If you’re able to code, or if you have some great ideas and are able to find a reliable programmer, there’s even more potential. Freeware can work on many levels – everyone’s looking for free software, so the traffic potential is enormous. You can distribute your software to the thousands of freeware sites (there are great automated ways to do this), and benefit from the thousands of great backlinks to your site. You can also experiment with bundling some pay-per-install applications with your own software. And of course, if your product is useful enough and there’s enough demand, you can sell it at a reasonable price. If people are willing to buy your software, you have even more opportunities, as you can advertise with PPC and banners ( on relevant niche-targeted sites, of course ).

I do like to support people who make great software that I use on a daily basis. One such product, and a perfect example of taking advantage of the software niche is Format HTML. Format HTML is a code beautifier that you run against your messy HTML (or even Coldfusion code) and it will instantly format and indent HTML. It inspects all your mark up tags (HTML, CFML, XML, etc.) and will indent them according to which tags you decide should be handled by modifying a config.ini file. You simply drag and drop your files or folders onto Format HTML and the program will make backups of all your files first and then clean up all the file types specified in the config.ini file. Lastly, it can be easily used with CFEclipse, Eclipse, DreamWeaver, HomeSite, or any other editor for tidying up your code. I use it on a lot of my websites (especially the ones where I spend a lot of time tweaking the html) and it has worked out great.

We spend so much time on computers these days, surely you have some good ideas for software that would make your life easier. I’ve only scratched the surface on the software niche marketing, I have plans to go more in depth over the next couple months. Stay tuned!

Energy efficiency and products that promote greater power savings are still a growing niche. I know this is related to my recent green niche marketing post, but there’s so much money here I just can’t pass this up! The increasing cost of energy prices coupled with our insatiable thirst for oil and other energy producing sources is fueling greater demand. We are currently exploring new alternate energy sources and efficient green power generation technologies such as wind power, solar power, hydroelectric power, geothermal power, and newer technologies such as wave power and tidal power, to feed this increased demand while lowering costs. What this creates is a heightened awareness of energy costs and household energy draws. Consumers have different ideas why to conserve energy, whether to lower their monthly bills and save money, or to preserve the environment, they both lead to a new ‘energy efficiency’ niche.

A perfect example of a website that aims to profit off this niche is the Green Efficient Guide. They have information for various efficient, green products, and make commissions off sales through sites like Amazon. With energy calculators for each individual television model that calculate both annual energy uses and energy costs based on both the on power and the standby power, you get the actual cost to run the device. By making this available to the consumer along with the other efficiency data for each electronic device is helpful in making an informed decision about efficient electronics. It’s pretty cool-  all of the efficient televisons listed are energy star rated for excellent power savings, as are the home electronics and audio video devices. With the incoming recession, everybody is trying to pinch pennies where they can, and energy efficiency is no small potato. Five percent of electricity used in the United States goes to standby power resulting in a whopping $4 billion a year in wasted energy costs. And it’s no wonder, how many electronic devices do you have plugged in at home? Cell phones charging (once the phone is charged, most charging devices continue to draw power), DVD players, televisions, gaming consoles, electric toothbrushes, etc, all can add up very quickly to compose a decent percentage of your electricity bill. It’s a great idea for a website – now it’s your turn to profit off this niche!

1. Sign up for some affiliate networks. I’d definitely start by signing up with Pepperjam and Commission Junction. I also recommend and have had good success with eBay. I’ve also used LinkShare with some success – your mileage may vary and I’m sure it just depends on which advertiser programs you want to sign up for.
2. Take a look at the available advertisers in your affiliate networks and start joining affiliate programs. You’ll want to try a bunch, it may take a few tries to find the ones that work best for you. If your affiliate network provides program payout history, be sure to follow this closely – you want to weed out the bad eggs (there are a lot of advertisers I don’t trust). You want to choose niche affiliate markets that payout a good amount of money (face it… you can only make so much off $5 items…. go for something you can get commissions that make it worth your time). But at the same time, avoid things that are likely too competitive. Do some Google searches and research your top competitors. See if you think you can beat some of them. Also it’s best to pick niche markets that you’re knowledgable about and like. This will come in handy for step #3…
3. Create your website and make it better than the typical affiliate site. If you’re going to be lazy and throw up a few affiliate links without much thought and effort, you’re just wasting your time. Keep your site’s focus on 1 or 2 related markets – if you want to get into more niche affiliate markets, then create more websites. You don’t have to be a expert on your niche, but definitely put a little thought and effort into this part. If you don’t have a nice-looking website, be sure to check out some free templates you can use at a site like www.oswd.org. Now add some content! Write some reviews and add your own descriptions. Try adding some social networking components – user-generated content (if moderated) can be great. Make your site look professional and clean (that does not mean complex and complicated!). Have a friend look at your site – if it looks spammy, clean it up! Make sure you know a little something about SEO (search engine optimization) – start by reading some of the great articles at SEOmoz. The content on your site is really going to help for step 4…
4. Now drive traffic to your niche affiliate site! Experiment with some PPC campaigns. Google Adwords is the best. Try Microsoft AdCenter as well – they don’t have the traffic but often have decent conversion rates. I’d try Yahoo as well but I’d be very careful – I’ve noticed more click fraud – you have to monitor and block certain domains. The content you created is really going to help your quality score in Google AdWords. Make sure your landing pages target the keywords you bid on, and make sure your ad text matches up as well. You can definitely do some SEO and start building some backlinks – nothing beats “free” traffic. But whatever you don’t do, don’t completely skip out on running ad campaigns. You need to get some traffic and test out your advertisers and see what converts.
5. You gotta have conversions. Now that you have some affiliate programs that look like they could work, you need to get your conversion rate as high as possible. Optimization is a must – you have to get used to testing everything! Look into doing some split testing, rotate ads, change out content. Move things around! Target more longtail keywords – they often have the highest conversion rates! Research your competition in the same niche affiliate market and find out what they’re doing. Make sure you have some sort of stats installed on your site (Google Analytics are great) to monitor your traffic. Find out what keywords your visitors are coming in on. Find out your bounce rate and try to keep it low. Find out how visitors navigate through your site. Testing and optimization are the name of the game!

