What is your target market? When I ask business owners that question I usually hear something like...
* Small Business Owners
* Opportunity Seekers
* Doctors
* Homeowners
Do you define the targeted market for your business similar to one of these? If you do, you're working harder and spending more money than necessary to promote your business. And you're getting only a fraction of the sales you should be getting.
When you target a broad audience like those listed above, you're only targeting prospects who CAN USE your product or service. Your marketing efforts will be considerably more profitable if you target prospects who are LIKELY TO USE your product or service.
One of the best ways to do that is to find a "niche market".
What Is A Niche Market?
A niche market is a narrowly defined group that includes all of the following:
1. Individuals in the group have the same specialized interests and needs.
2. They have a strong need or desire for what you offer.
3. You have (or you can create) a compelling reason for prospects in the group to do business with you instead of with someone else.
4. You can easily reach individual prospects within the group.
5. The group is large enough to produce the volume of business you need.
6. The group is small enough that your competition is likely to overlook it.
Why You Must Narrow Your Focus
A niche market enables you to target your sales messages with great precision. The more narrowly you define your niche market the easier it is to cater to the specifically defined interests of people in that market.
For example, some businesses describe their target market as "opportunity seekers". But this is a broad audience. You cannot cater to specifically defined personal interests of individuals in this group because it may include all of the following:
* Executives who want to get out of the corporate environment and start their own business.
* New mothers who want to start a home based business.
* Students who want to generate some extra income.
Any promotional message to this group would have to be very general. But people don't respond to general talk. They respond only when they feel you are talking directly to them about their individual needs.
Special Advantage: A highly defined, small niche market can insulate you from competition. Other small businesses are likely to overlook it. Large businesses will find the market segment too small to bother with.
How to Find a Profitable Niche Market
One way to find a good niche market is to evaluate your existing customers. Can you uncover a segment of customers with similar characteristics?
For example, I recently talked with a network marketer working with a health products company. About a year ago she noticed that many distributors in her organization were health or physical education teachers.
She now has a lot of success targeting a niche market of female physical education teachers who are married, have children and are members of the same professional association.
Another way to find a niche market is to work backward from the benefits you offer. Start by listing all the benefits provided by your product or service. Then list some of the characteristics of prospects whose current situation can be dramatically improved by those benefits. You should begin to see a narrowly defined group emerge as a niche market.
It's Your Bottom Line
How specific is your target market? Can you develop sales messages so sharply focused your prospects believe you're talking specifically to them?
If not, use the information in this article to help you find the best niche market for you. Then tailor your sales messages to the specific interests and needs of that niche market. You'll see an immediate increase in your sales and profits.
You can get a lot of website traffic without having to spend a lot of money. If you want to develop a busy and profitable website for your online business, there are a lot of techniques for getting website traffic without it being expensive. Some of these cheap website traffic techniques include article directories, SEO, blog posting and even forum posting.
Among these methods, one of the most practical and most effective is submitting articles to article directories. These articles should contain a link or two back to your own site, which can help you increase your site traffic from readers who may be interested in seeing more of what you’re offering. There are already several excellent article directories available for your submissions. As long as your articles remain in the directories you submitted them to, this method will be one of the best and cheapest ways to pull in traffic.
Using SEO, or search engine optimization, is another inexpensive yet very effective way for getting traffic to your website. By using proper search engine optimization, your articles and your website’s overall content will become more search engine friendly, as well as your website. Include your keyword in the domain name of the website that hosts your articles. Also include keywords in the first paragraphs of your pages, as well as the title of the page itself. These SEO techniques will help your site get better exposure with search engines, and your articles will rank higher on search results.
Blogging is now becoming more popular than ever before, and you should take full advantage of it. More and more online businessmen are using blogs to promote their products and services, and it just makes perfect sense to follow suit. There are several good blogging sites on the Internet that allow people to sign up and create a blogging account with them for free, such as Blogger or Wordpress. Create your blog and link your home page to it. Updating your blog regularly will allow it to become more relevant to search engines, and as a result, it will help to drive more traffic to your site. It would help a lot if your articles and posts contain the appropriate keywords.
