Students Of Success

Now you can own these 5 simple steps and cash-in on one of the
greatest money-making tips that sells products like wildfire.

If you want…

* More Sales. * More Leads. * More Profits…

then this might be the most important article you’ll ever read.

If you want to jumpstart your profits through the ROOF, then I
urge you to read this article — immediately.

If you’re sick and tired of getting low sales and profits, then
here are some tips that will surely help you.

If you can use more new customers… I’ve got great news for you.

Now there are some powerful, inexpensive new ways to bring in
all the profits you’ll ever need. The kind business that will
rocket your income right off the charts!

STEP 1 - Backend - Your Internet Business Goldmine.

Sell your backend products to your customers’ right after they
order. Take them to a “Thank You” web page that includes other
products you sell.

STEP 2 - Focus on Limited Products & Test CR.

Sell a few products on your web site instead of selling a large
amount of products. Too many choices can overwhelm your visitors
and they won’t buy.

STEP 3 - Focus on Content Creation & Give Something FREE.

Include content and free stuff on your web site that promote the
products you’re selling. If they don’t read your ads, they may
read your offerings.

STEP 4 - Give them a Personal Touch.

Remind your visitors that you’re human, not just a web site. You
could publish information on your family life, a picture of
yourself, a profile, etc.

STEP 5 - Let them Get back to YOU - Answer their Queries.

Provide a “Contact Page” on your web site. Give your visitors as
many options to contact you as possible. This’ll add credibility
to your business.

Everything you may have heard about building your business might
be true.

But this article has shown you some amazing ways to jumpstart
your sales force to new levels.

If you’ve been looking for quick and easy ways to charge your
website to sell MORE products and attract MORE leads, this
article has shown you how to do it in simple easy to follow
steps.

One of the most difficult and time consuming tasks in this
internet business world is to get truckloads of targeted traffic
and convert it into high profits.

I’d like to make you an extremely bold promise. You can easily
transform your internet business into new heights if you make an
attempt to apply the 5 step formula I have laid down.

There’s never been a better time for you to attract more sales,
leads and profits to your website, than it is today!

Writing articles and submitting them to free content sites is a great way to promote your Website at no cost. This technique generates traffic for your Website in at least four different ways.

There are many different ways to promote your Website in order to generate traffic. Most of them cost money, but one of the most effective techniques is free – writing articles about topics relating to your Website and submitting them to “free content” sites. It’s easy to do, takes relatively little time, and can increase your Website traffic in at least four different ways.

The article-writing technique is simple. You write articles about topics that relate to your Website. The articles don’t have to be overly long or complicated; 250-500 words will do nicely. Then you submit them to “free content” Websites that publish them and make them available to their own readers. This helps your own Website’s traffic in four different ways:

Writing articles about your Website’s topic and submitting them to free content Websites is a tremendously cost-effective way to increase traffic to your site. Your articles get read, links to your Website get spread around the Internet, and search engines become aware of both your articles and your Website. It often takes only 15 minutes or so to write an article and just a minute or two to publish it. This time is clearly time well spent.

©Copyright 2005 by Retro Marketing.

Charles Essmeier is the owner of Retro Marketing, a firm that operates several retail Websites, including AluminumChristmasTrees.net, a site devoted to vintage aluminum Christmas trees and accessories, and RarePinkFloyd.com, a site devoted to rare records, compact discs and by the band Pink Floyd.

Has anyone else noticed a disturbing pattern in your pay-per-click advertising campaign, of the same IP addresses clicking on your ad, spending one or two seconds on your website and then leaving?

That’s called click fraud and it’s a major problem among all of the pay-per-click search engines.

Click fraud is a scheme that takes advantage of online advertising programs like those offered by Google, Yahoo/Overture, Findwhat and others. A fraudulent website is set up and participates in programs like Google’s AdSense program. Unlike legitimate websites that attract human visitors to the site, fraudsters use software “hitbots” or employ boiler-rooms of low-wage employees from other countries to generate clicks on ads, and then collect commission from pay-per-click programs.

