My Buy Essay

Posts Tagged ‘niche’

Web Directories Explained

By S. Housley

Web directories are an important component to search engine positioning. Directories come in all shapes and sizes, some are generic, while others are highly specialized. Directories, are defined as categorized topics or collections of information organized into a tree like structure where categories are used to define each groups association.

Large directories like Yahoo tend to have general themes and may charge for listings. While smaller niche directories like .finance-investing.com offer free listings and profit from advertising revenue or pay per click models like Google AdSense.

Being listed in a directory not only brings in targeted traffic, it provides a one-way link from a website with similar content. Directories are generally highly ranked in search engines, and are considered well respected resources, two traits that are desirable in link partners.

While smaller directories that focus on a specific niche might generate less traffic, the quality of the traffic from a niche site is usually highly targeted and will be superior to that generated from general search engines.

If you are selling fire alarms, traffic from yahoo will be less qualified than traffic from Alarm Tools, .alarm-tools.net . Most visitors to Alarm Tools will have a genuine interest in alarms and alerting systems. The nature of highly specialized directories result in visitors who have a serious interest in the directories theme, or a at the very least an interest in a theme related to the directory.

As a result, web publishers need to make a conscience effort not to ignore the value of directory listings. Regardless of their size, a related niche directory listing can be extremely valuable.

Many directories offer sponsorship opportunities. Vendors can optionally purchase sponsorship to increased their exposure with a bold listing or top category listings.

Determining a Directories Value

It is difficult to assess the value of directory listing, as there is an obvious advantage to a listing of a closely related theme directory that is difficult to measure and quantify. In general, webmasters can use common web guidelines to determine the popularity of a directory and assess the directory link’s value.

To assess the value of a web directory, consider the PageRank of the webpage where the link placement of your site will occur. The PageRank is indicative of how important Google may find a specific page. Another reliable third party measuring tool is Alexa. The Alexa ranking provides insight into how popular a website is. In general, a link from a web page containing a PageRank of 5 or higher is considered very good. A link from a site in Alexa’s top 100,000 is also generally very desirable.

Compare the following two directories’ Monitoring Tools .monitoring-tools.net and RSS Specifications .rss-specifications.com . Monitoring Tools’ main page has a PageRank of 5 but most internal pages that contain links have low page ranks and the overall Alexa ranking of the site is over 650,000. While RSS Specification’s claims a main Google PageRank of 6 and subpages all contain a minimum of a 5 for PageRank, the overall site is ranked 32,000. Clearly if you are in the syndication business, RSS Specification’s would be a very desirable link partner, while you would have to weigh the cost benefit and position of a link from Monitoring Tools.

To determine a sites PageRank without downloading the Google Toolbar, use the following online tool from RustyBrick .rustybrick.com/pagerank-prediction.php . A website’s Alexa ranking can be found by entering the URL into Alexa .alexa.com .

It is recommended that PageRank and Alexa ranking be only used as a guide when determining a directories reputation. It is important not to get too caught up in either Google PageRank or Alexa Ranking as webmasters can use “tricks” to artificially inflate their numbers.

The bottom line, links from directories that are small but niche, can provide quality web traffic.

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If you don’t want to create your own digital products then purchasing information products with resale rights is a very good option for you. Although there are many products available, it it is essential that you are aware of the pros and cons involved in making the best decision for your business.

The main benefits of selling digital / info products are:

* Only pay the cost once as additional copies are free

* No physical products to store, package and deliver

* Instant zero cost delivery to your customers

* Order processing can be totally automated

Here are 4 easy ways to get your products:

* Earn commission as an affiliate selling someone else’s product

* Purchase resale rights to someone else’s product

* Hire someone to create them for you (Ghost Writer)

* Create your own ebooks

If you are not selling through affiliate links you will need to have your own mini-sales site to promote your products and download them to your customers.

Purchasing Resale Rights Products

This is by far the easiest way to find suitable products to sell from your mini sales website. There are many sites that offer products for sale with resale rights and you should have no difficulty in finding suitable products for your niche.

A simple Google search will identify hundreds of resale rights products. You should include your niche in your search to make the results more relevant e.g. “health resale rights products” (without the quotes of course). This search returned over 6 million results, so you can see that there is no shortage of potential resale rights products.

What’s Good About Resale Rights Products?

* You pay once, then get to keep 100% of the profits

* Usually supplied with ready made mini-sales site

What’s The Downside of Resale Rights Products?