Another inexpensive website traffic technique that you can use is to join and participate in forums. Finding a forum that is related to your website’s content is even better. You can then easily post discussions, answers, and even start threads that can be useful to other forum members. You can pull in traffic by making entertaining or informative posts, since you’ll develop a reputation for being an authority on certain subjects. And don’t forget to have a link to your site in your signature file or your member profile.
See? You can get a lot of website traffic without spending a lot of money, just by following these techniques. Remember, effective usage of relevant keywords in your posts and articles, proper SEO methods, article submissions, blogging, and forum posting can all become invaluable but inexpensive tools for driving traffic to your website.
A website that does not make conversions is a website that serves no business function. So let's talk about:
What a website conversion is and how you can increase conversions across your business website.
By way of definition, an "onsite conversion" takes place when somebody goes from being a website visitor to something else as well. For example, if a person visits your website and signs up for your email newsletter, an onsite conversion has taken place. The person has "converted" from a casual website visitor to a newsletter subscriber.
There are many kinds of conversions, and they differ from one website to another, and from one organization to the next:
• A non-profit website might seek donations or volunteer registrations. Those conversions are valuable to them.
• A service-related business like financing or consulting might seek website conversions of a different nature. Maybe they want people to sign up for a newsletter list or call to learn more. Those are valuable conversions for their business models.
• A product-based website like Amazon.com seeks one type of conversion above all else. They want people to purchase products, plain and simple. So that's the most important type of conversion for them.
Watch the “Website Conversion Analysis” Video
http://5star-inet.com/bbotrafficclub/sp/index.html
Increasing Conversions Across Your Website
So we have talked about the importance of onsite conversions, and how they are the end-product of your online marketing efforts. Now let's look at some of the ways you improve your onsite conversions to help grow your business.
1. Define Your Conversions in Advance
This might seem like a no-brainer, but you'd be surprised by how many deer-in-the-headlight expressions I get when I ask a business owner, "What are your top three conversion goals on this website?"
Some will scratch their heads and say, "To get customers, I guess." That's not a specific goal for website conversion. It's the end-goal of all marketing efforts, sure. But it's not a clearly defined conversion goal.
Other business owners have it figured out better. For example, they might say something like, "I want my visitors to do one of three things ... download our featured report from the home page, click on the chat button to get in touch with a representative, or contact us by phone or email."
Now we are getting somewhere! Before you can increase your conversion rates, you have to know what they are to begin with. And everyone in your organization who has a role in supporting those conversions needs to know what they are too (such as customer service folks).
2. Be Visible Online
People cannot contact you (or purchase your products, etc.) if they don't know you exist. So you must strive to make your business visible, online and off. Internet visibility is a big part of this. After all, the more visible you are online, the more likely people will be to find you.
But there are other ways to increase your visibility as well. You can publish articles in your local newspaper, syndicate articles and press releases online, be active in your community, conduct free seminars, and many other aspects of PR. Visibility and awareness are the first steps to generating website leads and sales.
3. Increase Usability Across Your Website
Website usability is crucial to making onsite conversions. The two concepts are inseparable, because if a person can't use your website, you have no chance to connect with them or to make a sale. You don't have the luxury of personally guiding them through your website -- they are completely on their own.
Site menus and organization are two key areas where many websites falter. A poorly organized website is a website that will always suffer from low conversion rates. And the opposite is true as well. A well organized website with sensible navigation is a fundamental step toward stronger conversions.
4. Minimize Distractions Across Your Website
This is another element of website usability, but it deserves special focus. On a business website, the goal is usually to lead visitors down a certain path. You can't control where people will go or what they will click on, but you can at least offer your preferred path and make it easy to follow.
But when you overload your web pages with too many items, you end up dividing the reader's attention, creating unneeded distraction, and increasing the likelihood visitors will leave your website altogether.
Visit your home page and ask yourself, what is the most desirable action you want people to take? What is the second most desirable action? From a visual standpoint, does the placement and prominence of these two paths support their importance? Or do they battle for attention with a dozen other distractions?
