Businessman,In,Big,City

5 Killer Ways To Increase Your Facebook Page Likes

FBlikes

Since its inception, Facebook has become one of the most successful social media sites to advertise on. With just under 17% of the population of the planet signed up to Facebook, you can get a much larger audience than any other site to view your posts and engage with your brand. But to make any waves on Facebook, you need Likes and followers. A popular way in recent years to gain Likes is to buy them, but not only is this not authentic, it also doesn’t get your brand noticed by actual potential customers. So how can you get the Facebook Likes that you need, without paying for them?

Here are some killer tips for creating a successful Facebook page for your brand without spending a penny.

Fill out your page

Filling out your page may seem obvious, but a mistake that a lot of people make is not to fill out their pages entirely. You can add plenty of information to your Facebook page including links to other sites that you have, and all the information that a customer needs, and this is what they are looking for. A sparse Facebook page makes it look like you aren’t taking this seriously and may even make them question if you are a legitimate business in the first place.

Use Insights

Facebook insights is free to use and an invaluable tool to use when advertising on the site. You can access this through your business page on Facebook, and what it does is it lets you see what is working for your page. Which posts are seen the most, liked the most, what other pages your followers are interacting with and when. This is useful as you can schedule your posts for when the most people will see it, and also get an idea of the other kinds of things you could do in the future to gain popularity.

Use a great picture and heading

Appearance is everything these days, and even more so on social media. If you don’t already have a recognizable logo, you need to get one. Make your Facebook page look good, and people won’t mind liking and sharing. You can look at similar businesses to yours to see how they did theirs and how you can do better.

Invite likes

Make sure to invite those who like your posts, to like your page. This can be done by using other sites to drive traffic, or in your Facebook settings.

Share relevant content

Users like pages that share other things they want to see. If you can find videos or posts that are related to your area of expertise or your industry, users will find your page more engaging and entertaining, and thus, will interact more with it. Unless you are already an extremely popular brand, users will quickly get bored if you only ever share your own content. This can also help to build relationships with other users and businesses.

Businessman,In,Big,City

4 Surefire Affiliate Marketing Tips That’ll Help You Build A Profitable Online Business

Starting your own business can be an overwhelming experience. However, we now live in a world where building a business doesn’t need to be so overwhelming anymore. If you’re looking for a simple way to become an entrepreneur, you should consider affiliate marketing. Basically, you promote other people’s products and earn a commission from it. You just need to find a product, promote it to other people and earn money for every sale that you make. Since there are plenty of affiliate products and services available today, you need to find a great product to promote. Just remember that your desire and determination to succeed is also important.

Find High-Quality Products

Choose high-quality products or services. If it’s of high quality, chances are, the customer support and supply chain process of the company are also of high quality. A company that tries to provide the best value to customers is a good choice as well.

Choose Something You’ll Get Value From

You should choose a product or service that you see yourself using or getting value from. It should be an extension of you. The program you are affiliated with should offer value for all your effort. You should look for a program that provides valuable free gifts. Remember that online reviews and feedback can make or break your business. Once customers get their free gifts, they will be impressed and give you great reviews.

Look for a Niche Market with Big Problems to be Solved

You should look for a niche market with significant problems to be solved and provide a quality solution to these issues. If you are able to fix a problem, especially the big ones, you will gain the trust of your customers and that is definitely a good thing for your business.

Variety of Products

Look for an affiliate program that offers a wide range of products that will encourage customers to keep coming back for more. Variety helps build a solid fanbase, which is definitely good for your business. For instance, if the affiliate program is offering ebooks that discuss weight loss, it is also a good thing if it provides supplements and exercise equipment.  So, you should pick an affiliate program that offers a wide range of products. Customers will also most likely recommend you to their friends and colleagues.

One of the best benefits of affiliate marketing is that you can promote as many affiliate programs as you want. This means that your earning potential is big as well. Some people give up their 9-5 job to focus on their online business. Another benefit of affiliate marketing is that you don’t need to leave your home just to promote a product or service. Even if you are in your pajamas, you can work and sell. You can promote the program on your website or social networking sites. Some affiliate programs provide their affiliates with a website where they can promote the products or services.

Businessman,In,Big,City

5 Killer Tips For Creating A Profitable Online Store

Let’s face it; everyone wants to make money online.

You’re probably reading this article because you’re in the same boat as everyone else. The bills aren’t going to pay itself so earning money online sounds like a great way of making money while sitting in your computer and working from home.

According to online marketing guru Neil Patel, one-third of 2017 estimated that $353.68 billion in sales actually came from the mobile phone, so the opportunity to make money these days is pretty much limitless.

Below are three ways to get started in the lucrative industry of building a mobile online storefront.

1. Create an eBay store

eBay is hands down one of the largest online marketplaces in the world so if you still haven’t heard of it; you must be living under a rock.

According to Statista, eBay currently has over 170 million active users, so it’s a great place to start an online store. You can create an account on eBay for free, but you need to pay extra if you want to set up a store.

