The basic concept of niche marketing is very simple. The most common mistakes those who aren’t successful with it usually make are:

- over-analyzing keywords
- under-analyzing keywords
- not giving it a solid chance

I made those same mistakes when I started, but eventually figured out some things, like:

- Finding a profitable market (different than finding keywords) is crucial! The value of one qualified lead to a real estate agent is worth thousands. The value of one qualified lead to a $10 product salesman is worth much less.

- Over-analyzing keywords is a time waster!!! Come up with a good system for competition analysis, use it and move on.

- Ignoring keyword research completely is like walking in the dark. You might get lucky, but you’ll probably fall down the stairs.

- It often takes multiple attempts in multiple markets to succeed. If you target one market and have no success that doesn’t mean you are doing things wrong. Competition and value can easily vary drastically from one niche to another. Some niches are just difficult to target with niche marketing, while others are very easy.

So how can you be a successful niche marketer?

1. Find a profitable market. It is VERY important that the market you choose has alot of money in it, but it’s not crucial what particular market it is you choose. Just make sure there is money in the market. Find average Adwords CPC numbers for the value of a market. I use [removed] for this as well… ok I use [removed] for everything.

2. Generate a list of keywords that are related to that market. Guess what I use to do that?

3. Take that list of keywords and get rid of all of them that just don’t make sense to target… keywords that people search for, which an article explaining something is obviously not what they’re looking for. And also get rid of all keywords in your list that are too competitive (you can use… you guess it, HotNicheSpy for that)

4. Get an article written that targets each keyword. So if you have 8 keywords, have 8 articles written. Get the articles up on your website.

5. Now do some basic SEO. Level 1, 2 and sometimes 3 is all that is usually required. These long-tail keywords are typically very easy to rank for!

6. Once you get one site up, go on to the next! They will not all succeed! Accept that and never rely on one particular site to perform. As the number of niche sites you own rises, so will your profits!

That’s it in a nutshell. Using this very simple “formula” I’ve made thousands of dollars over the years and you can too.

It’s one of those things that when you hear it you probably think to yourself “duh, that’s common sense.” But do you REALLY think of it? Let me give you an example… one that I hit on in my Tweet Adder Review. Twitter is widely known to be a very powerful networking tool and even a strong source of direct traffic if used correctly. Yet if you go to various internet marketing forums you will read other IMers talking about how they don’t get much use out of twitter. Why? Because most of those people are using it to target the Internet Marketing niche without an established presence and it’s just too saturated for them to develop any kind of valuable presence. If those same people started using it in other niches they will quickly see why people love Twitter so much.

That is only one example. I’m not just talking about the Internet Marketing niche or twitter… or even social media. I’m talking about a variation in the effectiveness of many different things in many different niches. Adsense can very well make you $500 off of 5,000 visitors in one niche and make you $5 off of 5,000 visitors in another niche. Developing a relevant and useful ebook and/or report can convert into a huge list and huge profit in some niches and little to none of other niches. Promoting affiliate offers can earn you thousands, even millions, in some niches and nothing others…

My point is this: NEVER judge something by the results you see after only trying it with one or even a handful of niches. This really goes back to diversifying, getting out of your comfort zone and trying new things. It also goes back to testing! Split testing website pages… testing different monetization models etc. can go a long way.

One of my biggest “pet peeves” is reading a blog post or other commentary by an “expert” who says “this” doesn’t work because I tried it on “this” website and didn’t get any results. Have an open mind… don’t get frustrated when something fails! Give everything a solid chance and don’t give up if it fails. If you give something a good, solid, well-implemented shot and it didn’t work, then try it again on the next niche you target.

Whatever you do, don’t pass on something valuable just because it didn’t work for you in one niche. If people are talking about it favorably (whether it be a new social network, a new monetization model, or something else) there is probably good reason for that.

Although ERC’s launch went well and I got a good deal of positive feedback, I had a few people complain about the niche research part of the report. Those complaints are what planted the seed for this post.

I’m obviously not going to type out the entire niche research section of the report, but I will tell you it basically consists of brainstorming every niche that you have at least some knowledge and/or passion in and using a simple process to cut it down to one.

