Sell to Your Niche Customers

When someone uses an Internet search engine, they are looking for something specific. That ‘specific item’ is a niche. And niche marketing is where the money is.

A niche marketer is marketing to a specific group of people. This might seem strange as wouldn’t it be nice if everyone on the Internet visited your site and bought something from it? But it’s not really possible to create a site that is appealing to everyone. And the result is, therefore, niche marketing.

Don’t even start niche marketing until you’ve done your homework. Think about your market. Think about your product. And do your research. What keywords fit your market? Are enough people searching for information, on your keywords, to bring you the traffic that you need? Is your market already saturated with sites. Using tools like Google Keyword and Wordtracker will help you in your research.

Once you’ve decided on the product and are ready to start site development, think about a few more things:

* Who is your market? Teens? Seniors? Professional men or woman? Your site’s content must be meaningful to your customer. If you can’t relate (write) in a way that appeals to your market, you might find yourself having to pay for content.

* Know your product. You need to be able to tell your customer the benefits of your product.

* Know your product well. You will need to, continually, write interesting and informative content on your product. Do you know it well enough to do that? If not, you might want to think about promoting something else.

Niche marketing is strange. It means focusing on a small group of potential customers rather than the Internet as a whole. But a focused site will draw in those searchers looking for your specific product. And those are the people you want…..in time, they will become your customers.

This is Very Embarrassing

I was just rereading my last post, 'Does Your Web Site Encourage Trust?'.

And I took another look at my site.

I’M GUILTY of just what I wrote NOT to do! What happened to my About Me??

So I immediately went to Blogger.com to update the Layout on this site. And wouldn’t you know it! Blogger, as usual, is having trouble with the Layout code and I can’t add the About Me element.

So here it is:

My name is Diane. I am retired after working in the computer industry for 30 years. Until about a year ago I was just doing typical e-mail and searches on the Internet. Then my daughter got me started on making money on the Internet. One thing led to another. I now blog, get paid to post and do affiliate sales. I participate in forums. And I keep learning.

If you would like to contact me, you can click on the e-mail link in this post or write directly to fourmyblog@gmail.com .

Thanks loads for reading!

Does Your Website Encourage Trust?

For your site visitor to buy from you, they must feel a level of trust. So how do you create a feeling of trust with something as impersonal as a web site?

How often do you go to a web site and all you see are forms to fill in? Even if you click on Contact, the only thing that comes up is another form. No email address. No phone number. How do you feel about such a site?

To develop a level of trust and to build a relationship with your site visitor, your web site must have something ‘human’ about it. It can be an audio or video message. It can be helpful content. Or it can just be that email and/or phone number.

Business, whether e-business or brick and mortar business, is about connecting with people and building relationships. Without that human element, you cannot expect to build the trust that you need for your visitor to become a customer.

Mistakes: Affiliate Marketing the Wrong Way

Yes, you can make good money with affiliate marketing. But it is not going to happen overnight and it is not going to be easy. I don’t care what anyone else says. Maybe someone got really lucky but for the 99.9999% of the rest of us, making money at affiliate marketing will take time and effort. Having an affiliate marketing business is no different than any other type of business. It takes time and hard work. Don't make the mistakes a lot of new marketers end up making.

Just like any other business, before you head into affiliate marketing, you should do your research ahead of time. Have a good feel for how much time, effort and money you will need to put into your affiliate business before it will become profitable. Don’t enter the affiliating marketing business on a whim, build your web site, and then expect to sit back and have the money roll in. It is NOT going to happen.

Here are some mistakes people make when they move into affiliate marketing:

* They forget they need traffic. Have a fantastic product? Have a great web site? Have quality content? All great but they are not going to do you any good unless you can get traffic to your site. Not continuing to market and advertise their site are two of the most common mistakes people make.

* They end up in deep debt trying to drive traffic to their site. It will take time to figure out what works right for your site and some of that traffic might cost money for advertising, which is OK. Mistakes made are not watching the balance of what is being spent and making sure there is a great return on the investment.

* They use the same techniques to drive traffic as all of their competitors. Big mistake as you want to make yourself different from your competitor.

* They think a nice brand new attractive web site, with some original content, is all that is necessary. Then they sit back for a few months and expect the money to come rolling in. It's not going to happen.

