I will select a niche that has tons of products to promote. My niche will be digital cameras. This is a nice niche because people buy digital cameras all the time. They buy them before vacations, before major holidays, before birthdays and major events like graduation ceremonies. Digital cameras also make great gifts. All these reasons make digital cameras a perennial favorite. There’s also a lot of competition in this niche for the very same reasons.

Now that I’ve chosen my niche, let’s go after some keywords. We will use Google’s own tool, the external keyword tool. Here’s the link for the old interface which I like much better: Google’s Keyword Tool. Type in your keyword, in this case “digital cameras”. The tool will return lots and lots of results. These results will be very competitive for the most part. If we want to rank for anything, we’ll have to narrow the field down a bit.

So how do we narrow the field down? Well, first off, we want to change the results in the keyword tool from “broad” to “exact”. Next, we look at the “Global Monthly Search Volume”. Click on the heading to sort by volume. I like to start with the results that have around 2,000 searches per month or so because they’re usually low enough competition-wise to make them worth the effort.

So how do we ascertain how competitive a keyword phrase is? Well, through lots of research. For this, I recommend a tool like the SEO Toolbar for FireFox. It’s a free download. Once you install it, go to Google.com and search for your keyword phrase. Look at the top 4-6 results. If they have a PageRank of 3 or more and have the keyword phrase in the title and url, move on. This is a lot of work, so patience is a virtue here.

Monetization also plays a role in your keyword selection. In our example above, Google’s tool will return generic results like “digital cameras”, “digital camera reviews”, “waterproof digital cameras” and so on. Before researching those keyword phrases, you want to consider how you will make money from the traffic. Let’s say you want to use Adsense. If so, you want to look at the CPC. That is the Cost Per Click for that keyword for the top position of the paid results. I like to say that our cut would be around 20% of that. So if a keyword has a $1 CPC, then you’ll probably get around $0.20 or less. This is fine if you have enough volume. For example, if 1,000 people click on your Adsense ads, you could potentially make $200 from that traffic.

There’s another viable approach. This approach makes use of specific product model numbers. Those model numbers are buying keywords. That is to say, people are looking to buy when they type a camera’s model number into the search engines. So, how do we find those model numbers? Here’s one way we do it. Go to Amazon.com and go to the photo section. You will see a section called “best sellers”. Currently, those results are:

1. Canon PowerShot S90
2. Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7
3. Canon PowerShot SD780IS
4. Panasonic Lumix DMC-FH20
5. Polaroid t1031

Let’s put those numbers into the keyword tool. After much research, we find that this keyword phrase looks promising: “canon powershot sd780is 12.1mp”. It has a search volume of 480 searches per month and the number 3 and 4 spots have a PageRank of one. The CPC is a whopping $0.05! That means no Adsense. Since this is a buying keyword phrase, you can monetize it with Amazon.com’s affiliate program. So, for each sale that means a commission of aprox.  $169 x 4% or $6.76. Hey, that’s not bad! Keep in mind that buying keywords have a much higher conversion than a keyword like “camera”.

So, if we pick Adsense, we go with generic phrases of low competition with over 2,000/month exact phrase searches and decent CPC of $1 or more. If we pick Amazon.com’s affiliate program, then we can target model numbers with lower volume because they convert well and we get a decent number for each sale.

Does this all sound like a TON of work? Well, it does because it is! That’s one reason we offer our services and pick niches and build sites for people just like you. That’s also why automated keyword research tools are all the rage. That’s all we have time for! See you next time.

To Your Success!
Thomas C. Gajdjis

About the Author

Thomas has a highly trained team of authors, webmasters and SEO professionals. His team has built over 4,000 niche websites and they know exactly what it takes to get a site ranked and making money. Our Platinum membership takes all the pain and effort out of making money online. If you want to start making money RIGHT NOW, then click on the link here to get started -> Sorry, you missed it, offer closed.

So, how do we chose the right niche and the right keywords? Well, let’s think about our business model to gain some insights. Let’s say you have Adsense ads on your website. How do those work? Google’s bots try to determine what your site is about and display ads related to your content. That’s where the money comes from. People who are brought to the site with the promise of information and during the consumption of that information get distracted and leave your site by clicking on ads that are more interesting than your content.