One of the advantages of selling on eBay is that there’s instant trust. eBay customers have protection against scams and lousy service so having eBay act as a third-party middle person makes customers feel a lot safer buying from new sellers even if they’ve never heard of them.

eBay also gives you the option to auction which means you can put your products up for auction to get a much higher price. It’s extremely “search engine friendly” which means that there’s a better chance of people finding your listing while searching on Google without you needing to build a website. It has lower fees – Amazon usually charges about 15% per sale while eBay only charges 10% before its fixed-price fees.

The only problem I see with eBay is that since eBay’s has such a huge market, the competition is fierce. Since its system is also built to favor the buyer more than the seller, a dodgy buyer can ruin a seller’s reputation just like that.

2. Create an Amazon account

Amazon is another excellent website to set up a seller account because it has a base of more than 300 million active customer accounts and more than 197 million monthly unique visitors. There are two types of Amazon seller accounts, and that’s “Fulfilled by Amazon” (FBA) and “Fulfilled by Merchant” (FBM). FBM sellers ship directly to customers while FBA sellers ship to Amazon distribution centers, which then sends the products to buyers. FBA sellers tend to get more benefit because Only FBA sellers can list Prime-eligible items and they tend to rank at the top of search results.

One good reason to sell on Amazon is that it’s one of the most trusted e-commerce websites of all time. Just being a seller on Amazon will automatically give you more sales than if you were not in it because Amazon has a customer base that trusts it a lot and are prepared to spend. Amazon is also the best when it comes to upselling which is usually adding an extra product as part of a bundle and cross-selling, which is when you recommend that your customer buy another product that complements their existing purchase.

Another positive thing about Amazon is that it has hundreds and thousands of affiliates who will refer traffic to your online store as long as you are selling items within their niche and the number of goods and services that are offered in Amazon are unrivaled by any other marketplace online.

The big disadvantage I see on Amazon is that if you want your product to sell on Amazon, your product has to rank on Amazon.

If someone is looking for your product on Amazon, if they try to search for your product on Amazon and your product isn’t ranking well, people will never see it. Which means that they’ll never buy it, and your stock will fail to make any money.

You have to look at Amazon and see it as a massive search engine. It’s quite possibly the world’s largest product search engine. Amazon is probably a more effective search engine than Google when it comes to selling physical products on the Internet because according to online guru Neil Patel, Amazon has three times more search volume for products than Google does.

Unfortunately, even if the potential to make money from Amazon is massive, it also follows an algorithm just like Google. This algorithm is what tells Amazon of what products should show up on the first page, second page, third page, etc..

Amazon is a business so it wants to make the most money possible which means that it will increase the rank of products that will provide the highest revenue.

Some of most crucial Amazon ranking factors are Product title and keyword, Sales volume, Quantity and quality of reviews, Image quality and number, Product detail click-through rates, Impressions, Price, Availability, Selection, Seller authority, Inventory, Referral path, Conversion rates and Customer sales history.

So if you want to rank in Amazon, then you need to please its algorithm, so you need to optimize your product listing. So how do you optimize your product listing? Here are a few tips: create the correct product title by making sure your main keyword is contained within it, provide high-resolution photos of your products to entice buyers, create a compelling bullet point description of your product, choose the right price that’s competitive next to other sellers of the same product and collect as many positive reviews as you possibly can.

3. Create an e-commerce website

Although it’s much easier to sell via established online stores like Amazon or E-bay – if an issue arises and these websites decided to remove you and ban you from its platform, then you have to start all over again.

If you have your own website, you’ll have control over everything, but then the downside is that you just need to work twice as hard on getting more traffic to your website.

There are a number of good platforms to build your website on such as WooCommerce which is a great e-commerce platform for WordPress, but I highly recommend Shopify – it’s perfect to host an e-commerce site because you don’t need coding skills to create a Shopify site.

Shopify has pretty much everything you need to set up your online store such as hosting, a web domain, payment gateways, etc.. just about all of the things you’ll require. It’s the most credible of its kind and has been used by a number of entrepreneurs to make thousands or even millions almost entirely passively. Here are five tips that are going to actually help you make money from Shopify.

– Make a decent offer. If you want more people to buy your product then you need to provide a better offer. A little discount or an extra item wouldn’t hurt because it’ll put you ahead of other sellers out there.

– You need to find a product that has a decent profit margin for you to make money from because realistically, it will take a while before you start earning consistently. Therefore, earning a dollar or two per product may not be worth your time. Unless you have money to burn, then I suggest really looking into your pricing.

– Capture your customer’s emails. Realistically, people won’t really buy anything yet if it’s the first time for them to visit your website so it’s essential for you to capture their emails so that later on you can encourage them to revisit your site. The most effective way of obtaining people’s emails is to offer something that appears to be expensive but is actually cheap. Once you’ve captured their emails, send them a reminder once in a while that your website still exists. Try not to make your email look like an advertisement – make it look like you just want to let them know you’re still around and try to strike a conversation with them to get an idea of what they need.