To be successful at affiliate marketing takes patience and hard work. Keep reminding yourself that the majority of your competitors will give up after 3-6 months. Yes, it could take a year or longer to see that money starting to come in on a regular basis. But the bigggest mistake you can make is also giving up. You won’t see ANY results if you don’t keep working at it.

Low Investment=Affiliate Marketing=Your Business

Probably the ONE thing that attracts SO many people to affiliate marketing is how you can start earning money with such a low initial investment. The only thing you really need is a domain name and a web site. You can get both free at blogger.com or freewebs.com. Or you can buy your domain name (a very small investment) and then design your site with one of the many FREE programs available that literally walk you through the set up.

Here are a couple of tips for you:

• Don’t buy your domain name, or name your web site, until you know which affiliate marketing program(s) you will be working with. Your web site name should reflect your product line. The name of this site is exactly what I am referring to. Everything here is about affiliate marketing.

• There are thousands and thousands of affiliate marketing programs you can sign up with. And the vast majority of them are FREE! You may want to rethink an affiliate marketing program that requires you to spend money up front. If the investment is very small, it might still be a good option. But the fact is there are SO many affiliate marketing programs that are free, why spend any money at all? Plus, top affiliate marketing programs will offer training, guides, a forum for advice and other tools that you need to be successful.

• You probably already pay for internet service into your house. Check the features that come with your connection. You might find that with your basic account, you are also eligible for free, or very inexpensive, web space. Consider using this space to host your new site. You want your site hosted with a company that is going to be up and running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Remember that your web site is now a money-making machine so you want to entrust it to a company that is going to do everything it can to make sure it is available 24/7.

These are just a few of the things everyone should know before making an investment of time or money with affiliate marketing. Read everything you can about affiliate marketing. Then, when you are ready, pick your product, get your web site, put up some content and your links and, with no or minimal investment, you are ready to start MAKING MONEY!

Affiliate Marketing For Dummies

OK…so I’m not the first one to use this corny phrase. I’m sure you’ve seen it on other web sites as site names, post titles and e-books. I know I have.

I also know that most of the ‘affiliate marketing for dummies’ sites that I’ve seen have been less than helpful. And that Affiliate Marketing for Dummies e-book? Did it help?

If ANY of the above had given you the information you needed to be a successful affiliate marketer you wouldn’t be reading this blog, right? I know. It is not easy finding valuable affiliate marketing material.

Which is why I turned to Making You Richer, because I consider MYSELF a ‘dummy’ when it comes to affiliate marketing.

Making You Richer Membership provides everything needed to start a web site with the potential to earn thousands every week:

*Highly profitable products to promote - Earn up to $160 per sale

*A selection of complete websites - Easy to edit, valued at $300 each

*A free, unique domain name - for example, www.yourowndomainname.com

*Free hosting for 12 months - Secure hosting from Midphase for free (Credit Card is required to verify membership, but hosting and domain are 100% free for 1st 12 months, with no obligation to continue)

*Up to $170 in Pay per click credits - Generate visitors for free ( terms and conditions apply)

*Access to free Website editing software - No need for further investment.

PLUS loads of other FREE tools!

Making You Richer is the ONLY site that I know of that gives you a SIX month guarantee. If you don’t make any money in 6 months, they will refund your purchase price.

Order Making You Richer now. What do you have to lose? Maybe the possibility of earning ... WOW, how much did you say you made?

The Benefits of Affiliate Marketing

Or, in other words, why you got started with this in the first place.

If you are like most (all?) affiliate marketers, you started with affiliate marketing for one reason only: to make money. All of us want this opportunity to build our wealth, to have income coming in month by month. What a difference a few (a lot?) of extra dollars would make each month!

So what are the benefits:

Affiliate marketing is low risk. There is little to no up front money necessary, with most affiliate programs being free to join. Costs are your web site, plus whatever money you decide to spend to promote the product and your site.

Affiliate marketing has high potential. In the right niche, with the right type of marketing, you could have money coming in every month.

You have no inventory to handle. You don't have to buy product up front. You don’t need space to store it. You don’t have to worry about returns. The affiliate marketing sponsor takes care of all that. All you need to do is promote to your market. Oh, yes…and cash the commission checks.

You have no set hours. Work when you want and as hard as you want. No boss looking over your shoulder. Want to take a day off? No problem.

