Archive for the ‘The LAMP’ Category

Newer Entries »

Marketing Launch

Wednesday, December 26th, 2007

This is part 5 of 10 in the Niche Network Marketing with LAMP series.

A short preface is in order for this installment. Under optimal conditions you will have at-least a small budget on hand to enhance your marketing efforts via paid advertisements (links, banners and etc. on related sites) and/or Pay Per Click campaigns. These methods aren’t essential in the long term, but will provide you with a faster start.

However, I’m trying to provide this series on Niche Network Marketing in a manner that anyone should be able to do–and afford–so what follows are the free steps I take in marketing a new Niche Network as I’m developing it. Please read them with the understanding that it’s best–though not crucial–to be able to compliment them with some of the paid options I’ve mentioned above for maximum initial impact.

First, prior to anything else in this step, you’ll need to ensure you have two sitemaps ready for your site. Some blogging and other CMS software have sitemap options pre-installed. These are good, but even they usually only provide a single XML (Google preferred) sitemap file. What you want are an XML and a pure text URL list (Yahoo preferred). Yahoo seems to be able to pick up your pages from an XML sitemap, so this may seem like overkill, but in my own non-scientific testing it seems as though Yahoo picks up pages faster if you provide the pure text URL list sitemap with the XML one, so I strongly suggest creating and keeping both.

There’s a nice, free tool available that automates the whole sitemap process, and will create both the XML and text based files for you. It’s called GSiteCrawler and you can find it at http://gsitecrawler.com

Once you have both files, just upload them to your primary niche site and be sure to link to them on your main site page. You can then go to Google and Yahoo and submit your sitemaps. At Google only submit your XML sitemap file. In Yahoo you can submit both the XML and the text based files.

Now it’s time to get into some dirty work. You’re going to need to create (or pay someone to create) 8 thorough, well written and useful (to readers) articles around your primary niche topic.

These can not be fluff!

They must be as informative, entertaining and engaging as you can possibly make them.

They must also be well crafted!

You’re going to create each article using 2 of your keyword phrases. In each case, the article itself should be focused around one of your “Off Site” keywords. These are the highest competition keywords you have researched earlier. The article title should contain the keyword, it should also appear in both your opening and closing paragraphs of the article; and if you can use it at-least once more in the body content of your article that’s great too. Just be sure that it fits into each use naturally. You CAN NOT keyword stuff in these articles (and you really shouldn’t do it anywhere else either) or you’ll ruin the foundation of your whole network. Trust me.

When you have the article completed you’re going to select a keyword from your “Longtails” keyword list (I’m assuming you created the 3 keyword lists as described in part 2) that will be the anchor text for the link in your Author’s Box when you submit the article to a publishing platform. The link itself should point to your primary niche site.

For best results, the anchor text keyword should seem naturally related to the high competition keyword you created your article around, so it’s actually a good idea to select both keywords before writing your article. This way you can find two that are closely related and that should help make everything more natural once published.

Repeat this process over and over until you have 8 perfect articles ready to publish. Notice that I emphasized the word perfect. That was to stress two points. The first is that you should approach every aspect of building a niche network with a goal of perfection. It’s hard work to get everything right, but by striving for perfection you will give yourself the best possible chance for success.

And second, to reiterate that these articles must be of high quality and value to readers. They can not be fluff or junk.

Once you have all 8 articles ready, you’ll want to submit 2 each to the following article directories: eZineArticles, GoArticles, SearchWarp and Content Caboodle.

NOTE: There are a lot of theories and debates over how to submit articles, whether they should be submitted to multiple directories and etc. I’m only going to say that I suggest you manually submit every article, and only submit each one once to a single directory. That’s why you create 8 articles, so that you have enough to submit 2 to each of the 4 directories I’ve mentioned.

In the interest of candor and full disclosure I am involved with the Content Caboodle web site and business. That’s not my motivation for including it here, but I think it’s only fair that readers be aware of my involvement there. I have 2 reasons for adding that site to the list of directories. First, I know that Google is showing it a lot of love since it went online and newly published articles are being indexed within hours every day. So this is great for building your SERPs and search engine traffic.

And second, because unlike any of the other article directories listed, Content Caboodle pays authors for submitting quality articles. Article directories make money from advertising to visitors. Content Caboodle does as well, however keeps the advertisements low-key (a single ad on each page). Still, understanding that the directory makes more money from more page views, and that quality articles always generate more readers (page views), Content Caboodle pays authors a flat-rate per page views their articles receive, so it’s beneficial to everyone–authors and the article directory–to have high quality content being created and submitted.

After you’ve submitted all 8 articles you’ll want to watch for when each gets accepted and published. GoArticles and SearchWarp publish instantly, however eZineArticles and Content Caboodle both go through a manual editor’s review for quality and email authors upon publishing.

As each article is published on a directory, you should then submit them to any relevant social communities that you can.

Do Not SPAM Social Networks!