Think about that for a moment. If your content is VERY compelling and insightful and helpful, people are likely to read every word. Then, they are likely to bookmark the site and look for more information elsewhere leaving your ads un-clicked. That’s not what you want. Here’s a tip from the trenches. Adsense is the easiest game in town. All you have to do is bring the traffic and people will click on the ads. If you want great click through rates, skip the fancy graphics and go with mediocre to decent content. I’ve had sites that have 10%+ CTRs for the life of the site.

If you are selling a product, someone’s ebook or even your own ebook, then your keyword selection is narrowed down for you. This is kind of obvious. If you write an ebook about niche marketing instead of giving it away like me then you want to rank for the term “niche marketing” or its many variants.

If you are using Amazon.com’s product catalog and are trying to market products, then you will focus on product related niches. There are many people who also say that they’ve been very successful at Adsense using this technique, ie. ranking high in the serps. for specific product names and/or numbers. An example of this is ranking for, say, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1. It’s a fantastic camera at a great price. You can build a digital camera site and create one post per hot selling item. Then, you can have an in-text link like I did above OR you can have image ads, OR Adsense.

Alright, I hope I gave you some insight on how I think of the niches I’m going to promote. I always have my business model (or monetization model) uppermost in my mind. Let’s go find some niches.

As members of the human race, we all have the same basic needs and wants at our core. There are things that we spend money on each and every day. We spend money without even thinking about it, almost on autopilot. Think about your daily existence and niches will pop into your head instantly. You get up. What were you sleeping on? What kind of pillow? Is it silk? Is it hypo-allergenic? How about your bed/mattress? How about the bedroom furniture? Are you putting on slippers? What kind? What kind of floor do you have? Is it carpet? Do you need a carpet cleaner? Vacuum cleaner? Do you have wood flooring? Is there a television in your bedroom? What kind is it? Is it an LCD? Does it have a wall mount? Is it in a tv cabinet? Did an alarm clock wake you up? I’ve already given you a pile of niches and we just got up.

I hope you see where we’re going with this. Your everyday life, work, hobbies all have niches that we spend money on each and every day. Do you have tea or coffee in the morning? That’s another niche. Do you eat toast? Your toaster is in a nice kitchen appliance niche, Amazon.com, here we come

Next time, we’ll pick a niche we see each and every day and talk about how we can make some money with it. See you next time.

To Your Success!
Thomas C. Gajdjis

About the Author

Thomas has a highly trained team of authors, webmasters and SEO professionals. His team has built over 4,000 niche websites and they know exactly what it takes to get a site ranked and making money. Our Platinum membership takes all the pain and effort out of making money online. If you want to start making money RIGHT NOW, then click on the link here to get started -> Sorry, offer closed!

Next article -> We Pick a Niche and Show You How to Make Money With It

Selecting the Right Niche

Few things will affect your success more than niche selection. There are two main schools of thought here. I like to call them the “Popular Crowd” school of thought and the “Specialist” school of thought. Let’s talk about the “Popular Crowd” school of thought first.

Everyone wants to be popular, right? There are things that will always be needed, will always have a market. What are they? Several niches come to mind. Weight loss is a heavy favorite. Here in the US, people are seemingly getting fatter and fatter each year. The reason for this is our hectic lifestyle. Since this is not going to change anytime soon, this market will survive and thrive for the foreseeable future. The problem with the weight loss niche is that it is extremely competitive and many sites will take your links and articles down just for being in the weight loss niche. You can thank the spammers for that.

Another perennial niche is the exercise niche. People are constantly trying to get in shape. This means tons of products and lots of money. As such, the competition is fierce and you must dig deep to get at keyword phrases (what are those?) that you can make money with.

How about finance? Yep, there’s lots and lots of sub-niches here. There are credit card offers, personal loans, payday loans, mortgages, business lines of credit, etc., etc. You can really get lost here. Again, lots of money, lots of competition. Financial institutions also have savvy webmasters so they have a solid foothold on lots of those competitive keyword phrases.

Insurance anyone? Did you say insurance? Insurance quote CPA offers are awesome payers because of the profit margins and stiff competition. You have to get creative here to succeed.

OK, I think we’ve covered the “Popular Crowd” approach well enough. Let’s talk about the “Specialist” school of thought.

Specialists are great in one area. They specialize in a very specific topic. Here’s an illustration to make a point. An example of this is outdoor patio lights. You can write about outdoor patio lights and you can focus on the top manufacturers and models. This niche has much less volume than the the popular niches but also has much less competition.