In June, a federal grand jury returned an indictment against Michael Anthony Bradley 32, of Oak Park California who was charged with fraud and extortion for a scheme involving Google’s pay-per-click program. Believe it or not, Bradley actually tried to extort Google into paying $100,000 for click fraud software he created called “Google Clique.”

Click fraud hurts advertisers by driving up the cost of each click because many online advertising programs adjust the price of each click based on the popularity of a particular keyword and the number of competing advertisers. And depending on how popular your keyword is, it can take just a few minutes to register hundreds of clicks. Click fraud can quickly deplete your pay-per-click account and leave you with little or nothing to show for your expentiture.

In a recent filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Google acknowledged, “We are exposed to the risk of fraudulent clicks on our ads. We have regularly paid refunds related to fraudulent clicks and expect to do so in the future. If we are unable to stop this fraudulent activity, these refunds may increase. If we find new evidence of past fraudulent clicks, we may have to issue refunds retroactively of amounts previously paid to our Google Network members.”

Now, in all fairness to the pay-per-click companies I’ve used in the past, I have to give credit where credit is due. Whenever I complained of click fraud, which was often, all of the pay-per-click companies, without exception, did the right thing and credited the stolen funds back into to my account. Ironically, I have not had a click fraud problem with Google.

You can reduce your risk of being victimized by click fraud, by regularly auditing your website’s log files and immediately reporting suspicious traffic to the pay-per-click companies. If you are unfamiliar with analyzing your site’s log files, there are some excellent software products available to assist you like ClickTracks, WebTrends, and AWStats. These products make it fairly easy to identify patterns in your website’s traffic.

Recently, I noticed the same IP number clicking on my ad over and over again–often many times within just a few minutes. I did some basic detective work and discovered it was actually a competitor of mine devouring my pay-per-click dollars. I approached him with my findings and threatened him with law enforcement intervention, if he didn’t cease and desist. He denied any involvement, of course. But I haven’t had any problems with that individual since.

So, how did I find out who the culprit was? Easy.

When checking your log files, if you notice a lot of clicks from one IP address, you can trace its origin by visiting the American Registry of Internet Numbers. By feeding the IP address into their “Whois” search, they will tell you who has been assigned that IP address, and whether it’s an actual IP or another business entity.

Should the IP address not be assigned to the Americas, you can verify RIPE Network Coordination Center for all Russian, European, and Middle Eastern registries, or the Asia Pacific Network Information Center. There are only three such sites, so you should be able to track the source.

However, if someone is using sophisticated software to generate clicks on your ad, it will probably be impossible for you to trace the IP address yourself. For example, according to alleged Google extortionist, Michael Bradley, “Holland Engine software was originaly written to allow spammers to conceal their orginating IP address from mailservers and to keep it from apearing in e-mail headers.

Holland Engine is the core of LincolnSX, the most powerful mass-emailing software, running at rates of 5 million e- mails per day per machine. Holland Engine will actually tunnel through the internet and connect to the desired IP address from, not your IP but rather from another, the one at the end of the tunnel.”

In conclusion, if you choose to use pay-per-click search engines to advertise, watch your log files closely and report improprieties immediately.

Also don’t put all of your eggs into one basket, by depending solely on pay-per-click advertising. Utilize a variety of ways to attract traffic to your website, such as ezines, newsletters, writing articles, offline advertising, etc.

About The Author

Dean Phillips is an Internet marketing expert, writer, publisher and entrepreneur. Questions? Comments? Dean can be reached at mailto: dean@lets-make-money.net

Make Money Online! Internet marketing expert, Dean Phillips will help you make money online, starting today…Guaranteed! For details just visit my website.

Website: http://www.lets-make-money.net

Congratulations! You and your designer have just finished creating your business website. It’s live on the Internet, waiting for all of those hot prospects to visit and hire you.