I’m not advocating that you blindly submit your published articles to every social network out there. I’m saying that where the topic of your article is something that makes sense to submit to certain social networks then you should submit it to those networks only. You should be actively involved in the social networks you joined from part 4 of this series (if you’ve used them each daily as I mentioned), and should have a solid understanding of what topics will fit which networks by now.

It may seem odd that I’m telling you to essentially promote pages on another web site (the article directory’s page holding your article), but the point here is that you’re developing a web of linking and traffic flow for both humans and search engine bots to follow around, and everything about this web of linking is ultimately pointing back to your primary niche site in the center.

As just one example, lets say you create an article titled “Article A” and submit it to Content Caboodle. Once it’s published you then submit it to Digg. Now we can follow the trail that humans and bots will find:

The submitted listing appears on a Digg page, that links to the article page on Content Caboodle, which has a link in the Author’s Box to your primary niche site–and it’s all related! That’s important because it means the humans are interested (and likely have a growing interest with each step along the way) in your topic, and the bots just love related linking.

Maybe your niche is something technical, so there’s a submission on Digg in the “Technology News” section that links to this article on Content Caboodle in the “Computers and Technology” section, that then links back to your site which is in this technology niche.

That’s how it all starts to come together, and it happens with each social network that you submit each article to.

But again, and I really can’t stress this enough, it all only works if you create quality content and articles to begin with, and if you’re selective and careful in your social network submissions to only submit pages that will be relevant and interesting to the communities. Take any short cuts along the way and you’ll blow it.

Part 6 of the series should be available in a day or two so please check back, or better yet subscribe to my RSS newsfeed and be sure to get it as soon as it gets published.


Email this post Email this post

Technorati Tags: , ,

Tags: , ,
Posted in The LAMP | 2 Comments »

Marketing Prep-Work

Monday, December 17th, 2007

This is part 4 of 10 in the Niche Network Marketing with LAMP series.

This is going to be the shortest section of the series, but don’t assume that makes it any less valuable or important. In fact, by many accounts this is going to be some of the most beneficial information you’ll get from the Niche Network Marketing with LAMP postings because what you learn and do from here directly impacts how much targeted traffic you’ll be able to generate across your niche network later on, and lets face it–that can make or break your entire effort.

The first thing you need to do is select some platform or software for stats tracking and traffic analysis that you can use on all of your niche network sites and pages.

It should be noted that some publishing platforms you’ll be using eventually won’t permit any sort of tracking codes from 3rd party sources, and in those cases you’ll have to settle for whatever statistics they offer you. But for your web sites and the external resources that you can add tracking codes to you’ll want something that is reliable and provides good information for you.

There are 2 such resources that I use. First is Google Analytics, and the second is AddFreeStats. Both have their pros and cons, but offer quality information about your site and visitors so I’ll leave it to you to review them each and select the one you prefer–or even use both as I do to get the most data possible about your traffic.

The next thing you’re going to want to do is become familiar with Google Alerts. Google offers a great service that lets you know by email, in real time, when a URL or keyword phrase has been found by Google’s bots.

As you build your sites this will give you great information about how quickly Google is finding your pages, and you can also use them to see what others are doing with a specific phrase too. It’s easy to use and the wealth of information you can get about your own sites and competitor’s makes it a must. Think of these alerts like having an insider at Google who is willing to act as an adviser and research assistant on your behalf.

Next, join at least 6 social networking/bookmarking web sites. If you already have accounts with 2, join at least 4 more–just get involved in no less than 6.

Popular ones are StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, Faves, Reddit and Propeller. There are a lot more though, and in fact many smaller niche based networks are springing up all the time and you shouldn’t overlook those if they’re related to your niche market.

Once you’ve joined at least 6, become active in each of them! I can’t stress this enough, you aren’t going to use these to promote your web sites and pages with any positive effects unless you’re a participating member of each community.

It’s not hard nor very time consuming to participate and contribute in each one on a daily basis, even if it’s just five minutes per day each, this small time investment will determine your social marketing success or failure down the road for your niche network.

If you don’t contribute to the communities on a regular basis, then just try posting your own links later on I guarantee you they won’t help. They (and you) will be viewed as spammy among the community members then become buried and lost in cyber-space. It’s that simple. You must build a reputation (and hopefully some friendly relationships) in each community now to gain any benefit from them later for your niche network.

That’s it for part 4. Like I said, it’s short but I assure you that by following the directions here, and especially by becoming an active participant in those social networks you join, you’re laying the groundwork that will enable you to guide massive amounts of quality traffic into and around your network later on.

Part 5 of the series should be available in a day or two so please check back, or better yet subscribe to my RSS newsfeed and be sure to get it as soon as it gets published.


Email this post Email this post

Technorati Tags: ,

Tags: ,
Posted in The LAMP | 2 Comments »

Setting Up the Primary Niche Site

Friday, December 7th, 2007

This is part 3 of 10 in the Niche Network Marketing with LAMP series.

Site BuildingThis isn’t going to go too far into the mechanics or HTML in site building, but rather it will be a basic guide to setting up the primary niche site as a network hub and how to focus the site pages for the best results.