Now if you want to make serious money from your online store, below are six killer ways to do it:

Use Google Analytics to get to know your customers

Setting up an online store without a way to track down your progress is a set up for failure. Google Analytics is the best place to start if you’re looking into understanding your customers because it can provide you with very detailed information about your audience and it’s free.

Get active in online forums

Most online marketers would know that backlinks are one of the most significant foundations of SEO. The more links you have from reputable sites, the more Google favors your website because these inbound links tell Google that you’re an authority site.

One of the best ways to get backlinks is to start participating in forums. Two of the most reputable online forums are Quora and Reddit. Quora, similar to Yahoo Answers is a question-and-answer forum known for giving out expert answers to various questions.

Reddit is one of the most popular forums out there and is an excellent traffic driver for various websites. Just be careful with Reddit though because it has a crowd that’s relatively hard to please. If you want to participate in these online forums, try to comment on topics related to your industry and try not to directly advertise your business. Instead, focus on providing information that can be useful for the audience so you can build authority and then they would be more inclined to visit your website.

Create a blog

If you want to generate traffic and leads to your website, then the best thing to do is start a blog that is related to your niche. A site that has a blog will always get more eyeballs than a website without one because blogs are always lingering online just waiting for their customers to find them. The more you blog, the more traffic you’ll drive to your website. But you need to keep in mind that your blog posts need to be of value otherwise nobody would read it.

Get active on social media

Most businesses use social media marketing to boost their business because they know for a fact that everyone is on social media, so you need to use it to your advantage.

However, not all businesses with a social media strategy will have the same positive results. Some companies will thrive while some won’t. It all boils down to three words: social media engagement. If your business can’t get its audience to engage on social media, then you’ll be missing out big time.

Keep in mind that you don’t want to seem like a pesky and pushy salesperson online. If you want to improve engagement on social media websites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Pinterest, you need to start a conversation with your audience and get to know them on a personal level. You also need to post consistently, but in saying that you need to create quality posts rather than focusing on releasing a number of posts and hoping for some kind of positive result. You also need to understand what sort of content your audience responds to; you need to pick the right time to post your content and engage with your audience by responding to comments and likes.

Create a YouTube channel

For those who don’t know, Google owns YouTube which is a guarantee that it’s going to appear in search results. Video marketing has become a crucial part of digital marketing because almost 50% of Internet users look for videos related to their purchases before visiting an actual store. Big companies are always trying to find new ways to use YouTube to boost their brand because they know for a fact what it can do for their business. Keep in mind that there’s also the option of using YouTube live-streaming functionality that is similar to Facebook Live.

Establish an email list

Email is still one of the most popular marketing communication methods because every person on your email list receives an email the same way that they would receive a physical mail. Most people check their email several times a day, and it’s also a cheap yet well-documented way of reaching someone. Online services such as MailChimp and Constant Contact are two one of the most popular options so if you want to create an email list then you need to look at these two.

In Conclusion

Following these tips doesn’t guarantee success, but then everything in life is a risk right?

However, if you put in the time and build it all the right way, it’ll all work out so don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t work the first time – keep trying and testing and eventually, you’ll find success.

Businessman,In,Big,City

10 FREE Online Marketing Tools That Are Guaranteed To Boost Your Business

Let’s face it; maintaining an online business can be quite expensive so as an entrepreneur, we’re always looking for free options that are readily available online.

If you’re currently stuck trying to find free marketing tools that can help you boost your business, I may have a solution for you. Here are ten Internet marketing tools that can be very useful in your marketing efforts.

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Feedly

Feedly is a news aggregator application for various web browsers and mobile devices running iOS and Android. It compiles news feeds from a variety of online sources for the user to customize and share with others. Basically, it’s a central place to organize, read, and share the information you need to stay ahead of the next big trend in your industry.

Keyword Niche Finder

Keyword Niche Finder is a fantastic tool that’ll help you find most profitable keywords in your industry. It’ll help you to categorize your keywords as well as provide you with keyword suggestions depending on your niche.

PhotoPin

Photopin is an excellent tool that sources out free images from websites like Flickr which you can then use on your site because they’re copyright free. The first 10-15 photos will be sponsored images so you can disregard those, but the rest should be free.

Content Idea Generator

Have you ever been stuck trying to come up with an awesome idea for content? Don’t fret because I’ve got a solution for you. The Content Idea Generator will provide you with a number of ideas that’ll help you get rid of that pesky writer’s block.

Google Drive and Dropbox

These tools will save your valuable files online so that you can access them later or share them with other people. Dropbox gives you 2GB space, and if you refer other people, you’ll get an extra 20GB of space. While Google Drive continuously saves your work while you are still in the process of preparing a document so even if your computer suddenly dies down, your docs will still be safe.