You can promote your affiliate business as much or as little as you want. If you are looking to replace your current income, you’ll have to work hard and promote hard. However, if you are just looking for some extra income, you can work at a slower pace and cash a smaller check. What is nice about affiliate marketing is that the decision is yours. It's your business. It’s all up to you!

SEO – Oh, gee, not again!

If you are anything like me, you’ve read about SEO (search engine optimization) so many times that you are beginning to repeat it in your sleep.

Yet SEO is very important. Why? Because SEO is what drives traffic to a web site. If you want your web site to rank high on a search, here is what you need to know:

SEO = Link Popularity plus Content = High Ranking

For this post, I’m going to focus on link popularity.

Link popularity is the number of links (think of them as ‘votes’) that a search engine has for your site. The higher your link popularity, the higher you will rank in the search engines.

Here is a site that measures link popularity from Google and Yahoo.

http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/default.htm

Google and Yahoo look at link popularity as a measure of how important other sites think your site is. The number of links is important. Also important is where the link is coming from. If you get a link from USAToday, it will have much more significance to the search engines than a link from Jane’s Weekly Newspaper.

And another factor that influences the value of the link is the text used within it. If it contains one of your competing keywords, the search engine will give your site even more credibility. And last but certainly not least, is whether or not the link comes from a relevant site. For instance, if you sell televisions, a great link would be from a site that reviews televisions.

So how can you improve your link popularity?

1) If you haven't already, submit your site to the three main search engines: Google, Yahoo and MSN

http://www.google.com/addurl/

https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit

http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx


2) When you submit articles to article directories, make sure that you always close your article (or use the Resource Box or Author’s Bio box) with a link to your site that is relevant to what you have written in your article. If you written about televisions, your closing line could be: “John Doe is an expert in evaluating televisions. Visit his site for more tips on evaluating the right television for you.” Put you hyperlink with your URL into the keyword…in this case television.

3) Use your keywords in your titles. Put them at the beginning of your title since some search engines (unfortunately) crop titles.

4) Use keywords in your site description and don't make the description too long.

5) Submit your site to niche specific web directories.

6) Participate in forums and put your link into your signature. If the forum posts are archived, your link will be archived, too, for the search engines to find.

And there’s something else people tend to forget when writing for SEO. You still have to make your content AND title interesting. Getting to the top of a search engine search is one thing. Having a title interesting enough for someone to click on is something else. Don’t lose your opportunity!

FINALLY! A Top Affiliate Marketing program

If you are reading this blog, then I feel I can assume you are interested in affiliate marketing. And my next assumption is that you are looking for a way to earn some money without working very hard. If both of those assumptions are correct, then you’ve come to the right place. Here is where you’ll learn about a top rated affiliate marketing program and why YOU should be a member.

A top rated affiliate marketing program gets to the top because it provides its affiliates with everything they need to be successful and then adds more on top of that. A top rated program is responsive to its members’ needs because successful members make for a successful program.

What does a top rated affiliate program need to do? For one, it needs to offer its members a high commission rate. YOU are the one trying to improve your web to get to the top of page one on a Google search. YOU are the one spending hours each day working on driving traffic to your site. YOU are the one generating those sales. Therefore, YOU should be rewarded with a high commission rate and the opportunity to make more money.

With a top rated affiliate marketing program, you will find:

- tutorials and guides to help you, even if you are just a beginner
- free web site templates, with easy to modify designs for your own personal web site
- free content written by professionals
- free real time traffic tracking tools
- free information on the niche market that you choose

You will not start to earn money overnight. The affiliate marketing programs that promise you will earn $1000s per month gives you the impression that you will make that kind of money your first month and each and every month. The fact is that it is not going to happen. There is nothing magic that will turn you into a super affiliate.

The only way to become a super affiliate and to earn that kind of money is to work hard. You will have to learn how to market. You will have to learn how to draw traffic. But if you are going to work that hard, wouldn’t you rather do it for a top affiliate marketing program that pays high commissions and provides you with tools to make it easier for you? Of course you would! What’s the alternative? Putting in the same time and effort to earn less money. No, thank you!

Don’t waste your time. Start off right with a top rated affiliate marketing program. If some people are willing to work for smaller commissions, or for a program that requires them to buy product first, fine, let them. YOU have found something better.