I will talk about using a CMS (content management system) on your site, and provide some links to helpful resources for that, but if you intend to code your own pages or build your own CMS then hopefully you already have the coding/scripting knowledge needed to do so. If not, w3schools is a good educational resource to help you with it.

First I want to talk a little bit about the goals of the primary niche site, and then I’ll break down setting one up in a step by step manner.

What’s the Purpose of Your Primary Site?

In most cases, the goal of your primary niche site is going to be sales. Either the selling of your own niche product(s), or the upselling of related affiliate niche products. You may also want to build an opt-in mailing list for your niche from the primary site as well, but its actually better to focus on a mailing list with one of the satellite mini-sites you’ll add to your network later on.

I have several theories on why that is, but basically I think it works best simply because with a satellite mini-site you can have a single squeeze page that describes the email list as a resource for information related to the niche and some “special offers” that might be of interest to the visitor. This gives the perception that the mini-site exists strictly for the purpose of providing information on the niche via mailings.

When people see a page like that for an email list they accept that there’ll be some sales offers mentioned in the mailings, but anticipate that the mailings will focus mostly on providing information of interest to them and be more likely to sign up.

On the other hand, when people see a drop-in window for a newsletter or mailing list on a web site, or a subscription form being promoted on site pages where the page focus isn’t strictly on the newsletter or mailing list they become more hesitant and suspicious that the mailings will be more focused on selling than providing free and useful information.

What I do and suggest you do as well is to use a satellite mini-site for list building and just link to it as a “resource” from your primary and other mini-sites in your network. Don’t even use a sign up form for the list on your other sites. I’ve done both, had a sign up form on all my sites in a niche network–and just used resource links from all my sites–and the link method always seems to have higher subscription rates.

So, back to the goal of your primary site; to facilitate sales. Its important to remember what your focus is when building your site because it’ll help you to create better converting pages. With sales being the primary goal there are a few simple guidelines to follow that will help make your pages work best:

Keep the site design simple. Its okay to have great graphics and neat features on a web site, but make sure that they enhance the visitor’s experience in some way and aren’t there just to show off your mastery of Photoshop or some scripting language. Trust me, your visitors won’t care unless your niche is Photoshop or programming, and the extra media and scripts will only turn people away by causing slower loading pages or annoying (to some) effects.

Don’t confuse visitors. Each page of your site should have a single focus point. If you’re promoting a product or service, only promote that single product or service on the page. Having links or ads for multiple products causes confusion in the visitor’s mind.

Which link should I click?
What if I pick the one that isn’t going to be best for me?
Did the author really take the time to check out all of these products he’s linked to?

If your page has a bunch of different ads or sales links on it these are the questions which will subconsciously start running through your visitor’s mind and cause confusion, ultimately resulting in lower conversion rates for your site.

On the other hand, if each page of your site is only focused on promoting a single product you can more easily pre-sell that product and gently guide your visitor to taking the action you want them to take, whether that’s signing up for something in a form or clicking through to a sales page and purchasing the product–so keep every page focused on one course of action.

In addition, keep every page focused on one topic as well. Just like when writing an article or a report for work or school, you have to focus on a single idea through the whole thing. Don’t jump around or you’ll lose your reader’s attention.

And one more thing, focus on a single keyword phrase with each page. This is basic on-site SEO, but every page of your site should focus on a single keyword from your “On Site” keyword list for maximum benefits with search engines.

The bottom line in niche site building: focus, focus, focus! One course of action per page, one topical idea per page and one keyword per page. Very simple.

Site Construction

Now that we understand what the goal of the primary site is, and have a guideline for page creation its time to start putting the site together.

Get a Domain Name. This is the first step in building the site. My thoughts on what makes a good domain name are pretty straight-forward, for a mini-site where optimizing for search engine traffic is the main concern I prefer to use keyword rich domains. When building a site for a network though, you’re ultimately going to want to develop a lot of traffic streams beyond just search engines, and keyword rich domains aren’t always very helpful for this.

For example, if I were building a niche mini-site about Tube-Socks then cotton-tube-socks.com would be a fine domain because it would likely score very well with search engines for my niche keywords.

However, I’m not going to get a lot of social love or word of mouth promotions with a domain like that, so its not a very good domain for the primary site in a niche network. Keyword rich domains like cotton-tube-socks.com will be good later on though for the satellite mini-sites you’ll be adding to your niche network, so don’t dismiss any good ones that you find available early on when picking a domain. Write them down to remember for later, or if you can afford to register them now to ensure someone else doesn’t grab them ahead of you.

A better domain for the primary site would be something like Footers.com or Footsies.com–these are short enough for word of mouth to be effective and fairly memorable to help that effect.

Between your page keyword SEO and the network linking that you’ll be doing along the way your primary site shouldn’t have problems ranking for its targeted keywords with search engines, so you don’t need to worry about a lack of keywords in the domain.