Small SEO Tools

Small SEO Tools is hands down one of the most awesome websites for small businesses. This website boasts some of the best FREE tools that are guaranteed to help you boost your business. It contains fantastic tools such as Article rewriter, Backlink checker, Google PageRank checker, Keyword suggestion tool, Plagiarism Checker, Page speed checker tool and many more.

Ahrefs

If you want to find out how many backlinks (incoming hyperlink from one web page to another website) your website has, then Ahrefs is the most reliable marketing tool for the job. Using this tool can even help you discover your competitors’ backlinks, and once you find out, you can try to approach these websites to link to your website as well.

Google page speed

This tool determines the loading time on your website giving you an insight on how fast your website loads. As you would probably be aware, no one likes a slow loading website so this can be a factor when it comes to getting more traffic. Google itself gives search priority to websites that load fast.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the best website to use when it comes to tracking your website’s activities and stats. It’ll give you detailed stats on how much traffic your website gets, what keywords your website is ranking for, which countries your visitors are coming from etc.. You’ll get few lines of code that you need to add to your website and then you can start tracking your visitors almost immediately.

MailChimp

MailChimp is an email marketing software that you can utilize to help you build subscribers for your website. If you have 2,000 or fewer subscribers, you can send up to 12,000 emails per month absolutely free. But if you have more then you would need to pay a fee depending on the number of your subscribers.

Businessman,In,Big,City

3 Killer Reasons Your Website Isn’t Making Money And How To FIX It

If you’ve been blogging on your website for quite some time but have yet to see any cash flow coming in, you might be doing something wrong and you don’t even know about it.

If you’re new to the blogging scene you might have heard of terms like “affiliate marketing” or “sponsored posts” as easy ways to make money online, but the question is – are you making any money on it at all?

In this article, I’ll highlight three crucial things why you’re still not making any online even though you’re consistently churning out content on a constant basis.

You’re not creating shareable content

Let’s face it, if you want to make money online then you need traffic on your website. if you’re not getting traffic on your website it’s probably because your content is too short or it’s not compelling enough that people would want to share it.

To be honest, you don’t need to be an amazing writer to create compelling content, although you should aim to be a better one, you just need to follow a formula that other successful bloggers in your niche are following.

I highly recommend visiting Buzzsumo as this website is a gift to entrepreneurs and online marketers. Buzzsumo is a great website that will reveal the most shared content in the online world. You just type in your niche in the search field and it’ll give you a breakdown of which posts are shared by people all over the world. This should give you an idea of what sort of headlines captures people’s attention and what sort of content people are willing to share with their friends.

If you see a content that you think will resonate with your readers, try to create a similar or possibly better content to get more readers. If it’s already working for that blogger then there’s a huge possibility it will work for you too because it’s a tried and test topic.

Let’s say for example your niche is handbags. All you need to do is type in the word “handbag” in the search field.

Buzzsumo will then give you a list of the most viral articles all over the web. It’ll show you which articles are the most shared content via social media so you can get a feel for what people are actually sharing online. You’ll also get an idea of what sort of headlines are grabbing people’s attention.

Now that you’ve found a content you want to work on – what can you do to make it better? Here are a few tips.

– Include much more compelling images.

People are very visual so the more compelling images you can add the better. If you don’t know where to get some, get stock photos because these photos are high quality and quite cheap. Photos have always been a touche’ subject for bloggers because of copyright infringement, so registering in a stock photo website like Shutterstock might be a good idea for you. Stock Photos can be quite pricey but if you sign up for a year in Shutterstock for example, you can get access to 50 photos per month and the cost would be $100 per month which is not too shabby.  But if your budget is on the tight side you can always visit Photo Pin – this website will find the best free photos from around the Web.

– Create a more in-depth content.

Let’s say for example if the headline of the article you want to base your content on is “Top 10 Designer Bags To Invest In For 2018” – why don’t you make the list Top 15 or Top 20 instead? Do some extra research on the article and make it your own. You can even add a video somewhere in the post highlighting your list because people engage more with videos. Remember, your aim is to make the article better to get more people to share your content.

– Create sub headings and make the article more readable.

Most people get bored with extremely long articles so you can improve the blog post by making it much easier to read for your readers. Try to include subheadings, make the paragraphs shorter and highlight some sentences in your blog post – these may be minor details but trust me, it can make a huge difference.

Another good tip I can give you is going back to your old posts and make them better. Remember, blog posts are like wine – the older they are the better because the older blog posts acquire authority and historical SEO power. As long as your blog posts are search engine friendly, they’ll get more eyeballs if it’s a great content. Most people are so consumed with sharing brand new content to get more traffic and quality leads. But, if you’re smart, you’ll discover that old blog posts are in a much better position to get traffic as long as you allocate a time to update them since these blog posts have built authority over a period of time. Some of my posts from 10 years ago are still getting constant traffic because the content was compelling and it was well optimized. Try to focus on your best older posts and give them a quick upgrade, if it’s being shared around already then it’s worth giving it an overhaul. Try to add links within these blog posts linking to your newer blog posts as well. This is an easy way of driving traffic to your newer or less popular posts.

