Niche Marketing: Newbie Asks “Is ‘Dogs’ A Good Niche?”

Choosing a Marketing Niche Without Keyword Research is a Huge Mistake

Here’s a situation that is all too common with newcomers to the internet marketing world. But in the following instance, the question was being asked of me by an individual that claims to have a web development business! I don’t know about you, but if I had hired this company to help develop my website’s online presence, and I became aware that the owner was asking a question like this one, well … his company wouldn’t be involved with my website anymore!

I digress, so back to the subject at hand. Here is a very common situation that arises AFTER a new internet marketer jumps on the band wagon. Let me share the gist of what this individual was asking me:

Hi: I am new to the affiliate marketing business. I presently own and operate a small web development company. We recently developed a website targeted to people who are interested in and/or related to all areas relating to dogs. They could be dog owners, breeders, groomers, trainers, etc.

Here is my question: Is “dogs” a good niche?

Is “Dogs” a Good Niche?

Sigh … OK, so this individual has already purchased a domain name; has started to build out a site around the HUGE category of dogs; has probably taken time to write content; taken time to place the content and other information onto this new site … but he’s asking NOW “is ‘dogs’ a good niche”??

Did he put the cart before the horse? Yes, most definitely. My suggestion to him was to STOP what they were doing right now and do some keyword research using a tool like Wordtracker or the Google Keyword Tool.

I told him that the niche pertaining to dogs was huge! (But “dogs” is not what you’d call a niche. Poodles would be a niche, or puppy training would be a niche.) I advised “dogs” was way too broad for them to achieve any online marketing success. That they needed to narrow it down!

I told him I’d make a 200% wager that they hadn’t done any keyword research, based on the question. I told him if they expected to attract targeted traffic, then keyword research was a must.

In addition, I advised that not only would the keyword research help them discover smaller niches within the broad category of dogs, they’d also get a grasp on what people were REALLY typing into the search engines to find out information about dogs.

If you know what people are searching for, then you’ll know what content topics to write about in order to try and grab some of that traffic via your organic search engine rankings!

As an example of what I am talking about, I entered “dogs” into Wordtracker, set it to give me the top 100 results, and here’s an example of those results.

Here’s the top ten (actual term being used with projected 24 hour searches made in the USA):

1. dogs 36,052
2. dogsrule.com 7,241
3. who let the dogs out 1,417
4. funny dogs 1,130
5. dogs for sale 1,058
6. hot dogs 831
7. cute dogs 798
8. boxer dogs 753
9. small dogs 693
10. mummy dogs 622

All the way down to:

93. herbs for dogs 123
94. teacup dogs 122
95. seizures in dogs 120
96. english bull dogs 120; and lastly …
100. havanese dogs 115

So, the moral of this story is to do your keyword research before you even purchase a domain name! You have to know the niche(s) you will be targeting within the broad category you’ve chosen.

Plus, you must get an idea of what people are searching for! If you build out a website that contains information that only 2 people a day are interested in, it’s going to be terribly difficult to make any money as an online marketer!

Don’t want to do keyword research yourself? No problem.
I provide custom keyword research reports.
I’ll tailor the report to the niche and your internet marketing goals.

ClickBank Has Improved & Updated Their Website

Now it’s Even Easier to Learn How to Promote or Sell Digital Products

What an improvement! I’m a ClickBank vendor and an affiliate, and it’s great to see that they have finally made some significant changes to the navigation and “how-to” pages on their website. This is their first phase of making the website more attractive and easier to understand for new clients.

I can personally testify that when I was trying to set up my vendor account to sell my first digital eBook, I was stumped. Their instructions on how to set up accounts and their FAQ’s weren’t of much help to me, thusly the whole process became very user UN-friendly (as many other people obviously thought, too).

The updated vendor and affiliate pages show beginners how to work with ClickBank. They’ve even added in video tutorials – thank you!

So, if you’ve been curious about what ClickBank is all about, and/or would like to start making money online by selling your own digital product or promoting other people’s digital products on your website or blog, head on over and check them out.

I can also recommend you visit a forum that is completely devoted to promoting and selling on ClickBank, and that’s where I got all my “Help me!” questions politely answered when I was stuck and couldn’t even figure out how to get through the vendor sign-up process – ClickBankSuccessForum.