As for registering your domain name, you can do that with any registrar but don’t be suckered into paying high prices for domains. Your domain will be just as registered with a company charging $10 per year as those that bilk customers for as much as $75 per year. Personally, I use GoDaddy a lot and think they have about the best and easiest interface around. www.GoDaddy.com

Getting the right hosting account. In building a niche network you’re ultimately going to be creating quite a few web sites. Beyond your primary niche site, you’re also going to build multiple satellite mini-sites. For that reason its a really good idea to find a web host that provides multiple domain hosting under a single account. This way you can run all of your sites and only pay for a single hosting account rather than having to pay separately (and a lot more) to host each one on their own account.

NOTE: some people believe that its better to have your sites on different accounts with different hosts because the search engines may discount linking between sites on the same server IP addresses. I've done some personal testing with this and found nothing to support it what-so-ever, but I wanted to mention it as a concern that some other people have about hosting all their sites with the same company--and so that nobody reading this thinks I've ignored what they feel might be an important detail.

I'm not ignoring the concern, I've simply not been able to find or produce any actual evidence that its based on anything other than pure speculation.

There are a lot of hosts who allow for multiple domain hosting on a single account. One concern with hosting that I do share with others is that newer or non-established hosting companies tend to come and go fast, often leaving without a word and causing their customers to lose everything when they go off line. For this reason I suggest you pick a host that’s been in business for a while (at-least 2 years) and has an established reputation online. A good one I’ve used that offers multiple domain hosting is:
HostGator

Picking a CMS (content management system) for your site. This is an open portion of the guide because most people who’ve already been running web sites will have a favorite CMS already, and honestly any decent CMS is usable for your site.

For those reasons I’m going to talk about what I use, why I use it and direct my comments specifically towards readers who haven’t had much (or any) experience with using a CMS at all.

First, what is a CMS? Basically any software that handles your content and acts as a buffer between the content creator (you) and the technical coding aspects of your web site for content processing, filtering and display. In short, a CMS allows you to add, edit and delete content on your web site without having to dive into the code or scripting at all, usually through an easy to use online interface that somewhat resembles basic word processing software.

A CMS can be highly complex, or absolutely simple; with the majority of them being somewhere in the middle.

For me, one of the easiest and fastest systems to use is WordPress. Now I know some people may balk at my use of a blogging software as a CMS, but the fact is WordPress makes building and editing a web site super simple, is easy to use and customize through freely available plugins and design templates, and is fairly well designed for SEO right out-of-the-box.

There are some basic plugins you’ll want to add to WordPress to best prepare your site for search engines and user attraction; and instead of regurgitating what is well documented on many sites already I’ll simply offer this link to a great listing of WordPress plugins at Gary Lee’s blog.

If you’re a complete novice to WordPress there’s one other resource I’ll share with you. Its a set of video tutorials on setting up a WordPress blog site. There’s 8 videos in all and while the first 3 cover some of the same information I’ve covered here in this post the remaining 5 will give you everything you need to install, setup, customize and make the most from a WordPress blog.

The tutorial set costs $15 but I honestly believe it would be a deal at 3 times that price for the information and easy to follow way its presented. If you’re interested in the tutorials you can get them here.

Summary

At this point you should be able to pick and register a domain name, select a hosting provider, choose a CMS to use for your site and have a good idea of how to maximize each page of your site for causing user actions. In other words, you should be able to see the beginnings of the path to establishing your niche network taking shape.

I haven’t addressed content creation too much in this guide, I have mentioned some general points to keep in mind such as focusing on a single idea, call to action and keyword with each page. Beyond that I’m expecting you to be able to come up with topics for your particular niche. If you need help with developing and writing content I suggest spending some time at CopyBlogger going through the archives. There’s more (and better) content writing information available there than I could ever offer you.

One last thing I’d like to mention about page content layout and site design is that its best to have a highly visible focus point around your “call to action” on every page. What that means is that when your page first loads in the visitor’s browser the action you want them to take (whatever that is) should be displayed in a manner that draws the eyes right to it.

Since every site layout and design is different its impossible for me to give a specific guideline for this, but I can illustrate what you should be trying to do in a way I think everyone should be able to relate to.

Think of your local grocery store. At the end of each aisle there are always a short set of shelves with some products on them. These are known as “End Caps” in the retail industry, and typically they’re used for 2 types of products.

First, they use them for special sale items. Those special weekly deals that the store advertises in their mailings and newspaper inserts.

And the second use is for overstocked items. Products that the retailer got a good deal on from the supplier but had to buy a bulk amount of to get the deal.

Its usually very easy to tell which is which at the store–even if you haven’t seen the advertised specials for the week–just by the way they setup the End Cap. For example, if there are several different products on the End Cap shelves then that End Cap is probably being used for a weekly special; and if there is only a single product on all the shelves of an End Cap then its most likely an overstock item.

Here’s why they do it this way: they’re not making profits off of the weekly sale items, so they add “tie-ins” (the additional products) to the display in order to off-set that loss by cross-promoting profitable products next to the specials that many shoppers came specifically to buy. They attract shoppers with their weekly specials, then hope to profit with the tie-ins and any other regularly priced products the shopper buys while there.