* Lots of competition as many others selling the same product

* Competitors selling at cut prices can ruin your profit opportunities

* The market can already be saturated before you get started

Although there are some serious drawbacks, selling resale rights products is still a viable proposition, as most of the problems can be overcome.

Tips On Making Your Resale Product Unique

* Avoid products that have flooded the market and try and find ones that have limited distribution. They will cost more, but in the long run you can make a lot more sales and money from them.

* Combine with other products to create your own unique package.

* Customize the supplied mini-site to make it your own unique product.

The first thing you need to do is get some help in the form of step by step instructions and coaching videos designed specifically for newbies.

What is a niche Market? It is simply a group of people with a common interest. Some examples are hobbies, problems, desires, needs and hundreds of others. People are interested in information to help solve their problems. First you will need to find large groups of people interested in the same thing. Think of ideas you want to research. Don’t waste time and money marketing to people who have no interest in products or services. Only focus on groups of people already interested in your product or service.

Several things are very important in selecting a niche. First, find a group of people with a common interest, then decide what they want or need. Put together a product or service to satisfy that need. Finally, ask if they are willing to pay for this information.

Seek out popular markets and make sure there is a large interest in that market. Some types of markets people have interest are money making ideas, self help, health and fitness, hobbies, religious & spiritual just to name a few.

Places to find ideas for a hot niche include Clickbank, magazines, Amazon.com, discussion groups, infomercials, direct mail, forums and blogs.

Once you have found a nich then it’s time to research your competitors and do all the research you can on that particular product. Make a decision if you are excited enough about developing around the product or service.

Once you have decided it’s time to move forward, you will need to develop a web site to promote your product or service.

All ideas will not work out. The main thing is to not get discouraged. If it does not work, find a different nich and try again. Just keep promoting your product or service and the rewards will come. There is only one thing left to do and that is TAKE ACTION!

Back in 2000 I wrote a book “Starting an Internet Business at Home” which was published in hard copy format by Kogan Page (ISBN 0749434848).

It is currently out of print but in its day it was considered hot stuff and sold over 20,000 copies in bookstores world wide.

At the time I though I knew all there was to know about online marketing but a few days ago I happened across a little book by another author that shattered my illusions and exposed how little I really know.

It reveals the astonishing story of how the writer took a single idea and turned it into $37,641.85 in just 24 days.

Moreover, he demonstrates step by step exactly how he did it.

So what did I learn that I didn’t know before?

Manifold gems of wisdom on online marketing, including…

1. The building blocks to conducting effective online market research

2. How to develop products in obscure but highly popular niche areas

3. How to create them seamlessly and inexpensively

4. Why falling in love with your produce is the worst mistake you can make

5. An ingenious and incredibly simple strategy for attracting JV partners

6. How to use other people’s websites to jack up overall sales

7. A little known but highly reputable POD (print on demand) source where the pricing starts at $5.95 for just ONE book &ndash perfect bound with ISBN and free shipping to customers

Oh, and lots of other useful things, but especially how to repeat another author’s proven format over and over again.

So what will I do with my new found wisdom?

Two things in the first instance…

 First off I will breathe some fresh life into several of my own existing self-generated products that started with a bang and died off soon after like damp squibs. Now I know (thanks to another author) how to re-launch them to new heights – and keep them up there.

 Secondly I intend to venture into new pastures and create a whole bunch of innovative products for popular niche markets I didn’t even know existed.

If you would like to learn more about the little book that shattered my illusions on what I thought I knew a propos online marketing, visit the website featured in the resource box below.

What does niche marketing mean? Niche marketing is about finding small opportunities on the web, small areas in which people might be interested and for which they might be searching. Big companies and experienced webmasters are not interested in these areas because they are not important enough. But a small business could be something in which you might be interested.

Perhaps a small mini website will not generate thousands of dollars every month; it might generate 100 bucks, for example. That is ok, if the effort involved in terms of creating this mini website is not too high; in this way, you could repeat the same business model again and again. Taking into consideration that every small business could generate around $100 every month, with ten niches, you could earn $1.000 monthly. Does this sound better? And what if you could create 50 websites?

The first step in this kind of business is always keyword research. You need to find small markets which do not have competition. Wordtrack is a very good tool to use for finding niche opportunities. For every keyword, it tells you the number of searches and how many results are found on each search engine. You need to pay special attention to the KEI column. KEI is the index that balances the number of searches and the number of competitors. The more searches and the fewer the competitors, the better for you. A KEI higher than 10 is good, but you should, ideally, look at keywords with a KEI over 100. More than 400 is a gift.

