Autoblogs and Domain Names…
Here’s the transcript of a Skype conversation I just had with a student….
[16/11/2010 22:57:16] Miss XXXXX: I’m gonna work on setting up Chris’s product [NOTE - it's an automated blog product] but it is probably very important to get domain names that have a highly targeted keywords in the domain……does this really matter very much?
[16/11/2010 23:00:24] Miss XXXXX: I’m asking this because I’m wondering if you have any tips or suggestions for me on what is most important to keep in mind
OK, Domain names…
Yes, having niche keywords in your domain helps …. A LOT.
Even better is finding an AGED DOMAIN with keywords in the name…
Check out Godaddy auctions. Try to find a domain name that looks good for a niche… ANY NICHE
Make sure the domain has backlinks to it and you should be able to create a blog around that niche…
To check for backlinks, go to
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com and enter the domain name. Fiddle about with the settings to display “Except from this domain”
If a domain has good keywords AND a few external backlinks then buy it…..
Find a domain name then build a niche blog around it instead of wondering about a niche then trying to find a domain.
Alternatively, my most successful blog is just a person’s name. It had lots of backlinks. So I had full scope to select a niche – so if you see a domain like fredsmith.com – with lots of backlinks you can do what you like e.g. Fred Smith’s Pottery Classes or Fred Smith’s Cycle Parts…
As a footnot to this, I have several blogs with domain names of people’s REAL names. These are some of my most profitable websites! Because I bought an aged domain name with backlinks, my sites were indexed quickly by Google, and because I had literally thousands of posts created on these blogs (quickly and automatically) with long tail buyers keywords in the titles, I was able to very quickly start seeing the money coming in!
Let me know if you want to find out more about automatic blog tools that actually work ;0)
How to get JV partners to promote for you…
There are several places to find JV partners…
The best by far are seminars and conferences.
Get to know the people at these events. They may not be able to help you now, but they can be a resource in the future. Make sure you always have a healthy supply of business cards to trade.
You could use Click Bank or other affiliate networks to find people willing to promote your product.
Search engines are an option – find out who is a “leader” in your chosen niche.
And there are forums and social networks for joint ventures – jvnotifypro.com, jvme.com, iajvb.org.
LinkedIn and Facebook are useful sites as well. Invite bigger marketers to “Friend” you on LinkedIn and Facebook. And offer advice where you can!
Build up a healthy number of Skype contacts too! Get talking to people, and get to know their friends.
I got some of my best contacts through chatting to people on Skype who then brought someone else into the conversation. If you buy a product and you like it, see if you can find the vendor on Skype and invite them to connect.
Don’t steam in to all of these places and announce you want JV partners. You need to build relationships!
Here’s how I landed my first big JV partnership….
I bought a product – quite an expensive one! But I noticed that the forum that was set up along with the product was suffering dreadfully from unpleasant spamming. And a lot of questions were being asked that were not being answered for days. So, I offered to moderate the forum for the product owner. Over the next few weeks we built a great relationship, I learnt a load once I had my first product ready to go he was more than happy to promote for me. Not only that, he also had influential marketers as personal friends and they promoted for me too on his recommendation.
Think what you can offer JV partners. OK, an extra few % on the commissions might help, but it might be better to offer a service – moderate a forum, help out answering support questions, design a website, do some graphics, if you find problems on somebody’s site offer to fix them….
We all have our own sets of skills, so think what you can offer them above and beyond the normal few % extra.
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That’s what I am doing now!
Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn money online.
It works for any niche and by using affiliate management sites like Commission Junction, Amazon, Clickbank etc, there are any number of products you can promote online.
But you already know that right!
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Internet Marketing – Essential Tools
By now, you will have learned that my whole philosophy on internet marketing has changed. If you don’t know what I’m on about, check out some of my previous posts and you will see that I am now putting all of my efforts into helping you! I wont be promoting anybody’s products or launches unless I know for sure that they will help you, either by opening new profit streams for you, or because they are tools that will save you time! And I will only be promoting stuff that I use in my own business. So don’t expect a massive stream of emails from me come guru launch day. I’ll need to try things out properly before I even consider promoting them.
OK, that said, there are a few things that are an essential part of your internet marketing “toolbox”. Things that you can’t do without if you really want to make money online. Sure, you can succeed at online marketing without spending any money, but it’s much easier if you have the right tools. It’s a bit like DIY. Sure you can put in a screw with a knife, but it’s a whole load easier to use a screwdriver!
If there is a free option, I will look it out for you, but some of the tools, you will need to buy! Sorry, but that’s the way it is is any business. You wouldn’t go into business as a car mechanic without buying a set of tools! And there are certain skills you need – unless you are going to pay someone else to do the “grunt” work (a good option further down the line). Again, you wouldn expect a car mechanic to have learned how to work on an engine before working on your car!
So, what are the essentials?
A website and/or blog
If you are going to do business online, you need to have a web presence of your own. Somewhere that people can find your products, optin pages, reviews and recommendations.
Paid option – Register your own domain name and buy a hosting package
Recommended suppliers:
Godaddy - Domain names
Namecheap - Domain names
GVO – Hosting (web hosting, autoresponder service and more rolled into one affordable package)
Hostgator - Hosting
Free option – set up a blog on a web 2.0 service
Recommended suppliers:
www.wordpress.com
www.blogger.com
I would always go with the paid. If I am selling a product I have called PLR Unleashed, what is more credible: www.plrunleashed.com or plrunleashed.wordpress.com. I know if I was buying a weight loss product, I’d be more likely to buy it from www.plrunleashed.com!
Also, the free blog services have limited functionality and strict usage policies, so you cannot install all of the plugins on your blog that you might want,a nd you don’t own the site. The providers reserve the righ to disable your website at any time!
