Sunday, August 24, 2008

How to Find a Profitable Affiliate Marketing Niche

Finding a profitable niche to sell an affiliate marketing product doesn’t need to be hard. Many affiliate marketers start backwards and this is the most common reason why most don’t make money. Their biggest mistake is that they find the product first and then try to find the market to sell the product – Wrong! This is a guaranteed recipe for failure.

The formula for successful online affiliate marketing begins simply with taking this 3 step approach:

Find a Market – Find out What the Market Wants – Authenticate the Market Potential

This is the core of successful niche marketing. It is only after you take these 3 steps do you seek to find the affiliate product that suits the need and then, market the dickens out it. If you don’t this you are most likely be going to be wasting your time and money. Let’s analyse these 3 steps further.

Finding a Market

Okay – you have some ideas on what you think you would like to promote. Does anyone need what you would like to sell? Or, is there something completely different but related to the concept of the product or idea you were thinking about?

The easiest and quickest ways to find what people want or are asking about is through forums. There are forums on practically any topic, subject you can think of and probably a whole bunch that never occurred to you. Pick what interests you and join the forum.

Yes, it is a bit time consuming but by observing the threads and discussions, you gain a good sense what is of interest to these people. Affiliate marketing success can only be achieved with research.

What Does your Niche Market Need?

What are these people looking for that they can’t find? In a manner of speaking – think of forums as niches in themselves. These are people who gather to discuss a common interest. They will discuss their needs and what problems they need solved.

Your potential markets are people who use the internet to seek information and to find solutions to problems. Join these forums and learn about what they want and need.

Here’s another neat trick to learn about what people are looking for – are you ready? The answer is Ebay! Yes, that’ right. Why is this important? The main reason is that these people are looking to buy and they want it now. So, how can you find out what they’re looking for on Ebay? Well there just happens to be an index of Ebay searches which reveals exactly what people looking for and here is the url:

http://pulse.ebay.com/index/

Checking out this site will give a whole host of ideas to find really unique niches and what affiliate marketing products to look for.

Wait! Don’t jump the gun because there is one more and perhaps the final and most crucial step you need to do before you start marketing.

Authenticate the Market Potential

Even though it looks like you found a market and a need, is it going to be profitable? What is your competition? How much competition is there? If a market is saturated with competitors then you are going to end up being just another small fish among thousands of others in a very small pond. All your affiliate marketing efforts will lead to squat.

You have to authenticate there is a potential to make money first. How do you do this?

Simple really! Just go to Google and type in a query about what market and check out the results. Scroll down the first 10 or 20 to check the relevance of their sites. Maybe put quotations on the search term as well. (This can be more relevant in finding you competition). Keep your query as simple as possible as the keyword search comes later in the marketing process.

Then, find out how many searches for this term come up monthly. You can use the Overture Keyword Selector or you can find out through Google Adwords Keyword Tool at:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordsToolExternal

and this will give you an idea. Ideally you want a lot of searches with a low number of results. This means there is a lot of interest with low competition. If you find this then – Bingo!

Word of caution though – if the results are low it might mean there is interest but not much profitability so there is one final check to make.

It’s the sponsored ads on the right that can give you a clue. If there are only a few – they aren’t making money then neither will you most likely. If there is a lot - say about at least 11-30 then you have potential here to make a decent profit.

Conclusion

Successful niche affiliate internet marketing occurs when you take the time to do the prep work first. If you do this, you will make money. If you don’t - you’re just nailing your foot to the floor.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Selling your Services as an Online Business through Internet Marketing

Practically everyone who works has a potential services they can sell online using a website. Not o do so can cost your business big time. Then again, many service sellers have a website but aren’t seeing the returns they thought they would.

From a clockmaker to someone to organic herbs or a private investigator to a women’s garment maker, the service you provide can be anything. It doesn’t even have to be a full time profession either. Maybe you’re a serious hobbyist who makes that one special thing. Maybe you have tried to sell on the net, but after you built the site you discovered that nobody came.

There could be many reasons why you aren’t getting that traffic which might become your next customer. Any service which we sell is in itself its own niche. There’s always a market for a service because that’s just the way it goes for supply and demand.

Let’s examine a few possible reasons why you aren’t getting that traffic. If there’s a problem there’s likely the right solution.

Who’s your Web Host?

If you tried using one of those free web hosts or economized with a cheap web host, then that’s likely to be a big part of your problem right there. On today’s web, free or cheap not only doesn’t cut it, it just doesn’t work because the search engines just aren’t taking you seriously. This will especially happen if aren’t doing anything to refresh the site once in awhile. Your web pages will slip rapidly in popularity and eventually be as good as disappeared.

Get a good web host. Many of the top web hosts offer simple and easy tools which don’t require any particular desktop skills. If your site looks cheap then that’s the impression people will have about the quality of your service.

What do you have for Content?

It’s a simple fact that the search engines love original well written content which is pertinent to the niche theme of service seller site. People search the web for 2 main things – information and finding a solution to a problem. If you can create original and informative articles for your web site or newsletter you will attract a lot more traffic. Content is important and perhaps one of the main reasons why your site can attain a high ranking in the search engines.

Learn how to Successfully Sell your Services – FREE COURSE to SELL your SERVICES!

If you are still uncertain where to begin in learning how to sell your services on line, or don’t knpw much about internet marketing then I would like to recommend that you consider downloading this no obligation FREE Internet Marketing Course which covers specifically how you can sell your services online for any home based business:

SELL YOUR SERVICES – THE MASTERS COURSE