So, will you be a specialist or will you be part of the popular crowd? I suggest trying them both. You can be successful with either approach.

Next time, we will be talking about how to find a great niche. Get this right and you’ll be on your way to fame and fortune. Well, at least fortune. Pick the wrong niche and by that I mean the wrong keyword phrases to target and you’ll be lost in obscurity.

To Your Success!
Thomas C. Gajdjis

About the Author

Thomas has a highly trained team of authors, webmasters and SEO professionals. His team has built over 4,000 niche websites and they know exactly what it takes to get a site ranked and making money. Our Platinum membership takes all the pain and effort out of making money online. If you want to start making money RIGHT NOW, then click on the link here to get started -> Sorry, offer closed!

Next installment -> Choosing The Right Niche, Avoiding The Pitfalls

First off, who are these people who have proclaimed the death of niche marketing? There are two main groups that are pushing this point of view. The first group is comprised of internet marketing newbies. Most newbies have stars in their eyes regarding how easy it is to make any money online. Making money online is both easy and difficult. It’s easy if you are a seasoned professional and you have the expertise and the infrastructure to carry out various internet marketing campaigns. It’s difficult if you are new on the internet and all you have is an ebook to guide you. The wrong ebook will contribute to tons of lost time and effort. The internet is littered with stories of the dashed dreams of would be internet millionaires.

The second group advancing this theory is the seasoned professional who remembers the “good old days” of niche marketing where all you needed was the keyword phrase in your domain name, title, and sprinkled about the body text a few times. There was no need to promote, you were virtually assured a front page ranking just by doing these few things. I’m here to tell you that these days are gone. It’s true, you need much more effort to get your new websites up and running AND actually making money (isn’t that what we are all after?). Having said that, niche marketing is NOT dead and those of us who have wakened to the new realities of getting ranked in the search engines and have embraced that reality are making money hand over fist. Sound good? Well, read on.

I would like to step back a moment and talk about the mindset you will need to succeed with your internet marketing efforts. There are so many ebooks and blueprints out there and most of them have fantastic ad copy. They promise you the silver bullet and they promise EASY and QUICK profits. Please don’t listen to them. Please don’t buy another ebook or blueprint for now. I know it’s shiny and happy and promises much success, but leave it alone for now. I will detail the steps that made me a 6 figure income last year and already 6 figures in the first few months of this year for free.

I will lay out a plan that has worked for thousands of people just like you and has allowed them to buy homes, cars, dream vacations, basically fulfilling their dreams. OK, then, what is this mindset? You must approach your internet marketing plans just like you would a business plan. You have to create the plan, and execute the plan in order to get results.

If you are like me and many others, you’ve realized that it is much more fun to watch entertaining internet marketing videos than it is to setup domains, write content and put up websites. That’s why so many people fail. They have many plans that work but never put anything into practice. I’ve got news for you. If you think you’ll put up a free web page somewhere with an affiliate link and retire to a tropical island next week, then you are in for a rude awakening!

OK, so now hopefully we are in agreement that you will take action with the plan I’ll give you for free AND you’ll treat this as a business, a serious business. After all, how many people succeed by doing nothing? Here’s how this free course will run. I will publish lessons every day or two and they will each have links to the previous and next lessons so that you won’t get lost and you can follow along. This is the introduction, so there is no back link. As soon as the next installment is written, there will be a link down here to the next installment.

To Your Success!
Thomas C. Gajdjis

About the Author

Thomas has a highly trained team of authors, webmasters and SEO professionals. His team has built over 4,000 niche websites and they know exactly what it takes to get a site ranked and making money. Our Platinum membership takes all the pain and effort out of making money online. If you want to start making money RIGHT NOW, then click on the link here to get started -> Sorry, offer closed!

Next article -> Is Niche Marketing Dead? The Real Story – Part 2

Most people think that website optimization solely refers to the amount of keywords in the main page content — in other words, the articles. This could not be further from the truth. While most people who come to your site will mostly pay attention to the article content you have written, search engines pay attention to the whole coding package. This not only includes the keyword density of the written content, but also the tags, meta tags, article and page titles, domain name, and anything in between. You could have the ugliest site in your entire niche, but if it is properly optimized then search engines will pick it up.

