The economy sucks.
We all know that.
Finding and keeping a job has become harder than ever.
I know.
I lost my job over a year ago.
But I'm still kicking.
How? Simple, I created my own job.
It started with an eBay business.
But eBay's nickel-and-dime approach is brutal to the small or new seller.
I knew that it wasn't going to pay the bills anytime soon.
Then I checked out the Internet gurus.
You know their names.
I bought a few products and invested a LOT of time.
It turns out that 15-30 years in marketing helps, and I don't have those credentials.
I was lost.
And money was running out fast.
It was then I started developing my OWN system.
In my system, I read, watch, and learn all that I can from free materials.
I then search for and find free tools developed by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Adobe, Amazon, and others to streamline and simplify my workload.
Even then, the competition was almost overwhelming.
How do you get noticed on the Internet? How do you optimize all your sites and pages in order for the search engines to find them and rank them highly? It was then that I discovered a trick.
Instead of competing for space on the most popular searches, I decided to try a smaller market.
In fact, I called it a "micro niche" market.
You have probably heard of niche marketing.
The idea is that instead of selling sporting goods, you sell only camping supplies, hoping to encounter less competition.
It's the "big fish in a small pond" approach.
The problem is that EVERYONE is doing it these days.
So finding a niche in which to sell a product is much more difficult.
That's where micro niche marketing comes in.
In micro niche marketing, we break things down even further.
Instead of selling camping supplies, we are going to sell only cookstoves, for example.
By doing so, we have not necessarily reduced our competition, but we are targeting a weak spot.
Attacking the soft, white underbelly of the beast, as it were.
But wait, selling cookstoves didn't make much money either.
And that's when it hit me! No micro niche product will pay the bills, but if I could develop a quick-an-easy system to build a micro niche market, and then REPEAT IT AGAIN AND AGAIN, I could actually pay the bills! So that brings us to the nitty and the gritty.
Just what is micro niche marketing? In simple terms, it's finding the chink in the armor of your competition.
The whole micro niche system is based on keywords and keyphrases.
The competition hasn't covered all the bases yet, and you are going to find out what they've missed.
In micro niche marketing, I start with Google's Keyword Tool, one of the many FREE tools I use every day.
Using the above example, I may start by typing in "camping supplies" and wait for Google to generate a list of applicable keywords.
Most will have LOTS of competition for valuable webpage real estate.
I search the list until I find a keyword with a good amount of searchers but limited competition.
How does this happen, you say? No one will find every relevant keyword and fill it with good advertising, the English language is just too complex for that to ever happen.
So there will always be weak spots that a micro niche ninja can exploit.
Any keywords I grab here will be "support" words.
To find my real targets, I'll go ahead and enter "cookstoves" into Keyword Tool.
And let's say I find that 450 people each month search for "Coleman 2-burner stove" and the competition level is 3 (on a scale of 1 to 10, export your search data to Excel to see the numerical ratings).
I have now found a keyphrase to attack.
How do I market the keyword now? Now my options open up.
Here are a few quick ways I can then micro niche market my keywords:
No one micro niche market will make you rich, or even pay the bills.
But $100 per month for a keyword like this is VERY realistic, at it only took less than a week to set up.
Set up 3 or 4 campaigns per month, and you've got $400 per month coming in from your micro niche marketing.
After 6 months (assuming you don't get any faster at setting up these campaigns), you've turned your micro niche marketing into a $2400 per month business that runs almost by itself.
Of course, by then you'll have your own working templates (NOTE: Cascading Style Sheets RULE!) so the work will get easier and easier.
And then you can go pro, and hire folks to do the work for you, so you can have the free time you've always wanted.
Micro niche marketing really can be your path to that life.
Take charge NOW and do it! Until Next Time, Happy Micro Niche Marketing! Alan Harris a/k/a The Schwa!
We all know that.
Finding and keeping a job has become harder than ever.
I know.
I lost my job over a year ago.
But I'm still kicking.
How? Simple, I created my own job.
It started with an eBay business.
But eBay's nickel-and-dime approach is brutal to the small or new seller.
I knew that it wasn't going to pay the bills anytime soon.
Then I checked out the Internet gurus.
You know their names.
I bought a few products and invested a LOT of time.
It turns out that 15-30 years in marketing helps, and I don't have those credentials.
