Fastest Growing Online Product Categories

Consumers the world over are continuing to make the jump from crowded stores to the one-click convenience of online shopping. A recent worldwide survey conducted by The Nielsen Company through February 2008, indicated that over 85 percent of the world’s online population has used the Internet to make a purchase! This number is up 40 percent from just two years ago, which indicates the steady transition from Main Street to the super highway. As the Internet becomes more secure and the consumer finds value in online shopping, the number of consumers turning to the Internet will continue to increase. Currently, indicators show that more than half of all Internet users are regular online shoppers and make online purchases at least once a month.

 

Books are still a popular pick, but clothing and shoes are hot on their heels

 

Consumers continue to buy more books online than any other product, due to the early adoption of online selling by the large booksellers. However, continued the diversification of the shopping environment online has resulted in significant growth of other product categories. Even though books are still the most popular purchases online, clothing, accessories and shoes are quickly gaining ground. Video DVDs, games, airline tickets and electronic equipment are gaining popularity online also. Other categories of note are cosmetics, nutrition supplies and groceries with recent sales jumping over eight percent online.

 

Even with the popularity of book purchasing online, their growth in this area has increased only seven percent in the past two years. Fashionistas are on the rise however.  Clothing, accessories and shoes have experienced the highest increase by far over the past two-years – ranging from 20 percent to 36 percent.

 

Shopping online with the ease of a credit card nowadays is especially appealing among consumers. In emerging markets the consumer will turn to online research to locate the items they simply cannot find or buy in the brick and mortar retail trade. The Internet has opened up a whole new world of shopping for consumers. Those online marketers who can identify a need and position their business in the niche will do well to capture a good share of the consumer base than the storefront can achieve.

 

Trust and Word of Mouth are the biggest influencers in online retail choice

 

Consumers are more likely to stick with what they know when it comes to shopping online. According to Nielsen, 60 percent of online shoppers prefer to buy from the same site when buying like type items. This proves that online shoppers are uniquely loyal. Whether this because they’re still wary of the online experience, are not lured in by the current marketing strategies, or are simply satisfied when their purchase is simple and successful — we’ll need to look at other indicators as they get more sophisticated. The significance of this loyalty stat is that it illustrates the importance of capturing the consumers as they make their first purchases on the Internet. If you can capture them early, and create a positive shopping experience, they will likely return with their loyalty and their money.

 In selecting sites on which to shop, one-third used a search engine to find the best destination. One fourth relied on the word of mouth from other consumers. Recommendations, whether from people they know or from other online shoppers, play a huge role in consumer decisions on which site to visit.

 

Because of this significance of these statistics, it should be high priority for you to create a professional and easy to navigate website. First impressions do matter online and you need to hit them with your best shot when they visit your site or you may not capture their loyalty. Worse yet, you might be the subject of negative word of mouth. So plan your business strategy well and come up with a winning site design. Focus on areas of growth, but find niches that are underserved there… concentrating on how to better serve the consumer than your competition.

 

Yours for Bigger Profits

The 10 Best Reasons to Start a Forum

Discussion forums are a great tool to promote growth, recognition and to ensure continuous success in your business. But you can’t just merely start a forum; you’ll need to maintain it regularly as well. Maintaining a healthy forum for your visitors is like growing a garden, if you care for it regularly and keep the ‘weeds’ out, it’ll continue to grow and feed your wallet.

 

Forums are a quick way to gain notoriety within your niche. Not every business in your niche will have a forum, so take advantage of that. If you provide a reliable place for visitors to turn for answers, they’ll soon recognize you as a foremost authority, or ‘guru’ in your niche over time. Given sufficient time and persistence, your efforts will draw people away from your competition and to your site!

 

Given that, here are the ten best reasons you should start your own forum today.

To Meet New People

 

No matter what your business, having a place to discuss your views and listen to the problems or successes of others in your niche can be rewarding. Take some time to visit a forum and meet others there who are interested in the same topic. Invite them over to your forum and watch your business grow!

Discover Things You Didn’t Know

 

By helping others and sharing your knowledge, you’ll inevitably learn from their issues. Because of the diversity of the community online, people have many different problems, goals, and successes. You never know who or what will inspire your next product or service. Take advantage of your forum as a place to spawn new ideas.

 

Enhance the Visibility of Your Products

 

Through repeated posting to your forum, you’ll successfully make people aware of who you are and what you have to offer to them. Getting name recognition out to the community is a key way to establishing your own brand identity. Once you’ve achieved a recognizable brand for yourself, success will follow quickly.

