June 13, 2008

Researching Your Hobbies and Interests – Part 1

Last time we spoke about getting a list together of all your hobbies, interests, skills etc. and narrowing it down to your top 3 choices.

Today’s post is all about keyword research and deciding whether anyone is actually interested in your niche.

In Part 2 of the research phase we will look at how to determine if anyone is willing to spend money in it.

Once you’ve chosen your niche, it’s time to do the knitty gritty, keyword research.

It’s a step in the process that if carried correctly, should mean you can eliminate certain niches because they are either too competitive, there’s not enough interest in the subject, or no one’s willing to pay any money for the information.

But the ones that do meet our criteria should make us around $2000 - $3000 a month.

This is a vitally important step that’s worth doing well.

I always enjoy this part of the process because you never know what gems you’re going to discover!

For the purpose of this exercise, I will use a niche that I have on my own long list of potential businesses.

I used to study and practice hypnosis. I even used to hypnotize my friends at parties!

This would be quite an exciting online business for me if I were to pursue it, and so is a good example to investigate.

So until I do the necessary research I won’t know if there is a big enough market searching for hypnosis information.

Keyword Research Tool

To find the level of interest in our niche, we must use a keyword research tool.

If you’re not entirely sure what a keyword research tool is, it is simply a piece of software that analyzes search engine traffic. More specifically, what words people are typing in to a particular search engine like Google.

There are 2 good keyword research tools you should use and they are both free:

SEOBook - http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook

WordTracker - http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com

So our niche is hypnosis and that’s the keyword we’ll use for the keyword research tool.

I personally like Word Tracker, so that’s what we’ll use.

Here’s what I get after I type in hypnosis and hit the hit me button:

7,742 searches (top 100 only)

Searches Keyword

2930 hypnosis

365 self hypnosis

320 hypnosis therapy

287 hypnosis home study course

220 feminization hypnosis

161 free hypnosis scripts

137 hypnosis gallery

128 hypnosis orgasm

125 history of hypnosis

90 free self hypnosis

90 weight loss hypnosis

89 hypnosis training

85 hypnosis for weight loss

75 forced feminization hypnosis

72 hypnosis cds

64 hypnosis to quit smoking

64 self feminization hypnosis

63 hypnosis weight loss

63 sexy hypnosis

62 free hypnosis downloads

62 sissy hypnosis

57 quit smoking hypnosis

56 free hypnosis online

54 hypnosis enchantress

51 conversational hypnosis

51 self help hypnosis

49 guaranteed hypnosis cds

47 stage hypnosis

46 free hypnosis

44 hypnosis in psychology

43 sexual hypnosis

43 stop smoking hypnosis

41 hypnosis downloads

40 free hypnosis mp3

40 hypnosis stories

38 mistress hypnosis

37 hypnosis girls

37 hypnosis slaves

36 hypnosis pioneer

36 hypnosis to stop smoking

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34 orgasm hypnosis

33 how does hypnosis work

31 hypnosis cd

30 hypnosis instruction

30 hypnosis stop smoking

30 positive changes hypnosis

30 stage hypnosis scripts

28 adult baby hypnosis

28 children and hypnosis metaphors

28 hypnosis scripts

27 diaper hypnosis

27 does hypnosis work

27 self hypnosis downloads

27 subliminal hypnosis

25 adult hypnosis

25 free hypnosis feminization

25 hypnotherapy classes hypnosis training

24 covert hypnosis

24 hypnosis and children and enuresis

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24 instant hypnosis

24 lose weight hypnosis

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23 cuckold hypnosis

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23 hypnosis spiral

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23 mistress hypnosis online

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21 hypnosis & hypnotherapy

21 hypnosis articles

21 hypnosis seduction

21 learn hypnosis

20 free feminization hypnosis

20 how to do self hypnosis

20 hypnosis and golf focus

20 hypnosis schools

20 phobias hypnosis mp3

20 quit smoking hypnosis mp3

18 forced male feminization through hypnosis

18 how to do hypnosis

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18 transgender hypnosis

17 free hypnosis inductions scripts

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17 seduction hypnosis

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15 facts about hypnosis

15 feminization mistress hypnosis

15 free diaper hypnosis

15 free introductory lesson on self hypnosis

Clearly the keyword ‘hypnosis’ is extremely popular!

So now we have a long list of related keywords, what do we do now?

This is a key factor and an essential step to deciding if this market is worth building a business around.

The way I precede with my keyword research is to look at all the keywords that have 50 or more daily searches and the number of competing websites on Google to be around 75,000.

This isn’t an exact science but I’ve found that to make between $2000 and $3000 a month from a niche business, these figures seem to work.