But, you hate just sitting around, waiting for things to happen. You feel like you
should be working on convincing potential clients to visit your site, but you’re not
sure what to do. We’ve developed a the following 5 strategies to get the word out
about your website in a big way:

1. Submit your site to the major search engines.
If you tell them about you, they will come! Yahoo, Google and MSN are the most-
used search engines, and submitting your site to these search engines is easy. You
can even do a free, basic-level submission in many cases.

Visit the following pages to submit your site:

• Yahoo: Visit http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html

• Google: Follow the instructions at http://dmoz.org/add.html to suggest your site

• MSN: Visit http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx?FORM=WSDD2

2. Exchange or establish links with other sites.

Establishing a larger presence in the online community is the next step toward
growing your brand online. Submit your website to professional organizations to
which you belong, directories of the area where your business is located, business
directories, and other sites, as appropriate.

Links from outside sites to your own site are one of the elements that search
engines look at when ranking your site. The general rule of thumb is that if high-
quality, well ranked sites link to you, your site will be better ranked in return.

If you have control over the text that is highlighted in your link, keep in mind that
the search engines give extra weight to this text when ranking your site.

So,
embedding your keyword phrases into this part of the link would be to your
advantage. Read more about this in our article about Search Engine Optimization.

And, no discussion of linking would be complete without a final note on avoiding
“link farms,” which are sites that just include large directories of links. Link farms
are viewed as spam sites by the search engines. Potential clients will be more likely
to click through to your site from high-quality, individual sites and legitimate
directories than from a link farm.

3. Write articles about your area of expertise and post them to your website.

Content is king when it comes to websites. It’s been shown that more people will
repeatedly visit your website if you have fresh content available. Adding an “Articles”
section to your website and writing an article every month or every other month is a
great way to entice visitors to return regularly. It’s also a great way to naturally raise
the keyword phrase count on your site, which can improve your Search Engine
ranking. – if you write articles about your area of expertise, you’re bound to
naturally use keywords and keyword phrases that would be a good match for your
services.

If you can’t think of topics for your articles, a good way to start is to address some
of your clients’ most frequently asked questions. Create a list of those questions
that your clients and potential clients always ask, and create articles that answer
those questions. The added bonus in this is that you’ll have ready-made answers to
those questions, and you can just point clients to the article when those questions
arise in the future.

One important aspect of the article-publishing strategy is to create a compelling,
keyword-filled “About the Author” section to include with all of your article
publications. I suggest that you vary the text of this section from article to article, to
make it relate to the article’s content. I also recommend that you create “About the
Author” sections of varying lengths – when you submit your articles to other
websites (see strategy 4), you may be able to submit longer “About the Author”
sections to some websites or publications. Be sure to include a link back to your
website in this section as well.

Finally, be sure to have your articles proofread! Ensuring that your articles are
grammatically correct is an incredibly important step towards extending a
professional brand image online.

4. Submit your articles to other websites for additional promotion.

There are many sites online that specialize in listing directories of articles. If you
include a link back to your website in your author’s bio, publishing your articles on
these sites is a great way to establish some links back to your website. And, other
sites and eZines for publication may even publish your article!

Many article directories will allow free listings under a basic membership, but you
may consider upgrading your membership once you have published several articles.

We recommend that you submit your articles to the following sites:

• http://www.ideamarketers.com
• http://www.ezinearticles.com
• http://www.goarticles.com/
• http://www.topica.com/
• http://www.impactarticles.com
• http://www.amazines.com
• http://www.articlecity.com/

If you don’t have time to submit your articles to other websites, there are a few
options to consider. To automatically submit to many article directories, you can use
an Article Distribution Service, such as the one available at http://
www.virtualizeyourbiz.com. At $25 per article, it’s quite affordable. The other
option is to hire a helper or virtual assistant to do the submissions for you. Either
way, submitting your article to several article directories will help to get the word
out about your website.