 

You have to make sure that your blog has opt-ins as well once the traffic starts flowing in. if your blog has no opt-ins then you are seriously missing out on getting more readers.

How else are you going to reach your readers personally by email if there’s no opt-in available on your website?

Make sure your opt-ins are really visible so that when you get new readers and they like your content they’ll end up signing up for your email list.

You’re not using the power of social media

Although it’s always great practice to optimize your blogs so that it can become search friendly, everything can change in a blink of an eye if Google decides to change its algorithm which it constantly does.

Case in point: I used to comfortably earn $6,000 per month from Google Adsense eight years ago, but when Google decided to change its algorithm, my earnings dramatically went down to just $500 per month! Then it changed again and eventually my website was getting less than $100 per month so I decided to take out Google Adsense from my website because it was useless for me and it ruins the readers experience anyway.

Enter social media.

For my blogs, the main traffic driver is Facebook followed by Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. I use Instagram to drive traffic to my blog by posting compelling photos and then adding eye-catching captions. For example, if my headline reads “The 10 best moments from the 2018 Oscars,” my caption would be something like “if you want to find out the 10 best moments from the 2018 Oscars then click the link on our bio.” Unfortunately, Instagram doesn’t allow active links in posts anymore because a lot of people abused the system, but as long as you mention “click the link on our bio” – at least you can direct people to the link in your profile since that link is active. Just make sure your website link is in your bio otherwise your efforts are useless.

You can use Pinterest to drive traffic to your website by creating compelling photos and headlines and adding a link from the photos to your website. Again, Pinterest is a very visual social media platform so your images need to be really compelling to make people click on your photos.

Facebook is my main source of traffic at the moment because basically everyone is on Facebook so your posts will get more eyeballs. You need to create a Facebook page for your website and you need to grow this page since people are always on Facebook. Maintaining an active Facebook page is advisable if you want your brand to have more engagement on Facebook. Make sure you mix up your posts as well, besides posting a link to your website on your Facebook page, try to add some images and share some video for maximum engagement. If you want more detailed information about this subject then here’s a link to my previous post.

For some people who want to get traffic immediately, they resort to PPC traffic which is fine as long as you know what you’re doing.

If your marketing budget is super tight then Facebook Ads is the best place to start because it’s very cheap and it allows you to laser-focus on your target readers. You can spend as little as $2 per day on Facebook ads. You have a few choices to choose from when it comes to directing traffic to your website, you can boost a Facebook post if you think it’s compelling enough, you can try to get more likes for your Facebook page or direct all the traffic to your website. If you’re going to use Facebook ads then you might as well focus on growing your Facebook page first because you’ll get more social shares that way.

You don’t know how to monetize your website

There are many ways to monetize a website but at the end of the day it all boils down to probably three main options.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing, in a nutshell, is an arrangement by which an online retailer pays commission to your website in exchange for traffic or sales generated from your website’s referrals. Basically, if you promote someone else’s product and people end up buying it, you’ll get a commission out of the sale. Some advertisers might want to place a banner ad on your a website and will pay you for any visitor clicks on that link.

Some of the best ones out there are Rakuten Linkshare, Clickbank, eBay, ShareASale, and Amazon. The best way to get more people to click on your links and get a sale is to create an in-depth review of the product and get your readers to trust you enough that they’ll buy what you recommended. You can even add multiple affiliate links within the blog post to get more chances of someone clicking the link. You can also create list posts so you can have multiple products within a single blog post. If you want a more in-depth information about making money from Affiliate marketing you can click on this link.

Sell Advertising on your blog

Another option to monetize your website is by selling advertising on your blog – it can be an banner ad or a link within a blog post. If you want to take this route then you need a substantial amount of targetted traffic before any company decides to get in bed with your website. They might require proof in terms of statistics that their ad in your website is working to make sure that their money is not going to waste so it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Sell a product in your website

You can either sell a digital product or a physical product in your website. If you’re going to take this route, make sure the product you’re going to sell is related to your niche otherwise no one will be interested. If you’re thinking of creating an ebook and selling the book on your website, try to search related books in Amazon first to give you an idea of what readers want. I would even go as far as read the comments on the book so you can get an idea what is working or not working for that book and you can address it on yours.

If you’re thinking of selling a physical product, try to create in-depth reviews on this product. Don’t be afraid to point out the pros and cons to make your review more authentic and add plenty of testimonials for social proofing. The more honest you are with what you’re selling the more genuine you’ll sound.

In Conclusion

Some of you may question if it’s really possible to make money online.

For some people, it might take time so be prepared for the long haul. Basically, it’s consistently releasing compelling content, leveraging the power of social media and effectively knowing which monetization process works for your website.

As long as you don’t lose hope and you continue to be consistent then you’ll eventually reap the fruits of your labour.

Businessman,In,Big,City

How To Test If Your Chosen Niche Can Be Profitable Without Wasting Money

Are you thinking of making money online but you don’t where to start?

