You know I don’t really agree with the term “build it and they will come” which granted I do in one way, but then again theres always a hook to something. Which yes they will come if you build it, but the idea is to have a hook to whatever your building I mean you could build anything such as a website and nothing every happen generally when a site takes off its because of viral content and etc.

For example you could put a forum up, but no one ever comes you need some type of hook or momentum to get them into the forum, so in other words you need channels to market through and leverage through. Which I can’t really tell you what channels to market through this is for you to figure out, but as time comes you’ll start to figure out what works and what doesn’t work.

So when building something ask your self are they really going to come, and if you think not well then you need to start thinking of how your going to market that product, service, forum, or whatever you have in mind. Just find  a way to hook people and that will lead you to success.

When starting an online business most generally you won’t make no money in your first year maybe a little, but nothing like you would expect to make or better yet I should say like you want to make, but then again it depends on how much experience you have in other similar fields. When you register a new website you will find your self changing things around all the time actually you will find your self doing that all the time specially in the early stages and then later on when things do start to work you will get nervous about changing them certain things around. I think every one gets nervous about changing things around that is already working they’ll set around and brain storm night and day I do it my self sometimes I drive my self up the wall about it.

You will define your niche and you will find out not everything will work some things might work for other people when other things don’t work for you. Once you find your niche focus on your niche and think of how you can build that particular vertical niche. When you have your niche defined on what is working for you most generally this will seed you into other direction it will give you more money to invest and etc.

I think a lot of the reasons why online business fail is because people give up before they actually start to find things that work and of course probably many other reasons such as lack of building a brand. The idea is to just test, test, and test and see what works from most people I have talked to it can take you a good year or so before you actually start to find something that works and maybe longer to push that one thing that works so for example it could take you a year to find something that works and maybe another year to get it going.

Its almost like a process of elimination your always testing different things to see if they work and some things might work and the thing that do work replicate them into other ideas. Its really hard to explain what I’m thinking, but I’m sure you’ll get the idea, but the bottom line is if your building a website traffic up, blog traffic, or whatever don’t give in because that will get you no where.

Measurements in marketing is vitally important you must know your ins and outs in web 2.0. You must know what your making money off of and whats converting by every means. If you did not know this it would be impossible for you to run a business. You just can’t go putting money into something with out getting some type of return which granted some things can take time before you get actual results, and even some things require a lot of money and time before you see results such as a year or so, and then again some things you’ll get automatic return.

Anyways read on and I’ll give you a few tips on how you can improve your online marketing strategy and how to define your metrics more in depth.

Focus on Channels

Finding channels to market through is quite simple. The thing is what channels are going to convert and how will your site grow from these channels. These are some chances that you have to take, for any business to be successful they must be able to take chances and live on the edge every once and awhile you won’t get any where not trying.

When seeking channels to market through do your research of course, but don’t get all uptight or angry if it does not work out the way you plan. Thats where your measurements fall into place, I know I have lost a quite a bit money when I hardly had any advertiser budget, but at the end things have come out pretty good I just learned from my mistakes and what to do to make it better or improve it.

How to Find Channels to Market Through and What You Should Choose

Finding channels to market through is simple contacting a site or running PPC (Pay Per Click) Campaigns. These are the things you need to decide on you can pick any of these channel to market through, but where are you willing to invest your time and money at.

Measurement Tools to Install (Analytics)

By far Google Analytics is a must install you can measure your traffic in numerous different ways. There is other software out there to use, but I highly recommend using Google Analytics just because its free and it gives very accurate measurements compared to AwStats and etc. The good thing about Google Analytics you know where your traffic is coming from and what keywords people are using. There is a ton of information that it offers. I’ll be honest I haven’t my self even had time to play around with everything and learn it from inside out, but from all the features that we used have been pretty effective or its come into use a lot.

Customer Questions

Be sure to ask your prospects question such as how they found you, what keywords were used, referring site, and etc. A very good thing to do is when you have a price quote form have a option on there asking them how they found you and where you came from. This is an excellent thing to do, so therefore you’ll know where you wasting your money at and etc.

For example say we launce something that requires people to sign up well we go advertising on 10 websites all them 10 websites are sending traffic, but who is actually signing up? Simple you ask these questions before they will be approved therefore you can get accurate measurements from where your getting a ROI back and then you can eliminate any channels that are not bringing profit margins or increasing your sign ups what ever it is you have to offer.

Modeling is the Measurement

Keep in mind when modeling your products or company online to always progress it into market places that will become useful to the consumers this will approve your marketing metrics such as higher ROI. When you define your model for a market place that is in high demand it gives you more of ability to price your products higher with then that certain market place because its in need.

Think about it you define a business model online that every one else has produced. The market will be over crowed to many people offering the same thing, but not enough consumers to eat it up. Now you can design a model similar to what these other business have done, but do something that will differentiate your self from these peopl do something there not offering that will pull leverage your way and then balance that leverage into sales.