5. Create an email newsletter.

Sending an email newsletter (or eZine) out to your database once a month or every
other month is the best way to keep in touch with your potential clients and to keep
your business brand at the top of their minds. It’s best to send out is a newsletter
that gives away a bit of free consulting – some information about your area of
expertise. This will earn you more respect than sending out a “fluffy” newsletter that
is primarily trying to sell your prospects something. If you include information that
your subscribers can implement by themselves, your subscribers will hold you in
even higher regard.

A newsletter also is a great way to gather prospects’ names and grow a loyal “fan”
base. Put a newsletter subscription box on your website. It’s great to add the
subscription box to every page if possible! Also include a note about your eZine in
your email signature file, and in the “About the Author” section with all of the
articles you send out when using Strategy 4.

Many entrepreneurs insist that they don’t have the time to write a newsletter. But, if
you’re already writing the articles we recommend in Strategy 3, then most of the
work is done for you. Your newsletter is another great place for you to publish your
articles – with an article, and a bit of extra sidebar information and promotional
copy, you’ve got yourself a complete newsletter.

These five steps will expand your business’s reach exponentially. Consistently use
them over a period of time, and they will increase your credibility, leads and sales
generated online.

About the Author

Erin Ferree, Founder and Lead Designer of elf design, is a brand identity and graphic
design expert. She has been helping small businesses grow with bold, clean and
effective logo and marketing material designs for over a decade. elf design offers
the comprehensive graphic and web design services of a large agency, with the one-
on-one, personalized attention of an independent design specialist. Erin works
closely in partnership with her clients to create designs that are visible, credible and
memorable – and that tell their unique business stories in a clear and consistent
way. For more information about elf design, please visit: Logo design at http://www.elf-design.com

Google is probably one of the single most important
revolutions of having a successful Internet business.

If you can use it effectively then you’ll be able to
first build a database, and second attract targeted buyers.

One of the worlds top Internet marketers is a guy by
the name of Perry Marshall. Perry’s book is called “The Definitive Guide To Google Adwords” and it has helped
to propel hundreds of businesses by attracting more serious opt-ins,and it has enabled many to grow their businesses exponentially.

I can say for beginners or people without the knowledge of how to set out an ad campaign properly this will help you immensly.

It will help you to understand the importance of one of
the most powerful tools you’ll need to grow your business.

For you to master advertising for your business Google Adwords system is an amazing concept and vastly superior when you actually know what your doing in trying to market your business.

Here is the site if you think you need some help in getting your business to the top quicker.

www.perrymarshall.com/adwords

Get serious about this business and get all the right
tools to make it successful.

Go on, go there right now!

Massive Action = Massive Results

Tamra Forde
Freedom Business Opportunity
http://www.freedombusinessopportunity.com

Email marketing is still one of the most effective forms of
low-cost Internet marketing. It is one of the most widely-used
internet marketing techniques and has an excellent reputation
for capturing targeted prospects to your web site.

Using email as an internet marketing technique is virtually
free! The only cost that can arise is the cost of an auto
responder, some of them are free but I would not recommend them.
Other than purchasing an auto responder your email marketing
expenses are nil. That is why this internet marketing technique
is one of the most viable on the internet.

The key is building a permission based list of email addresses
that you can market to. When I refer to market I don’t mean
sending them emails everyday asking them to send money. What I
do mean is having an email marketing plan that builds a trusting
relationship with your list so you can provide high quality and
informative information to them.

With the increasing success of niche marketing on the internet
email marketing still is an effective internet marketing
technique. Niche marketing allows small, home based,
entrepreneurs the opportunity to compete against the big boys!
Find your niche, build your list, and be on the way to success.
I am about to show you a way to drive your email marketing
campaign into overdrive and create a never ending supply of cash
with one press of a button.

1. Do Not Spam!!!.

Email marketing is not about spamming. It is about providing
information to people that have requested you to send it to
them. The information you send to them must be valuable to their
interests.

2. It Starts with a Powerful Subject Line.

If you can’t get them to open it then your success rate will be
zilch. The trust factor comes back into play here. When your
name or company name appears in the subject line and you are
recognized as sending them quality information your emails are
more likely to get opened. Other effective tips to use include:
using extra white space creatively, adding text symbols,
starting each word with a capital letter, and ask questions. DO
NOT make any outlandish or unbelievable claims, that just tends
to turn people off and they think you are a scam artist.

