Reading your local newspaper is a great way to find a niche that you can turn around and use to make money.  Take 20 minutes a day to read and you will soon have a number of prosperous niche blogs and websites.

Scan the headlines for some general topics that are of interest.  You will find excellent topics in the special sections of the paper – fashion, religion, etc. – and you can look at the specific articles for more refined niche ideas.

Jot down 5 or 10 ideas while scanning the paper.  Once you are online, do some research:

What are people saying about the topic?

Is this a topic that lots of people are discussing?

Is there a lot of competition?

Then ask yourself how you can make money from this idea.  Are there products that are related to it?  Are there books or reports that you can sell?  Do a Google search of the topic and “affiliate” to see if you have some ideas.

You can also create a product for your niche topic.  Write up a short report or guide that provides a solution to whatever problem your niche might have.  Offer it for sale on your blog or website.

As a quick example, let me share with you what I did:  I was scanning the paper and saw an article that discussed how local school kids had issues with head lice when they went back to school.  (Ick, right?)  So I found a Clickbank product that cures this problem and became an affiliate.

I put together a blog, added content and a link to the product and found some parenting forums.  I put a link in my signature and then became a participating member in the forums.  (I did not spam!)  People saw the link in my signature and went to my blog.  Hooray!

Take a few minutes to look around you and you will find all of the ideas you need for niches.

There are tons of niches in the world today, and there are many more being created each day.   There are niches that stay around for years (such as credit repair) and niches that don’t last as long (like music from singers that turn out to be one-hit wonders).  The important thing is to find a niche and make money from it.

Look on forums, message boards, etc.  A good way to find out what is on the minds of average people is to visit some moms’ forums.  (Do a Google Search for “moms + message board” to find them.)  What are they talking about?

Finances, parenting, weight loss, beauty – all of these are seen when you visit these boards, but look at the specific questions, too.  You can also post a question on forums, as well, and find out what people need or want.

Here is an example of how I used this idea to find a niche in less than 20 minutes:

I went to a parenting message board and found about 10 threads asking about potty training.  Moms were at the end of their rope about this!  They were literally begging for help!

I created a blog that targets parents who need help potty training their children.  I created 10 posts with general potty training tips and topics.

Then I went to Clickbank and found a product that helps with potty training and is guaranteed to help train the child quickly.  I put an affiliate link in the sidebar.  Done!  (If I wanted, I could add other child-related products such as potty chairs, etc.)

It really is simple to find a niche and make money from it, if you take a few minutes to look around you.

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Word of Mouth Marketing
The second most common way that people find new websites is word of mouth.  Search engines are the number one way.  Word of mouth can be generated from message board postings by virtual strangers or by e-mailing friends.  Effective word of mouth is known as “viral marketing” and is one of the biggest success stories on the Internet.

Viral marketing works in much the same way urban legends and funny jokes on the Internet work as they are forwarded all around the world.  Viral marketing takes advantage of the socialization needs of society.  No matter how small the social network starts out as, effective viral marketing can turn a small unknown company into one that is known everywhere in the online world.  Some of the biggest companies on the Internet rely on viral marketing to stay successful.  You can set up an effective e-mail marketing strategy without a big budget or a lot of technology.  All you need to do is set up an e-mail signature that has a marketing message within it.  This marketing message will be attached to any e-mail that your company sends.  Signatures are easily set up through Outlook and other e-mail programs.

You can take the concept of e-mail messages one step further by attaching your marketing message to all mail that is outgoing.  This is done through a simple process known as “mail rerouting”.  When you use this process you can track the results as well as know for sure that every outgoing message will look and feel the same no matter whether you or your employees send the mail.

Something for Free
Everyone wants to get something that is free.  When you offer something that is free the word will spread very quickly.  And free offers will bring traffic to your website.  However, most small online businesses can’t afford to give away much for free.  What you can do is become creative and offer a free product for the first 20 people who buy another product from your website.  This can be as simple as movie tickets.

Message Boards and Chatrooms
Message boards and chatrooms are great places for word of mouth and viral marketing to flourish.  This is particularly true for those people who are 25 years of age and younger.  In chatrooms people share ideas and concepts and this can lead to some great leads for your business.
E-mail makes it easy for people to share ideas and concepts with others anywhere in the world.  If you can attach your marketing message to these infectious e-mails you’ll be able to create a buzz and stir about your product or service.  When potential customers recognize your logo or company name you’re on your way to gaining trust, credibility, and the close of a sale.

Domain Names
One last thing to remember when you’re trying to spread information about your company is the effectiveness of a memorable domain name.  You want to pick a domain name that is easy to remember, easy to spell, and that relates to what you’re selling.  When people easily find your website you’ll want to make sure that your home page content is dynamic so they keep returning.

Come back for part 5 of the 10 part series on target traffic generation.

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Ebay Partner Network

My Ebay earnings dropped from $300 a month to a low of $195.18 last month. I think a lot of this is due to the lack of spending on luxury items.

Pepperjam Network

My PPC campaign went fairly decent. I spent a total of $50 and made $110for a profit of $60. I was playing it safe. This was with only 1 campaign on 1 search network (MSN). I pretty happy that I ended up in the positive for both programs.

