Make Money Online - Work From Home Tips

Researching your niche is an important stage because you want to find out if your chosen niche will be profitable for you. Plus you are entering the beginning stages of product research as well.

Remember, in this stage, you especially want to know…

·    Are other people passionate about your niche? If not, do they have a desperate problem they want to solve?

·       Is the market big enough, but not so big you’ll have too much competition when you’re just starting out?

·       Do the people in this niche spend money?

·       What products are being successfully sold right now to this niche? Can you sell something similar? Can you improve it, give them something they want that all other products of their kind are currently lacking?

Let’s run through the steps for this important strategy.

Step 1 – Keyword research. Build a spreadsheet with the most common searched-for terms for your niche. Start with some basic keywords (i.e. if you were in the crafts niche, you would start with the word “crafts” and branch out from there)

Here are some good keyword tools to help you generate your starting list:

·         http://www.kwbrowse.com - Good keyword visualization tool

·         http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com - Free version of keyword tool Wordtracker

·         http://www.goodkeywords.com - Free Windows software for finding keywords

·         http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/keywords/ - Search engine keyword tracker & keyword ranking tool

·         http://www.nichebotclassic.com - Still a great resource, also powered by Wordtracker

·         http://www.keyworddiscovery.com - Paid or free trial

·         https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal - Google’s free tool

There are MANY more keyword research tools out there. With the demise of Overture’s free service, many of them are still out there, but provide outdated or useless information. These are a good bunch to start with.

A couple more useful resources:

·         http://www.terapeak.com - Researches eBay auctions over the last 30 days

·         http://addictomatic.com - Research site that scrapes the web for keywords you specify

Step 2 – Discover your major competitors in this niche. Perform some Google searches for your main competitors and see who the advertisers are in the right-hand panel (i.e. Google Adwords advertisers).

Make a list of the top 10 competitors you will face (i.e. only those who sell similar products to what you are considering—for example, if you’re going to sell an info-product, ignore the ones with physical goods).

This is one gem for finding out if your market is hot. If companies are paying for advertising for similar products as yours, it’s a good indication they’re making money. If they weren’t, they could afford to keep paying for ads.

Step 3 – Research the top discussion forums and communities for your niche.

Do a search on Google for forums in your niche. For example, if your niche is freestyle Frisbee, you might do a search for “freestyle Frisbee forum” or “freestyle Frisbee discussion board” or “Frisbee discussion”.

Forums are a GREAT way to find out what your market wants. Sign up as a member to these forums and start by “lurking”. That is, just spend some time reading all the posts. Then when you feel more at ease with the group, introduce yourself and start asking questions. Tell them you’re considering buying one of your competitor’s products. Get their feedback. Ask them what they like and don’t like about it, etc.

Step 4 – What blogs do they read? Check out the top blogs in your target market by doing a search on:

·         http://www.technorati.com

·         http://www.blogcatalog.com

Also check out the “blogrolls” at each of the blogs you visit and see who else they’re linking to. Make a list of the top 10 to 20 blogs or so here:

Step 5 – Check out YouTube.com and Google Video (http://video.google.com) and do a search for your keywords. See what videos come up. Are they marketing-related? Do they include a website address on it to learn more, where they’re selling a product or service?

Step 6 – Do a search on Google, Yahoo, and MSN and see who has the top rankings for your keywords

Step 7 – Other miscellaneous research. Search PRWeb.com and look for any press releases related to your market. Search EzineArticles.com and save the articles that are related to your market. Use Alexa.com and Compete.com to see which of your potential competitors are getting the most traffic. Search Google using your keywords and add “+ezine” or “+newsletter” at the end to find email newsletters.

Step 8 – Search clickbank.com and cj.com to see what products in your market are being sold and for how much.

Armed with this information and the information in the other posts you now have plenty of information at your fingertips  to ensure you find the best possible niche markets to get into.

Filed under: Niche Marketing, Make Money Online Methods | 2 Comments »

Let me show you a process to go through when you’re trying to brainstorm for niche market ideas.

For starters, I’m always aware of trends and current events in the real world. I read several newspapers each day, many magazines, both general and niche-specific, I watch the news, I listen to the radio. Occasionally something that I hear or read will stick with me. I may record my thoughts on my portable voice recorder, jot down some notes, whatever happens to be convenient for me. Sometimes I’ll call my office voice mail and leave myself a message.

But at some point I’ll have several broad ideas to research. I want to look deeper. And I want to make sure there is a good market for them before I even think about creating a product. So I’ll begin completing the following steps:

Google Zeitgeist - http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html

To begin with, I check out the hottest search trends at Google Zeitgeist.

From here I can select:

•    Google Trends - For a broad look at search query data, enter up to five search terms to see relative popularity over time.
•    Trends for Websites - Google Trends for website traffic data. Type in a website address to see visitors by region and related sites visited.
•    Insights for Search - A deeper dive into search query data for marketers and power users. Create your own lists of “most popular” and “fastest rising” queries for different geographic regions over time and by topic.
•    Hot Trends - The top 100 fastest-rising search queries right now (U.S. only). Updates throughout the day.
I can also click on “Year-End Zeitgeist” or “Zeitgeist Archives” in the upper-left corner to look at past trends, especially if I’m researching cyclical or other trends over time.

