Part 4: Lies, damned lies and well-intentioned advice.

Here is a quick extra part for you today, I want to end the week with a word of warning for beginners to Internet marketing and a reminder to those who have been at it for a while:

Don’t believe everything that you hear.

Internet marketing should be a relatively easy pursuit, but it is, in reality, made much more complex by the secrecy that surrounds a lot of what goes on.

* People like me are secretive about the websites we have – because we fear that others may copy our ideas.

* A lot of the time people are secretive about their real earnings – either because they aren’t making nearly as much as they like others to think, or because they don’t like to brag.

* Successful people are often secretive about their exact methods – often because they don’t want to jeopardize their forthcoming ebook launch.

* But most of all, the search engines are ultra secretive about everything. They don’t want us to know how they rank sites. They don’t want us to work out what their algorithms are. They are not above issuing false information to muddy the waters.

The search engines know only too well that if they were to be open and transparent, everyone would game the system and then their search results would be useless.

All this has meant that an industry has grown up of people who would offer their opinions as if they were secret nuggets of truth.

The purveyors of half-truths, honest misunderstandings and outright lies do so for a variety of reasons.

* Some want to be admired by others.

* Some are desperate for attention.

* Some are malicious.

* Some believe they are helping others.

* Some want to make money.

All that matters is that as far as much of what you read or hear about Internet marketing and the search engines is concerned, take it with a pinch and a half of salt.

Be very careful whose advice you follow and wherever possible, check things out for yourself.

And remember – if it sounds too easy, it probably is.

So should you listen to me?

In this course I will do my very best to tell you about things that I know are true. If I’m not sure, I’ll say so. And wherever possible I will try to check things out for myself.

But I’m not infallible and I can just as easily pass on a half truth or a misunderstanding as anyone else. I will try to avoid as many of the outright lies as I can though.

No comments »

Part 3: It’s all in the name.

This installment of the Foolproof, No-Nonsense, Kickstart Guide to Making Money Online is more of a show and tell than an article.

Our subject is ‘How to buy a domain’ and rather than write a whole lot of words that won’t mean anything to many people, I’ve made a short video that shows me buying a domain that will ultimately be used as the online home of this course.

Please watch the video at http://www.keywordlsispy.com/imkickstart/video1/ (that’s a temporary address until the course has its own home.)

Selecting and buying the perfect domain name is really important. It is a step that many people rush over, but that can be a big mistake. Take your time and follow the sensible guidelines that are detailed here and you’ll end up with a domain name that will work for you for years to come.

* It is almost always best to buy a .com domain. Sometimes you’ll find that the perfect domain is available only as a .info or a .tv or some other suffix type. Don’t be tempted. The search engines may well rank sites that are .org or .info, but do any Google search and you’ll find that the top ten – even the top 100 listings are massively dominated by .coms.

* Try to get a domain that is as short as possible. Under 25 characters is good – but under 15 is much better.

* Wherever possible incorporate your primary keyword or your brand name into your domain.

* If the domain you are interested in isn’t available, try separating the words in it with hyphens (dashes). So, if internetmarketing.com has gone, check out internet-marketing.com. However, be aware that you could end up violating someone’s trade name if they have already built a site with the non-hyphenated domain. In that case, it is better to find something you can make uniquely your own.

* Avoid using company names like the plague. You MAY be able to find a great-sounding domain that contains the word Google, or Ebay, but don’t be surprised if you hear from their lawyers soon after you buy it.

* When you find the perfect domain, register it for a minimum of two years. The search engines have hinted that they look out for domains that are only bought for one year at a time and downgrade them as a result. Whether that is true, or misinformation I don’t know, but the extra year is a small price to pay.

* Above all – don’t delay! Even if you just register your own name, grab yourself a domain today!

I’ve written a small php script that can help you brainstorm a few domain name ideas – head on over to http://www.keywordlsispy.com/domain/ and enter your keyword.

Hopefully the subject of buying domains is clear now, but if you have any questions at all, please let me know.

No comments »

Part 2: Before you do anything else.