Conclusion

The idea behind online marketing is to find highly profitable channels to market through that other people have not done yet, and to know your measurements. With out knowing your measurements chances are your going to have a hell of a time converting sales and etc. Give it some thought and test and what don’t work eliminate it and what does work replicate it into another channel.

Niche markets are great to target for various reasons, but let me explain to you what a niche market is encase you don’t know. A niche market is a market thats focused on one particular thing generally a something smaller and not so broad for example a niche market keyword on Google would be considered something as Indiana Real Estate Agents that would be more of a niche approach now something like Real Estate Agents would probably be a more broad approach and not so much of a niche market.

There are various reason why targeting niche markets can be excellent for, take your time out to read the following below and how you can benefit from niche markets.

• Less Competitive, but Higher Conversions: Niche markets are less competitive therefore easier to get into, and they convert better. Since a niche market is easier to get into it takes less money, but it will convert in a higher ROI that will allow you to get to to other levels with then your industry. Even the Google engineers have stated many times that the searches they do get to see on a daily bases are searches they’ve never seen before such as long tails, and I’d imagine these are geared towards more niche markets. The thing is a lot of people don’t actually find what there looking for until they search 3-5 times they might start with a broad term and then they start to narrow it down into a long tail which would be considered a more niche search.
• Easier to develop and Map: Niche markets are easier to develope and map. When your targeting a niche market you can map your products out a lot more easier and know there going to sale a lot more easier, but at the same time creating higher profits with higher ROI.
• Will Make you Grow: Targeting niche markets will make you grow so you can get to that point where you can focus on more broad markets. For example if your someone small you would want to focus on more of a niche market in the beginning stages and not get to carried away with how many you focus on try to focus on markets you know will turn into sales this will create more profits for you so you can broaden things up and give you more room to grow.

Niche markets are excellent for many things and I think any small website or company should focus on niche marketing for many reasons, but then again that depends. Think about it your focusing on 30 niches that are highly turning into sales, you almost have grabbed a competitive market in a different way because you have differentiated your self from every one else. When you focus on niche after niche that keeps converting your sales will turn out higher.

I don’t know much about this, but I was talking to John Chow last night about advertising on his website and he was brought this guy up. I never even heard of him, but I guess the guy claims to be making over 237k a month from his laptop and was a construction worker at first then moved into this. I mean who knows it could be true cause I know a lot of this stuff goes on through internet, but I just never heard of this guy so its hard saying if he is or not I don’t think he is, but who knows.

I have friends that are rolling in with cash through affiliates and etc, so its possible. I know one guy that has no over head and he makes around 37k a month on affiliates, and pratically does nothing, and this is profit I’m speaking. I know we bring in some major income at times sometimes I’ll do around 1k profit in 1 hour, but 237k is a lot.

Check it out at http://www.thousanddollarprofits.com

Tell me what you guys think.

Making money on the web is simple. There is so much money on the web to be made easy - speaking your good at what you do, invest your time into something, or invest your money into something. I think the two biggest problems with people succeeding online is no one wants to put effort into it, but yet they want a return. Anything in life worth having is going to take some work, and generally you won’t make much money online at first I have raked in some pretty good days in profit wise very good, but I did not do that at first. (more…)

You know I’m setting here thinking today of marketing online, and all this advertising that is going on from service related websites, and etc. The thing is a lot of websites that offer services are driven by search engines or PPC a big majority of the time, which granted not all the time, but generally they are. The thing is with community driven websites you have a source for traffic and the benefits of advertising your own innovations is huge.

Sometimes thats the hard part people can create something that will make a lot of money, but sometimes they don’t have the money to invest to make it happen. Which don’t take me wrong if your a great viral thinker and can think strategically with out frustration’s you can make it happen, but believe me it takes a lot of patience and practice to build something from scratch trust me I’ve done it and I’m doing it, but ok lets get back to the community driven website topic and then I’ll move onto other things.

The benefits of having a community driven websites is very beneficial like I said earlier, but you can do major things with it if you can build a community based website you have it made. I can’t remember the success rate of starting community driven website, but a big majority of them fail and this comes back to being patient again, and being motivated. Quite honestly I think a lot of people get excited about starting one such as forums, blogs, or anything community related, but then they start taking easier ways out that don’t work as well, and boom thats the biggest mistake any one can make.

Keep your fist up and stay at what you want!

For example lets say you keep taking a test over, and over again at school, but you never ever can pass it. Lets say this is a test only 5/100 people pass, but you keep failing, and this test will get you a lucrative paying job that will earn you 30 times more then what you make now. Well after awhile you start to think to your self that its ok if you fail and its ok to work at this other place or work for someone else because generally thats what every one around you believes, so what do you do you mix in with the pattern.