5. State (and Restate) the Value of Each Conversion Point
In marketing, there is a direct correlation between value and response. If you want people to take a certain action on your website, you have to convey the value of that action. In other words, tell people what they get out of it. It's a simple rule to remember. If you want action, you have to explain the reason and value behind the action.
Instead of saying, "Click here to join our newsletter," say something like this: "Join our newsletter for exclusive offers you won't find anywhere else, plus a wealth of monthly tips and advice!"
Watch the “Website Conversion Analysis” Video
http://5star-inet.com/bbotrafficclub/sp/index.html
6. Increase Traffic to Website Conversion Points
Want the opportunity to convert more visitors into customers? Then just increase the amount of website visitors you get. Once you have some lead-generation and sales-generation techniques in place, you want to get as much qualified traffic to those conversion points as possible.
The first step is to increase your overall website traffic. The second step is to increase your traffic to specific pages of your website (your purchase page, your download page, your contact page ... in short, your conversion pages). You can do this by making your conversion points / pages more prominent and easy to find. See the following items for tips on doing this!
7. Increase the Prominence of Conversion Points
Once you've defined your conversion points (see item #1 above), you should try to make them visible from every page of your website. Put them into the main menu, right up near the top. Create eye-catching graphics to showcase them. Put them "above the fold" across all of your web pages.
8. Minimize Website Attrition
Marketing attrition refers to the number of people who do not take the actions you want them to take along the path to conversion. At each step in the marketing process, you stand to lose some people. You could also refer to this as "drop-off." The higher the attrition rates, the less successful the marketing program.
The good news is, each point of attrition can be improved -- that is, you can minimize the number of people who "drop off" at each step of the way. For example, by improving your website's usability and content, you can minimize the number of people who leave your site due to not finding what they're after. This is just one of many ways you could reduce the level of attrition in this particular marketing scenario.
My goal here is simply to get you thinking about marketing attrition and the various ways you might reduce it on your business website and blog. Less attrition equals more business. How's that for motivation?
9. Increase the Interactivity of Your Website
The more ways people have to interact with your website, the better your chances of converting them into customers. You can increase interactivity in a number of ways. And these days, there are all kinds of software products to make it extremely easy for you!
Here are a few examples of interactivity you could build into your website:
• Business blogs work great because readers can leave comments on ehe various blog posts. That's a form of interaction, and it's also the start of a dialogue that could lead to a sale.
• You could create some kind of Q&A forum on your website and grow your own Internet community. Forum software programs like VBulletin and phpBB make it achievable.
• You can also buy and install programs to help you create an interactive FAQ section of your website (also known as a "Knowledge Base"). Interspire's "Active KB" and Omnistar's "KBase" are two such programs.
• If you have customer support personnel, you could install a chat program on your website to encourage the all-important first contact from site visitors.
10. Overcome Skepticism / Encourage Trust
We are all naturally skeptical online. The reasons for this are obvious. The Internet can be an anonymous and scary place, used for deceitful purposes by everyone from con artists to pedophiles. Yikes!
Of course, these shady characters represent the minority (or so I'd like to believe). But it still poses a challenge you must consider in your online marketing program.
Take a look at your own website right now. What have you done to make the visitor comfortable in who you are? How have you demonstrated integrity? How have you encouraged trust and confidence?
Better yet, why not ask a half-dozen friends or colleagues to visit your website and navigate around like a potential customer would. Have them jot down on paper anything that makes them uncomfortable, uncertain, or just plain confused. Correct these things immediately, and keep them in mind through all of your Internet marketing endeavors
Keyword Research has become an integral part of starting up your own business or growing your business (exponentially). Search engine marketing is here to stay for the long term, hence finding customers through keyword research should also be an integral part of your marketing.
Earlier, all you needed to do was to enter the description of your business in the title & meta tags and you were done with optimizing your web-site. Things have changed! And hence this article...
How does Search Engine Optimization (SEO) relate to keywords?
SEO is the process of increasing the number of visitors to your web-page by the careful and deliberate use of targeted keywords and their specific placements designed to get the page to show up on the top listing for such keywords. (SEO also includes other strategies not discussed here.)
TIP: Keyword Research is very useful to you when you decide to start a pay-per-click campaign to drive visitors to your website or increase revenue using adsense.