On the other hand, when a retailer has an overstock of a product they want to move that product fast. Sometimes it’ll be because there’s an expiration date on the product, but even more importantly to the retailer is that the bulk quantity is taking up valuable display space on the sales floor and storage space in the stockroom.

That’s why they setup these type of End Caps with just the single product. They understand that the full-sized display of a product will grab shopper’s eyes (and interest) as they walk by–and by not having any tie-ins there’s nothing to confuse the shopper about what they should do. They only have one product option at the End Cap display to select so the choice is already made for them.

A good display:

Good sales display

A poor display:

A poor sales display

It should be obvious by looking at the above images that you’re going to sell more shirts with the first display than you will with the second one–since the second display offers a variety of items other than just shirts.

What’s not quite as obvious is the fact that you’re also going to make more total sales off of the first display then you would with the second, and the reason is that with having all those choices on the second display rack (shirts, pants and etc.) what it actually does is create confusion for the shopper and will cause a lot of passing shoppers to just keep walking by–where the first display clearly alerts passing shoppers as to what’s available there and will attract more of them to stop and look. At that point the display has their attention, and by only presenting a single product it lets the shopper know what they should do to get a shirt.

There’s a catch-22 situation for you, but there is a working solution. People (consumers) want options and choices, but they don’t respond to them very well. The best way to give people what they want while maximizing your own profits is by providing options across your overall site and network, but focusing on single calls to action with your individual web pages.

This may sound a little iffy or “out there” for some people, but I can tell you after working for over a dozen years in retail management and inventory control these tactics absolutely work, and I’ve applied them to my web sites for years now and know they’re just as applicable online too.

So, when setting up your web site layout its a good idea to do a simple test to see if your pages are drawing visitor’s eyes to the call to action points or not. Here’s how you can test your page:

Make sure your web browser is maximized to full screen mode (usually pressing the F11 key will do this). Load your page in the browser window without looking at your monitor screen. Now step away from your computer without looking at the screen. If you can, try to walk about 6 to 8 feet away from your monitor and just look down at the floor for a few seconds.

Now, quickly glance up at the screen and see what point your eyes focus on first. If its the area where your call to action is located then you’ve done a good job, if it isn’t then you may want to tweak the layout a little bit. Either move whatever it was that distracted your eyes from the call to action, or further emphasize the area where your call to action is located. This can be done with graphics around or near your call to action point, or by placing a colored border around the call to action. Experiment and test the page until your eyes are instantly drawn to the right area of the page every time you test it.

Here’s a raw example to illustrate my point, click the thumbnail image below and when the large image appears notice how your eyes are drawn to the yellow input boxes of the form. Right away in your mind you understand that you’re supposed to provide your email address and name here. There’s no confusion for the visitor as to what’s expected.

Raw layout example

I’ve improved sales and newsletter sign up page conversions by over 400% using this technique, so I urge you to remember it and apply it to your sites. If your page content clearly lets visitors know what you want them to do and your page layout clearly shows them how and where to do it you will get better results. It isn’t Rocket Science but I’m constantly amazed by how few web sites seem to “get it”.

Well that’s it for part 3 of the Niche Network Marketing with LAMP series. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask them in the comments below and I’ll try to answer as fast and best as I can for you.

Part 4 of the series should be available in a day or two so please check back, or better yet subscribe to my RSS newsfeed and be sure to get it as soon as it gets published.


Email this post Email this post

Technorati Tags: ,

Tags: ,
Posted in The LAMP | No Comments »

Keyword Research

Thursday, December 6th, 2007

This is part 2 of 10 in the Niche Network Marketing with LAMP series.

Before getting into my methods of keyword research for a niche network it should be said that there are many ways to go about researching keywords and I don’t claim that mine is the best by any means, its simply how I do it because I’ve found it to be effective and am comfortable with the tools I’ll mention. If you already have your own preferred methods and tools for keyword research and think they work best for you, then you should use those.

The important element to this step of the process is to create your keyword lists. How you get them is up to you and I only describe my methods here as an aid for anyone who hasn’t done much keyword research work in the past, or who doesn’t feel confident in the methods and tools they’ve been using already.

Another point I should make is that I take a slightly different approach to keyword research for a niche network than I do when building a single web site.

If I’m only building a single site or mini-site, then I only want keywords with fair or high search engine volume and low competition. When developing a niche network there’s a need for 3 types of keywords, which I’ll create 3 keyword lists from and I’m going to explain that process and the reasoning behind it here:

List #1: Keywords for On-Site Use – these are going to be similar to the type of keywords I would use if just building a single niche site. Fair to high search volume and low to medium competition, and will be used on the primary niche web site, as well as on some satellite niche mini-sites added to the network later on.

List #2: Keywords for Off-Site Use – these are the keywords that I’ll target in articles I write and submit to article directories and on Social/Community sites such as Yahoo! Answers and etc.