Once you have identified your niche, you need to find content for it. Don`t worry about which product you are going to sell; this will come later. The “fuel” of any Internet business is content. So where can you find content? Well, if you are an expert in an area, you could write your own articles, but if you are not, you have to look for content somewhere else.

There are many article directories that offer a lot of content that you can use. You can also find much content just by searching the web. Use search engines, find blogs, forums, websites, etc. Last, but not least, you can always find information as in “the old times,” go to the library or buy one or two books.

After you have found enough content, it is time to register a domain name. You should choose a name that has something to do with your target market, but if your intention is to create multiple mini websites, you don’t need to register a different domain name every time. You can save money by having one global domain name, and create sub domains for each business.

The question now is, “Since everything looks good, how do I make money with these sites?” You need to follow this 3 step formula (CTM):

- Create Content

- Generate Traffic

- Monetize your website

You can build traffic by optimizing the webpage content for the search engines and by analyzing your competitors in order to build a better SEO strategy (but this is another chapter). Blogging and pinging is a way to make sure that your site will be spidered by the search engines. WordPress is a very good option for creating your blog, as it allows you to post, not only articles, but pages. You can easily build miniwebsites with WordPress. Finally, there are three easy ways to earn money with your site.

1. Sell some product that you can create yourself. If you have this ability and you want to allow people to buy your products with a credit card, the easiest way is to create a Paypal account. If you don’t have one, visit .paypal.com and create one.

2. Join affiliate programs. Find people who sell products related to your market niche and who have affiliate programs already set up. You will earn commissions just by selling other people’s items. A good place to find affiliate programs on products is .clickbank.com.

3. Google Adsense. Create an account at Google Adsense and include Google ads on your site. Every time someone visits your site and clicks one of those ads, Google will share its profit with you.

Creating small businesses is like a game. They do not require high investment, but they will not make you rich either. However, if you start playing many of those games, it can become a serious business.

If you have been in the niche marketing arena for any length of time and have a little experience under your belt…you are probably a very focused person and know exactly what you want and where you are going. You many even be looking around to catch the next new wave in online marketing before everyone else does. If so, than this may be just what you are looking for.

By now you have probably just about seen it all. You’ve signed up for everyone’s ‘how-to’ list and all the hottest affiliate programs. And you probably get bombarded with about ten emails a day for all the same affiliate programs you promote. But if you are like me than you want something new and fresh.

Hey! I know! I have been there…done that…and gotten out. It was easier just to change my email address than to try to unsubscribe from everyone’s list. Who knows, it may have even been from one of your lists. I apologize if it was because it wasn’t anything personal. My inbox just went into overload.

See, I live in a foreign country…meaning I don’t live in the U.S. And I would like to share what I think is a very interesting perspective on this whole Internet marketing thing. On top of that, I am going to share with you what I think some of the hottest waves in niche marketing are going to be. And no, it’s not ‘speed knitting’ for grannies!

Recently I built a small site to market my services to a non-English speaking community (literally). As I surfed across the web looking for JV partners, link exchanges, article directories, and all that other good stuff that we so freely take for granted, my little white socks got blown right off.

In the country I live (Brazil) almost no one does this kind of online marketing stuff that we take for granted. What a difference from when I ran my niche sites in English. Out of almost 500 sites I visited, I found maybe five ‘marketing sites’. I found no article directories even after a diligent search. And although I found a few sites with affiliate programs, I found no one who sold affiliate software in Portuguese.

The few sites I found that had an affiliate program had to buy their software in English and then have it translated.Talk about a market with no competition! The field is wide open and ripe for harvest.

And I really have no problem telling you about this, because I am in a very specific niche that isn’t related to Internet marketing at all. Actually, I hope that this article gets your brain to rolling and you come up with products for the Brazilian marketing community. I would probably be one of the first to buy your products.

Let me give you an illustration. I finally got around to putting up an article directory on my site. I took me three full days to get it all translated and set up the way I wanted. And I got to think how badly we need ‘real’ marketing products and services in Portuguese. Today’s whole Internet marketing niche community is geared solely to English speaking marketers.

