Niche Marketing

If you have even a passing interest in the topic of niche, then you should take a look at the following information. This enlightening article presents some of the latest news on the subject of niche.

There are two different ways of ideas about niches. One takes the target audience into consideration first, which is the product centric model, while the other takes the product into consideration first, the audience centric model.

Actually, both of these ideas are identical but one of them will allow you to have more advantage. So which one is that? The product centric based idea.

The product centric model carries a time-tested rule of marketing: if you want to get into profit quickly, sell what people are already buying! There is plenty of information about things that sells well. Niche marketing is just a job to identify the gaps in the market which haven't got dug yet, and build a business around it.

If you realize, books account for a huge portion of online revenue. Nevertheless, how do you grab a slice for yourself without competing against the huge companies like Amazon.com?

The answer is simple, you specialize. No matter how huge Amazon is, sometimes you still wouldn't be able to find books that you want. What types of books are people searching for that they can't find through the mainstream booksellers?

Could you become the authority and number one resource for books on a particular hobby? How about underground titles like "The Anarchist's Cookbook?" That's what the owners of http://www.loompanics.com have, controversial and "hard to find" title books.

Another way you can build a niche around hot-selling products is to add some spice by customizing or personalizing them. In summary, the product-centric model is based on giving a twist to existing markets and trends.

On the other side, an audience centric model takes a subject matter, special interests or information more importantly first. Basically, you start off with no idea on what to sell. You don't have a product in mind. You only know your target-audience.

The great thing about the audience-centric approach is that you can create whole new markets out of thin air. This is the model preferred by most e-book authors and information marketers.

So where do we start? You need to assess your own interests and strengths before you begin, especially if this is your first time starting a business. What are you already interested in? Do you have any background or expertise on a particular subject? Start with what you know, you'll have more advantage because your prior knowledge will allow you to narrow down your niche quickly. In other words, you already have a good idea of how the topic breaks down.

If your passion is music, for example, you know there is an almost endless supply of potential products and potential buyers in areas as diverse as:

• Instruments/instrument sales/instrument repair/vintage instruments
  
• Techniques and lessons on how to play a certain instrument
  
• Memorabilia - shirts, hats, tickets, stickers, posters, autographs
  
• Audio production, recording, CD labeling, booking, promotion etc
  

If you find yourself confused by what you've read to this point, don't despair. Everything should be crystal clear by the time you finish.

You also know that any or all of those can be tailored towards: solo artists, bands, fans, managers, engineers, agents and the list go on.

Now that's a great thing for you, but what if that's not you're interested? What if you are just not into creating a business out of your hobby, or you don't feel any passion for your current expertise?

The good news is: It's Fine! You don't need to give up hope or bang your head against the wall for ideas. You will however need to do some extra work. This brings us to the second reason I suggest taking stock of your strengths.

Here's a secret about most internet marketers. Ready to know? Here it is: Most of the famous niche marketers you've heard of create products for niches they know absolutely nothing about.

How do they do that? Easy, they either hire the research and writing to someone else, or hunt down an expert for an interview, just a combination of outsourcing and "branding". Also, this type of marketer has his or her own set of "reasons why" for motivation.

They include:

• Money
  
• Pride of ownership
  
• Love of the creative process
  
• Need for variety and breadth, rather than depth
  

It doesn't matter as much to this type whether the market personally interests them. His or her goal and passion is to hunt down as many overlooked niches as possible, dive into them quickly and start profiting.

So, if this sounds like you, you're in good company! Once you learn the basics of niche research, you'll have your pick of dozens of potential business ideas.

As your knowledge about niche continues to grow, you will begin to see how niche fits into the overall scheme of things. Knowing how something relates to the rest of the world is important too.

Additional Resources: Niche Marketing Predictions for 2006

Stop the hostile takeover of the Internet

Congress is now pushing through a law that would give control of the Internet to giant companies who want to charge big bucks for things that are currently free or low-cost---everything from posting a webpage to being able to use audio, video, and photos online.

This would ruin the Internet for nearly everyone: nonprofits, online activists, Google users, Ipod listeners, small businesses, economic innovators, and others.

Politicians don't think we are paying attention to this issue. Many of them take campaign checks from big telecom companies and are on the verge of letting companies like AT&T and Verizon destroy the Internet for the little guy.

