Niche Marketing: The Crash Course

The face of the Internet continues to evolve daily… although we can’t see it change. It’s kind of like how grass grows. You take a look at your lawn in the morning and again in the afternoon — it still looks the same. But look at it when you leave for a week-long vacation and it looks a lot different when you return.

 

I couldn’t make an analogy comparison to how the mountains were formed because the Internet is evolving at a much faster rate… definitely more like your grass!

 

What does that have to do with Niche Marketing? Well, let me explain.

 

As the Internet has evolved, so has the method that we search for information. We’ve reached the point now where there’s an entire generation that doesn’t know life without the Internet. Our generation has gotten it to this point, but they’re the ones who will drive where it goes in the future. Pay attention!

 

Think of how we use the Internet to search for something. We open up Google, or some other search engine and we type in a word or phrase. We’re then presented with a list of options.

Would it frustrate you to land on a page that has no information about ornamental bricks, and no obvious way to get to that information?

What about when you have to click on several links?

Let’s say you’re looking for ornamental bricks to finally build that walkway in the garden, so you type in ‘ornamental bricks’. Now you would probably assume that one of the big do-it-yourself stores would be a good choice, so you follow the link from one that reads “Install a Loose Laid Brick Walkway”. You’re directed to their webpage that tells you all about how to do it, what tools you’ll need… cool… but has no links to the product! So you search the site for bricks. You look in Outdoors… no luck. You look in Garden Center… no luck. You look under Pavers… not what you were looking for. Finally you type “bricks” in their site search. Aaah! there it is… under Masonry! But wait, these are just plain bricks… nothing ornamental about them. After a few more clicks you find nothing and give up.

Unfortunately, searching Google didn’t produce any good sources on the first page in neither the natural, nor the sponsored links. Sounds like a good place to serve a niche!

Many new Internet entrepreneurs think they need to build a huge site to serve all the needs of the consumer and bring them wads of cash in the process. Stop it! You’ll just spend more time and money than you have to get the site designed and operating… that is if you don’t give up in the process.

Don’t go broad — get narrow!

Since you don’t have the time or the money to invest in competing with the big sites, narrow your focus on one thing.. and do it well. A small, easy to navigate, informative site will win more online sales than the big-box, big-mall, DIY store sites.

There’s an added benefit to niche sites as well. They’re easy to get operating quickly with high quality, focused content. The time you save can be used to look for another niche and another opportunity!

The key to true wealth on the Internet is to apply this model as many times as you can. Don’t put your hopes on one site to generate wealth — diversify!

 

Yours for Bigger Profits

 

Internet Business 101

There are fundamentals to starting a business online that apply to everyone who expect to be successful. Many new Internet entrepreneurs either “wing-it” or they hastily put up a site — expecting the cash to roll in. If it were that easy, then everyone would have an eBusiness and there’d be no traffic congestion on the highways!

 

 

 

The first thing to learn about building a business online is: It’s Work!

 

If you take the time to do it right and treat it like a job, then you’ll be successful. Serial opportunists that throw up websites looking for the quick buck are usually quickly disappointed with their failure. One of the keys to a successful website is content, content, content, so the more you give… the more people will show up. Search engine spiders love content and will reward you with a ton of visitors. Better yet, if you have a lot of good content” on your site, you’ll get repeat traffic to see what’s new. Build loyalty — that’s how you’ll win.

 

The “trick” to a successful site is no trick. The”secret” to a successful site is no secret. If you want to be an Internet entrepreneur and generate long term wealth online, then settle in for the long haul.

 

Unless you’re extremely lucky, or one of the less than 1% of new online entrepreneurs that do get lucky, you’ll not get rich quick from putting up a web page and hoping for the best. The sides of the information superhighway are littered with the carcasses of sites with “good intentions”.

Don’t set yourself up for failure from the beginning.

Get the extraordinary quality of life you’re looking for!

Like anything, education is what it takes to be successful online. I know… I can hear you out there… “what? I have to go to school? No I don’t… Well guess what, you’re here because you’re looking for a way to make money online. Some one or some search engine has sent you here — see how that works? You need to know how to do the same thing and do it well if you’re going to make it online.