3. Use the Power of Information and Your Subscriber’s Own
Interests to Make the Sale.

You do not want to come off sounding like you are trying to sell
them something. People want information so they can make
informed decisions. By giving them information on topics they
are interested in they are more likely to purchase from you at
some point in time. Be genuine and have their interests at
heart, believe me that this type of marketing will pay greater
dividends in the long run.

4. Content is the Difference!

The content of the body of your email is critical to your
success. Don’t make it too long and keep the fluff out by being
concise. Tell them the information, describe the benefits of the
product or service and let them decide. When you set up your
email marketing campaign, remember that not every email you send
has to have a potential sale in it. In fact it is best if it
doesn’t because people get tired of being hassled and asked to
spend money. Send them emails that include interesting articles
about their interests, or simply a link referring them to a web
site that they may like. The best way to reach out to your
subscribers is to send them useful information. By doing this
you will build trust and they will view you as a partner in
their success.

Compiling a list of subscribers and sending them quality
information is a very effective internet marketing technique.
Remember to keep the information simple, the message honest, and
build their trust with great content. Follow this easy outline
and your email marketing campaign will produce a bountiful
harvest.

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that the “goooooogle” adwords are showing up almost everywhere?

It seems like almost everyone has decided to put adwords on their websites, in the hope of earning some extra cash.

Of course, I find these (and other) embedded ads very irritating and distracting. I’m sure I’m not the only one that has gone to some heavily advertised websites, and not know where to click… it seems like most ads on the page take you to other sites, with your click paying someone.

A quick search on the internet turns up a lot of popup ad blockers, but very little is said about the ads that are built-in to web pages.

Well, I have found a quite effective way to stop them from appearing, which also makes many web pages much more readable.

The answer I have found, is in a browser called Maxthon ( http://www.maxthon.com ).

Although many people look at maxthon as a minor competitor to IE, Opera & Firefox, I see it more as an overlay for Internet Explorer, which gives IE a lot more functionality, with virtually none of the incompatibilities of a non-IE browser.

The reason is that under the covers, Maxthon is actually Internet Explorer, but it has tabbed browsing, RSS support, supports skins & plugins, and most importantly: it can remove popup and inline adverts using a feature called adhunter.

Adhunter has a host of pre-configured filters that can block the vast majority of ads.

The types of ads blocked by adhunter fall into 6 categories:

1) The popup blacklist (uses a configurable builtin list of keywords used by adverts)
2) Auto popup blocker (blocks auto popups, unless specifically allowed)
3) Web ads blocker (also known as the content filter). Blocks ads builtin to a webpage, eg: google adwords
4) Web dialog blocker (blocks web dialogs… this also stops a lot of legitimate stuff)
5) Float ad blocker (blocks those annoying ads that float on top of the page you want to view)
6) ActiveX blocker (blocks ads that use activeX to display windows).

I usually enable the first 3 categories, but I also configure the “whitelist” or exceptions list, so that adhunter doesn’t block any “https” pages, and any other sites that I am familiar with (eg my exceptions list for the content filter looks something like this:

https://*
http://www.ourbrisbane.com/*

This will allow ads from all https sites & everything within the www.ourbrisbane.com domain.

Of course any site that doesn’t look right, might need to be added to the exception list.

Likewise any ads & popups that are not caught by the default filters can quickly be added by typing CTRL-Q

For all those annoying flash adverts, Maxthon ships with an external “plugin” that allows you to block or save flash ads/images. This is a slightly more manual way that the bult-in adhunter filters, but works well with sites that you visit regularly.

If anyone in the Brisbane area needs assistance with setting-up Maxthon, please take a look at: http://www.ComputerAid.net.au

Computer Aid : We can help you.
http://computer-help-brisbane.blogspot.com
http://www.ComputerAid.net.au
http://www.beadmobile.com.au

Every good Internet business understands the value of
conversions versus hits received. Far too often, businesses
become fixated on the hits they are receiving instead of
monitoring their hit to sale conversion rate. This misguided
focus is the road to ruin because it fails to take in the issue
of abandonment.