Beware Of SEO Secrets That Aren’t “Secrets” At All!

Please Know Who You are Buying Teaching Materials From

This post is for all you newbie online marketers and maybe not so newbie, too! Because I have such a fondness of helping people new to online marketing get up-and-going and pointed in the right direction, I thought the subject of today’s post would be a good one, and should be addressed! I hope my words are taken as a helpful warning, and that you will learn a simple, but valuable tip that you might not have thought about doing.

This post is prompted by an offer I received in my email inbox this morning. Wowee! A free eBook that was guaranteed to be chock full of “SEO secrets” and “killer tactics” that would propel anyone’s website to the top of Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. And that “1000’s of hits” would start coming into your site and you could do all this for free.

You think I didn’t want to get that free eBook to check it out? I sure did download it (still waking up a bit and had a little time available this morning to review it) … and EGADS!

Sigh … just what I anticipated. This was a piece of junk! The SEO that was discussed in this so-called “killer SEO secrets” eBook was so bad, that I can’t say anything good about it, except that there was other non-SEO information in it that wasn’t too off the mark.

Of course, sprinkled all throughout the eBook were hyperlinks to the writer’s super-duper $80.00 SEO product’s sales page. That’s OK … I have no problem with a free eBook having other promotional information in it. That is a very ethical and accepted marketing tactic.

But what makes me sick, is what the information told you to do to supposedly search engine optimize your website to achieve thousands of hits each day! Even the most basic of optimization best practices were wrong! But how would a trusting newbie online marketer know?? And herein lies the vulnerability people like this guy take advantage of!

How about a few examples of what got me ticked off as I read?

• No mention of the need to do keyword research to see what people looking for your product or services are actually using as search queries. It instructed you to sit down and make a list of terms you thought people would type in.
• No mention of the length parameters that are a best practice for the Title tag and Description meta tag.
• Completely horrible ERRONEOUS information given as how to properly write the Title tag. As a matter of fact, this author encouraged you to add your top keywords at the end of the title, separated by commas!
• And the list of wrong, wrong terrible “how-tos” goes on and on ad nauseam …

“So”, I said to myself … “just who is this guy, and what can I find online about him?”

Here’s the tip I want to give all of you. Unfortunately, not everyone selling a “great killer super-duper this is all you will ever need” SEO product (or whatever else kind of online marketing product) is 100% trustworthy. I mean, if you or I are brand new to learning something, and we’ve no one to personally recommend a worthwhile product or service to spend our hard earned money on …. we are somewhat gullible and might find ourselves being taken advantage of … HYPED, SCAMMED or whatever term you wish to use.

Perform an Online Search on the Person’s Name & the Product’s Name!!!

I suggest you first type in the person’s name, surrounded by quotations marks – remember quotation marks around your search term returns much more specific results. Such as “Joe Smith”.

Boy, when I entered this guy’s name into Google, you know what? This is the honest-to-goodness truth! There were nothing but listings of articles that were calling this guy, his eBook AND his SEO product exactly what I thought it all was … worthless AND full of information that was wrong! One title read: “(Name Here) Sucks!” (sorry, but that is the word that was used!). Now … other organic listings went on with comments such as “he is a total rip-off artist; his $80.00 SEO program is nothing but a scam”. You get the idea.

These articles were not the result of a few disgruntled customers. No – it was clear his product was a rip-off because there were no positive reviews. I didn’t even bother to Google the product – why waste my time? I certainly needed no more confirmation of my suspicions!

Moral of This Post …

Please always check out the person/group/product/services you are thinking of purchasing! I don’t know of anything that will magically nor instantly catapult your new online marketing website into instant top rankings for the most searched keywords bringing you instant hoards of visitor traffic!

Yes, there are things that can certainly help cut your learning curve. Yes, there are products and software that can be a huge asset to getting your website pointed in the right direction.

I’m just saying … buyer beware of so-called expert SEO guru’s and the like. Investigate. Do a quick FREE search engine background check first!

How about a shameless plug for my free (yes – free) SEO eBook that does provide ethical “best practice” suggestions to help you properly optimize your website. And guess what? I’m not plugging any product in it. I wrote it to help newbies or those of you who are still wondering why your website is lost in the rankings. Get a copy today: The SEO Edge.