List #3: Longtail Keywords – the term “longtail” gets thrown around and overused a lot these days, but basically this list will be keywords that get very low search engine volume and also have very low competition. These are the keywords I’ll use on 3rd party publishing platforms such as Squidoo or Hub Pages.

So, that’s the 3 keyword lists needed for building a niche network. I want to make a point right now, since I’ve mentioned sites like Squidoo and Yahoo! Answers, that I do not and will not suggest creating spammy pages or postings on any web site or community ever!

I do use 3rd party platforms because they are a great resource which allow anyone to expand their reach online, but I respect the resource while using it and ensure that everything I post or publish to them will also be of value and a resource to visitors who read it.

When using a 3rd party platform, and actually through all 10 steps of the niche network building process there is no room for cutting corners or taking short cuts. Remember, you’re working to build something that’ll hopefully make you a lot of money eventually, but if you don’t build it right the whole thing will fall apart on you and only be a waste of time in the end.

The Research

To get the best keywords and all of the information like search volume and competition numbers fast I use Niche Detector. It isn’t free (though it does have a free 7 day trial you can download that’s fully functional), but it saves me hours and hours of time on every niche I enter over what it would take me to use free tools and prepare the collected data properly to be useful for me–so its paid for itself over and over again in my opinion.

I am going to show you how you can use free tools to build your keyword lists, but I really urge you to invest in Niche Detector, even if you can’t afford it today, then later down the road when you have profits rolling in I hope you’ll remember it and get it. You’ll be glad you did.

The free tools you can use are Wordtracker and Google. Wordtracker is actually a pay service, but they kindly make a free tool available that is a little limited but can still give you some good results.

To build your keyword lists you’re also going to need some sort of spreadsheet program. Either MS Excel, Open Office Calc (free) or you could use Google Documents (free) which has a neat spreadsheet tool now.

If you’re using Niche Detector now is when you would simply plug in your top keyword and let the program begin building a list for you. Here’s a screenshot I just made using the “Pittsburgh Steelers Autographs” keyword phrase that I mentioned in part 1 of this series:

Niche Detector

In less than 30 seconds I had 3,724 good keywords for my list, and in less than 10 more minutes I could have Niche Detector collect search volume and competition data, then sort the keywords into my 3 lists I need for the network. That’s the power of this program and why I’m such a fan. Doing the same thing with the freely available tools will take hours and hours, and still won’t give you all of the information that 10 minutes with Niche Detector will.

If you don’t have Niche Detector then follow the steps below for the free method.

You have to have at-least 1 primary keyword in mind for your niche to begin. The more you have the better because we’re going to need 3 keyword lists for the network–we want lots of keywords, so the more primary keywords you can start with the better. Unfortunately, using the free tools its going to take you a bit of time to accomplish this.

Having 1 or more primary keywords to start from, go to the free Wordtracker tool at http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com and type in your first primary keyword.

Here is where some of the free tool limitations show up right away. If you type in the keyword phrase I just used in Niche Detector, “Pittsburgh Steelers Autographs” Wordtracker won’t display any results at all, it says: No results found for ‘pittsburgh steelers autographs’. Please try again.

When using the free tools you have to understand their limitations and become creative. Instead of “pittsburgh steelers autographs” try just “steelers autographs” or “pittsburgh steelers” and then scour through the results to find keywords that you can use for your network.

You’ll notice that the keyword results are all links, that’s good because you can click on any one of them and get more results that are related. Doing this over and over you can begin to build your keyword list.

Something to note about the numbers next to the keyword results in Wordtracker is that they’re not very accurate for our needs. They’re based on real data, but don’t include all of the search engines out there, so if Wordtracker says a term gets 50 daily searches, odds are its a little more than that in most cases, however it could be lower depending on the term. So don’t worry too much about the numbers on Wordtracker at this point, just collect the terms you can use and place them into your spreadsheet program.

Next we’ll take our keyword list and go to Google’s Keyword Tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. From your spreadsheet you’ll want to copy all of your keywords in groups of 50 at a time to the clipboard (select the keywords and hit Ctrl+C), then paste them into the form on Google’s page and press “Get Keyword Ideas”.

Google will now give you search volume data for all of your keywords, along with suggestions of other keywords you might want to use and the search volume data for those as well.

At the bottom of the page are links for downloading all this data, use the CSV link to download it in a format that you can use in your spreadsheet program.

Google Keywords Tool

Keep repeating this process with 50 keywords at a time until you’ve used all the keywords from your original spreadsheet. When downloading the CSV’s for each group remember to give them unique filenames, otherwise each download will overwrite the last download using the same default filename Google applies.

Now close the spreadsheet you’ve been using (no need to save it), and import the CSV files you’ve just downloaded. They will have all your keywords plus the ones Google suggested, and the search data for them.

Since Google added some keyword suggestions you’ll want to go through the list and delete any rows you don’t want to include, then save your spreadsheet.

The next step is to get the competition levels for your keywords. Create a new column in your spreadsheet and name it “Google Competition”.

