August 7, 2008
Niche marketing is a term used to describe the targeting of a specific group of people. This may include
- People with a common interest or hobby
- Groups with certain medical conditions
- People of certain beliefs
- People in certain countries or regions of the world
Niche marketing can take in very large markets and also very small markets. Although the term “niche” should not strictly be used to describe vertical markets like weight loss, fitness, computers and other large markets it commonly is used as a term that involves any topic that a marketer is targeting. Creating niche websites can be highly profitable, particularly if you track down a niche with little competition but large demand.
A real niche market is usually a sub-market of a larger vertical. For example, the following outline breaks down the very large market of photography and shows the possible niche marketing levels:
Level 1 - Photography
Level 2 - Digital Photography
Level 3 - Digital SLR Cameras
Level 4 - Digital SLR Camera Lenses
Level 5 - Canon Digital SLR Camera Lenses
The above example takes you six levels deep inside the photography niche but still ensures there is a healthy demand for these sub-niches. Generally the smaller the niche, the less money is being spent within it but this is not always the case. The above example has a healthy number of consumers on all levels with many millions of dollars being spent per year. This makes the niche viable and potentially very profitable for the niche marketer who knows how to exploit it.
Niche markets are everywhere. You can gain ideas from existing websites, television, magazines, books and from your friends and family. By targeting very tight niches you are ensuring that the majority of your visitors are interested in your content and as such, you can generate exceptionally high conversion rates through your affiliate sales.
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August 5, 2008
Article marketing is one of the more effective forms of website traffic generation. It is certainly one of the best free methods of generating traffic to your websites, but how often should you write articles and where should you submit them?
Some marketers recon that when it comes to articles, there can never be too many. Their advice is you should write as many as you have time for. Or alternatively, outsource as many articles as you can afford. You don’t have to write every article yourself as there are many professional content writers who write well thought out and researched articles for under $10 each.
I don’t believe these marketers are telling you the whole story because poorly researched and badly optimized articles have a very short shelf life. You get an immediate rush of traffic when the article is first published but this soon dies away to nothing. The best strategy is to target one or more long tail keywords in each of your articles. Your goal is to get the articles top search engine listings for as many keywords you can.
Article directories such as EzineArticles.com are seen as authority sites by the search engines, so their pages will tend to rank better than your new website’s pages. In effect your articles piggyback on their success…
In terms of the quantity, you should aim to write at least one article per day, and have submitted all of them by the end of the week.
Where To Submit Articles
There are many article directory websites, with more coming online everyday. Rather than mass submitting to all directories (which you can do with mass submission software), it may be wiser to choose a handful of the top article directories. By choosing only the highest quality websites you are not wasting time with directories that will give you no direct benefit.
Here are some article directories you should consider submitting your articles to:
http://www.ezinearticles.com
http://www.goarticles.com
http://www.articlecity.com
http://www.isnare.com
http://www.articlesbase.com
http://www.articledashboard.com
http://www.articlefever.com
http://www.article99.com
http://www.buzzle.com
The above article directories are well respected by Google and often have articles showing on the first page of Google results. That means even if you can’t manage to get your website on the first page of search engine results, your article at Ezinearticles or another directory may make the first page, resulting in visitors to your website.
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July 22, 2008
A landing page is the page that your website visitors are sent to after clicking on a link to your site, in this case the link in your article resource box. A landing page may be hosted on your own site or on an external site such as Squidoo, Hubpages or even Myspace.
There are pros and cons to directing readers to an externally hosted free landing page at Squidoo or Hubpages. So which is the best option - a landing page on your own site or an external landing page?
Let’s take a look at the advantages of using Squidoo as a landing page (these points also pertain to other free site or page hosting services, not just Squidoo):
- Google likes Squidoo and tends to rank their pages high. This gives your landing page an immediate boost in the search results rather than waiting months for a new page on your website to achaive decent search engine rankings.
- Squidoo is easy to set up. You can literally have a Squidoo page set up in a matter of minutes.
- Squidoo is free. There are no hosting or domain name fees to pay.
- You can create unlimited pages. Since you aren’t paying for domains or hosting there are no prohibitive costs to having multiple landing pages.
The above advantages are worth bearing in mind if you are new to affiliate marketing and do not have much cash to spend, but let’s also take a look at the advantages of using a landing page hosted on your own website:
- It looks more professional - having your own domain name always looks good.
- You retain complete control over the design, development and have server access in case you want any customized features.
- There are no restrictions whatsoever. Squidoo may restrict some forms of content or may even delete your page without notice.
Which Landing Page Do You Choose?
Whilst there are positives for both methods of landing pages, you can not argue with having total control of your own domain name and website, rather than using an external website over which you have no control. On the other hand, a Squidoo page might get better rankings in the search engines. There is no reason why you can’t simply create two landing pages - one at Squidoo and one on your own website and then split test them to see which produces the best results.
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July 21, 2008
Your article resource box could be considered the most important part of your article submission. If you have a great resource box then people are likely to click through to your site; otherwise they will just move on to the next article. Keeping in mind that the idea of article marketing is to gain extra traffic, you will want to make sure that your article resource box is enticing enough to make the visitor interested in seeing your website.
A resource box, otherwise known as an author bio, is placed at the end of your article when you submit to directories like ezinearticles.com. A good resource box should consist of the following:
- Your name
- Your website URL
- Why your website is unique and what you can offer the visitor
- Call to action
Call to Action
The call to action is what will make the visitor decide whether or not to click through to your site. You article should act to warm the reader up and your call to action needs to give them an incentive to visit your site. A popular and effective method is to mention a free report that you are giving away on your site. For example - “To download your free report about losing weight for your wedding, visit www.yoursite.com to access your report immediately.”
What Not To Put In Your Resource Box
There are a few things that are not ideal to place in a resource box. This can include your personal life history (no one really cares), blatant advertisements or sales pitches or a link to more than one website. Your resource box should be tightly focused with one goal in mind - to convert the article reader to a website visitor.
Article marketing is extremely powerful so make sure you spend some time constructing the perfect resource box so you can reap maximum benefits of this website promotion technique.
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July 18, 2008
Your article headline, or title, can mean the difference between someone reading your article or overlooking it. When writing an article headline, put yourself in the position of the reader. Which of these headlines would entice you to read the article?
- How To Make Money At Home
- Ditch Your Boss! 10 Hot Tips For Becoming Wealthy At Home
The above two titles both refer to the same article, but the second one is clearly more effective in gaining attention. People love quick tips and excitement so give it them in your article headlines!
Using Your Keywords In The Article Title
It is important to use your main key phrase in the title so that the search engines can assist users in finding your articles. A common misconception is that you must use the key phrase exactly as it is and that you can not add other words. This is wrong! As long as your title contains the keywords somewhere within it, you will still get the benefit of search engine optimization. Ideally you will be forming your key phrase into a coherent and enticing sentence to use as your article title. Let’s look at a few examples of using a key phrase in a subtle manner:
Key phrase: best camera lens
Article title: Discover The Best Camera Lens For You
Key phrase: diet supplement reviews
Article title: Real Customer Diet and Weight Loss Supplement Reviews
As you can see the above titles are using the desired key phrases but are expanding them to attract reader attention.
some other tips for writing a good article headline including using question marks, using a number followed by “tips”, “tricks” or “hints”, and using shocking and exciting words that make your article stand out from the crowd.
A good article headline will ensure many years of success for your articles.
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