Here is the break down;

Ebay Partner Network: $195.18

Pepperjam Network (PPC): $110.00

Adsense: $12.14

Gross Income: $

Costs: -$50

Net Profit: $267.32

Not bad! That’s with all sites on auto pilot, with little to no SEO. I’m still working to improve each of the 4 BANS and PHPBAY sites I’m currently running.

Let’s hope that next month is much better!

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KEYWORDS:

“car bike rack”

• 4,400 Searches per month
• 48,100 Competing websites

“car bike racks”

• 3,600 Searches per month
• 22,300 Competing websites

“bike racks for cars”

• 1,900 Searches per month
• 2,860 Competing websites

Here are some of the items on Ebay that can be promoted via Phpbay Pro or BANS:

The car bike rack niche market can also be added on to an existing bike blog or site, which would help drive organic targeted traffic to it. Hope this has helped. Let me know what you think.

• What age group are you trying to sell to?
• Are you selling to a specific ethnic group or gender?
• Will most of your customers be married or single?
• How fast will most Internet connections be?
• Will you target customers who have children?
• What level of education will most of your customers have?
• Where will most of your customers live?
• Will your customers have any specific hobbies?

The more you know about your customers the easier it will be to come up with a marketing plan.  You’ll also be able to design a website that is the most appealing to these customers.  The biggest advantage of marketing on the Internet is that it allows you to become very targeted towards your desired customers.
Targeting Different Types of Customers

Marketing online is the same as marketing anywhere else.  There are certain products, colors, themes, and lingo that will appeal more to some customers than to others. When you know what type of customers you’re targeting you can meet their needs so that you grab their attention.  When you use certain features that pull customers to your website you have the ability to gain their attention, loyalty, and trust.  For example, studies show that most female shoppers like to save money and time.  Over 80% of purchases in the home are influenced in some way by women.  As well, these same studies show that women like to able to compare costs fast and easily without getting any kind of sales pressure.  If you’re trying to target women customers some things that you should keep in mind include (1) giving them a feeling of comfort and community, (2) let your website deal with everyday problems, and (3) focus on education, health, and family.
What People Are Buying

The most common (and best) advice I’ve ever heard given for ANYONE wanting to sell online is this: Sell what people are buying.

One of the most unbeaten ways that you can find out what customers want to buy, and find out more information about, is to do market studies.  When you watch and listen to what it is that customers are interested in, you raise your chances of getting their attention and giving them the information that they are searching for.

Take some time to carefully check the products and the services that you’re offering on your website or through your website.  You should be asking yourself include (1) what are the rewards and disadvantages to your business of selling or advertising online, (2) will you take payment online, (3) what details will you have to consider about shipping your product to customers, and (4) are you willing to constantly update and keep up your website.

When you have an obvious business idea in mind, and know exactly what it is that you’re selling, you’ll want to find out what other businesses out there offer the same product or service.  You might want to talk to potential customers to see how they react to your product.

Find other websites that are related to your business and take some time checking them out.  Look at how they endorse and market similar products or services as well as how each website is laid out and navigated. If a similar website uses a shopping cart for online purchases check it out.  See how smoothly the process works and what can be done to perk up the process.  Don’t just look at e-commerce sites that are within your own country since customers won’t limit their shopping to those countries where they live.  Look at the way other countries handle e-commerce websites so that you have a broad spectrum of websites to compare yours with.

Here are some things that you should be asking yourself when you’re doing market research for your online business:

• Who are your probable customers?
• What other businesses sell the same products or services?
• Who is going to be your objective market and how are you going to reach them?
• How much will it cost you to market, manufacture, and deliver your product or service?
• Who is your competition?
• How much can you fairly charge for your product or service?

What Are Customers Buying: There are many ways that you can find out what customers are buying both from online businesses and from brick and mortar businesses.  Once you find out what customers are buying you can concentrate your website content and articles on what your mainstream customers are looking for.  Some of the ways that you can find out what people are buying include:

• Check out the malls.  Go to a shopping mall and sit for awhile.  Make note of the shopping behaviours of those people who are around you.

• Establish what stores have all the action.  Watch to see which stores have the most consumer traffic.  Take a look inside to see what is being sold, how it is being sold, how much it is selling for, and how the product is being marketed.

• Take a look at advertising and marketing.  Although you may not be selling the same items as those stores in the mall you should still a look at what makes these stores stand out among the rest.  How are the products grouped together in the store?  How is the product being advertised.

• Get on mailing lists and see what kind of offers you get consistently.

• Search for related keywords and see what pay per click ads are running consistently (week after week, month after month).

What you find out from brick and mortar stores can be applied to your online business.  Learn what works when it comes to advertising online.  Find out what is visually appealing for consumers that makes them want to buy that particular product.

Got questions? Drop me a comment!

Niche marketing is not about trying to compete. Competition is taken out of the equation when you do niche marketing. You aren’t out there in the world lined up beside or behind a million other people who are selling the same thing you are selling. You are selling to a specific audience that you have created for yourself with your opt-in email list.