The Best of Intentions – Will Your Business Succeed Online?

Do You Really Know What it Will Take for Your Website to Be an Online Success?

Today I want to write about the “best of intentions” when it comes to having a website to promote your services or products. Do you have high hopes that once you have a well-designed, pleasing to the eye website, and you’ve placed some decent content on it, that you can kick back and wait for visitors to start flocking to your website’s door?

Probably so. From my professional perspective and experience, I have found this mindset to be more the norm, than the exception.

I hate to say it, but the “build a website and they will come” attitude is quite prevalent. As a matter of fact I have to keep reminding myself that very intelligent business men and women, who can do a great job out in the real world selling their services and products, usually haven’t a clue as to what makes a money-making website tick!

I guess I still kind of take it for granted that since there is so much information on the internet nowadays about how to have a “successful website” … well I figure people just Google and educate themselves on what they need to do to make their websites WORK for them.

This assumption is wrong! And I am not putting down my clients, nor anyone else, in regard to this matter. After all, I haven’t a clue about what it takes to be a successful realtor as example, and I’d have to do a lot of studying to learn all the ins and outs. I just couldn’t jump in head first and announce to the world that after reading a book about selling real estate, now I was knowledgeable on how to really be successful at doing that! Nope … I’d probably be a flop and wonder why I was struggling at getting listings or selling properties.

So, why shouldn’t this scenario hold true for the majority of people who have a website for “making money” purposes? How many people really know what it will take for them to get that site positioned into a lean, mean marketing machine? Very few, unfortunately. But those few are normally the ones who dive in to study and research what they have to do to really have a solid website that works effectively at promoting them AND bringing in revenue. And they are usually the ones who properly implement what they’ve learned and ultimately become successful.

With all due respect I have to say that my clients “best of intentions” attitude really works in my favor. It means that they need my help for more than just SEO attention. They need my online marketing success strategies, too.

For a full listing of all the professional services I offer, please visit my Home page and refer to the side menu.

OK … so What Does it Take to Have a Successful Website?

In my professional capacity, I really and truly try to arm every client with the core internet marketing knowledge they need along with solid basic SEO knowledge. Each client will have a slightly different blend of tactics and techniques that will get them to their end result. But for each website owner, that end result is the same … the need to attract targeted visitors to their site, and to make sales of one sort of another.

To this end, these are the basic concepts I discuss with them:

• That building a website is only one small aspect of a successful web presence.
• That to be successful, they need a website marketing plan.
• That they must be prepared to invest time and/or money in SEO implementation and techniques.
• That the more actively involved they are in the website marketing process, the greater the results they will achieve.
• That they must keep their site up-to-date (i.e. content is added on a regular basis; links are up-to-date, etc.).
• They ought to think about starting a blog (only if they can handle the demands of adding lots of quality content in addition to their website).
• They should participate in forums that are relevant to their niche.
• They need to seek links from suppliers, and other related sites to their niche that will bring value of one sort or another to their visitors.
• They need to always keep an eye on the competition.
• They’ve got to remain flexible and keep adjusting to trends in their industry.
• They should keep an eye open for new marketing angles.
• And the list goes on …

Patience is a Virtue

As my dear Grandma Sadie used to say “Patience is a virtue”. And yes – a successful website normally takes a bit of time to evolve! A swarm of visitor traffic isn’t going to come running through the gates the moment the site is launched. However, a client’s hard work and persistence combined with ethical and expert SEO advice and marketing assistance will usually pay off.

The bottom line is this … if you see yourself as a web owner with the “best of intentions” but with a site that is under-performing, the reason is normally laying right under your nose. Usually that reason is you have no real idea of how to go about online marketing; your site is devoid of properly implemented search engine optimization; your site lacks enough quality content; and most times your site is also suffering from one or more technical issues. All combined, these issues work together to put the kibosh on high rankings, site visitors and sales.

So … if you recognize yourself here, then start putting into practice any or all of the to-dos I mentioned above. You’ve got to start somewhere to make a positive change. And even tackling just one of the ideas above is better than sitting back and doing nothing!