Go to Google’s main page (www.google.com), and one at a time search for each of your keywords, making sure to surround them in quotation marks. EX: “pittsburgh steelers autographs”

Use the quotation marks because this tells Google to return only the pages that are known for that exact keyword phrase. In the upper right corner of Google’s results you’ll see something that looks like this:
Results 1 – 10 of about 3,340 for “pittsburgh steelers autographs”. (0.24 seconds)

That tells you the competition level for your keyword phrase is 3,340. There are 3,340 pages right now that Google believes are focused for your keyword. Repeat this process for all of your keywords.

Once done be sure to save your spreadsheet. I usually make a backup copy at this point too–just to be safe.

The final step is to separate your large keyword list into the 3 lists you’ll use for your network. Create 3 new sheets in your spreadsheet program, name them: “On-Site”, “Off-Site” and “Longtails”.

WARNING: If you have less than 1,000 keywords on your main list right now you’re probably going to have problems later. Remember, you’re building lists for a whole network here, not just one site, so your main list really needs to have 1,000 or more keywords on it before you start dividing them into the 3 lists or odds are you won’t have enough keywords for each list after we divide them up.

The largest list is going to be the longtails, so go to your main sheet that holds all of your keywords and sort the rows by the “Avg Search Volume” column.

Now select all of the rows where the “Avg Search Volume” is below 0.30, copy them to your clipboard and go to your “Longtails” sheet and paste them in. Go back to your main sheet and the rows should still be highlighted, delete them now (this is why we made the backup!)

Next you want to sort the remaining keywords by “Google Competition”. Select all of the rows which have a number lower than 50,000 and copy them to your clipboard. Go to your “On-Site” sheet and paste them in. Go back to the main sheet and delete those rows.

Now just copy all of the remaining keywords and paste them into your “Off-Site” sheet. You can now delete the entire main sheet as your keywords are broken down into the 3 lists you’ll be using.

Okay, now is when you have to go through your “On-Site” list and make some adjustments. Just having a competition level below 50,000 isn’t enough, these keywords should also have an “Avg Search Volume” above 0.40 according to Google.

Any keywords on this list that have a lower search volume than 0.40 should be moved to your “Off-Site” list because even though the competition level is acceptable they just aren’t going to generate enough traffic to be focused on with your primary site in the beginning.

If at this point one of your lists is empty or only has a couple of keywords on it (most likely this would be your “On-Site” list), then you didn’t have enough keywords to begin with and need to add more.

Once you’re done cleaning up your “On-Site” sheet you will be ready to start planning how to use your keywords on your primary site. We’ll get into that in the next step.

A Few Notes to Wrap this Up

I know while writing this that some people are going to want to use different search volume or competition levels to divide their keywords by. That’s up to you and I encourage testing and experimentation. Remember that this series should be viewed as a guide, not a set of commandments. However, in writing it I’m giving you the methods and barometers that I personally use, and know have worked for me.

If you think competition levels of 50,000 are too high for your primary site keywords and want to cap them at 25,000 that’s up to you. There are reasons that I use the levels and tools that I do, for instance I use 50,000 for the “On-Site” keywords knowing that some will be very hard to rank for early on because of the competition, however with the understanding that as my network is developed and grows my primary site will become trusted among search engines and those higher level competition keywords will begin to rank better for me then. If I used them for “Off-Site” purposes early on out of fear of the competition, it would be harder to add them to the primary site later because I’d actually be competiting with myself at that point, and even if I got the keywords to rank for my primary site then it could hurt the Off-Site content that I originally used it on, breaking a link in the network chain.

I guess you have to be a little “gutsy” is what I’m saying, and look at what effects the things you do early on will have on your network later. Don’t be afraid to go after some competitive keywords on your primary site, remember that you’ll also have some lower competition keywords there to rank for fast and then you can strengthen your site for the harder keywords.

That’s it for part 2 of the Niche Network Marketing with LAMP series. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask them in the comments below and I’ll try to answer as fast and best as I can for you.

Part 3 of the series should be available in a day or two so please check back, or better yet subscribe to my RSS newsfeed and be sure to get it as soon as it gets published.


Email this post Email this post

Technorati Tags:

Tags:
Posted in The LAMP | 7 Comments »

Recognizing a Gold Mine Niche

Wednesday, December 5th, 2007

This is part 1 of 10 in the Niche Network Marketing with LAMP series.

First, its important for me to define what I believe makes a niche market a gold mine. For me, it has very little to do with how much money is available to be made in the niche. That may sound odd or wrong to some, but the way I see it is that so long as a niche market is profitable it is worth working in for more profits. So, with that mind set almost any niche could be a gold mine if I used “profitable” as a barometer.

Also, because my primary business model for Internet Marketing is in building niche mini-sites and not niche networks, and all of those fast and easy sites make me money, profits aren’t a real incentive to focus on a single niche long enough to build huge networks when I could just as quickly build a bunch of new profitable mini-sites with the same time.

So, what does make a niche market a gold mine in my opinion? When its a niche topic that excites me. Pure and simple, when I come across a niche while building a mini-site for it that interests me and makes me want to learn more about it. Basically, when I become passionate about the topic is when I’ll devote the time and energy into turning that initial mini-site into the hub of a large niche network.