 

Develop Credibility in Your Niche

 

As I said above, become known as an ‘expert’ in your niche by providing constructive answers to questions and suggestions to those who post in your forum. People appreciate open discussion; especially where they’re post is acknowledged. A regular presence in the forum reinforces the fact that you care for the visitors and will help ensure that it remains active.

 

Increase Traffic to Your Site

 

When you become more widely recognized as an expert in your niche, your name and URL will end up getting spread across the Internet. This will ultimately bring more visitors to your site to see what you have to offer.

 

Increased Site Ranking

 

Getting more visitors to your site means that search engines like Google will reward you with better page ranking on their listings. Achieving that recognition means that you’ll receive even more traffic to your site!

 

Create a Repository of Data

 

Every product or service inevitably has people who have commonly asked questions. Use these questions to your advantage to create content for your site. Generate an FAQ on your forum where you’ll post the questions and answers.

 

When the same questions arise again, send people directly to the specific answer on your site’s FAQ. Having them go to your site will also help boost your page rank and bring in still MORE visitors!

 

Here’s a hint — Put links to products in your answers. Directing visitors that have a question to a solution you have hyperlinked in your answer will boost sales!

 

Reduce Your Workload

 

Need extra help?

 

The biggest benefit of a successful and active forum is you’ll have ‘regulars’ who will participate and answer questions that others have posted. Their active participation is like having another person on staff… thus reducing your overall workload.

 

Collect Information and Comments

 

Need some ideas for new products? Posting your own questions to your forum can be an effective way to find out what your visitors need most. More than likely, your forum visitors are not getting all the information they need.

 

Collecting their comments and strategizing a new product is an important way to broaden your business, but make sure you payback your forum community by posting a product discount offer for forum subscribers… you’ll solidify their loyalty.

 

Promote Products

 

Display ads for products related to your forum visitors’ interests at the top and bottom or right side of every page. Ads can be for your own products or for merchants with whom you’re affiliated. Post messages when you have a new product that your visitors will be interested in… to create product buzz.

 

Those are just some of the obvious reasons — I’m sure you’ll discover many more benefits for having a forum when you start your own.

 

Yours for Bigger Profits

                                                                                              

Article Writing 101

Writing and distributing articles online is a very powerful method of openly promoting your business and driving traffic to your website.

There are many different methods of advertising your business on the Internet, but most can be ineffective due to competition and pricing of those advertising methods. Writing and distributing articles in your niche and about your content is a dependable way to get your website noticed and a great way to freely generate income with less competition.

Writing isn’t Rocket Science

While writing articles doesn’t mean you need to be an expert writer, you merely need to put in print what your views or experiences are. Don’t think of it like writing an essay at school. That was probably too traumatic for most of us. Think of it in terms of speaking to a friend. It may be difficult to force your thoughts into an article, but if you write your thoughts down like you’re talking to your friends the content will flow easily from your fingertips and your article will be complete in no time.

For those of you who really have a hard time with this, there are writers for hire out there from sites like guru.com and elance.com. But if you’re willing to persist, writing will come easier over time and effort. Before long you’ll be surprised how effortlessly the articles will come. It’s especially important to work toward submitting your own unique content. So don’t fall into the trap that many online marketers do. A lot of article writing focuses on the rehashing of existing content that’s been distributed several times over. This method will only result in unforeseen competition and your frustration in the lack of results.

The Nuts and Bolts

 

Give article writing a try. Keep writing your content as it comes to you… in a free-form series of thoughts… much like your conversations. With continual practice, the task will become easier and easier to accomplish. Eventually, you’ll begin to see that the articles you produce and publish start to generate traffic to your site, which turns into an income. That, in itself, is a huge motivator for you to keep going. You’ll see the effect of your writing on your business, discussion forums and blogs as you build a name for yourself as an expert in your field. The object of writing articles is always to draw attention to your website, so be sure to give your site a plug in the process of writing it.

