The Cheap Internet Marketer

Recently I was asked a question about niches — specifically, a person was confused about how to tell if an online  niche was going to be profitable or not. 

Here’s an excerpt from my answer that you might find very helpful if you’re also confused about how to find niches.

Find a fairly large market that interests you (being passionate about the subject is nice but not required, but it does need to be interesting) and that can be broken down into some niches and sub-niches.  Then look to see what type products the people in the market and niches are buying.  Find a similar product and get it out there and promote it, and you should be able to make some money. T he reason for niches and sub-niches is so you can build a list with your first product and then later sell the subscribers different but related products.

Buyers is the real key — some markets and niches are made up of people who are looking mainly for information or freebies (or who have no money to spend, i.e. most college kids), but are not actually buying.  If you find that people in your niche are lookers, not buyers, drop that market and move on to a better one.

If you take your time and do a thorough job on your research, identifying good niches is really not hard.  The key is good research, and knowing what to look for and where to look.  This is one of the things I really like about “The Niche Detector” — there’s a lot of information on how to do the basic research to find profitable niches.  And while you are finding your niches, you are also building a target list of  long-tailed keywords that you can use in your articles and ad campaigns.  And you learn to do this using all free resources.  If you’re looking for an easy to use but effective research system, this is for you.

Remember — Buyers — always look for Buyers, and you’ll be on the right track. 

Here is my long answer to the first big question that most newcomers to Internet Marketing ask. 

You can get started using all free resources and spend zero dollars, but to be honest, it’s tough to do.  Let me explain how to spend zero dollars, and also explain why it’s not really a great idea.

First, you will want to get started selling affiliate products.  You can sign up at ClickBank and Commission Junction and other sites to sell affiliate products for no charge.  Most Marketers start with affiliate products and then add their own products later.  And just about all Marketers, even the big guys, continue to sell affiliate products along with their own products.  Affiliate selling is great. 

How do you sell your affiliate products?  Well, you can set up a blog at one of the free blog sites like Blogger.com, MyBlogSite.com, Wordpress.com and several others.   You can also set up simple free web sites on Hubpages or Squidoo and a few other sites.

Here’s why spending zero dollars to get started is not such a great idea — in order to use one of these sites, you are required to agree to their Terms of Service — and this puts the free sites are in control of your site and your content.  They are allowing you to use their web space, but only if you agree to play by their rules.  And they can change their rules at any time with no advance notice.  

Lots of people use these free sites and you can put up some very good looking blogs and websites, but you must be very careful to read and to comply with their Terms of Service, and keep up-to-date backups of all your content.  The free sites can (and will) lock your blog/website and/or delete your content if they decide it’s too commercial or objectionable in some way.   And if you don’t have current backups when this happens, it’s too bad. 

The free sites are in control of your content, and they can decide to shut you down with no notice.  And writing your content and designing your web site takes a lot of time and effort.  You don’t want some unknown person at one of these sites to dump all your work — and believe me, it definitely does happen.

Given the problems just mentioned, your best bet is to buy web hosting and your own URL, and host your own web site and blog.   There are a lot of really excellent web hosting services available, way too many to even begin to list.  I personally use BlueHost and love them, and I buy my domains through them, but you can use any hosting service you want, and buy domains through any company you want.

Moving on — to be successful long term in Internet Marketing, you’ll need to build your list.  The “Can SPAM Act” that was passed several years ago changed list building for everyone.  At one time you could get list-managing software and host your list on your own site, but it’s no longer a good option.  So you need an AutoResponder service that will keep you in compliance with Can SPAM, which requires double-optins, among other things. 

There are quite a few autoresponder services out there, the two biggest and best are AWeber and GetResponse.  It’s possible to use free autoresponder services, but they’re typically not great, and most people eventually change to one of the paid services. 

This is where you run into problems, because you can’t transfer your list from one service to another.  If you change your autoresponder service, you are not allowed to just move your list of subscribers from the old service to the new one.  Instead, everyone on your list is required to go through the opt-in process again.  And a whole lot of people will not bother to do this, so you lose a lot of your subscribers.  Getting subscribers takes a lot of work, you don’t want to have to start over.

Okay, we’ve discussed the pros and cons — so if you decide to buy services, how much does all of this cost? 

It depends on the company, of course, but estimate $9 or $10 per month for web hosting.  URLs cost anywhere from $4 to $10 per year, depending on the ending — .com is the most expensive, .net and .org and others cost less.  So you can get a year’s web hosting and one domain (URL) for less than $150 per year.  An autoresponder service is more expensive and their charges change depending on how many subscribers you have, but you should probably budget about $200 per year. 

If you have the money, plan on spending at least $350 per year on your business tools.   You don’t have to spend it all at one time, you can start with web hosting for a couple months and one URL, then add the autoresponder once you get up and running.   If you can possibly afford it, purchasing your own web hosting, URL and autoresponder service is the best thing you can do to safeguard your business.

What will you write about in your articles?  That is the biggest questions most people who want to break into article writing have when they begin.  The field is wide open when it comes to what information you offer on the Internet.

The first thing to consider is — what do you like to write about?  All of us have hobbies and likes as well as dislikes — write about them from your perspective.  Write enough articles on a topic and you might qualify as an expert in your area within online communities.

The Reason for the Articles –  Why are you writing the articles? If you are starting a blog and want to draw attention to your site, you’ll want to choose topics that will be interesting to fellow readers on the Internet.  Surf the Web and research what topics are hot right now.  Some topics that are always popular: fashion, celebrity news, new products and services and health issues.  These categories will help you to generate a list of possible article topics.