Now, just because that’s how I decide which niches to grow from mini-site to network doesn’t mean you have to do the same. Maybe you just like to focus on one thing at a time rather than build lots of different niche mini-sites, or maybe you just believe you’ll make more money in the long run by dominating a single niche rather than dabbling in many.

Whatever your reasons for wanting to build a network around a given niche the steps I outline in this series can be applied.

No Niche is a Bad Niche

Here’s the biggest bonus (in my opinion) to building niche networks, there is no bad niche to start from. That’s right, any niche market is a fine starting point for your network.

Some folks may argue that there are some niches which aren’t profitable enough, or are too small to build a network from–but they’re dead wrong!

Here’s why: your niche network is going to grow beyond your initial niche and include numerous other niches, so even if your starting point isn’t very profitable or its market is small you’re going to compensate for that as your network grows.

Here’s an example of how a niche network grows to include other niches. Lets say your initial niche site is focused on “Women’s Underwear” (as a sales site, not adult entertainment), as you build your niche network you’re going to build related mini-sites in it–like a 2nd tier for the network–and one of those may be for “Sports Bras”. That’s related to your starting niche, but also a niche in itself. Later you’re going to build more mini-sites around the mini-sites you’ve already made–sort of a 3rd tier to the network–and one of these may be for “Women’s Exercise Equipment”, which would be related to your “Sports Bras” mini-site, even though its not related at all to your initial niche site on “Women’s Underwear”. Next you may build a mini-site on “Athletic Dieting”, which is related to your “Women’s Exercise Equipment” site… and so on.

See, no matter where you start from a good niche network is ever expanding and will encompass profitable and large market niches along the way–so there is no bad niche to start with.

Picking the Starting Niche

Since no niche is a bad niche, how do you pick your starting point? Really its just a matter of picking a niche, any niche at all will do.

I will advise you to pick something that is a true niche (I’ll explain this in a moment) and that you’re passionate about, or at-least mildly interested in. I suggest you don’t pick a niche just because you think its going to be profitable. If you don’t enjoy learning and writing about the topic you’re going to have problems doing the work to actually build a solid niche network. The easiest way to avoid that is to pick a niche topic that you will enjoy working with.

Also, I mentioned that it must be a true niche. By this I mean there seems to be a lot of confusion out there about what exactly a niche is when I talk to people. The best description I know is that a niche is a narrow-focused segment of any market.

I’ll try to illustrate that for you as best I can. Lots of people collect sports memorabilia, so “Sports Memorabilia” is a market, but it isn’t a niche market because it encompasses all kinds of different types of sports and all kinds of different memorabilia.

Within the “Sports Memorabilia” market there are smaller markets like “Baseball Memorabilia”, “Football Memorabilia”, “Racing Memorabilia”, “Sports Autographs”, “Trading Cards” and so on. Any of these is a niche, but not a true niche by my standards because they’re all still too large in scope and can be easily broken down into more focused niches themselves. For example, from “Football Memorabilia” we can carve out collectibles from each individual pro-football team. As a Pittsburgher I’ll go with “Pittsburgh Steelers Memorabilia”.

Now we’ve cut down to a narrow-focused niche that would be manageable to start from, fairly easy to dominate, expandable and is probable to have a profitable buying market attached to it. In my mind this is a true niche.

Just to note, you could still break this one down further if you wanted, for example you could focus on just “Pittsburgh Steelers Autographs”, however now your niche is so narrow that it likely limits your profit potentials, so I would call that a micro-niche. Micro-niches can be useful, and depending on the market and products can be very profitable too, but that’s rare and typically if you start from a micro-niche like this its going to take you a long time to begin seeing returns from your time and money invested.

As I said, there are some micro-niches where you can do very well. I know a guy who focuses on one specific business retreat package and even though he only makes a few sales per year his commissions are so high that he’s making a killing with it, but finding such a profitable micro-niche and then being able to capitalize on it is really rare. I don’t suggest trying to start from a micro-niche unless you have some inside information on the market that will help you to dominate it fast. My friend I spoke of was a Corporate Communications Specialist for years and visited the retreat he sells packages for several times as a customer, so he had that kind of inside advantage starting out in his micro-niche.

Still, I also said that micro-niches can be useful and that applies to everyone. You can use these micro-niches in your niche network as satellite mini-sites around your hub because they are related and focused–and are great for pulling in interested traffic to which you can upsell through the rest of your niche network.

That’s it for part 1 of the Niche Network Marketing with LAMP series. I hope I’ve explained how to recognize and pick a true niche well enough for you. If not, or if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask them in the comments below and I’ll try to answer as fast and best as I can for you.

Part 2 of the series should be available in a day or two so please check back, or better yet, subscribe to my RSS newsfeed and be sure to get it as soon as it gets published.


Email this post Email this post

Technorati Tags:

Tags:
Posted in The LAMP | 1 Comment »

Newer Entries »