published Thursday, September 2nd, 2010 at 12:24 pm by Don
The beginning of starting a new business requires that you plan properly. That includes market research. Don’t even think about jumping into a new business without doing the proper research.
I’ve created a short video presentation to show how to go about brainstorming and finding good market niches.
I should preface the video by adding that you don’t need to select a niche that includes a topic that you are an expert in. It’s not that difficult to learn enough about the topic to appear knowledgeable and as an authority on the topic. There are some quick and easy techniques to accomplish that.
You should, however, select a niche that you have some previous knowledge in, are interested in, or have a desire to learn more about it. From my experience, it’s much easier to focus on a topic of interest, and to spend the time necessary to become an authority on the topic.
With that said, go ahead and watch the video, now.
published Thursday, August 26th, 2010 at 11:57 am by Don
There are a few tools that I recommend for the serious affiliate marketing entrepreneur. You can build and grow a business without ever using these tools, but I’ve found them to be time savers and very valuable to me. I have them saved on my desktop so I can access them with regularity.
p.s. I earn an affiliate commission if you purchase them through my link, but I recommend them because they are great products and I use them all the time.
MicroNicheFinder – If you are looking for good keywords to target in your article marketing efforts, MicroNicheFinder is a great program. Everything that this program does can be done for free using Google’s keyword tool and search engine, however, MicroNicheFinder is many, many times faster. I can accomplish in a few minutes what takes me hours without using the software.
Another cool feature of MicroNicheFinder is that it tells you if the keyword is available as a domain name. If you are setting up multiple keyword targeted websites, this is a huge time saver.
TheBestSpinner – I’m a strong advocate of unique, quality content. Spinning articles seems to go against my philosophy, but there is a time and place for spun articles if done right. TheBestSpinner has features that allow you to spin articles in a very customized manner so the result doesn’t appear as spun content.
published Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 at 11:28 am by Don
I take advantage of all the free tools and resources that I can find – as long as they are useful. There are so many free programs that work very similar to premium software that we are all familiar with and many are using.
Free Downloadable Programs
Here is a list of programs that have been invaluable to me (in no particular order). These are tools that I have saved on my desktop for quick and easy access.
KompoZer – An HTML editor that uses WYSIWYG. It used to be Nvu – many know it by that name. I’m sure that DreamWeaver and FrontPage are much more robust, but KompoZer is everything that I’ve ever needed for my purposes.
FileZilla – This program has been unfailing for me. I have no reason to try any other programs.
OpenOffice – A great substitute for Microsoft’s office suite. It’s a very robust suite of programs that will do most everything that MS Office does. In fact, it even opens MS programs. The OpenOffice wordprocessor is a great tool for creating ebooks, as it allows you to save your document as a pdf.
7-Zip – My choice for unzipping .zip files. It’s free, it’s reliable, and it’s simple to use.
Gimp – Occasionally I find the need to use a photo editing program. Gimp has been my first choice. I doubt that Gimp does everything that Photoshop does, but it has all the functionality that I’ve ever needed.
Jing – This is a great little program but limited program for creating video screen recordings. When I say limited, I mean that your video can’t be more than 5 minutes in length, and you can’t upload it to places like YouTube, unless you pay for the premium version. I’m using the free version for many of the videos that are embedded on this blog.
published Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 at 9:48 am by Don
Building an internet marketing business requires the use of some tools of the trade. I’ve found many useful tools that are free software downloads. In each case, there is a premium version that is popular and in many cases better, but I tend to go with the free version if it works acceptably well.
There are three business tools that you will have to spend some money on if you want to run an affiliate marketing business. I have yet to discover a free way to work around these.
Domain Name
Hosting Account
Autoresponder
Some might argue that these are not essential. Yes, you can market on the internet without ever purchasing these products and services, but in my opinion, they are essential business tools.
There are other tools and services that I have purchased and use on a regular basis. I simply put this list together as a bare minimum that one would expect to have to spend in order to run a legitimate business.
I purchase most of my domain names through DomainCheapster.com. This is a GoDaddy reseller who has elected to pass on his savings to anyone who purchases through his account. A domain name is $8.99 per year on Domain Cheapster. One thing I like about purchasing through this account is that when you purchase at least 6 domains at the same time, you get private registration for free.
There are many good hosting companies, but I use HostGator. They have cpanel so it’s quick and easy to set up WordPress. I recommend starting off with their “Baby” plan which is their cheapest plan that allows unlimited domains for $7.95 per month.
For my autoresponder service, I use Aweber Autoresponders exclusively. I’ve never used any others, simply because I started with Aweber and have never had any reason to switch. Aweber is $1 for the first month and $19 per month after that.
Just as a disclaimer, I receive affiliate commissions if you purchase through my HostGator or Aweber links. Regardless of that, these are the services that I use and I’m have been pleased with them, so they are the services that I recommend.
published Friday, August 20th, 2010 at 4:19 am by Don
It doesn’t make any difference what type of internet business you are want to build. For any of them, the right buyers list makes all the difference. Do you want to sell the products that you’ve selected? You will need a targeted buyers list that is already interested in your niche market and is fully prepared to buy the products in that niche at your recommendation.
Are you planning to get involved in affiliate marketing? The best way to succeed is to create a buyers list that will respond to your promotional emails at a whim.
There is a right way and there is wrong way to build a high quality, hyper-responsive buyers list. There are some rules to follow when building your autoresponder list. The first rule is to recognize that more is not necessarily better. Finding more buyers takes time and money. If those buyers have no interest in what you are selling and if they aren’t ready to pull out their checkbooks on your recommendations, then that big ol’ list you’ve built won’t do you a whole lot of good. You spend a lot of time and money to put it together, but your return is minimal at best.
It’s true when many marketing gurus tell us the money is in the list. Many of them believe that bigger really is better. But it isn’t. Make a note of how much time it could take to create one of those mega-lists vs. compiling a smaller list of high quality, hyper-responsive buyers. It might even take about the same amount of time to create your list, right? However, the return on your big list may only run about 1%, while your high quality list might convert at 10% or more.