Then what you want to look for, is any keyword phrase that contains certain words like:

‘How to’

‘Learn’

‘Tips on’

‘Techniques’

‘Instruction’

‘Help with’

etc.

Basically anything that looks like the searcher is looking for help or information that they can use.

Going through the list we see that ‘hypnosis’ has 2930 hits a day and would be far too competitive to rank for.

But further down there is a good looking phrase – ‘hypnosis to quit smoking’ that has 64 daily searches, well above the 50 minimum.

This is a good keyword because it is a phrase that people are typing into search engines looking for specific information i.e. how to use hypnosis to help them quit smoking.

In the second part we need to go to the search engines to see how much competition we have in our chosen niche.

So let’s head over to Google, our search engine, and see what the competing sites are.

In the search box, type in the phrase “hypnosis to quit smoking”

making sure you include the quotes to get an accurate number of sites.

Here’s what came back:

Results 1 - 10 of about 28,000 for "hypnosis to quit smoking"

As you can see, there are 28,000 sites returned. That means

that there are 28,000 sites that either have something to do

with using hypnosis to quit smoking or at least the keyword phrase somewhere in their title or content of their site.

This is a good number and well below our 75,000 maximum. So in our first shot we’ve found a niche that looks like it could be possible to monetize.

Now, we may have not been so lucky. We may have had to go through dozens of keywords to find one that had potential.

But even when we find a keyword that ticks the boxes, the numbers still don’t guarantee that the niche itself is capable of being monetized. There’s more to it than this.

What we don’t know is if the people searching for ‘hypnosis to quit smoking’ are willing to spend money to find the answer or not.

That’s where we need to do further digging. And I’ll cover that in part 2 of the research phase in my next post.

But this is an excellent start and is how I personally conduct my initial research when looking to build a new business.

If the initial research is done correctly there’s no reason why you can’t make around $2000 to $3000 a month with your online business.

And the best part of it .. you’ll be enjoying the process because you’ve chosen a topic that interests you!

Here is a summary of Part 1 of the keyword research process:

· Use a Keyword Research Tool:

SEOBook - http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/

Wordtracker - http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

· Look for any keyword phrase that contains certain words like:

‘How to’

‘Learn’

‘Tips on’

‘Techniques’

‘Instruction’

‘Help with’

Anything where it appears that the person doing the searching is looking for information on the topic itself that they can use in some way.

Make a note of as many keyword phrases in your chosen niche as you can that look promising.

Formula:

Number of daily hits – 50 minimum

Number of competing sites – 75,000 maximum

- Use WordTracker or SEOBook to determine number of daily hits.

- Use Google to determine number of competing sites (search using “quotes”)

~ Peter Tremayne

Filed under Blog, Internet Marketing, Recommended Resources by Peter Tremayne

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June 5, 2008

The Importance Of Choosing A Business Model That Excites You!

Last week I spoke about the importance of registering your own domain name and hosting your website using a paid hosting provider.

These 2 tools are an essential part to running your own online business.

Unfortunately I started at the wrong point of my ‘Back to Basics’ series and forgot to mention, possibly the most important decision of all.

Before you invest in a domain name and hosting you’ve got to decide how you intend to make money online.

You need to decide what method you want to use and what topic or market you want to build your business around.

Choosing A Business Model

Choosing the right business model/vehicle/method/technique/money making idea (you get the point!) is so important and can honestly make or break your fledgling, internet business.

Now, as I’ve mentioned in past posts, there are several different methods to make money online, such as:

Ebay

Affiliate Marketing

Selling Information Products

Adsense

PPC

Membership Sites

Blogging

Selling Physical Products

You can make a full time living with any of these methods if you work hard enough. But the chances are you won’t if you’re not 100% committed to the particular method you decide upon.

The methods I’ve listed above are vastly different and you really need to spend some time learning what each one entails and what exactly you’ll need to do to make money with it.

They all have their pros and cons and all have similarities. You just need to decide which one fits around your particular style of working.

Research

Once you decide upon a particular method it’s time to do some serious research!

You need to learn as much as you can before launching into your online business.

Keep a swipe file both online and offline of good websites that teach you about the method you choose.

Find out who the experts are and what they offer in the way of help and advice. Contact them to see if you can establish some sort of relationship with them.

Download as much free information as you can.

Look to join at least 1 forum on your chosen method. Often you’ll get a good idea as to how other newbie’s are doing and learn from their experiences.

The importance of deciding how you would like to make money online cannot be emphasized enough. Once you’ve made that decision you have to block every other money making idea that you’ll be bombarded with every single day.