We need to act now. Can you sign this petition to your member of Congress asking him or her not to ruin the Internet? Click here:

http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet

A great article on this is located here: http://www.newyorker.com/printables/
talk/060320ta_talk_surowiecki

Thanks!

Adding Real Value To Your Article Marketing

The secret is out. Article marketing is both an inexpensive and lucrative way of attracting visitors to your website. Nonetheless, just because you can direct lots of traffic to your website because of your successful article marketing campaign, doesn't mean that you can see a direct correlation between the addition traffic and increased profits. To do that, you need to add real value to your article marketing.

Staying focused

Regardless of what it is you are selling on your website, or why you want to increase traffic to your website, if you do not stay focussed with your article marketing, it is possible that you will not see any benefit in increased revenues. To ensure your article marketing remains focussed, you need to think of a long-term strategy of how you want your website to look in 6-months to 1 year from now an establish an article policy that fits with this plan. Creating ad hoc articles for website is unlikely to be successful.

Avoid repetition

It is a frequent mistake by many web owners to add volumes of articles to their website which all say the same thing, just in slightly different ways. What you tend find with such websites is that readers so become bored with the site, and look to move on. You need to make sure that you grab the attention of readers and keep their attention by offering a different selection of articles in the same area. If you want to be extremely innovative with your article marketing campaign, you can include an email marketing aspect by asking your readers if they want to sign-up for updates on any articles, that can then be email directly to their email account.

Remain the expert in your field

Although this may have a hollow sound to it, becoming an expert in a particular area is not as difficult as it remaining the expert in that field. You need to be constantly aware of any changes or updates and soon as anything does change, you need to be the first person writing about this. Writing articles for your website that are 6 months behind the direction the market is moving in will not prove a successful article marketing strategy. Being 3 to 6 months ahead of the market will.

Be selective

Without doubt one of the most important aspects of your article marketing will be submitting articles to other websites. This has the value of directing traffic to your site. The downside is that the article will become associated with the hosting website. As such, if the hosting website has a loss of reputation, so will you. Consequently, it is an important part of any web owner’s article marketing strategy that they be associated with reputable websites that enhance your website's reputation. After all, you're not undertaking the program just to help others!

Be professional

Finally, even if the website is only your part-time hobby or income generator, visitors to your website are not going to know this. Because of this, you need to maintain professionalism at all times. This means making sure that the articles are well written, with perfect spelling and grammar. Moreover, if you include facts in your articles, make sure they turn out to be true!

Following the above simple procedures should result in your website not only generating greater numbers of visitors, but these visitors should becoming trusting loyal repeat customers because of your successfully implemented article marketing strategy.

Additional Reading: Article Marketing Content Guide

How To Choose A Product To Sell Online

Any veteran internet marketer will tell you that the first step towards attaining online wealth is to find a hungry market, or a niche, if you will. A hungry market is almost always profitable, given the great demand for appropriate products, as well as the virtual absence of competing enterprises servicing the said segment.

Once you have selected a profitable market, or a niche if you will, it's time to think about what product you could offer. Products are the items you could sell. They are the ones that will ultimately deliver some profits for you. Business is all about selling something, after all. You have to offer something to get another thing in return.

Here are the more popular items you could sell online:

• Traditional information products. These include eBooks, special reports and even articles. They are excellent choices because all you really need is information and the writing skills to put them down in writing. The best way to convey information is through the written word. Also, traditional information products are capable of being delivered digitally. You won't have to worry about shipping costs and storage space. Everything would be stored in your hard drive, and you just have to retrieve the same whenever someone purchases what you have to offer.
  
• Non-traditional information products. With the many things made possible by the internet, a lot of possible vehicles for information have also popped up. Products like video lectures, audio lessons, and podcasts have become prominent items that have proven to be hot sellers. Non-traditional information products are not limited to these choices, however. You could always come up with something new. The limit is your imagination.
  
• Tangible goods. You could also sell physical items. However, you have to bear in mind that such requires storage space (which can become problematic if you're planning to sell high quantities of different products) and shipping charges (which can be a drag when it comes to really large items).
  