Abandonment

“Abandonment” is one of those terms that has a unique meaning
when applied to the Internet. The term refers to reasons why a
user abandons a site before taking the action the site owner
desires, typically purchasing a product or making an inquiry.

There are a number of beautiful sites on the Internet with
unique innovations. Unfortunately, these sites rarely turn a
profit or unnecessarily limit their profit potential. Site
owners must focus on only one thing when building a site -
converting visitors to customers. To avoid abandonment issues,
you should focus on the following:

1. The site should always load as quickly as possible to
accommodate visitors that are using 56k dialup modems.

2. The site should be designed for ease of use, not “what looks
good.”

3. All advertisements must click through directly to the items
that are being searched, not the home page of the site.

4. Site pages should be kept short to improve load times.

5. Information that is not germane to the product or service
should be removed.

6. Flash, music and other “atmosphere elements” of the site
should be removed or optional to speed up load times.

7. Signing up for the site newsletter must be incredibly easy.

8. Customers should be required to fill out the minimum of
information to make a purchase.

9. Newsletters should be issued in HTML and text since some
email systems do not accept HTML.

10. All images should be compressed for quick loading.

11. All links and emails must also include AOL friendly
equivalents.

12. All emails must have automatic text wraps at 60 spaces so
that the recipient does not receive a disjointed mess of code in
their email box.

13. Email communications from the public must be responded to
within 24 hours.

14. Communications made after business hours must be responded
to first thing in the morning.

15. The site should offer accumulating bonus points for
purchases that eventually lead to a “free gift”

16. When an order is shipped, an email should be sent to the
customer telling them as much.

The list is fairly endless, but you should always view site
designs and advertising from the perspective of the customer.
The universal question for each project is, “How could we make
this easier for customers?” By emphasizing this approach, you
will bypass many of the problems you see on the net and avoid
wasting your advertising dollars.

Advertising is an attempt to disseminate information in order to promote products, services or ideas and affect a buyer-seller transaction. There are various mediums of advertisements and each medium has its own attributes. The advent of Internet and its growing penetration has enabled this medium to emerge as an important platform for advertisement. Since Internet users are well educated with higher levels of income, they are becoming a desired target for advertisers. Moreover, studies suggest that three-quarters of PC users are giving up some television time and that works in favour to the companies that are opting for this medium.
The various channels of Internet advertisements include Internet communities, chat rooms, e-mail, newsgroups, and kiosks. Television advertisements could broadly be channelised through cable and broadcast mediums. One of the basic differences between these two mediums of advertisement is that the Internet advertisements could be specifically targeted to a certain group. Television, in all respects has the advantage of reaching a broader audience and is the favourite medium for the prominent companies. Other differences between the two mediums as platforms for advertisement is that the Internet advertisements are frequently cheaper, could be updated any time with a minimum cost and these can use efficiently text, audio, graphics, and animation in comparison to television. The boom in high-speed Internet service has fuelled the growth of ‘rich media’ or multimedia advertisements that incorporate motion and sound. They include full-page ’screen stealer’ ads you cannot avoid, banner ads that expand when you slide your mouse over them, and tiny icons that zip from nowhere across your screen. The rich media ads are fuelling a recovery in the online advertising market, and may reflect a major step for the Internet in joining the mainstream media. The ads are now becoming more like those on television.

The advertisements of the two media provide in-depth, detailed information that suits their users, such as infomercials on cable television and click-through ads provided by the Internet. It happens that for most consumers, enough information for a product is a motive for trusting and buying a product. Both the media - television and the Internet offer instant information services and customers get a chance to not be bothered by a salesman as they walk into Best Buy looking for a commodity or consumer good. The basic difference between the two media on this point is that cable television advertisements are still under the control of cable television institution and advertisers for how much information they would like to offer due to the limited time arranged for each commercial. However, Internet users can take their time as long as they need to collect information if they are willing to pay for getting online.