You probably have an idea on what sort of niche you want to focus on but then again you don’t know if this niche is going to be worth it or whether it can be turned to something profitable.

You probably want to make sure you focus on a niche that is not just your passion project but at the same time, something you can make money out of so that you can possibly do it fulltime.

Well if you want to really find out if your choice of niche can be profitable then I have some suggestions that can help you out.

First, you need to decide on your passion topic.

What gets you going?

What sort of niche can you write about that will continually stimulate you and enable you to keep writing about it?

The aim of the game is to be as specific as possible so that you can narrow down your niche down to a tee.

Let’s say for example you love writing about women’s shoes so you have decided to you want to target women between the age of 18 to 26 and who loves shoes – what sort of women will you be targetting? Are you trying to target the frugal ones who are always looking for the elusive sale or the shopaholics who buy shoes like its the end of the world?

The more specific you are, the easier it would be for you to narrow down your market.

Once you’ve chosen a niche you have to ask yourself these questions:

Is there really a market for your chosen niche?

Is this a profitable niche that people will actualy pay for?

Will there be enough people to focus on? Is this a niche that will never be out of trend?

If you want answers to these questions then I recommend the strategies below:

Find other products online related to your niche

If you’re scared that there’s too much competition in your niche, you shouldn’t be, because if other people are making money from it that means there is a market for your niche and there’s money to be made.

Let’s say your focus is diet and fitness, a good strategy would be visiting Amazon and searching through books that have been written related to your niche. I recommend going through the comment section of these books because that’ll give you a clear indication of what information people are finding relevant and what other information people are seeking for. You can create your website catering to these issues. Here’s a screenshot example from Amazon.

Pay a visit to Google Trends

Google Trends is an awesome way of finding out if your niche is in demand and the best thing is – its free!

All you have to do is place your niche keyword in the search bar and it should give you an indication of the demand for your niche because Google will present you with a graph confirming the interest for your niche. If there’s a consistent rise on the graph then it’s a good indication that you’re on the right track. You can even scroll to the bottom of the page of your search and you’ll find “related queries” and “related topics” to make your decision easier.

Pay a visit to video sites like YouTube and Vimeo

Another good strategy is to pay a visit to video websites like YouTube and Vimeo and try to see if there are any popular videos on your niche. If there are plenty of videos and millions of views then you’re onto something.

Search for your niche in social media

Social media should always be a part of your strategy because everyone is pretty much on it. Pay a visit to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

For example, type in designer women’s shoes in Facebook and Instagram. If you see on Facebook that there are a ton of Facebook pages dedicated to your niche and the hashtag also has over 100,000 posts that’s a good indication of demand.

Pay a visit to Udemy

Udemy is an online learning platform that uses content from online content creators and selling them for profit. Basically, it’s like an online college.

Search your niche in Udemy and if you can see that there’s a lot of courses focussing on your niche then that’s a good indication that your niche is profitable.

In Conclusion

If you want to find a niche you want to start a business about you need to first look at what really interests you first then do your research to see if your niche can be sustainable in the long run. Make sure you examine the trends surrounding your niche and once you’ve decided on one you have to start NOW.

Businessman,In,Big,City

10 Crucial Mistakes You Could Be Making Selling Blog Sponsorship

Let’s face it; selling sponsorship to a potential client is not an easy task because a lot of small businesses these days don’t really have a marketing budget.

In a nutshell, getting sponsors boils down to two things: offering something of value and building rapport.

So what are some crucial mistakes a lot of website owners make when it comes to selling sponsorship? Read on and find out.

1. Not contacting the right person

It’s quite obvious that if you want to sell sponsorship to a company you need to find the right person to talk to – the decision-maker.

Think about it, why would you bother pitching your offer to the receptionist when that person wouldn’t know what to do with your proposal??

If you’re pitching your blog/website to a company, you need to reach out to the head of the marketing department or possibly even the brand manager. Approaching the CEO or managing director directly may not be the best idea either because most of the time those guys are extremely busy.

2. Antagonizing Potential Sponsors

A lot of entrepreneurs think that antagonizing is an excellent way to seal the deal with a potential sponsor.

WRONG.

Don’t ever create a sense of urgency if there’s no sense of urgency.

Spitting out a line like “Hi Tony, the website sponsorship deal I’m offering you is for a limited time only, if you don’t take it now I would have to give it to someone else” is an epic FAIL.

First of all, keep in mind that you’re the one that needs their business not the other way around. Secondly, if you’re talking to the CEO or the marketing manager, you have to assume that this person is smart so they’ll probably end up laughing off your bullying tactics.

Just be courteous when you’re presenting your pitch, building rapport and lasting relationship go a long a way.

3. Allowing the Potential Sponsor to dictate the price

Most entrepreneurs and marketing managers are very savvy when it comes to getting value for their money. They want to milk any deal as much as they can for as low as they possibly can.

Don’t let a savvy CEO talk you into lowering down your offer to the point that the offer is just plain ridiculous.