Be a leader, not a follower, for example when people go to college there constantly trained to work for someone else. They pratically drill it in your mind that working for other people is the thing to do. Which granted yes there nothing wrong with that there is some huge paying jobs out there for people, but for someone thats going to start a living online and be a successful entrepreneur you have to think outside the box which granted yes college is a plus plus by every means, but I’ll tell you one thing college does not teach you anything about online marketing or the trades that certain people have learned on there own by putting a lot of effort into something.

Think about it does your college teach you how to become a millionaire off ranking keywords on the search engines? No I don’t think so thats stuff you’ll learn on your own, these are your own trades that you’ll learn, and develop over the years. The same thing goes with starting a community driven website you’ll learn how to build trends into the website that no one else could ever tell you how to do. Its simple, but it will take time, time, and patience until you get to that level and don’t fall off believing what every one else believes around you because part of being successful is believing in your self and what your wanting to do (your the leader).

Always keep a great passion and motivation, don’t lack in stress even if your broke and struggling just remain patience because it takes time. If you can remain patience while building a community online and keep working at it, then it will happen. Now if your always stressed out and struggling then its not going to happen as fast because one thing I have learned to be quite honest is that when your building a business of any sort it takes more patience and strong believes then any one could imagine, but just look at it like its something thats going to be fun and your going to be motivated and you understand it can take hours of work night and day for 6+ months before you get results and if you can have this mind frame things will happen a lot faster.

I think a big reason why certain online business grow so slow is because of lack of work, and lack of patience, and determination. Think of it, when your determined at something you always succeed, and am I right or wrong? People that are motivated and believe always succeed now don’t have no excuses in your head like well thats because they actually had a vision or they knew how to do something, but the bottom line is before you can make something happen you have to try. Then your visions will start to come into place better.

Thats pretty much it, internet marketing is a strategy, and always will be. Building communities, advertising, and investing is nothing, but a big strategy. Thats why I find it funny because sometimes clients come to me, and they think there going to get rich off $500 dollars a month, but sad to say it takes a lot more money then that to make money thats profitable which granted you can start small, but with online marketing its something that you have to keep putting money into, or time before it comes back hard to explain, but hey good luck, and sorry guys didn’t mean to go off 10 different direction with all this.

You know I have been thinking the past few days to get more into affiliate marketing and just explore other areas on the web I haven’t really got to explore such as affiliates and etc. The thing is if you make your living off the internet don’t ever get stuck at doing one thing specially depending on Google, or anything like that. Another thing is specially with all these website getting penalized from Google here lately and some of them were very reputable websites.

Focus on building something other trends and channel them into your website. Which I’m not saying don’t focus on Google because Google can make you some killer money through search results and ppc, but try to focus in other areas you can make money off the web, or other channels you can use as a source of income and traffic that will convert and be beneficial for you. Putting your eggs in one basket is bad, you always need them back up sources no matter what.

Think about it all your traffic comes from Google, but then boom you get hit you know how to do nothing else, but work with search engines. You’d be kind of screwed don’t you think, so try to focus in on other channels right along with the search engines. Always have them back up trends just encase one trend fails.  You should be thinking like this anyways any successful entrepreneur that makes there living off the web would know this.

Every day I see website failing, and failing on the most simplified concepts of marketing. Which granted I’m probably not the one to say who does what to there website, but I’ll be quite honest if someone comes to me I’ll tell them how it needs to be done, and if they don’t want to listen then I guess that is there problem. I have ranked some of the most competitive keywords out there with then a short amount of time and have vertically increased profits for companies, so the way I look at it if someone don’t take me up on my advise, but they still continue to struggle there bad.

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Ask th SEO Guru just did a great write up on out sourcing SEO. He covered a few topics such as the average programmers pay rate in the us compared to India. Quite honestly I think US programmers are under paid big time. 40k a year is very low thats like barely enough money to live some what ok if you ask me. I think the on going rate for programmers should be at 50k plus a year, but then again I guess that depends I’ve seen some government jobs offering pay rates at 70-80k a year, but getting a government job can be more complicated then just walking in the ordinary IT company.

Well Massa covered the pay rate in India which is about 1k a month for a programmer sometimes less depending on location and geographical areas. The thing is about this post I like most he mentioned you must have management in place and thats very true such as having someone you can trust to make sure every one is doing what there supposed to be doing, and of course you would pay this person the most out of every one.

Out sourcing anything IT related can be very beneficial, and profitable, but the thing is if your just the average person looking for a company to build your website or do your SEO you will be a lot better of hiring a US company because out sourcing takes some skills and you have to know how to work with the people, so if your someone looking for SEO services don’t automatically think you can go hire a seo company in India and have great results, you’d be a lot better leaving it up to a us company to handle all this.

The reason I say leave it up to a US company is because there is a lot more to it, you have to know who you can trust and can work with. Generally when you been around for awhile you meet certain people and you know who you can trust. You know how to grade people skills set, you know who more reputable, and etc. For example could you just go in somewhere with out know anything about a certain field such as a doctor and take care of the hiring for them, no I don’t think so. Thats why your best to stick with then your grounds out sourcing is not for every one if you ask me.

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