So why do I go after niches like this and limit myself? Because those are the niches that I have a better chance at breaking through with! If you can earn people’s trust, whether we’re talking about a review site a blog or anything else, you need to connect with the user in some way! Showing real knowledge is one way and showing true passion is another!

But that’s not the only reason. There is one more reason to go after niches that you have knowledge and/or passion in and that is because you are MUCH more likely to keep going with the site when faced with failure. Think about it, if you’re plugging away spending alot of time working on a new site that is targeting a niche that you know nothing about and care even less about only to realize it isn’t making you a penny, what are you going to do? Most people will quit. Now think about the same situation, but this time it’s a niche that you REALLY care about! Would you quit? I know I wouldn’t.

Besides my review site, which I based “ERC” off of, a prime example is my blog on Geocaching. Although I’ve had some pretty good success as far as SEO and traffic with the blog, it’s just not a niche that is real profitable. I’ve had a few good months selling GPS units but most months earn me a measly $50. But I don’t quit because I love the hobby and I love connecting with others. I have NO DOUBT that one day that site will pay off in a big way. Until then I’m perfectly fine writing a new blog post every week or so and discussing a hobby I truly enjoy.

Another excellent example is my Germany Tourism site, which has earned me nearly $10,000 this year alone. I started that site when I was stationed in Germany in the Army. I always loved the German culture and with my wife being German and my son having duel American/German citizenship I naturally have a close link to Germany and its culture. Leveraging that passion I’ve turned my site into an authority site in the niche.

This Internet Marketing blog is yet another example. I have great deal of knowledge and passion in Internet Marketing, which translates into trust with my readers. I could go on and on. A good majority of my websites are targeting niches I either have alot of passion for or I have at least some knowledge in.

With all of that being said, there is still money in other niches. I have made alot of money in niches that I know little about, but I’ve been doing this for 6 years and I’ve learned alot of different ways to make things work. That’s not to say someone with less experience can’t do it, but they would have much more success targeting those niches that I refer to above.

So if you’ve had little to no success targeting niches that you have little to no knowledge in try targeting a niche that you have at least some knowledge and/or passion in. I bet you’ll see much better results. =) (alternatively, you could have someone else do your niche selection for you! Keep an eye out for an offer I’m sending out next week, Tuesday, Dec. 7th)

-late addition- To be clear, I’m not in any way saying we should always limit ourselves to ONLY niches we have knowledge/passion in! I’m simply saying if you’re NOT targeting those niches you SHOULD be and if you haven’t found success targeting niches outside of those you should get started on those ASAP.

There should be more thought put into it than that.

There are two primary things to think about when choosing a niche:

1. Is the niche in a market that has an extremely high individual sale/transaction dollar amount? Even saturated niches can be profitable when one adsense click equals a few dollars or one affiliate sale equals $100 (for example.) The more money you made per click/sale the less traffic you need in order to make money. So although the niche may be saturated, each click/sale is worth MUCH more than if you were targeting a low paying niche with less saturation.

Side note: Unless you are a mega expert or have a great deal of passion for the niche, you should NEVER target a highly saturated niche that has a low individual sale/transaction dollar amount. This does happen even with little to no marketers targeting it.)

2. Is the niche in a market that has little competition, yet large enough search volume to generate enough low dollar sales to equal a solid return of your time and monetary investment. These are often the “perfect” niches because they are ignored by so many marketers who pass them off as “not profitable.” You may only $0.50 per adsense click… $10 or $15 per affiliate sale, but when your site holds top 10 spots for those keywords (with little effort since the competition is weak) those small clicks/sales add up quick!

My Mortgage site is a good example of #1 and the review site I mentioned the other day is a great example of #2. (I’m actually working on a small report laying out the exact process, stats etc. of that review site, which I’ll be releasing sometime in the next couple weeks so stay tuned for that.)

Obviously there are a few more things you need to look at in both cases, but my intentions of this post were to attempt to shine some light on “niche saturation” since many people don’t seem to understand the pros and cons of the whole issue.