I hope this helps you get started in marketing your niche affiliate sites. I tried to keep this relatively short, although there are a vast amount of resources out there on every aspect of this. I’ll try to go into more detail on some of these items in the near future. Good luck finding your niche!

Using Google Insights:

The first thing to do is to visit http://www.google.com/insights/search/ and sign in to your google account at the top right.

The home page will look something like this:

Google also provides data for categories, seasonal, and geographic keyword data. Make sure you take the time to look over each section.

Finding a niche market:

To find a niche market all you have to do is type a keyword you want to research. Google insights will then dig through it’s data providing you with a goldmine of top searched keywords and keyword phrases.

So for this example I will research rifle scopes. I’ll type rifle scopes in the search bar, choose U.S.A., and gather the data all the way back from 2007 for the top keywords and phrases.

Google will then generate a graph like this:

Click to enlarge

Don’t mind the data on the graph it’s self. You just want to pay attention to the relative volume to see if the term is rising. You can even compare this term with a second one. Just hit the plus sign to add a phrase and google will generate a chart to compare the data.

Click on the add search term

Now I’m able to compare two different keyword terms to see which is better. For this example I’ll use the term spotting scopes.

spotting scopes

This is the data google provided. You can compare the relative volume of both.

Click to enlarge

Google Insights also provides related terms on the rise in google. This enables you to dig deeper to reveal potential niche markets and sub-niche markets. After I scroll down I clicked on the “leupold rifle scopes” term to dig a little deeper.

I clicked leupold rifle scopes to dig deeper

Then google provided me with the common search terms and keyword terms on the rise.

Now I know the search volume and keywords on the rise to profit from. Google Insights will help you dig through all the junk and help you find those true niche markets, making all you niche marketing efforts worth wild.

Go and check out his tool and let me know what you think. Was it easy to use and find your niche market?

“wide baby gate”

• 5,400 Searches per month
• 8670 competing sites

“extra wide baby gate”

• 3,600 searches per month
• 5,000 competing websites

“retractable baby gate”

• 1,300 searches per month
• 2,030 competing sites

“evenflo baby gate”

• 1,000 searches per month
• 3,050 competing website

Create a separate page for each keyword. One for “wide baby gate”, another for “extra wide baby gate”, etc. Within each page I would recommend you write some information based on your products.

• 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!

I’m showing you this to let you know that it is possible to earn a little extra money every month with a BANS or phpbay store.

August EPN Income

Three hundred dollars may not seem like much but, to a newbie like me, it shows that there is hope for a increase in knowledge and income.

Remember, the only thing I have done is establish a website or blog around a specific niche, add very little content, and make sure I use the niche keywords in the header and title of my blog/website. I still have lots of work to do with my websites as far as SEO and gaining backlinks.  If you want to see an example of one of my sites then you can check out www.eghilliesuits.com (still needs a lot of work). This site is bringing about $70 a month just sitting on the web.

I’ll be sharing exactly what I do to earn form EPN and affiliate income as I learn on the go. Be sure to check back soon for more tips.

The term ‘niche marketing’ means selling a specific product to a specific type of buyer. There are far less competitive niches than an Internet marketing niche.  Most niche markets are more open to the latest marketing strategies, as well. Small niche markets are not over stocked with gurus and wise men and are much easier for the beginning marketer to break into. A niche market allows you to promote your own niche product or that of a niche affiliate product. There is a niche market for anything and everything you can imagine. All it takes to break into a niche market is a good idea, a good product created by you or someone else that will appeal to certain people, some advertising and the desire to succeed.

The Internet marketing niche, on the other hand, means that you will be promoting your own Internet marketing product. This is a very crowded field of endeavor and really difficult to break into. It’s a world filled with gurus and wise men who have been playing and winning the game for a long time. This doesn’t mean that it is impossible to cash in on the Internet marketing niche because, of course, you can. It is a world still built on demand and that means that if you have a product that can compete and if you have the willingness to play hard ball with the big boys then you can succeed at the Internet marketing niche game.  Just be aware that there are easier niche market nuts to crack.

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.