooked topics, dark topics, tiny topics, and boring topics.

The key is to spot them and act fast.

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