 

The keys to maximizing the exposure you can receive when publishing your completed article are as follows:

 

• Start your article title with your keywords. You always want what the search engine spiders index up front in your article. Ensure successful indexing of your content by making it easy for them.
• Keep you articles 500-600 words in length. This is the nominal article length and might make it easier for you to generate more on a consistent basis. No need to knock yourself out by being too lengthy.
• Use various keywords throughout your articles, but don’t make it obvious that you’re trying to manipulate the search engines. Writing naturally, lacing keywords throughout your articles, will be better bait for the spiders than riddling your content with obvious keyword placement.
• Use the AIDA structure to create your articles. For those who slept through the writing course, it’s pretty simple. Start with an introduction; then, introduce a problem; next, give the solution; finally, lead them to your signature box at the end of the article. Here you’ll lead them to your site for more information
• Create and publish at least two articles per week. Constant exposure to your work will lead others in your business niche to accept you more readily as an expert in your field. Additionally, the more content you produce online, the more traffic will be generated to your site to check out what else you offer.
• Submit your articles BY HAND to top article directories like ezinearticles.com. Avoid auto-submission software. Remember; keep things as natural as possible to maximize your chances of getting indexed and not being overlooked by the search engines because you use a service.
• Create some Google Alerts with your name, your domain and the title of your articles. You’ll be surprised in where you’ll find your articles. No worries, you want your article as far spread on the Internet as possible.
• Don’t add the article to your website for at least 90 days. You don’t want to run the chance of the search engines picking this up as a duplicate and tossing it to the Internet black hole where it’ll never get indexed. You want other sites to generate back-links to your website. The more links, the higher in the page ranking you’ll get. When you do add the article to your site, make sure to post it to a sub-page.

Noodle out Your Plan

Trying to figure out what to write about can be a stumbling block to many. Sit down somewhere quiet and think about things that you know, things that you’ve learned in the process of getting your business established, or simply what information you think could be of good value to others. Your business online is not a sprint, but a marathon. You’re not planning on establishing a short-term presence online… you’re planning to be there a good long while. Take your time, practice writing articles and become good at it. Helping others will help you. In the process, you’ll be richly rewarded with increased traffic to your site and a big boost in your income.

Yours for Bigger Profits

Article Marketing: A Great Way to Leverage Your Time

When you’re looking at ways to break into a niche market or you’re starting a new business online you need to create visibility. One of the best ways to get your site on the radar is to write informative articles relevant to your products or industry. These articles, when used effectively will drive traffic to your site from consumers looking for more. Following are some good guidelines and effective techniques for using article writing to successfully market your website to others.

Become a Contributor

Article marketing, for those of you new to the term, is the distribution of your content (articles) through article distribution sites and repository services, such as Ezine Articles. At the bottom of your article is a resource box that you’re allowed to put a link to your site and a small bio about yourself.

Through the distribution of your article to these sites, you can effectively increase the exposure of your expertise, as well as, drive traffic to your site seeking more information. By having your content reproduced around the Internet you can leverage the popularity of other sites to your advantage. People who are interested in learning more about your subject will use the link you provided in the resource box. These one-way incoming links reward you with better search engine rankings.

The Flipside — Become a Consumer

From a publisher’s viewpoint — like yours — when you put an articles online for distribution it’s free content. So, if you’re struggling to stay up with a regular email newsletter and are coming up dry on content, reprinting articles from the distribution sites can be a great way to lessen your workload. You can also use the articles to populate a webpage, blog or other publication as long as you follow the rules for reproduction usually posted at the site.

Article Writing

It’s a well known fact that when writing articles for online consumption its best to keep them short, generally about 400-600 words long… these get the most traffic. People usually have short attention spans and are looking for the quick, easy to absorb snippets. Save the wordy stuff for your more in-depth studies you post only to your site for specific training — or better yet, put it in an eBook!. You can’t argue with statistics… the short articles get you more exposure and ultimately more traffic. So, if you have some long articles that you’re considering to put into distribution, try cutting down some of the fluff and content to give them a better chance of getting syndicated.

Article Titles

This is the neon sign that you need to put on your article. Any copywriter or regular blogger knows that the titles of your articles need to be good enough to lure the reader inside. Titles have the most impact of anything in your article… without a good title people will just pass it by. This, of course, also impacts whether your article will be picked up and republished. Most people who are searching article directories looking for content, are looking for something specific. Make sure your article title has the right keywords in it and that it’s interesting enough to be clicked. To sum it up, you’ve got a lot riding on how good your title is… take the time you need to noodle out a good one.

The Nuggets

Every now and then you’ll write an article that gets a lot of hits. Take a look at it and see what may be there that you can duplicate into other articles. It may be the title, the subject, you’re tone, or some element that sticks out.  Sometimes you’ll get the right combination… a solid title, a good word count and a subject that people are interested in. In those cases, your article can go viral… getting syndicated many times. Pay close attention to those because whatever lit the fire there, you want to kindle in other articles you write.

Quality over Quantity

While it’s important to be as prolific a article writer as you can to maximize on the exposure you’ll receive from the article distribution sites, you have to maintain a high level of quality in your writing. Banging out a 500-600 page article is a mistake. If you start pushing articles out to the web that are light in substance, then you risk either not getting noticed anymore, or worse, remembered for the crap you dumped out there.