Niche marketing is not about selling to different people every day of the week. Once you have your list built, you can sell to the same people time and time again. By taking as much time as you need and putting forth enough effort to get to know the people who make up your list of buyers you can continue to sell to them.

Niche marketing is not about focusing on the big picture. It is about focusing on the small picture and the smaller the better. Narrowing your niche down to a very specific part of a larger market assures you of gaining a fair market share of that small part. The world is a big place and there are billions of people. You only need an infinitesimal portion of the population to have a huge list of potential buyers of your products or services.

Niche marketing is not about seeing only the impossibilities. Niche marketing is only about looking closely at the possibilities. Small possibilities converted to sales can equal big profits.

Need an example of niche marketing? How about my buddy Steve’s plumbing directory, local plumbers. Maybe that’s not up your alley, but the whole point is to go after things you are knowledgeable on (or something you can get up to speed on real fast).

Hey everyone! I hope you are having a good weekend. I’ll keep this post short. I’m watching the USC football game which struck the idea of USC football tickets. USC is rocking Virginia 21-0 in the first quarter. There is still lots of game left to play. I did some research and found this niche market.

KEYWORDS:

“usc football tickets”

• 6,600 Searches last month
• 39,900 Competing websites

Though there may seem to be a lot of competition for the phrase usc football tickets, it still is under the recommended 50k competition bracket.

New niche marketing idea-scion xb accessories.

Hey everyone. I hope the niche marketing ideas I provide help in some way or another. I came across this niche market this morning and wanted to get it out to you before I leave for the weekend. I’m going to keep this post short and sweet. Here we go!

KEYWORDS:

“scion xb accessories”

• 3,600 Searches Per Month
• 2,190 Competing Websites

Here are some products I’ve pulled up from ebay. This is to show you the potential BANS site you could build from this niche market.

Let me know what you think.

Creating Content if You Don’t Write

If you don’t write, or know how to take photographs, there are still some things that you can do to generate content for your website:

Buy content

You can buy images and photographs that are of high quality without spending a lot of money. Spending a few hundred dollars on some great images will go a long way in giving your website a professional look. There are many websites on the Internet where you can find images and photographs that relate to your business. It’s not recommended that you buy written content for the simple reason that it’s not cost effective. Many of the services on the Internet that supply written content are geared towards large online companies that have a big marketing budget. The goal of content on your website is to make your company and product appear credible. You can accomplish this by having a few well placed articles on your web pages.

Let customers create content

You can have your customers generate content for your website. One way to do this is by creating a section entitled “Frequently Asked Questions”. Here your customers can ask you questions about your product or service and you can list your answers. You can rotate this type of information and feature a different question every week. Another way to create content is by holding a contest by asking customers to send you stories about how they enjoy your product or how it has helped them in some way. You can offer a special prize such as a coupon for free product. You can take the best written stories and post them on your web pages. Not only is this type of material great content for your website, it also acts as a testimonial.

Links to other content

Another way that you can get updated content for your website without having to write it yourself is by posting headlines of related news items to your website. Then simply provide a link from the headline to the original article. Content for small businesses on the Internet doesn’t have to be original. It should, however, be useful to the people who are reading your website. The content you choose for your website will show your customers that you care enough about the information that you’re providing them with to post links to original articles. This information can include anything from health issues to new items to information about family. Make sure that you accurately quote your sources and never copy articles without first getting permission.

The Importance of Communication

One thing that you need to remember as you make the decisions about what you want to say on your website is the importance of communication in anything that you write. These days competition for communication on the Internet is difficult. The sheer volume of information being routed on the Internet is a huge communications barrier. Every day people on the web are bombarded with websites and businesses lobbying for their attention.

People are busy and time is short. So it’s all the more important to know how to get your marketing message across. The key aspects of good customer communication inclue:

• the ability to read customers

• the ability to understand which communication style your customers are most likely to pay attention to, and

• the ability to adapt your website content for your customers.

When you communicate with your customers through the Internet you have only one shot at communicating your marketing message. You need to keep in mind that those customers, and potential customers, reading your marketing message don’t have a long time to read what you have to say….so you better say it fast, accurately, and in words that they want to hear. Learn how to keep it simple and direct.

There are some basic ideas that you should keep in mind when you’re writing website content that customers want to read:

Identify and clarify the marketing message that you want to get across to your customers. When you pinpoint your focus you have the ability to zoom in and give your customers content that they can rely on and trust.

Gather information. Don’t just write website content for the sake of filling up your web space. Find out what customers want to read and then write for them

Evaluate the information that you’re writing about. Make sure that the information that you’re basing your website content on is precise and reliable. Does the information represent the points of view about your online business that you want to get across? Is the information fact or opinion? Many times a combination of (1) fact, and (2) customer opinion, go hand in hand for writing web content that people want to read.

Consider the alternatives and implications of what you write. Make sure that you draw the appropriate conclusions from what you write and that your readers will draw the same conclusions about your web content. What are the costs, benefits, and consequences of the content that you have on your website? Take the time to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of moving away from Search Engine Optimization techniques and instead focusing on writing what people want to read.