Everyone tells you that to succeed in Internet marketing you have to take action. You have to get out there and do stuff.

That’s where so many people fail.

You see, doing stuff is all well and good, but what if it is the wrong stuff? What if you spend all your time and a fair chunk of your money doing things, taking action and being dynamic in all the wrong places and directions?

It happens all the time.

There is a time and a place for taking action – or even taking massive action as some folks like to preach – but right now isn’t it. It isn’t even a matter of having to learn to walk before you can run. Running is a logical progression from walking but the transition from blearily looking around to walking isn’t so clear cut. First you have to learn how to open your eyes.

If you’ve been reading newsletters like Kickstart for more than five minutes, or have visited any one of the hundreds of forums or websites devoted to Internet marketing, you’ll have come across the word ‘niche’.

It is a French word that literally means a recess in a wall – a pigeonhole.

Most Americans pronounce it ‘nitch’ and pretty much everyone else pronounces it ‘neesh’.

Aside: it is odd that folks from the US ‘Americanize’ niche, but often Frenchify the word herb to ‘erb’, unlike the rest of us English speakers who pronounce the ‘h’. But I digress.

Before you can buy a domain, build a website, set up a blog, do your keyword research, write articles or any of the other things you will ultimately need to take action on, you have to know what your particular pigeonhole is going to be.

By that, I mean that you can’t just pick any old topic – your niche has to be more tightly focused than that as you’ll see shortly.

So today we are going to talk about finding your niche.

When I started out online, the experts of the day all said the same thing: find your passion and create a website about it.

The idea was that if you are passionate about model railways, you will be able to create a website that will appeal to other model railway enthusiasts. If you live and breathe collecting seashells, that’s your niche – other seashell fanatics will flock to your website.

They said that passion for a subject would give you a head start in terms of knowing the things to write about, would give your writing credibility, and most importantly, would keep you interested when your Internet marketing project became difficult.

“Everyone,” they said, “has a passion for something.”

I didn’t. I wracked my brains but there were no areas of expertise that I felt passionate enough about to want to write webpages on. At least, none that would fall into the classification of a niche. My ‘passion’ if you could call it that, was business – according to the experts, far too broad a subject to qualify as niche.

It seemed to me then – and it seems to me even more now – that the only definition of niche that really matters is that you can make money from it.

So how do you go about finding a niche that you can profit from?

We’ll get to that in a lot more detail in later articles in this series, but for now let’s take an overview.

This is my 7-point checklist for things a potentially successful niche topic should have:

* People seeking answers to specific questions

* People already making money in it

* Not too much competition for you

* Easily available content for your website

* People willing to spend money

* A narrow market that you can dominate

* It requires several words to describe

You may not need to satisfy all seven, but the more you can tick off the better your chances of success.

Are you ready for some examples?

‘Health’ is a big topic, but it is not a niche. When people search for ‘health’ they are not looking for answers to a specific question.

‘How to improve my dog’s health’ is a niche. Anyone who searches for a website with a phrase like that wants to know the answer – and is likely to be happy to pay for it.

‘Acne’ is a topic.

‘How to cure back acne in adults’ is a niche. And a potentially very profitable one at that!

‘Gardening’ is a topic.

‘How to grow soft fruit’ is a niche.

‘Recipes’ is a topic.

‘Recipes for type 2 diabetics’ is a niche.

‘Time Management’ is a topic (yes, I made the mistake of targeting a broad topic when I wrote my book), but ‘time management for teachers’ is a niche. One of many possibilities!

In later installments of The Foolproof, No-Nonsense, Kickstart Guide to Making Money Online’ we’ll look at how you can determine if your niche satisfies my 7-point checklist, but for now, remember that it is focus we are looking for – a narrow target market that needs the answers you can provide and is prepared to pay good money for that.

Finding your niche is the beginning of everything you do online. Without a clearly defined niche you are lost without a map. Pretty soon, finding niches that you can profit from will become second nature to you and you’ll be able to spot them from a mile away.

No comments »