Now just think about the possibility for a minute of promoting all those well-known affiliate programs you signed-up for to a foreign language community where 97% of the population does even know what an affiliate program is much less sign up for them to compete with you. It would really be rather simple. All you would have to do is set up a niche site and have it translated into the foreign language of your choice. Then set up an autoresponder with a series of emails promoting some great affiliate programs and have them translated as well.

Better yet if you speak already speak another language. You could start setting up some great niche sites in your language, as well as teach others to do what you are doing. Talk about ‘niching’ niche sites.

If this kind of idea interests you then you can take this to the next level. You could purchase resale rights to another marketer’s information and simply have it translated. The other day I saw a rather well-known marketer offering the translation rights to his material. I don’t know about you, but I think that is an amazing concept. Or you could just simply contact other marketers and set up JVs where you translate and market their products and split the profits.

It works both ways. Even if you don’t speak another language you could find someone who is willing to translate your stuff and market it for you. This could really take your marketing profits to whole new level. Imagine finding five, ten, or even fifty people willing to translate your site and products into another language for a share of profits. You wouldn’t have to do a thing, except exchange the money as it rolls into your Paypal account.

I am going to throw more freebie out as a bonus here. If you are interested in doing something in Brazil, I will be more than happy to help. I don’t have time to do the translation, but I can help you find people who could. Or if you already speak Portuguese and just need some tools, I will be glad to help you out however I can. I can send you a list of programs I use that are already translated into Portuguese by myself or others.

As I said before, I am involved in a very specific niche that I think is going to blow everything else out of the water over the next fifty years. But I don’t have time to write about it here, so I will have to save it for another article. Meantime if you have any questions you can contact me via the resource box below.

To your success…and mine. God bless. Peace!

What does niche marketing mean? Niche marketing is about finding small opportunities on the web, small areas in which people might be interested and for which they might be searching. Big companies and experienced webmasters are not interested in these areas because they are not important enough. But a small business could be something in which you might be interested.

Perhaps a small mini website will not generate thousands of dollars every month; it might generate 100 bucks, for example. That is ok, if the effort involved in terms of creating this mini website is not too high; in this way, you could repeat the same business model again and again. Taking into consideration that every small business could generate around $100 every month, with ten niches, you could earn $1.000 monthly. Does this sound better? And what if you could create 50 websites?

The first step in this kind of business is always keyword research. You need to find small markets which do not have competition. Wordtrack is a very good tool to use for finding niche opportunities. For every keyword, it tells you the number of searches and how many results are found on each search engine. You need to pay special attention to the KEI column. KEI is the index that balances the number of searches and the number of competitors. The more searches and the fewer the competitors, the better for you. A KEI higher than 10 is good, but you should, ideally, look at keywords with a KEI over 100. More than 400 is a gift.

Once you have identified your niche, you need to find content for it. Don`t worry about which product you are going to sell; this will come later. The “fuel” of any Internet business is content. So where can you find content? Well, if you are an expert in an area, you could write your own articles, but if you are not, you have to look for content somewhere else.

There are many article directories that offer a lot of content that you can use. You can also find much content just by searching the web. Use search engines, find blogs, forums, websites, etc. Last, but not least, you can always find information as in “the old times,” go to the library or buy one or two books.

After you have found enough content, it is time to register a domain name. You should choose a name that has something to do with your target market, but if your intention is to create multiple mini websites, you don’t need to register a different domain name every time. You can save money by having one global domain name, and create sub domains for each business.

The question now is, “Since everything looks good, how do I make money with these sites?” You need to follow this 3 step formula (CTM):

- Create Content

- Generate Traffic

- Monetize your website

You can build traffic by optimizing the webpage content for the search engines and by analyzing your competitors in order to build a better SEO strategy (but this is another chapter). Blogging and pinging is a way to make sure that your site will be spidered by the search engines. WordPress is a very good option for creating your blog, as it allows you to post, not only articles, but pages. You can easily build miniwebsites with WordPress. Finally, there are three easy ways to earn money with your site.

1. Sell some product that you can create yourself. If you have this ability and you want to allow people to buy your products with a credit card, the easiest way is to create a Paypal account. If you don’t have one, visit .paypal.com and create one.

2. Join affiliate programs. Find people who sell products related to your market niche and who have affiliate programs already set up. You will earn commissions just by selling other people’s items. A good place to find affiliate programs on products is .clickbank.com.

3. Google Adsense. Create an account at Google Adsense and include Google ads on your site. Every time someone visits your site and clicks one of those ads, Google will share its profit with you.