So to sum it all up, highly saturated niches CAN very well be highly profitable even if you never conquer the top 10 rankings of Google for those keywords. And at the same time, lower-paying, less saturated niches can also be extremely profitable because they are ignored by so many marketers.

So watch the video below, where I reveal this niche and show you exactly how I did it!

As shown in the Video, I leveraged “Hot Niche Spy” by doing a Keywords & Competition Search for the very general word “restoration.” I then scrolled down and picked out the keywords with high CPC’s then searched for each keyword individually to see how strong the competition is. It’s THAT easy!

I use HNS to find SUPER Profitable niches just like this all the time. I also find and register keyword rich domains for those niches, find and target long-tail keywords, find and target UNTAPPED keywords, check rankings, find hot products in the niche and much more!

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This tool is becoming very popular in the Internet Marketing Community, but I am VERY proud to say that I’m actually making more money as a Niche Marketer (by using it for what it’s for) than I am selling it, which is impressive to me considering it is selling very well!

In the interview (below) I answer some of the most asked and vital questions on the subject. To keep the “flow” correct and so it all makes sense, I’ve just pasted the entire email below for you to read:

(Beginning of Interview)
Jonathan: I decided to conduct a few interviews with some very savvy marketers and send you the information they’ve provided. I think it’s a great idea to read the perspective of other successful people… My first choice was an easy one — Josh Spaulding. He’s a very successful article marketer and the creator of some powerful tools for anyone looking to make a living online.

I asked him some questions about how he researches new niches to target, and his answers are FULL of awesome information.

Here’s the full text of the interview:

Q: What is the first thing you look at when you consider targeting a new niche?

A: How much money is in the overall market. I learned early in my Internet Marketing career that not all niches are equal. A website in the “Football” niche (for example) isn’t going to profit nearly as much as a website in the “lasik” niche.

Just 20 unique visitors in one niche could only be worth $0.10 while 20 visitors in another niche could very well be worth $10.00. So for some niches you have to work 10 times harder to earn the same amount of money.

It’s also important to see what products (if any) are available to promote as an affiliate. Some niches are profitable, but have little to no products to promote. With that being said, determining a profitable market is the first thing I look at when considering a niche and also one of the absolute most important factors of the whole process.

Q: How much importance do you place on using your keywords in your domain name?

A: For big, authoritative sites I don’t place too much importance on it. But when I’m creating smaller sites that target “long-tail” phrases I put a great deal of importance in it!

When you’re targeting long-tail phrases every little SEO bump counts and having your main keywords in the domain can really make a noticable difference.

Q: Do you use the Google Keyword Tool for your Keyword Research?

A: I use some of the data from the tool, but I don’t believe it’s a complete tool particularly because it provides limited results. Somewhere around 80% of all SE queries are unique, meaning they have never been searched for.

So I typically use Google’s data to give me my initial list of keywords. I then filter them with my own criteria and use what is left to get started.

Q: You mentioned you use your own criteria to filter the keywords, will you share?

A: Sure, I’m a firm believer in Occam’s Razor (keeping it simple), as I believe you are. I think most people who fail at niche marketing do so because they over analyze everything and try to find perfection.

But the fact is some sites will fail and some will succeed. With that being said my criteria for filtering keywords is very simple!

I filter them by search volume to start. The exact volume will vary depending on my goals, but for an average niche site I try not to go much higher than 3500 monthly searches.

With what is left I simply calculate the average toolbar PageRank of the top 10 competitors for each keyword. If that number is above 3 I throw it out. If it is 3 or below I keep it.

I then look at the competition for each keyword and do some common sense elimination based on what people are looking for and what sites are ranking.

The success rate varies from niche to niche, but overall I’ve had pretty good success using that process and it saves me LOADS of time.

Q: You had also mentioned that you feel the Google Keyword Tool is incomplete. Do you have other sources for finding keywords once you’ve selected a niche to target?

A: Yes, once I’ve used the keywords that passed my criteria I start submitting articles and writing pages that target keywords that I extract from Google Suggestions (the phrases Google recommends via a drop down menu when doing a search.) These are often extremely valuable and untapped phrases. I also dig into my competitors sites and will often target phrases that they are targeting as well.