Spend a couple of days if necessary learning about your chosen business model. When you are happy with your vehicle of choice, it’s time to choose a topic and/or a product that you want to sell.

For this ‘Back to Basics’ series I am going to concentrate on the one method that I myself do the majority of time – selling information products.

I personally believe that selling information products is the absolute best possible business to have online.

And selling your own information products is where you will make the most amount of money – period.

Do What You Love And The Money Will Follow

I’m sure you’ve heard that phrase many times before. But it’s so true. If you run an online business around a subject you are really interested in and know a lot about, it will clearly show in your web content, in your emails, in your customer support and all aspects of your business.

Equally the opposite will happen if you choose a topic that you aren’t really interested in and only chose it because someone suggested you could make loads of money with it.

Sure some methods and markets will make you some short term money, but you’re goal is to establish a successful, long term, sustainable business.

And the only way you’re going to do that is by running a business you enjoy working on day in, day out.

If you do decide to go after the quick money, the chances are you’ll get bored very quickly and it becomes very difficult to keep going if you lose interest when the going gets tough. You won’t complete the project and you’ll end up not making any money. (Trust me, I’ve been there and it’s soul destroying).

You need to decide what topic or market interests you the most.

Only you will know what that can be and it’s worth spending a few hours brainstorming as many potential ideas as possible.

Write everything down that interests you and you have some knowledge about. There is nothing new to this technique, but it is tried and tested and still taught by the top internet marketing gurus today.

It’s a method that works and often the simplest ones are the best.

If after exhausting all your hobbies, interests, skills, abilities, talents etc. you still can’t think of anything that you could market, go to your biggest store that sells magazines and choose a topic form there.

Just make sure you choose a subject that really excites you and one that you’ll be happy to spend most of your online business time working on.

Before I go any further I want to emphasize that you don’t have to be a complete newbie to start an internet business.

If you are already running an online business full time or part time and aren’t making the sort of money you hoped you would, it’s not too late to start again.

There’s no reason why you can’t take your already gained knowledge and apply it to a new, enjoyable and exciting business.

Sometimes starting ‘a fresh’ and building a new business from scratch relieves you from the stress and worry of a poorly performing business that your heart isn’t in anymore.

I’m not advocating jumping ship just because it gets a little tough. I’m just saying it may be time to evaluate how your business is actually doing and whether or not it’s worth sticking with, or trying something new that you know you’re going to enjoy working on.

So at the end of your brainstorming session you should have a long list of ideas that you could create a product from.

Take the best 3 with 2 more in reserve. These will be the topics to investigate further.

My next post will show you how to research your best topics/ideas and decide if they have the potential to become a sought after information product and ultimately produce a recurring income.

There are no resources to recommend today. No websites to look at or reports to download. Today’s post is all about making important choices.

Just remember … “Do What You Love And The Money Will Follow”

~ Peter Tremayne

Filed under Blog, Internet Marketing by Peter Tremayne

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May 27, 2008

The First 2 Pillars In Your Online Business

I’m often asked by subscribers to give feedback to their newly made websites.

This is one aspect I really enjoy and am more than happy to critique a website and offer my views and opinions as to how to improve it.

But before I even look at the site the first check point is the domain name.

The first 2 absolutely essential steps to starting a brand new internet business are to ensure you have your own domain name and web hosting.

Using free hosting and a free domain name like a Blogger blog or a Yahoo web site immediately makes your sales page look cheap and unprofessional.

You’ll end up with a domain name that looks something like this:

http://www.geocities.com/yourname/index.htm

Or a Blogger address like this:

http://yourname.blogspot.com

When visitors see this type of address do you think they will take you seriously when they see you can’t even afford to pay for web hosting?

It is also a nightmare to get these types of sites indexed by the search engines.

Using a free domain name and hosting is a false economy. You must pay for a domain name and hosting if you intend to make money from your online business.

A domain name will set you back less than $10. It will cost you less than $10 per month to host your site which will provide more than enough band width to run a professional business.

I currently have 17 websites powered by just 1 hosting plan that costs me less than $100 per year and I’m not even half way through my band width allocation!

I’m afraid if you can’t afford these 2 very basic commodities then you should reconsider proceeding any further with your online business.

Bottom line is this. Your potential customers will NOT take you
seriously with a Geocities or Blogger type domain and hosting. This will
result in NO sales and a FAILED business.

So please do yourself a favor. Get yourself your own domain and some professional web hosting.

If you want to know who I recommend and personally use to register my domain names and host my websites, then take a look at my Recommended Resources section.

~ Peter Tremayne

Filed under Blog, Internet Marketing, Recommended Resources by Peter Tremayne