Working in online niche markets is one of the most
profitable business concepts available today. With about
1.4 billion people online in 2008 just about any imaginable
niche has a good chance of succeeding. Better still; the
need has never been stronger since most Website owners are
using a "shotgun" approach that leaves visitors overwhelmed
and craving a good niche site. That said; use these tips to
get a jump start on the competition and quickly dominate
any niche!
Step 1: Get Small, But Not Too Small; Refine your niche to
the smallest money making component.
Some niches are smaller than others. The trick to finding a
profitable niche is to break down your topic to its
smallest profitable component. Let's say you want to sell
music and music memorabilia. Well that's a pretty broad
category so narrow it down a bit like this...
Music > Mainstream > Top 40 > '80's > "Hair Bands" > One
Hit Wonders
Now, one hit wonders performed by "hair bands" in the
1980's might be too small a niche to be profitable but
there was certainly no shortage of hair bands in the '80's.
So your music niche might look like this...
Music > Mainstream > Top 40 > '80's > "Hair Bands"
Quick Profit Tip: If you want even quicker profits you can
simply join a niche affiliate marketing program. The rest
of this information still applies and is more important
than ever. I just wanted to let you know you have plenty of
options. Let's focus on the tips for now and I'll share a
good reference at the end for finding a profitable niche
affiliate marketing program.
Step 2: Make Sure Your Niche is Really Right for You; OK,
maybe this seems a little too "common sense" but make sure
you really enjoy researching and working within the niche
you choose. What's fun for a few hours a month now as a
hobby might not be as much fun if it becomes a second job.
Here are some tips to help with this...
A.) Choose something you either know a lot about now or
really want to learn about. This will help eliminate a lot
of potential frustration later.
B.) Try to find a niche where you genuinely like and can
relate to the "typical visitor." You might find yourself
spending a lot of time handholding them through buying
decisions and the like.
Step 3: Make Sure Your Niche is Primed for Profits; Try to
find a niche that has a large enough target audience to
keep you busy and plenty of things people are willing to
pay for (such as 80's rock memorabilia in our example.)
You can use Google's free keyword selection tool for this.
The goal here is to find keywords people are searching for
and seeing how much competition there is as well as how
many people are looking for your niche keywords.
Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
and enter any keyword or phrase that you think your target
market is looking for. This free tool will give you tons of
info on the word you entered plus any related keywords. The
little partially filled boxes show you how popular the
search term is and how much keyword bidding competition it
has.
If you go there and look up "80's hair bands" (no quotes)
you will see there is not a ton of search volume but also
not much bidding competition. Now if you type in "80's
music" (no quotes) you'll see there is about the same
search volume but much more competition. So far; so good.
To find your real competition, go to Google and look up
"80's hair bands" (no quotes). You'll find about 304,000
pages of future competition. Now search for "80's music"
(no quotes) and you'll see there are about 1,450,000 pages,
or nearly five times the competition. It looks like we made
a good niche choice! We have about the same interest in the
two but only have to deal with a fraction of the
competition.
The people doing these searches are likely to have interest
in our site. And with even more targeted keywords we'll
have more than enough for big profits. So, with our niche
decided, let's move onto the details that will make you
money. We'll start with Web design considerations.
Step 4: Walk the Walk; Make your niche Website into a
comfort zone.
Design your site to reflect the mood or encompass the style
of your niche. Here are some great places to start...
A.) Web theme
B.) Headline
C.) Meaningful images
D.) Color selection
E.) Font usage (embed special "non Web standard" fonts as
images if needed)
Do a little research and have some fun with it. If your
niche is "Music > Mainstream > Top 40 > '80's > Hair Bands"
then look up old album covers, find images of Def Leppard
and Bon Jovi posters, use some of the fonts found on albums
in your own images, etc.
Step 5: Talk the Talk; Add to the comfort zone and increase
trust by speaking to your visitors in familiar terms such
as...
A.) The use of age appropriate slang.
B.) The mention of well known, but niche specific acronyms.
C.) Mention of specific and meaningful names.
For our '80's music "hair bands" niche, "cassette singles"
or "Cassingles" is real blast from the past. Just the
mention of this near forgotten phenomenon is an instant
credibility builder.
Step 6: Build a Relationship; Your visitors want to buy
from someone who knows them and can 'relate' to their
needs. Give that to them by building a rapport on a (semi)
personal level. This is easier than most people think. You
already have a lot in common by virtue of the niche. Just
build on that.
For example; if your niche has anything to do with '80's'
music, make reference to the first time you bought a CD and
how it cost you $27. Talk about the special high definition
metal cassette tapes and laser disks that lasted about as
long as the "Pet Rock." You can also bring back memories of
filling your '76 Chevy Nova with gas for 86 cents a gallon.
Just have some fun with this and your audience will enjoy
it.
Step 7: Get Some Training; There is a fortune to be made in
online niche business. Whether you use your niche site for
lead generation or direct sales, it's worth it to read a
book or two on the subject to speed up the profits. The
following are my favorites and typically cost less than $25
each. They are all available at Amazon.com.
A.) NicheCraft: Using Your Specialness to Focus Your
Business, Corner Your Market, and Make Customers Seek You
Out by Dr. Lynda Falkenstein
B.) Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and
Donald Clifton Ph.D.
C.) Internet Marketing for Dummies by Bud E. Smith
Time Saving Tip: If you want to save a lot of time and
don't mind spending $47, I recommend getting The Niche
Annihilation Method training program
(http://www.NicheAnnihilate.com). I would have saved years
of trial and error if this had been available when I
started out. Fortunately or unfortunately, the person that
developed this (Rob Benwell) is one of the few I know who
actually limits product sales to ensure he does not dilute
the market. So if you happen to get a "sold out" notice,
just send him an email asking to be notified if he comes
out with another program in the future. Even if you have to
wait, it's worth it.
Quick Profit Tip: Joining a niche affiliate marketing
program is easily the fastest way to start raking in the
cash. The Niche Annihilation Method training program,
mentioned above, has great information to jump start this
effort. And if you decide to go for it, there is a piece of
inexpensive software called Click Bank Elite
(http://www.CBankElite.com) that will put your niche
business in overdrive in minutes.
Now go and dominate your niche. Good luck!
----------------------------------------------------
Scott Jason is a 10 year veteran niche marketing coach and
search engine optimization specialist. He has been a guest
"expert advice" author for several marketing books
including 'Marketing Magic' and is the co-founder of
http://BestSEOCopywriting.com .
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