Finding a medium between what potential traffic would be looking for and what search engines are looking for is a huge part of website optimization. Readers are looking for information, while search engines are looking for keywords in certain areas of your site. Cutting down on actual information can repel readers and potential clicks, while too little or too much of your keyword phrase can repel search engines.

The best way to optimize your website is to create content that is easy to read and informative, with the keyword phrase appearing in key parts of the text. The first and last paragraphs of your article are must-have spots for your keyword, as is the title of the article and the page title displayed at the top of the browser. The tags and the meta tags you have on the article should also include the keyword, along with any others that are relevant to your niche.

The trick to this is ensuring that you do not pack the keyword into your content too heavily, which is known as keyword stuffing. Stuffing is the bane of the SEO marketer’s existence and it will only work against you. Filling your content with your keyword can cause search engines to ban your site or keep you low on the rankings. Readers will also be less inclined to like the content as it will be difficult to read. Avoid stuffing your website with the keyword at all costs by paying attention to the overall density.

Website optimization also takes place off of your own domain. When promoting your site on other domains, be sure that the quality is just the same as that on your main website. This will cause the search engines to notice those pages as well, doubling your campaign’s effectiveness.

Beginners and experienced marketers alike depend on Google SEO campaigns as their bread and butter, but it is not always easy. The site’s search algorithms can never seem to stay still, and websites are constantly being upgraded and downgraded depending on their optimization and promotion. Google, ever diligent, is always on the lookout for possible spam or otherwise useless web content.

Ensuring that your web content is not useless is the easiest way to make sure that Google will not decide that your website is not worth keeping on their search results. This is easy enough: Keep the content on your website informative. An informative article is an article worth keeping, and that is exactly what you need to keep any SEO campaign afloat. Even if you are in a high competition niche, it is possible to beat out the high ranked results if they are of poor quality and your article content is the opposite.

Great content may ensure that Google will always keep you aboard, but it will not always push you to the top results if you are in a high competition niche. This is where website promotion comes in. Google SEO campaigns have two main facets: actual website content and promotional content. While what is actually on your website is the face that both the search engine and potential visitors will pay a large amount of attention to, off-site promotion is an even bigger part to your success.

Submitting content to websites such as article directories puts links to your site in view for all to see — but that’s not all. It also provides links for Google to access and tally towards your overall ranking. The links coming into your site from other sources tells Google that people want to read your content. This directly leads to higher page rankings.

Though Google is always changing their algorithm and how they handle certain bits of information and optimization, there is no denying that something is to be said about “proving” to the search engine giant that your content is worth a read for people searching for something within your niche. This is the basis for any Google SEO campaign that lasts through any large algorithm change.

The amount of money that can be made online is nearly endless. There is no definite pool from which income can be found, and there are always people looking to buy things. Playing your cards right can eventually land you in a big pile of money — but the opposite is also very possible. Many people try using Google to make money and ultimately fail after wasting months of their time. Treating your online marketing endeavor like a business will get you a lot further than treating it like a leisure activity, and with proper planning and putting your plan into action you can find yourself making more money than you may expect.

The hours are another plus, but they are a minus as well. At the start of your marketing campaign, things are going to be tough and you can expect long hours pumping out content and promoting. This sounds entirely unappealing, but once you finally get your website optimized and promoted to a point where you are getting constant traffic, you do not need to spend a substantial amount of time on your campaign. You can instead choose to let it sit and adjust as needed if traffic falls, or you can move your efforts onto another money making endeavor.

The huge array of things you can do to when using Google to make money is a benefit as well. Even if you are intending to deal solely with internet marketing, there are plenty of ways to approach it. Standard pay per click advertisements are always popular and are generally some of the most profitable endeavors. Affiliate marketing is another profitable venue, although depending on your niche it can be more difficult to see results with. Lastly, flipping and selling blogs and other websites can be extremely lucrative and not all that hard to do at all.

There are a lot of factors pulling in one way or another when it comes time to decide whether or not you should jump into the internet marketing pool. Determining your initial investments in time and money, as well as working up your plan beforehand will all help you push to the top. Though using Google to make money on the internet may seem to either be too hard or too easy at first, after some experimentation you will find that it is neither one.

Advertising is the lifeblood of making money on the internet, you get paid for those who click on the advertisements on your website, and you yourself have to advertise your website to drive traffic. In a sense, it is one big circle — so how do you know where to jump in?