But, it must be remembered that the effectiveness of advertisements of the two media depends on consumer’s needs and desires to buy. The selling of products on these two media becomes entertainment for people, not responsibility, such as cable television’s pay-per-view programming and home shopping channels. For the Internet there are the web sites that sell books, computer and CDs. It is not like the other media that force people to be exposed in a specific advertisement and buy a product they don’t even need.
Finally, the Internet advertisements, packed in funny or an enjoyable game could be displayed through the web but there is a possibility that it would never be showcased on television because of censors. For example, Mazda UK recently made an internet-only ad, called “Parking”, which it screened on its mazda2.co.uk site. This advertisement could not find its way on the television screen because it was against the censorship rule that states, “Vehicles should not be depicted in dangerous or unwise situations in a way that would encourage irresponsible driving”.

Banner advertisement is the most commonly used form of advertising on the Internet. These are graphical images that could be static, animated or rich media. These form of advertisements are very popular on the World Wide Web because through these advertisements, huge chunk of online traffic could be channellised to the advertiser’s web page. One of the other advantages of using banner advertisements is the convenience of getting them customized. Apart from increasing traffic to a web site and sales of the product or service, banner advertisement persuades people to remember the name of the advertised product or service. Banner advertisement can inform the prospective clients about the product or service.

Tim Johnson Junior is a freelance writer, CRWA certified resume writer and career coach. Has written over 2000 articles and essays on the subject of Social Issues. Has worked for Essaymart’s custom writing department from 2003 to 2005. Currently, Tim is busy helping professionals and executives optimize their careers at a certified Resume Writing firm, ResumeAid.

How a Regular Human Can Find Their Niche

The big buzz-phrase at the beginning of 2006 is ‘Niche
Marketing’. If you find your niche and market it like crazy, the
gurus cry, you can be a zillionaire by March. Great. So where is
this niche, and how will you recognize it when you stumble into
it?

Many expensive courses are offered teaching Internet Marketing,
and most have some important links missing. How does the average
person find their niche, without a background in marketing? As a
beginner, you may just want to supplement your current income,
and hopefully, eventually, quit your day job. The very average
advice offered for hundreds of dollars is ‘find your passion,
research on the internet and Clickbank, develop your own
product, and there you go. So let’s help you expand this into a
sensible plan.

Grab a pen and paper, and try some new ideas. What did you want
to be when you grew up? If you really are a fireman or train
engineer, you have an excellent niche, with a lot of information
and stories to tell. If you aren’t what you planned to be when
you were twelve, take it up again now, study your dream
occupation, and become an armchair expert.

Do you have a hobby you are passionate about? Not everyone does,
and passion means different things to different people. What
subject do you love to talk about that no-one else you know will
join you in? What are you willing to keep talking about even
when no-one else is willing to listen? These favourite subjects
of yours show the basis of passion. The internet is the new
galaxy here on earth, and there’s bound to be people outside
your little sphere who want to hear what you have to say, and
might be willing to pay for that opportunity.

Take notes the next time you go to a magazine rack. What are the
first three magazines that grab your attention? Each could be
your general niche to start with. Look through your book
collection at home, and find a common theme that is obvious, or
have someone else do that for you.

A niche can be defined as ‘a position particularly well suited
to the person who occupies it’. Where you see yourself fitting
in the best might be your niche.

If the place that suits you best is not the number one hot topic
on the internet today, that’s ok. Start with one subject that
you feel eager to work with, and build a working knowledge that
you can develop into an information project. The practice you
gain can be used to make a second niche for yourself, and a
second on-line business.

There are many other ways to find your little piece of the net,
and I’ve found an extremely valuable resource with three free
ebooks and several hours of video that will help you generate
more ideas than you will be able to deal with in a lifetime. All
you need really is sitting in your head right now, you just need
the keys to unlock it.

Kelly Archibald