Q: In order of importance, what would be your three top tips for a person who has not yet found much success with Niche Marketing, but is determined to?

A:
1. Understand that everyone fails and that those who react to failure positively are often the people who succeed in the end. This isn’t specific to niche marketing, but I feel it’s so important that it should always be the #1 tip no matter what the question.

2. Always remember that the more money that is spent in a niche, the less traffic you need to make considerable profits.

3. Automate whenever possible! I think you’re the King of automating Internet Marketing processes, Jon. So I think you’ll agree, if something can be done quicker and/or easier then it needs to be!

Make smart investments and don’t spend too much time doing something that could be done much quicker and/or more efficiently.

Q: Is there anything out there that you use to automate these processes and make your niche marketing easier and more profitable?

A: For the longest time I paid a lot of money for multiple tools that did one or two things in the Niche Marketing process. But obviously I didn’t like spending all of that money.

[removed]

I use this tool to find profitable niches, filter keywords, extract untapped “Google Suggests” keywords, extract competitor keywords, do average PageRank and competition analysis, find keyword rich domain names that are available, check my rankings, Check internal PR & more.

So there you have it — some serious niche marketing advice from a Master at the trade, Josh Spaulding.

Here’s to your success Josh!

Jonathan Leger
(End of Interview)

One of those goals is to bring my Adsense income back up to where it was a couple years ago. At one point I was earning a few thousand dollars a month via Adsense. Since then I have shifted my business model to focus more on my Info-Product Success Formula, which in turn more than quadrupled my online income!

I’ll continue to work on new info-products and to increase that income as well, but just setting an hour or so aside each day can make a big difference in my adsense income, so I figure, why not? That’s more money in my pocket and that’s what it’s all about.

So let’s get into making more money with Adsense.

The first thing that you need to realize is that Adsense isn’t a business model. Adsense is a monetization model! A business model is a complete system for making money, like my Info-Product Success Formula (shameless plug, but excellent example.) A monetization model alone will make you no money.

With that being said, I obviously can’t go into each and every business model and tell you how to make each of them more profitable in this blog post. But I can give you a few Adsense tips that seem to be interchangeable. These may or may not apply to the Adsense business model you’ve adopted, but chances are they do.

1. Keyword research, keyword research, keyword research, keyword research! They say 90% of all searches are unique. Meaning the keywords people are getting from expensive keyword research tools only account for about 10% of the total keywords used by real people. What does that mean to you? Use tools so you know what is being searched for by those 10%, but also get to know your niche and use COMMON SENSE in figuring out what people in that niche are looking for! THEN, and only then, create a compelling title and write your articles and pages.

2. The more content the better! Never rely on only a few pieces of content to catch on. Some do, some don’t and even those that do aren’t always big money makers. You should alot a certain amount of time every single working day for content creation. In most cases, Adsense earns you more on big content sites, so the more content you have the better!

3. Check your ads relevancy often. The ads that Google decides to show aren’t always 100% relevant. The more relevant the ads, the more money in your pocket, so the less relevant the ads are, the LESS money in your pocket! Fortunately Google has something called “Section Targeting” that allows you to tell Google where you want the Adsense bot to really look at and also where you don’t want it to look.

4. Test with channels. Your site should have the same overall design and template for each page. And in most cases your ads should be showing in the same spots on each page of your site. Each of those ad spots should have a channel and you should be recording stats. If one spot earns next to nothing, get rid of it. You should only keep units that perform. Also record the earnings for each spot for a month. Then change the design of the ads around a little.

Test different backgrounds, borders and text colors. For each modification give it 30 days. Obviously after you’ve tried 3 or so variations stick with the one that performs the best. Generally you want the background of the ad to match the background of the page and the text to match the text of the page etc. but that isn’t always the case. Testing is the only way of knowing for sure!