I was lost.
And money was running out fast.
It was then I started developing my OWN system.
In my system, I read, watch, and learn all that I can from free materials.
I then search for and find free tools developed by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Adobe, Amazon, and others to streamline and simplify my workload.
Even then, the competition was almost overwhelming.
How do you get noticed on the Internet? How do you optimize all your sites and pages in order for the search engines to find them and rank them highly? It was then that I discovered a trick.
Instead of competing for space on the most popular searches, I decided to try a smaller market.
In fact, I called it a "micro niche" market.
You have probably heard of niche marketing.
The idea is that instead of selling sporting goods, you sell only camping supplies, hoping to encounter less competition.
It's the "big fish in a small pond" approach.
The problem is that EVERYONE is doing it these days.
So finding a niche in which to sell a product is much more difficult.
That's where micro niche marketing comes in.
In micro niche marketing, we break things down even further.
Instead of selling camping supplies, we are going to sell only cookstoves, for example.
By doing so, we have not necessarily reduced our competition, but we are targeting a weak spot.
Attacking the soft, white underbelly of the beast, as it were.
But wait, selling cookstoves didn't make much money either.
And that's when it hit me! No micro niche product will pay the bills, but if I could develop a quick-an-easy system to build a micro niche market, and then REPEAT IT AGAIN AND AGAIN, I could actually pay the bills! So that brings us to the nitty and the gritty.
Just what is micro niche marketing? In simple terms, it's finding the chink in the armor of your competition.
The whole micro niche system is based on keywords and keyphrases.
The competition hasn't covered all the bases yet, and you are going to find out what they've missed.
In micro niche marketing, I start with Google's Keyword Tool, one of the many FREE tools I use every day.
Using the above example, I may start by typing in "camping supplies" and wait for Google to generate a list of applicable keywords.
Most will have LOTS of competition for valuable webpage real estate.
I search the list until I find a keyword with a good amount of searchers but limited competition.
How does this happen, you say? No one will find every relevant keyword and fill it with good advertising, the English language is just too complex for that to ever happen.
So there will always be weak spots that a micro niche ninja can exploit.
Any keywords I grab here will be "support" words.
To find my real targets, I'll go ahead and enter "cookstoves" into Keyword Tool.
And let's say I find that 450 people each month search for "Coleman 2-burner stove" and the competition level is 3 (on a scale of 1 to 10, export your search data to Excel to see the numerical ratings).
I have now found a keyphrase to attack.
How do I market the keyword now? Now my options open up.
Here are a few quick ways I can then micro niche market my keywords:
- Write (or purchase) 4 or 5 small articles pertaining to cookstoves, mentioning my keywords whenever possible, without creating something hard to read.
Then either build a quick content site and run AdSense, Microsoft Ad Center, or some other ad system to monetize the site, OR create a quick free blog, and do the same thing.
Add rePost or similar to your blog and watch the hits roll in. - Search Clickbank for any affiliate programs that apply to cookstoves.
Camping recipes are available there for example.
Then create a Google AdWords (or similar) campaign to drive searchers to your affiliate. - Use eBay Feeder Pages to get folks looking for "Coleman 2-burner stoves" to sign up for eBay.
They'll pay you for that you know! - Build a Squidoo Lens pertaining to "Coleman 2-burner cookstoves" and use it to drive traffic to your eBay Feeder Page, or affiliate pitch page
- Make a video about caring for or cleaning a "Coleman 2-burner cookstove" and post it on YouTube (or similar) and drive traffic to your other pages.
No one micro niche market will make you rich, or even pay the bills.
But $100 per month for a keyword like this is VERY realistic, at it only took less than a week to set up.
Set up 3 or 4 campaigns per month, and you've got $400 per month coming in from your micro niche marketing.
After 6 months (assuming you don't get any faster at setting up these campaigns), you've turned your micro niche marketing into a $2400 per month business that runs almost by itself.
Of course, by then you'll have your own working templates (NOTE: Cascading Style Sheets RULE!) so the work will get easier and easier.
And then you can go pro, and hire folks to do the work for you, so you can have the free time you've always wanted.
Micro niche marketing really can be your path to that life.
Take charge NOW and do it! Until Next Time, Happy Micro Niche Marketing! Alan Harris a/k/a The Schwa!
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