Most hosting packages now come with something called Fantastico. This is a neat application that lets you install scripts on your web hosting package with just a few clicks of a mouse. Like installing a blog!
An autoresponder service
You’ll have heard that the money is in the list, and it’s true. Let’s say for instance that you have a weightloss website. You have spent time and effort generating traffic to your site and you get 100 visitors a day. Awesome. Well done. BUT out of those 100 only one person buys your product. The rest just leave your website and carry on surfing for the information you need. OUCH.
So, instead of letting them leave empty handed, you make them an offer they cannot refuse. An ebook, audio or video that will help to solve (some) of their problem, and all you ask in return is that they give you their name and email address. Great, so now of the 100, let’s say 20 people take you up on your unmissable offer.
Now you can email them regularly offering advice and building a relationship with them. You come across as a helpful person who has freely given advice. Do you think they are more likely to buy your product? Sure they are!
Recommended suppliers:
Paid option – a fully functioning autoresponder service taht allows you to collect names and email addresses, broadcast messages to your list, prepare a follow up series that will automatically be sent to new subscribers at pre-defined intervals, allows subscribers to manage their subscription and unsubscribe when they want to (a CANN Spam requirement)
Aweber
GetResponse
GVO (web hosting, autoresponder service and more rolled into one affordable package)
Free option
Use your own email address and just get people to email you for further information. Not good!
Or, www.listwire.com which is a free autoresponder service, but with limited functionality.
That’s it! These are the essential tools that you need. Of course there are other great tools out there that can save you time and effort, but to start off, you can get by with just:
A domain name
A hosting account for your blog / website
An autoresponder service
So if you’re ready, grab those essential tools and prepare yourself for the next leg of the journey!
As for essential skills? We’ll cover those next time, but in a nutshell, you will need to know your way around CPANEL (that’s your website hosting control panel), you should know at tleast the basics of HTML (the coding language for websites) and you’ll need to know you way around your autoresponder service.
If you are going to sell your own products, you’ll need to know how to create a product (ebooks, audio, video or software) and if you’re going to work as an affiliate, selling other people’s products for a commission, you’ll need to know how to do that too.
But don’t worry, I will cover all of that in future posts!
Identifying a Niche – A Quick Guide!
A niche is a subset of people who share a common interest or need. My experience is that the tighter the niche and the more urgency there is the better. Weight loss is a massive niche that makes people a lot of money. But it’s tough to break into that niche. A lot of people spend a lot of money to dominate the search results (paid and free).
But what if you were to narrow down your niche to Weight Loss for Brides or Losing Weight After Giving Birth. This benefits in a few ways. Firstly, you have narrowed down your target audience, so the competition is far less on the search engines. Plus, you have a product that is targeted EXACTLY to your audience.
And, you have a highly targeted audience that has an URGENT need! A bride to be only has a finite amount of time to slim down before her wedding! If she found a a product that was made “just for her”, that solves her urgent problem in the time she has available do you think she’s be interested in buying it? You bet!
Compare that to a model railway enthusiast. Is his need urgent? No! Is he more likely to be looking for information, rather than a product to buy? Yes. So this would not make a particularly good niche for making money online. Sure, you could make some sales, but not the kind of volumes you need to quit your day job!
So, a simple way of finding a niche is to start a Google search and use the Google Suggest tool. As soon as you start typing a search termn, Google makes suggestions of popular search terms.
So start off with something like “how can I” or “quick way to” and Google will tell you there and then what people are searching for. Then drill down into the niche. For instance, I started by looking at “Arthritis”. is the need urgent? You bet. Is the need strong for a solution? Yep!
But as I checked out the competition, I found it was tough to break into. So I went sideways a bit after I the Google suggestions, I discovered a highly targeted bunch of people looking for cures for their DOG’s arthritis!
And you could narrow it down further by BREED! “How to cure your Boxer dog’s arthritis”
Still an urgent need, but far less competition!
Another great place to do your niche research is at your local supermarket or newstand. Yes, check out the magazines. What are the popular publications. Check a couple out – most now have an online version too. Let’s say you are looking at a weight loss magazine. You have a broad niche now. But what are the stories? “Lose 20lb by Christmas” or “Slim down in time for the Summer”, “How to get into that perfect wedding dress”…. Kerching! Now you have narrowed down your niche and found that sense of urgency!
How can you tell if a niche is profitable? Check out the Google search results. If there are plenty of people advertising in the paid section, chances are, the niche is profitable!
OK, here’s a biggie! You might think that a niche is TOO small or TOO targeted. But I would rather work to get 500 visitors to my site, safe in the knowledge that thet are so targeted, 50 of them might buy from me, than work to get the 2000 or 3000 visitors to need to get the 50 sales.
OK, I’ll give you a headstart here too. If you’re thinking, well where do I start, here are a few examples of desperate markets that you can drill down into. Take a look at the examples below and se how you could drill right down into the niche to create a HIGHLY TARGETED sub-niche!
Health is an area where the need can be both desperate and urgent…
- Acne
- Weight loss
- Back pain
- Bad breathe
- Morning sickness
- Excessive sweating
- Preventing warts
- Giving up smoking
And finance can throw up some pressing needs too!
- Debt
- Getting a mortgage
- Foreclosure
- Work at home
- Finding a job
Relationships can provide a desperate need…
- How to get back together with your ex
- How to save your marriage
- Dating
- How to get on with your tearaway teen!
- ADHD
So to summarise:
- Look for desperate and urgent need – physical pain, mental anguish or a tight deadline
- Drill down deeper into a niche
- Make your audience targeted so that they feel the product was made “just for them!”
Then all you need is a product and traffic. That’s for another time and it doesn’t have to be as scary as it sounds!
Until next time
Your friend
Dave