Creating small businesses is like a game. They do not require high investment, but they will not make you rich either. However, if you start playing many of those games, it can become a serious business.

The big buzz-phrase at the beginning of 2006 is ‘Niche Marketing’. If you find your niche and market it like crazy, the gurus cry, you can be a zillionaire by March. Great.

So where is this niche, and how will you recognize it when you stumble into it?

Many expensive courses are offered teaching Internet Marketing, and most have some important links missing. How does the average person find their niche, without a background in marketing? As a beginner, you may just want to supplement your current income, and hopefully, eventually, quit your day job. The very average advice offered for hundreds of dollars is ‘find your passion, research on the internet and Clickbank, develop your own product, and there you go. So let’s help you expand this into a sensible plan.

Grab a pen and paper, and try some new ideas. What did you want to be when you grew up? If you really are a fireman or train engineer, you have an excellent niche, with a lot of information and stories to tell. If you aren’t what you planned to be when you were twelve, take it up again now, study your dream occupation, and become an armchair expert.

Do you have a hobby you are passionate about? Not everyone does, and passion means different things to different people. What subject do you love to talk about that no-one else you know will join you in? What are you willing to keep talking about even when no-one else is willing to listen? These favourite subjects of yours show the basis of passion. The internet is the new galaxy here on earth, and there’s bound to be people outside your little sphere who want to hear what you have to say, and might be willing to pay for that opportunity.

Take notes the next time you go to a magazine rack. What are the first three magazines that grab your attention? Each could be your general niche to start with. Look through your book collection at home, and find a common theme that is obvious, or have someone else do that for you.

A niche can be defined as ‘a position particularly well suited to the person who occupies it’. Where you see yourself fitting in the best might be your niche.

If the place that suits you best is not the number one hot topic on the internet today, that’s ok. Start with one subject that you feel eager to work with, and build a working knowledge that you can develop into an information project. The practice you gain can be used to make a second niche for yourself, and a second on-line business.

There are many other ways to find your little piece of the net, and I’ve found an extremely valuable resource with three free ebooks and several hours of video that will help you generate more ideas than you will be able to deal with in a lifetime. All you need really is sitting in your head right now, you just need the keys to unlock it.

Kelly Archibald

Content is still the King of the Internet. Most people go online looking for information about their favorite topics, or about whatever is on their mind at the moment. Frequent Internet users seem to have an insatiable appetite for information on various fields.

So, if you want to drive targeted traffic and pre-qualified potential buyers to your website, you really must publish useable information online in the form of quick-to-read but interesting keyword rich articles.

Here are four reasons why you must do that.

Reason #1 – Get Premium Exposure for Your Website

It’s much easier to achieve high search engine ranking for article pages than for your homepage or salespages. Search engines are crazy for fresh content on practically every topic under the sun.

So, write your articles surrounding less competitive keywords (research those at Nichebot.com) or edit those keywords into already existing articles of your own. You will have a much better chance of getting your article indexed by major search engines.

Just be sure to place a link to your main website in the article by-line or resource box.

Reason #2 – Get Automatic Back Links from Authority Sites

Each time your article and site link are republished online, it provides a back link to your website. Back links are regarded by search engines as a sort of recommendation for your website. If your site has a number of quality back links, it can quickly improve the search engine ranking.

Submit your articles to online article directories. In most cases it’s free. Many directory sites are regarded by major search engines as authority sites, and are spidered frequently for new content. This means the website link you include in your article will also be indexed from the site where it is found.

Offer your articles for reprint as well. When other website owners republish them on their own sites, it will develop even more back links for your website.

Reason #3 – Improve Your Conversion Rate

By conversion rate, we mean the percentage of website visitors that convert to paying customers and sales.

You can boost your credibility and convert more website visitors into a paying customers by providing them with interesting and informative topic articles, and then introducing them to related products you have for sale.

On the other hand, simply displaying products on your website, with no related information or content, will likely result in a low conversion rate. It’s important that you use articles to first prove your credibility and your knowledge in your field.

Reason #4 – Your Cost is Practically Zero

All you need is your thoughts and your computer. If you can write a letter to a friend that explains the details of some topic, then you can write topical articles to publish on your own site and submit to other sites.

However, if you don’t like to write, or simply believe that you can’t, you can still have original keyword rich articles written for you.

An original 400 word niche article on a topic of your choice might cost you $5 to $7 at JustArticles.com – but the potential value is enormous in terms of bringing targeted visitors and buyers to your website.