Are you ready to begin?

Plow you’re way through the following sections to learn as much as you can about the basics you’ll need to build a winning — profitable site.  I guarantee that there’s a ton of stuff you’ll find that others will charge you plenty to get a peek at. Think of me as the Penn & Teller of Internet marketing… giving away the “secrets” others will charge you for. Your welcome!

There are certain basics that apply to most Internet marketers, you may or may not know some of them depending on how long you’ve been active online, but these are the basic steps you’ll need to go through when you’re building your online business. Once you’ve mastered the steps, the requirements for each and have written down your plan of attack (yes, write it down!), then you can go on to the more advanced concepts.

• Finding Your Niche
• Registering a Domain
• Finding a Web Host 
• Develop Your Website
• Driving Traffic
• Building Relationships

What’s Next? Take a look at the tabs above to find articles that target the specific topics you’re interested in.

Otherwise, you may want to consider a tutorial that covers all the topics in one very detailed package. The course that I recommend most highly is — here.

Yours for Bigger Profits

 

Finding Your Niche Market

One of the most important factors in building a profitable website is by identifying a niche market and using keywords in your site that show a high demand and low competition.

Begin by starting basic keyword research to determine if there’s a market for you. Then use the keywords you’ve identified to building as large a list of relevant keywords for your site as possible. The more keywords you identify during your research, the more potential you have to attract visitors to your site.

So what now after you’ve done all your keyword research and you’ve found the best keywords for your website?

How will you use these keywords to improve your chances of ranking well with the search engines?

How to use Keywords in your webpage

First, let me say for the beginners that your webpage contains “web copy” or “content”.  This is your story, product information, etc. where you’ll “sprinkle” your keywords to attract traffic to your site.

Now, here are some good methods to creating your web copy.

1. From the keyword list you’ve chosen for your site, pick a primary and secondary keyword that you’ll want to have rank well on the search engines.
2. Then, write the title of your page, article, or product description making sure to include the primary keyword in it. Try to fit the secondary keyword into your title as well, but if you find it too difficult to do and still maintain good grammar, then don’t worry about trying to squeeze it into your title. Try and keep your title to about 50—but no more than 70 characters in length.
3. Write the description tag for your page using both the primary and secondary keywords. Your description tag should describe what your page, article, or product is about. Try to limit it to around 150 characters.
4. The first paragraph on your page should be a summary of the overall content and should include both your primary and secondary keywords. Have you ever noticed how newspaper and magazine articles usually summarize their story in the very first paragraph? This lets the reader know right away that they’ve found what they’re looking for and keeps them on your page rather than bouncing off to another site.

You should structure your content by writing the headings and subheadings so that each contains keywords. This help you become a writer of quality copy that the search engines love to index, and allows you to focus on the theme of your content.

1. Finally, you need to think about all the internal and external links that you should be pointing people to throughout your copy. Your linking text should be keyword rich and point at relevant web pages. These links will provide professional customer service, as well as, help with your search engine ranking. Be sure to routinely check your links to make sure they’re up to date and not broken.

What’s your next step?

I’ve given you some good tips and a step-by-step process to follow here. However, unless you put it into motion, you’ll get nowhere. Even the most popular sites, like Amazon, capitalize on these basic principles; you shouldn’t think your site is unique.

Now, I can’t promise that you’ll find a ‘magic keyword’ that no one else uses, which drives an insane amount of traffic to your site… but it certainly doesn’t hurt to try!

Use a combination of the keyword research tools, such as the Google Keyword Tool, or the Free Keyword Suggestion Tool from Wordtracker to research markets and to find little-used keywords and keyword phrases for your own site.

After you’ve developed your webpage, you can use your keyword list to attract traffic to your site through pay-per-click search engines like Google Adwords and other PPC sites.