You're not only limited to products, however. You could also sell your services online. Here are some examples of the kinds of services you could offer to prospective clients:

• Consultancy
  
• Web design
  
• Search engine optimization (SEO) advise
  
• Graphic design
  
• Data encoding
  
• Ghostwriting
  
• Copywriting
  
• Customer service handling
  

This requires appropriate skills. If you're good with writing, then you could most certainly find a lot of clients who would hire your services for a fee. If you're good with web design, you could be employed by some webmasters who are in need of good websites.

Choosing the right products or services to sell would depend on a few considerations. Let's take a look at them.

• What product or service is most appropriate for your target market? What do the people in the said market need? What do they want? What product is most accessible for them?
  
• What product or service will you be able to offer? Some products require financial investments. Do you have the budget to pursue such? Or would you be better off in creating a product that requires little financial demands? Services require certain degrees of skills. Do you have those skills?
  
• What product do you think will be able to sustain profit for a long period of time. The length of the earning potential, or the market life, of the said product should be enough to reap great earnings for you. Profit, after all, is the bottom line for every business.
  

Once these considerations have been satisfied, you could safely say that you have found the right product for the business you want to pursue.

All About On Page SEO

When it comes to doing business online, you will soon discover that it's all about the traffic. Traffic, or the number of internet users you'd be able to generate for your website, is and will always be the lifeblood of any online venture. After all, what good is a website when there's no one there to see its pages? How successful will your digital products be if no one would be able to know about them? Who will avail of your services when no one will get exposed to their existence?

Contrary to what many people believe, generating traffic for your website does not start once you pages are published and have gone live. Traffic generation strategies start at the very moment you are conceptualizing an idea for the website itself.

This is what on page search engine optimization (SEO) is all about. It is concerned with techniques that you could implement on your web pages themselves to ensure a good volume of traffic for your website. 80% of your traffic would come from the many search engines in the World Wide Web. If each and every web page you have is optimized for these search engines, then your website would be in a good position to have a high rank for the results of every relevant query.

• Keyword selection
  Choosing the right keywords is essential for the success of your website. Keywords are the popular search terms that people use to gather information from the search engines. If your web pages are populated by the right density of the correct keywords, then you'll have better chances of winning the attention of the search engine spiders. To determine the appropriate keywords for the subject that your website will be servicing, use the free tools that can be found at www.nichebot.com.
  
• Keyword placement in content
  Content is the king of the internet. But even royalty needs support. Populate your content with the proper amount of keywords. A density level of at least 2% should be sought. This means that the right keywords should be mentioned at least twice for every 100 words of text.
  
• META tags
  META tags are HTML codes that do not have a bearing on the physical appearance of your web pages, but they do inform the search engine spiders that such web pages are appropriate for a particular query. Always include the following META tags on the top portion of your source code. You could copy-paste them from the list below, but do change the indicated fields. Also, make sure that you include your keywords as much as you could on your META tags.
  

  Before you copy and paste these tags in, make sure you start with a "<" then end with a ">".
  

  
  META NAME="Author" CONTENT="your name here"
  META NAME="Subject" CONTENT="the subject of your site"
  META NAME="Description" CONTENT="description of your site"
  META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="your keywords here"
  META NAME="Revisit-after" CONTENT="14 days"
  META NAME="Rating" CONTENT="General"
  META NAME="Robots" CONTENT="All"
  

  
  
• ALT tags
  ALT tags refer to the text that would appear every time the mouse cursor would pass through an image. Your ALT tags should include your keywords.
  
• Page titles
  Page titles are the captions that appear at the very top of your web page. Make sure that each web page in your website would have a different title that will include the appropriate keywords.
  
• Focus
  Remember, search engines will crawl through your website per page. Each page is a different project altogether. Focus is the key. Ensure that each web page of yours would focus on a particular keyword or key phrase. If there is an article in that page, make sure that the article will only discuss and include one keyword or key phrase from the list you have made. Also, it would greatly help if you would name the page file in a manner that would include the keyword or key phrase it is focused on. For example, www.thisisyourwebsite.com/thisisyourkeyword.html is a good page filename that would help boost your SEO efforts.
  

Following these guidelines would help you a lot in securing a favorable position in search engine results pages. This in turn would guarantee for you a sustainable and sufficient volume of traffic that would make your website a genuine success.