It’s quite fine to negotiate and give a bit of a discount, but you need to put your foot down at some point otherwise if the word gets around, other businesses would want to get the same deal from you which could be very bad for business.

Try and price your packages above your actual price as well so that you have room for negotiations and to give potential sponsors the illusion that you’re offering a huge discount.

4. Pricing your offer too Low

If you’re pricing your offer a lot lower than what it costs to maintain your website, then it’s either you’re on crack, or you’re living in la-la land.

If you’re spending $500 a month to hire writers for your website, it’s pretty silly to start selling sponsorship space on your site for a measly $50.

Do your maths. Sort out your budget first before you start negotiating with other businesses. Having a clear indication of your expenses goes a long way.

5. Failing to give potential sponsors sufficient time

Setting deadlines are always smart, but you need to take into account that the bigger the company is, the harder it is to request sponsorship and funding as the money has to go through a lot of channels.

Corporate sponsors usually take time to get the funding sorted and are traditionally quite delayed with payment because the funding has to go through a lot of hands and approvals.

Make sure you allocate enough time for your sponsors to come up with the money and be courteous when you’re chasing payment. No one likes to deal with someone who sounds straight out of a debt collecting agency.

6. Not offering long-term contracts

Offering just a one-off sponsorship for your blog or website is not the way to go.

Why secure a one-time sponsorship when you can secure residual income for the next 2 to 3 years?

When you start designing your sponsorship packages, try to come up with a one-year and even two or three-year contracts.

This is a guarantee that there’s going to be funding for your website in the next two to three years.

7. Giving up

Did a potential sponsor just shut you down?

Don’t fret; it happens to the best of us. Don’t burn any bridges though; there’s no harm in calling your contact again and touching base – maybe telling them later that you have a great deal they might be interested in? You never know what can happen. Just make sure you give plenty of time in between these requests.

Don’t be that person who still follows up every week even though the business head has already said no. You’ll sound like one of those annoying lead generation telemarketers who keep calling until you give in.

8. Not doing your research

The dumbest thing you can ever do when you’re pitching something to a prospective client is not researching them.

How can you try to pitch something to a potential sponsor when you don’t even know what their business is all about??

I recommend going through their website and social media pages and learning more about their business.

Who’s their target market?

Is their website or social media pages lacking anything?

How can you improve their website and their business?

What value can you provide this business to get them to sign with you?

You need to study a business thoroughly and tailor a package that’ll suit their needs. You can point out what’s lacking in their business and offer an actionable solution.

Maybe their website is not optimized?

Maybe no one is managing their social media pages properly?

You need to explain to the potential sponsor why they need your business and what value you can provide.

9. lame marketing materials

Another stupid thing you can do is approach a potential client with a dumbass looking proposal.

Do you think you can secure a deal with a marketing material that looks like it was designed by a 10-year-old and has grammar and spelling errors everywhere??

Or can you really see your blog getting sponsors even though it looks like it came straight out of the 50’s?

Get outta here!

If you want to secure high-end sponsors, then you need a decent looking blog and topnotch looking marketing materials – it’s as simple as that. The more professional you look, the more they’ll trust you with their money.

10. Failing to discuss expectations

Once you’ve signed a sponsor, it doesn’t mean you can drop the ball and neglect them since they’re already on board.

Once you’ve signed them, you have to do everything in your power to make them feel like a VIP so that they end up sponsoring your blog over and over again.

Make sure you keep the sponsor in the loop and exceed their expectations. You don’t want to lose a significant sponsor just because you failed to meet their expectations.

Businessman,In,Big,City

The 5 Most Profitable Blog Niches For Making Money Online

Contrary to the general opinion that successful people are successful because they followed their passions and found niches that they were passionate about – it’s about time I finally set the records straight. Since most of the people don’t exactly know what they’re passionate about, they never end up finding that “magical” niche and that holds thousands of bloggers and entrepreneurs back from making any real money online.

Here’s the single biggest tip I can give you when it comes to choosing a profitable niche to blog about:

NEVER focus all of your energy in looking for a specific profitable niche.

Instead, focus on determining a problem and figuring out a solution.

It’s that simple.

There are in fact people out there who are making an insane amount of money from their blogs. Some of these internet superstars have monthly incomes that are wayyy higher than the annual income of big-time executives. And I’m not just talking about a few thousand dollars per month, I’m referring to the big whales who are raking in more than $100,000 per month!

Leaving most of us to wonder – how in the world did they get to that point??

I can give you five simple reasons why:

– They have identified a problem and developed a solution.

– They are constantly finding ways to make life easier for everyone.

– They write search engine friendly articles – which means that their articles rank better in search engines.

– Their blogs provide high-quality content. No website or blog can EVER succeed without providing great content. Do any of you remember the good old days when content length or quality was not a factor in the world of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? Unfortunately, those good old days of simpler content that rank high is long gone.