So be thoughtful in your writing. Give the people what they want. Do it as often as you can, but while keeping the value there for them to read.

Is Article Marketing Worth The Time?

Yes!

One good benefit of article writing is that you can parse your content and use it elsewhere… either somewhere on your site, or in an eProduct, or newsletter, or email. Leverage the content you’ve spent time all that time to develop and you’ll reduce the amount of time you need somewhere else.

The best part of article writing though is the exposure you’re getting online. If you write consistently good stuff that gets picked up and distributed, you have the potential to gain the moniker of a “guru”. This step can lend powerful credibility to you online. Once you’ve achieved this status, you’ve entered the realm of a life-changing experience. You’ll be in demand!

Yours for Bigger Profits

 

Can I Really Make a Lot of Money Online?

Occasionally when I’m in a conversation with someone the subject of what I do for a living comes up. Inevitably they’ll ask a question like, “How much money can I make online?“

My answer to them… as well as you… is — that’s entirely up to you!

I know that sounds like a copout, but it’s true. I what’s important to a person and I certainly can’t tell if they have the perseverance to see things through to the point of when they’ll begin to see an income.

Making a living online doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a real job. You need to work hard at it — consistently. I don’t think there’s enough “advisors” online that are telling you what you can really expect.

Motivations from “gurus” are typically self-serving. They want to sell you their wealth-making package, but that’s typically where their involvement stops. It’s all up to you after that.

Now, this doesn’t apply to all infopreneurs online… but do your homework. Look at their site. Do they offer more products to sell you than “free” content to support the questions you may have?  

Do these gurus really make the millions they claim?

Most of the ‘top-tier’ Internet marketers really do make the millions they report on their websites. However, it might surprise you to learn that there are relatively few of these industry leaders. The rest are tying to “fake it until they make it.” I don’t really have anything against their tactic — as long as what they give you is of value. There are a lot of ‘PhotoShop artists’ out there who try to lure you in with ‘faked’ pictures of their multi-million dollar monthly Google Adsense checks.

Sorry to be a buzz-kill, but you need to know!

What kind of income can you expect to make online?

Well, I’d like to tell you that you’ll make as much money as you want to… or that the Internet is the proverbial ‘money tree’, but to reiterate my points above… the amount of money that you’re likely to earn truly depends on you.

Above all, you need to take the following factors into consideration and ask yourself these hard questions when you’re looking to start an online business:

Believe it or not, a lot of people are merely enamored with the idea that they could earn a lot of money online, but they fail to follow through because they sell themselves short. They simply don’t think they have what it takes.
 

Do you have enough commitment to succeed?

Most who think they have the desire to start a new business aren’t really willing to do what ever it takes to succeed. They quickly see how starting an online business — one that has long term income —actually becomes a job!

Do you have enough time to learn?

Putting in an hour a week probably won’t cut it. There’s a lot of ads online advertising that you can work 4 hours a week… does that too good to be true? Well, go with your heart! When you’re starting a new business online, you should set aside at least 4 hours per day

Do have money to invest in your business?

It’s true… you don’t need to spend a fortune to begin an online business, but you’ll need to have some money for startup costs. There are some worthwhile ‘learning systems’ or other products out there but beware… and be selective… or you’ll become broke quick, led by the promises of online riches.

Do you have the ability to act on what you learn?

How many New Years resolutions have you kept? Well, the same goes with how committed people are when it comes to acting on their intentions to start a new online business. Most never get beyond reading how-to manuals and actually put what they’ve learned to use. Unfortunately, most people never make any money online.

Do you have long term persistence?

Beginning a new business takes time, so don’t be one of the many who quit too soon, before they start hitting their money-making targets.

So, the bottom line is… starting an online business takes a total and consistent commitment of time energy and money to make it. Don’t fall into the trap of being led to believe that you can be successful instantly by buying someone’s ‘secrets’. The real secret that they’re not telling you is that it’ll take you many weeks — at a minimum — if not months before your site will start seeing any income.

But don’t let all this scare you. I simply want to set some realistic expectations for you… you should really have zero expectations of getting rich quick.

Now I know that some of you will go to the other sites anyway to look for the ‘quick solution’ because they tell you what you want to hear. But if you really want to make a long term, sustainable income that will allow you to retire years early, then stick with us and we’ll help you along at a pace guaranteed to make sure you’ll achieve it.

Yours for Bigger Profits

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