When writing to draw traffic and attention to you, it is important to write articles about a topic that people are talking about.  If you are researching and see that there are not be a lot of articles on the Internet about pygmy animals, don’t get all excited until you do a bit more research – find out if people are searching for information on this subject.  You can write the most wonderful articles in the world on pygmy animals, but if there is not an interest in the subject, your articles will go unread.

Are You Creative? – There is very little that is new under the sun and there’s an almost unlimited amount of information available on the internet.  Chances are you will have to write about topics that have been written about before.  This is fine, but put a new spin on the subject, write about it from your unique perspective.  By using your unique voice and adding basic examples, you can recycle a topic to your advantage.

Brainstorm your topics.  Start by looking at your personal interests.  Then, move on to your job for ideas.  Finally, what is your family up to?  All of these people and interests make a good base for your article writing.

What are you curious about? — Maybe you want to know why the sky is blue.  Take some time and look up information about the sky and its color on the Internet or at your local library.  Now, you can write an article that people will want to read.  Whatever fascinates you can turn into a new avenue to find article topics.

Use Your Experiences – All of us have a story to tell, and your stories may be interesting to others.  Use both positive and negative situations as a tool – create how-to articles and give advice on a variety of topics. 

What are you going to write about in your articles?  The possibilities are infinite if you keep an open mind and use all of the resources at your disposal.

If you’d like a good ebook on writing articles and article marketing, I recommend “Article Marketing SuperHero” (see the link to the right, or Click Here.)  It covers a lot of topics, including how to get ideas, how to actually write the artices, how to use PLR for your articles, posting to article directories, outsourcing articlles, and more.   I’ll be covering most of this in upcoming messages, but if you want to get started NOW, this book will get you going.

Article Marketing

However, there is a knack to writing a successful article.  After all, if it was simple, every article would be a hit.  If you fine tune your articles to reach their intended targets each and every time, you’ll have amazing results.

 The Basics

If you break article creation down to the basics, each article has a general structure.  First there’s the title, which is used to grab the reader’s attention.  When you read the Table of Contents in a magazine, you skim the titles of the articles to see if any grab your interest.  The title tells what the article is about, but with a twist, so the reader will be intrigued and want to read it.

 The article is divided into paragraphs.  On web sites, paragraphs are kept fairly short, usually just a couple of sentences, to make the information easier to read and absorb.  A paragraph that has too many sentences is  difficult to read and will lose more than one reader.

 The first paragraph is the introduction.  It states the reason for the article, and needs to be interesting.  If it leaves the readers scratching their heads, they won’t continue to read.

The next few paragraphs are the body of the article.  This is where you state your case and give examples to illustrate your subject.  Try to always give useful information, and make sure your examples make the subject clearer to the reader. 

The last paragraph sums up the main points of the article.  Always be sure your aticles have a conclusion — an article without a conclusion ends abruptly and doesn’t reiterate what you want the reader to remember. 

 Skills You Didn’t Learn in School

 Each article has a purpose.  If you don’t know that purpose, your article won’t reach anyone.  Know your target audience — if you are trying to reach gardeners, then the article shouldn’t be about cars.  That’s an obvious point, but some articles can be about gardening and still miss their target.  Why?  It could be lack of understanding of the topic or lack of the skills needed to convey your thoughts successfully to the audience.

Know your writing style and give it a convincing voice.  Trying to write humorous articles when you do not have a funny bone in your body will not work for someone trying to instruct potential comedians on breaking into stand-up comedy.  You may need to pass on that assignment.  Writing styles that are not compatible with your voice will come across as insincere to the reader.  They need to hear and feel your passion and expertise through your work.

Make your writing format easy to read.  Use bullet points and numbered lists when possible.  Both of these techniques break up the look of the article and make it easier on the eyes.  Readers can digest an article faster with changes in text like this, and they can skim the bullet points and numbered text to see if the article meets their needs.

Use numbers in your title whenever possible. Which title do you think will get more attention:  How to Sew a Pillow  or  5 Steps to the Perfect Pillow? Numbers let the reader know exactly what they are getting and in how many parts.

Try to incorporate these tips in your articles, and be sure you are creating articles that reach their audience.  A successful article can drive traffic to your site or an affiliate site as well as increase your sales.

Let’s just say it right now — a web site without traffic is a business that is doomed to failure.  If you’ve just started your first web site, don’t make the mistake of worrying too much at first about how many sales (also know as conversions in the IM field) you’re making.  Instead, concentrate on learning how to drive traffic to your site.  You must have traffic to get conversions (sales). 

There are a lot of different methods of generating traffic on the Internet.  Some that immediately come to mind are article marketing, buying Ads on Google, Yahoo, MSM and other sites (this is called PPC or Pay Per Click), posting ads on Free Ad sites, social bookmarking and Web 2.0, Forum Posting, Publicity Releases, Viral Marketing and others. 

If you are just starting out you will want to pick one or two of these methods and concentrate on learning how to use them effectively.   Each method has pluses and minuses, each has its own nuances you’ll have to learn.  If you know what you’re doing, each method works very well. 

Article Marketing is a very popular method of gaining traffic, so we’ll start our Traffic discussions with it.  Basically, you research and write short, informative articles and post them to free article directories.  Quite a few people go to these sites and read the articles and hopefully click on the links you are allowed to enclose, and these links take them to your website.  

More importantly, publishers of ezines and newsletters go to these article directories, looking for good, free content that they can publish.  The ultimate goal of article marketing is to have your articles published in newsletters and ezines, this can bring significant amounts of traffic to your site. 

There’s a lot more to know before you can successfully start an Article Marketing campaign, so stay tuned and we’ll discuss  more details about article marketing, plus some other traffic generating techniques.