Yours for Bigger Profits

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spotting a Niche with Growth Potential

As an Internet entrepreneur, you should always be itching to find a great niche to place one or more businesses to create a solid income. Finding a trend and pursuing a niche market within it can be a lucrative strategy, especially if you find that the market has underserved niches. However, some of today’s “hot” ideas can quickly turn into tomorrow’s old news, leaving you struggling and possibly incurring debt you don’t necessarily want. How do you settle on the next best thing worth pursuing? How do you determine if it’s more likely to leave you high and dry?

The following three tips explain how to spot a hot trend with staying power and how to avoid getting burnt!

Confirm your sources

Whether your information comes from an Internet entrepreneur who’s considered a “guru” in marketing or comes from a “Top 10” list in a magazine, don’t take it as gospel. Instead, do some research yourself. Look up current trends in the market and find some economic data to support their claims.

Your research should lead you to data that indicates the potential for significant growth in the market over the next five to seven years. For example, if a trend you find involves Baby Boomers, then the data is likely to be valid. Research has shown that that consumer base will continue record growth for years to come. There’s real data to back up that trend, so if you find a similar instance where the data backs up what’s being said on the street, then hop in.

Put your ear to the ground

It’s critical to a business to spot what’s a fad and what a legitimate trend looks like. A quick way to check this is to look at the size of the potential consumer base. Frequently, you can spot a fad by a short-term craze that appeal to a very limited number of people. Typically, if the product or service appeals to a small consumer base, then that means there’ll be a limited market. On the other hand, a trend with long-term endurance is more likely to attract the interest of larger numbers of prospective consumers. Therefore, the broader the appeal, the more likely you are to have a longer lasting business.

Don’t get caught backing a fad product, unless you have other products to fall back on when the fad finally comes to an end. Besides fads, this is a good rule of thumb for any product you sell. The best way to make it through the cyclic nature of sales is to have other products to get you through the tough times. Remember the old adage, “Never put all of your eggs in one basket!”

Trend maturity

One of the lesser known facts about the stock market is that the trends that the individual investor sees are usually at or near the tail end of their life. Large investment firms and their top clientele have already been riding the trend curve long before it became advertised to the street. Likewise, many markets touted as being “hot” have typically been around for a while before being noticed as a trend. Suddenly showing up as new trend may only mean that it’s benefiting from an extra surge of attention in the market and that the consumer base is merely expanding. Again, do your research to ensure that the trend is still viable and will support your business for an extended period of time. You don’t want to put time and money into a new business that supports a trend that may end tomorrow… you won’t be able to get either investment back.

Yours for Bigger Profits

 

Understanding the Psychology of Advertising

Those who are making the most money in Internet Marketing use strategies that have been proven to produce massive amounts of traffic and result in effective conversion.

It takes some knowledge of basic psychology and human behavior to succeed at marketing. People buy things to either meet their needs or satisfy their wants and desires. As a marketer, you shouldn’t only be looking at what your product has to offer, but at what is motivating your target audience to buy your product or service.

 

People all over the world, especially online, have needs, desires and problems that they’re seeking answers or solutions to. You should be in tune with them and understand the benefits your products and services have in relation to these potential customers needs.

 

Use words and images on your website and in your marketing materials that will immediately catch their attention and let them know they’ve found their solution. By using the right words or images, you will evoke the emotions you’ll need to keep them on your site and looking further, or making a purchase.

 

By giving the customer what they want, you’re addressing another psychological aspect; establishing trust and forming a relationship. Most customers have been burned, treated badly, or disenchanted at least once. You shouldn’t expect them to jump at the opportunity to buy your product or service unless they have a sense of confidence in you as the seller.

 

Today, people are tired of receiving spam and an excess of marketing materials, so the modern consumer has become savvy and somewhat cynical in what most sellers have to offer. Only a website with a strong proven reputation will gain their trust. Therefore, you always want to build a level of trust with each and every customer through consistent quality of service. This fact should be noted somewhere in your marketing.

 

If you’re successful in targeting and delivering to the consumers’ needs… you’re sure to be successful in building customer loyalty. With customer loyalty comes more sales, plus, you’re sure to catch the attention of the search engines.

 

This is ultimately what you want… more business!

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