– They are consistent when it comes to continuously providing high-value content. Most people who start a blog don’t actually follow through and lose heart when they see that their blogs aren’t making any real progress. Most people, unfortunately, forget the fact that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a long-term game, as long as you continue to write high-value content and build links, you’ll eventually see progress. You won’t always see results straight away, but as long as you consistently produce great content and wait patiently for 4 to 7 months, you’ll eventually start seeing the fruits of your labor.

Forbes has identified a number of bloggers who are making at least $1 million dollars in annual revenue and here are four great examples out of the lot:

Tuts+

This blog earns around $175,000 per month and it provides amazing tutorials for newbies that are looking to learn how to code.

Smashing Magazine

This blog earns around $215,000 per month and it offers high-value content to newbies that are looking to get into web design and web development.

CopyBlogger

This blog earns around $1,000,000 per month and it provides some of the most practical online marketing advice in the world.

Moz

This blog earns around $4,250,000 per month and it offers high-value content about search engine optimization. It’s considered the authority when it comes to Search Engine Optimization.

Can you see the pattern?

These blogs are consistently making an obscene amount of money simply because they have identified problems and they kept providing high-value solutions day in and day out.

Now let’s get back to why you’re really reading this article – so what are the most profitable blog niches? Here they are in no particular order.

Cars

You’ll be surprised how lucrative blogging about cars can be. The best car blogs out there lets consumers compare vehicle specs and prices, get the most recent news about cars and display photos and videos faster than the much larger media outlets out there. Car Advice, for example, has a monthly income of $125,000. Alborz Fallah started Car Advice as a hobby, so he has an excuse to test drive cars and write reviews about them. But now it is one of Australia’s top motoring sites, and one of Australia’s biggest blogs overall.

Personal Finance

Personal finance includes topics such as income, taxation, insurance, real estate, mutual funds, equities, loans, home finance, mortgage as well as a number of finance and wealth-related aspects for people. You could blog about how to invest well and wisely and make more money in the process. Tell readers how to save money and how to earn more money by doing side-jobs. The point is that making money and saving at the same time is always an attractive concept. Michelle of makingsenseofcents.com is an example of a successful personal finance blogger. She blogs about how to save money and make more money and she earns over 140,000 a month. MoneySavingExpert.com has a monthly income to the tune of $1.3 million. It was created by UK financial journalist Martin Lewis back in 2003 and the website offers tips and advice on all aspects of personal finance, with a bigger focus on saving consumers’ money.

Fashion

The dual benefits of being a fashion blogger are that you’re guaranteed to make money in this niche and you’ll also get a chance to enjoy yourself at a number of high-end beauty and fashion events. YouTube, being a visual platform, is a great way to make headway- and from there, the sky is the limit for building out on your blogs. The world’s most successful fashion bloggers get to travel the world for free, get incredible designer clothes for free, constantly have people shower them with gifts and earn millions of dollars annually so I’m pretty sure their not complaining. Bloggers like Pink Peonies’ Rachel Parcell, Song of Style’s Aimee Song, The Blonde Salad’s Chiara Ferragni, Man Repeller’s Leandra Medine, and Into the Gloss’ Emily Weiss are just some examples of fashion bloggers who belong in the Millionaires’ Club.

Food

Let’s face it; everybody eats and everybody loves good food. There are a number of food blogs out there that are earning big money and that’s through providing recipes and tutorials. Pinch of Yum is a great example of a food blog. It has a monthly income of $95,000 and it’s, of course, a cooking and recipe blog as the name suggests. According to Blogging.com, the blog is run by elementary school teacher Lindsay Ostrom and her husband Bjork, and the website is monetized through a combination of advertising, sponsored content, affiliate links as well as an onsite shop selling food products and kitchen equipment.

Make money online

Let’s face it, EVERYONE wants to be rich. Hence the reason why the internet is teeming with blogs that teach you how to make money. Here’s a great tip if you want to blog about making money online – treat your blogging as an explorative journey and you’ll be surprised at how much you discover. It can start off slow, but it’s guaranteed to pay in the end. Smart Passive Income is a great example of a successful blog that rakes in a lot in this niche. It has a monthly income of $148,000 and it teaches you how to create an online product or awesome content and then monetize it. Pat Flynn, the man behind Smart Passive Income earns money through a mixture of affiliate links, sponsorship, and selling courses and ebooks. Smart blogger is another example of a successful make money online blog and it earns to the tune of $100,000 per month. The blog is dedicated to advising bloggers how to make their website a smashing success.

The above ideas are just some examples of starters to trigger those gray cells of yours – there are seriously hundreds of niches out others that are equally as effective. The sum and essence of this article though are to start broad – that gives you room to move about without being stifled. Over time, you can niche up or niche down- the point is to create enough sub and over- niches.

A famous person once said, “ you’re confined only by the wall that you build yourself.” Therefore, don’t build walls, build open spaces instead that can encompass flavored blogs that have your signature. I bet that you’ll gradually find what you’re good at and will also learn to be good at what you do.