Many new internet marketers have one of two misconceptions before they really jump into trying to make money online:

1) Internet marketing lets anyone make money fast.

2) It’s impossible to compete against already established websites within a niche.

Both of these are just as stated above: misconceptions. Internet marketing should be run like a business, even if you are your only employee. It takes time to become successful both online and offline, whether you have a lot of competition or not. Keeping that in mind when approaching your goal of making money online will do more for you than most other advice really could.

If you put up a website with some well-placed ads and good content, you still can not expect to generate income over night. Some websites do not start to see profit until after the first few months, while an overwhelming amount of them do not start to see profits until six to eight months after they have launched. That said, that is enough time to start building content and backlinks for both the search engines and potential site visitors to pay attention to.

When you are going up against several larger and older websites within a niche, you need to put more towards backlinking. Google and other search engines pay close attention to the amount of links coming into your site from other domains and take these links as a sign of dominance within the niche. Use this to your advantage to create as many backlinks as possible. This is most commonly done through article submission websites, which display user-submitted content along with a link back to the writer’s own site. These services are invaluable to get incoming links to your marketing website.

It is entirely possible to make money on the internet, but it is nearly impossible to do so overnight without some leverage. Internet marketing is a field where even the most experienced are always learning something new. Taking it one step at a time will avoid confusion and ensure your success.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a big part of any web business, even for those that sell actual products. SEO makes a website easily recognizable by search engines so that they know what niche they belong in, which is what makes a site come up in the search results for a specific keyword. Businesses that focus on website marketing are not selling anything themselves, but rather are giving out information to entice people to click on the advertisements on their website. This is sometimes referred to pay per click advertising or marketing.

The main draw for most people to a pay per click business model is that once they get the website off the ground and into decent search engine rankings, it essentially runs itself. A site with a huge amount of traffic will not drop down anytime soon unless another site in the same niche makes a bigger content and promotional push. What it boils down to is once you are up at the top and have quality content, you will eventually be making money with no more effort on that project.

Getting your web business to the top of the search engine results requires keyword rich content. This is true for both pay per click advertising business models and for actual vendors. Having content that pertains to the niche and uses the chosen keywords a few times throughout gets search engines to notice the site, which in turn gets actual people to visit it. Simple logic, but there is more to getting a site to the top of the rankings than keyword usage.

Some novice internet marketers tend to think that all they need to do is optimize their website and let it sit, but one must also promote their site. Advertise a website that is advertising? Sounds like a run around, but it is a must. This is done by building backlinks on other domains, and most often takes place through social bookmarking sites and article directories. As long as links to your site are on sites with a high search engine ranking, then you are promoting your website.

Starting up a web business is easy enough, but truly getting one running can take time. Patience is a must, as is hard work. The internet is a new economic frontier, and with some ingenuity and effort it is entirely possible to make a living online.

People start getting into search engine optimization marketing because they feel it will be an easy way to make money. After all, what can possible be stressful and tedious at home on the computer? Quite a bit, actually, especially if you are trying to start up a successful and lucrative marketing campaign.

Internet marketing is highly competitive, in almost any niche. New websites are coming up every day, which creates more and more competition to go against. What can a new internet marketer do to make themselves successful? It’s not impossible, but it does take some very real work.

The initial work lies in actually optimizing your website. Optimizing lies in a few key features, though most focus on the keyword aspect of it. Keyword optimization refers to the process of strategically placing the niche keyword within a web page. This includes within the article body, within tags (both meta and otherwise), and page names and titles. This in itself can be a difficult thing to really pull together, as it is all too easy to go overboard with a keyword. Placing the keyword time and time again within a web page can only hurt a site’s rankings and conversion rates, as search engines with penalize a website for having too much of a word and visitors will be less likely to feel the need to click the advertisements.

Aside from the content, the layout also has a bit to do with a website’s optimization. This has more to do with the actual organic part of the process. An attractive site is more likely to pull in traffic and to get them to click advertisements in most cases. Strategic advertisement placement can also result in accidental clicks, which still count towards your overall revenue. Carefully weigh your layout options before deciding on one so that you can get the highest conversion.

Search engine optimization marketing is easy in concept, but in actual practice it can be a long and difficult endeavor. Avoid the mistakes that others have made time and time again and be sure to really think about the way you place your keywords and design your site. These things are often overlooked by novices, but they are the biggest part to your conversion rates and profits.