At this point I am just looking for ideas. If I see that a particular topic is hot, I’ll make a note of it and look at more targeted sub-niches later on at more specialized sites (which I’ll show you shortly).

Lycos Top 50 - http://50.lycos.com

The Lycos Top 50 is another site, like Google Zeitgeist, where I will review the latest trends and look for hot topics to explore further. I will also look at Yahoo! Buzz for ideas as well (see below).

Yahoo! Buzz - http://buzz.yahoo.com

eBay Pulse – http://pulse.ebay.com

The eBay Pulse site is a great place to start looking at sub-niches. What I will do is select the category first (using the topics I’ve gathered from looking at the previous sites), then look for profitable sub-niches by then selecting a sub-category. The best chance for success is if I am as specific as possible with my niche selection. In the example below, I don’t want to sell to the “crafts” niche. I want to sell to grandmothers who enjoy giving their latch rug hooking gifts to their families and friends. You get the idea.

Also, I’ll always check the largest stores as well to see what they’re selling. There has to be a reason they are the largest stores. They must be doing something right.

Now that I have some potential sub-niches to work with, I want to see how much of a market there is there. Just because a sub-niche is popular doesn’t mean people spend money on it.

Amazon - http://www.amazon.com

Amazon is a great place to see what currently exists for any given sub-niche. Chances are, the more books there are written on that subject, the more that market spends on those topics.

Next I may use certain qualifying keywords to discover potential niches. You may have heard these called “discovery keywords”, and they are exactly that.

If you go to Google and type in any of the following keywords (make sure you surround them with double quotes for exact matches):

•    How to
•    How do I
•    How do you
•    How to fix
•    How do I fix
•    How do you fix
•    How to prevent
•    How do I prevent
•    How do you prevent
•    How to cure
•    How do I cure
•    How do you cure
•    How to remove
•    How do I remove
•    How do you remove
•    How to quit
•    How do I quit
•    How do you quit
•    How to get rid of
•    How do I get rid of
•    How do you get rid of
•    How to lose
•    How do I lose
•    How do you lose
•    How to get
•    How do I get
•    How do you get
•    How to stop
•    How do I stop
•    How do you stop
•    learn
•    get rid of
•    fix
•    remove
•    prevent
•    cure
•    quit
•    lose
•    get
•    eliminate
•    restore
•    stop

You can also use the Google Keywords Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal), just make sure you uncheck “Use Synonyms” as you only want exact matches.

Discovery keywords are a great way to find what people are looking to do, solve, or accomplish.

Finally, I like to capitalize on the “low hanging fruit.” That is, it’s always much easier to sell a similar product to one that’s already selling well than to try to enter a market cold. If you research your potential competitors up front, you’re going to get a pretty good idea as to how well they’re doing, both in terms of checking their traffic rankings by Alexa (http://www.alexa.com) and Compete.com (http://www.compete.com), as well as their Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads in Google, Yahoo, and MSN (at a minimum). We’re going to cover that in the next post.

Start working to find yourself a profitable niche!

Filed under: Niche Marketing, Make Money Online Methods | No Comments »

When selling a product, a lot of people make the mistake of developing their product first, and then trying to find a market for it. The process should really be reversed. Find a market first that spends money, then find out what they want and give it to them.

It is certainly easier said than done, but there are a lot of places online where you can do your market research for free. They’ve done most of the work for you already. You just need to know where to go and what to do to connect all the dots.

When you think you’ve found such a niche market, ask yourself these important questions:

1)    Do you have an interest or passion for the niche? If not, do you think you can develop one? Or will you get bored with it quickly?

2)    Are other people passionate about your niche? If not, do they have a desperate problem they want to solve?

3)    Is the market big enough, but not so big you’ll have too much competition when you’re just starting out?

4)    Do the people in this niche spend money?

5)    What products are being successfully sold right now to this niche? Can you sell something similar? Can you improve it, give them something they want that all other products of their kind are currently lacking?

6)    What are these existing products in your target niche being sold for? Could you be profitable selling a similarly priced item? Or are your potential competitors selling cheap on the front so they can upsell, cross sell, or make their money on the back-end?

Filed under: Niche Marketing | 1 Comment »

We all know how powerful Twitter is for growing a base of loyal followers. Now you can get the best of both worlds by allowing your Twitter followers to also enjoy the benefits of the content you provide in your weekly or monthly newsletters. That is right, Twitter and Aweber are now joining forces so you can really ramp up your marketing, and reach a whole new group of people with your content and marketing messages. For more details on this check out the blog post on the Aweber website.

http://www.aweber.com/blog/new-features/twitter-email-newsletters.htm

Just think if you grow your Twitter list it means that you are also increasing your subscriber list! It is pretty powerful when you think of it! Makes sure you jump on this now. This new development is all the more reason you need to focus more on growing your Twitter following!