5. Don’t mix Adsense with loads of Affiliate banners! In most cases adsense performs the best when it is the only monetization on the page. If you think affiliate offers will earn you more money you should test it. Run affiliate offers for a month, then Adsense for a month. If you think Adsense and Affiliate offers combined will earn you more, test that for a month. Whichever performs the best wins. But don’t do what 99% of all Adsense publishers do and just stick everything that you think looks good on the page just because. Ads should be placed because they earn you money, PERIOD!

If there is one thing that you took from this article it should be this: TEST! I know people hate hearing that because it requires work, but the fact is that I can’t sit here and tell you exactly what will work best on your site and no one else can either unless they test it.

So take the tips I provided above, combine them with testing and I guarantee your chances for more Adsense income will greatly increase.

photo credit: Peter Forret

As you know, Twitter is widely recognized as a powerful networking tool. It isn’t a direct traffic or sale generator in most cases, but as I explained the other day, Twitter could have direct sale/lead/traffic generation potential!

In that post I didn’t mention a current “case study” (I guess you could say) I’ve been doing with a Geocaching hobby blog of mine. A little while back I thought of a way in which I saw (in my head) Twitter as being a powerful traffic generator.

So I spent about an hour implementing it and so far I’ve accomplished the following directly from Twitter:

1. 69 unique visitors directly from Twitter (See screenshot below.)
2. An upcoming interview with the IndyStar (a very large Newspaper publication in Indianapolis.)
3. $20.75 in sales through the phpBayPro shop I have on the blog.
4. Found and got acquainted with a Geocaching shop owner who is going to set up a custom affiliate program just for me!
5. Received at least one blogroll link from another Twitter user, who geocaches and owns a geocaching blog!

None of that is extremely impressive until you consider the amount of time and effort I’ve put into that twitter account, which you can see at http://twitter.com/MadCacher.

Here’s what I did

I created about 10 random Tweets about Geocaching then I went to Twitter Search, did a search for “Geocaching” (without quotes) and for about 1 hour I added every person who mentioned Geocaching.

After that I just updated with questions every now and then… updated when I went out and found some geocaches etc. The traffic came mostly through the link in my bio… in other words I probably could have plugged my blog a bit more and drove more traffic! But I’m trying to build authority and trust in this niche, so I don’t plug my site too often.

As you can see, I only have 92 updates at the time of writing and each update takes about 20 seconds, so the time investment is very minimal, especially when it’s in a niche I love talking about.

I invested a total of about 90 minutes in that Twitter account. So, is 90 minutes worth 69 unique visitors, an interview with a big newspaper, which WILL indirectly drive much more traffic and exposure, $20 in sales (so far,) at least one sitewide link pointing to my blog and a custom affiliate program set up just for you? I know my answer!

Will this work in ANY niche? I seriously doubt it! Twitter users tend to be more technically inclined (Geocaching is a GPS game,) so if you go searching for people talking about vacuum cleaners you probably won’t get very good results.

BUT if you’re open minded about Twitter in general, I think you’ll find that it has far more benefits than just networking!

img credit: splorp

As you probably know, Internet Marketing strategies change frequently. Algorithms are updated, trends change, new tools come and old tools go etc. We simply can’t do things exactly the same way for years and years, not with niche marketing anyway!

For that reason, I’ve decided to share what tools I currently rely on to find, target and profit from niche marketing. First off, like I’ve said before, if you have the money to invest in it, I highly recommend FirePow simply because it cuts off 95% of your time and effort! But, not everyone has money to invest, so the following tools will help you start making money with niche marketing with a much smaller investment.

Finding a Profitable Market

SpyFu (Free) – This is what I use to find highly profitable markets. Type in a main market (mortgage, credit etc.) and see what the “Cost/Click” shows. If it starts at $1 or more, you have a profitable niche (usually.) That’s all I use this for! This is a PPC tool, so that doesn’t mean that’s what your adsense clicks are going to be… I just use it to see what advertisers are paying big money for, so I can get some of that big money.

Digging in and Finding Long-Tail Phrases

Google Keyword Tool (Free) – There are alot of paid keyword research tools out there, but they aren’t needed. For years I relied on the SEO Book keyword tool and although it’s still fairly accurate, it doesn’t compare to Google’s newly refined keyword tool. I’ve been using it over the past few months will great results. I try to stay in the 1,500-2,500 monthly search range for my long-tail phrases.