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People are always trying to save money, especially with today’s economy.  No matter what your reason for saving, through this e-book, you will discover ways never considered.

The price of everything has gone up, requiring people to be more conscientious about money.  The problem is that by the time the mortgage, car, utilities, and credit cards are paid, there is little money to put aside.  Saving money is not that hard, just a matter of learning all the different options and being creative.

In addition to the obvious of putting money into a retirement fund or savings account, there are hundreds of ways to save money.  Although some ways of saving may not seem like much, once you add them up at the end of the year, you will see how substantial the savings really are.  Keep in mind that saving is more than a single lump sum of money put aside.  Saving is something found in your everyday life by the way you live and the choices you make.

Rome was not built in a day and neither will your bank account be.  Each penny saved is one more penny than before.  If you have the ability to save big, that is great.  However, most people are not in that position, which is why this e-book will show you how little savings can add up quickly.

Be encouraged that it is never too late to start saving, regardless of your age.  Set your mind that now is the time to start building your future.

1. Holiday Gift Giving

This tip is especially helpful for large families.  Although it is fun buying for and receiving from everyone, it can be very expensive.  Make an agreement with your family that you will continue to buy for the children but that the adults will go with a name exchange.  This way the children are not disappointed and you can spend a little more on one or two people rather than spreading your money thin.  For the members that you did not pick to exchange with, bake a loaf of their favorite homemade bread or cookies.

2. Clearance

Always head straight for the clearance rack where you can find amazing bargains.  Sometimes you may have to dig a little to find the right item but the savings will be well-worth your time.  Most clearance racks offer variety, current trends, and great value.  For example, Bed, Bath & Beyond has a clearance section where you can find all kinds of wonderful household items for a fraction of the original cost.

3. Thrift / Surplus Stores

Unfortunately, thrift and surplus stores have been given a bad rap.  Many of these stores are filled with hundreds of top quality items.  Name brand merchandise is easy to find but just like clearance racks, it takes some time to find.  Find a thrift or surplus store close to where you live and then plan spending some time to find those outstanding bargains.  One woman in Kansas City, Missouri located such a store about 20 minutes from her home.  After shopping through every isle over the period of two hours, she walked out of the store with eight huge garbage bags filled to the brim with designer clothes for her and her children, many with the original tags still attached.  She even found a couple of Liz Claiborne suits for herself at $5.99 each and a Dooney & Burke purse normally valued at $225 for $19.95.  Her children had an entire season of school clothes and best of all, she paid less than $200.

4. Wrapping Paper and Bows

Create your own wrapping paper, which is not only unique, but also fun.  Use plain brown grocery bags and craft-like paints to make your design.  After wrapping the gift, let your creative juices flow.  For example, using black and yellow craft paint, create a miniature road.  Then dipping toy truck tires into red paint roll them along the paper making tire tracks.  You can then draw free hand a stop sign, yield sign, or stop light.  Next, using a hot glue gun, glue a couple of the miniature trucks to the paper.  This is perfect for a young boy.  He will be just as thrilled with the wrapping as the actual gift.  For a girl, you can simply create miniature bows from existing fabric or lace and glue them on brown paper then free hand draw colorful flowers.  Just use your creativity and look around for items you already have on hand to use.

5. Reuse

When you shop, look for items that can be reused.  Rechargeable batteries are a perfect example.  Even though the initial purchase may be more than non-rechargeable batteries, there is a definite savings over a long period.  Another option would be to purchase a nice artificial Christmas tree.  Many of the current artificial trees look amazingly real and with the right lights and ornaments, you can change the look from year to year.

6. Landscaping

If you are considering creating a nice flower garden area, shopping for plants even on sale, can be expensive.  Before you go out and start spending, look around to see if you have other plants that can be split from your existing flowers.  Additionally, if you have a good relationship with any of your neighbors, you might ask them if they have any plants you could use as a starter.  Another great idea is the next time you are in the market to buy a lawnmower, purchase one that mulches leaves.  This way, rather than buy mulch for your flowerbeds every year, you can simply use the mulch you make.

7. Budget

Everyone should create a budget.  If you are not sure how or just not good with money, many businesses such as H&R Block, offer free financial consulting to help you put a budget together.  Knowing where you are spending your money is by far the best way to save.  In most cases, people have no idea where their money is really going and once they see it on paper, not only are they surprised but eager to change their spending habits.

8. Plan

Planning is a great way to save.  Before you go to the grocery store, make a list and stick with it.  If considering a vacation, plan everything.  Heading out with no set direction will certainly lead you to impulsive spending.

9. Buy in Bulk

It is true that warehouse shopping can save a lot of money.  Even if you have a small family, you can always split large quantities.  The price of items in bulk is generally a great bargain.  If you are single, you might go in with friends or family on bulk items.

10. Allowance

Do not forget to give yourself an allowance for things you enjoy.  Even if on a tight budget, buy something that you enjoy, which could be as simple as buying a new shirt or grabbing lunch at your favorite café.  If you do not allow yourself this small “splurge”, you could find yourself in the same position as if dieting.  Total deprivation leads to overindulgence.

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