Competition Analysis

I don’t use a tool for this… I use a VERY simple technique to determine what phrases are worth competing for and what phrases aren’t. Here is my extremely easy keyword research technique.

Themes & Templates

Niche Adsense WP Themes & HTML Templates – I’ve been recommending these themes and templates for a LONG time because they WORK. They look almost identical, but one is for WordPress and the other is for static HTML sites. These are the themes and templates that bring in up to 30% CTR in some markets and a higher than average CTR in ALL markets. Small investment for huge returns! Use the wrong template/theme and you’ll get a low CTR, get a low CTR and you’re just wasting your time!

Promotion

Automatic Article Submitter – I promote my mini-sites almost entirely via Article Marketing, so it’s nearly a necessity to have an article submitter! I’ve been using Article Post Robot for a few years now, but there were a few things I need on top of what was already available, so I spoke with a friend of mine, Milan Kosanovic, and he’s decided to created the ultimate article submitter! It’s not done yet, but it’s almost ready!

That’s it! Aside from 2 one-time investments (templates/themes and the article submitter) which pay for themselves after your fist site, it’s all free and very effective!

img credit: geishaboy500

Niche marketing is typically one of the first business models people get into, whether they realize it or not. The purpose of this post is to advise against those who are now doing exactly what I was doing when I first began and that’s searching for the “secret!”

I honestly believed for the longest time that there was some kind of a secret that successful niche marketers were holding from me and the general public as a whole… you know, the “thing” that separated them from me

If you’ve been keeping up with my blog, reports, or coaching forum for any time at all you’ll notice there are a few things I CONSTANTLY say over and over and over again. Every time I get ready to mention one of these things I question whether I should mention it AGAIN or not, but I always decide to go ahead and mention it because these things are just not mentioned enough in my opinion and they are VERY important for “newbies” to understand. Things like the importance of retaining visitors and realizing there are no secrets to success!

That goes for just about every online business model out there! There are certainly important factors that you need to know before becoming successful with anything, but all of that important information is out there and 99.9999% of the time it’s absolutely free! (Buying ebooks is still a good idea from time to time… it’s kind of like outsourcing research, as Andy Beard once put it.) But you are not being kept from any secrets that are keeping you from being successful with niche marketing!

I won’t get into the specifics of what it takes to succeed with niche marketing because I do that for free in my niche marketing report, (I no longer own that product) but I will tell you the basics:

1. keyword research and competition analysis are crucial! If you aren’t researching you might as well just invest in lottery tickets!

2. Ad placement is crucial, as traffic that doesn’t convert into income might as well not be traffic at all! Use a proven template if you’re doing html sites or a proven theme if you’re a WordPress user. If you go with just any template or theme you may find yourself working much harder than you need to in order to get your site(s) to convert!

3. Target high-paying markets. That doesn’t mean you have to compete for phrases like “debt consolidation.” Dig deep into high-paying markets like debt-consolidation and target low competition phrases WITHIN highly competitive markets! This can make the difference between $10 from 25 visitors and $1 from 25 visitors!

4. Don’t spend an eternity on one site. If you’re spending months at a time per site, you’re not going to get very far! I’m not saying you should create a bunch of incomplete sites, but once a site is complete and you’ve done some promoting move on. NOT every site is going to make you alot of money. Some do and some don’t. Put 100% effort into each one then move on.

5. NEVVVVVVVVER give up! I spent months and months and months and months before i started to see a decent return on my time and monetary investments. Some people profit much sooner and some later. But 99 out of 100 people who just stick with it no matter what eventually make big profits with niche marketing and that goes for just about every other business model as well!

I promise you making money with niche marketing isn’t all smoke and mirrors. Thousands of people do it every day!

Whether you leverage WordPress to do it, you use powerful software to do it like Andrew Hansen or you leverage the power of article marketing to do it like Tim Gorman and myself, the basic principles are always the same, there are never secrets and those who realize that and NEVER give up are those who are successful in the end!

photo credit: andercismo