Here are the seven simple steps to keyword mastery that will cause your page to be indexed correctly by Search Engines and your link to be displayed at the very top on the search results page.
Step 1) Start with the most common words you use to describe your business(or your niche, if you operate in one). If you are in the automobile service business, you may have the following: Car Repair , Body Shop, Car Repair, New tires with car repair, Wax and Shine etc. If you actually have a niche business such as Jaguar Service And Repairs, then it becomes even more easier.
Step 2) Call your friend. Ask him how he would try to find your widget on a search engine if he lost your phone number and he wanted to look you up on the Internet. What if he forgot the name of your establishment? What if ....
Your perception of how people see you may be different from your customers' perception of you. Add these new words to the list.
Repeat this as many times as you can with different people.
Step 3) Find other words related to your original list. such as names of the brands. Lexus Repair, Lexus spare-parts, Honda kit, etc.
Mix and match keywords with your original list to find even more keywords.
Step 4) Go to google and run a search for your widget. See what keywords bring up your competition and what words do not. Add them to your list .
Step 5) Add plurals and common mis-spellings too.
Step 6) Figure out as to how often people search using each of the phrases you have identified in your list. You can use the google adwords tool for this purpose.
TIP: Use adwords tool to see how many people have searched for each of your phrases in the recent past. https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal . This also suggest keywords you might want to use.
Step 7) Make sure your keywords are placed in the following locations on you web page: Page Title, Meta Keywords, Meta Description, Header Tags, Alternate Description for images, First Paragraph on the page, strong Tags, Em tags, Ordered and unordered lists, Anchor Tags, File names, Folder Names, Footer Tags, Any URLs and links in your pages.
Should I use many keywords in the same page?
Yes. Use as many keywords as it makes sense. Don't overdo it. If your content becomes just a keyword trash-bin, users will start skipping over it and the search engines will catch on pretty fast. So avoid using too many keywords where it does not make sense. It's best if you have multiple pages offering up different keywords.
One caveat. You need to be aware of 'Keyword density'. Sometimes, if your usage of keywords is too high, and it looks like you have placed too many keywords, the search engine may not give you the best ranking. "Sprinkling" is the key-word when it comes to using them on each page.
You should also be aware of negative keywords. These are keywords you need to use in your PPC(Pay-per-Click) text so as to make sure that people do not click your link expecting to get freebies.
e.g. If you said : "Self Clearning Widgets- $500 and up", you keep out the people who are looking for cheaper stuff.
Are phrases better than individual words?
Depends! If your customer is searching for self-cleaning widget, then you should use self-cleaning widget. If your customer is searching for just widget, and auto clean, you should use these words separately.
How often do I have to check my keywords?
As often as you can. Your customers react to various influences around them and search for different terms at different times. To be able to remain on top with a good ranking you need to keep on top of your keywords. Sometimes they react to an offer made by a competition and start searching for similar offers.
I know. You are saying:"But I don't have that much time to devote to just keyword research." That brings us to the next question.
Do I have to do it all by myself?
I have had many websites in the past few years. In the beginning I did everything manually the old fashioned way.
Lately I've found a few tools that help make life easier for me, though you could do it all by yourselves if you had the time and the tenacity(which I sorely lack). I suggest you find yourselves a tool to do the work for you.
I use Keyword Elite now, though I've used WordTracker in the past.
Pick 1: Keyword Elite tool : If you really plan to take your business to the next level, this is a great tool. From generating your own keyword lists, to analyzing pay-per-click listings, to studying your competition, this one accomplishes quite a bit. This tool works with Google, Yahoo,MSN, Ask etc. It will save you tons of hours of wasted time and effort. Also, I like the fact that it is multi-threaded(lots of more power.)
WebSite: http://www.elitekeyword.net
Pick 2 : WordTracker: Offers a free, 'lite' version, as well as a paid version. Features include an online management system for different keyword projects, searching for often misspelled words, a system to calculate your best keywords, and much more. WebSite:Wordtracker.com/FreeWordtracker
Pick 3 : WebCEO :From a free version to a $389/- version this company has various options available. For small business owners, the $199/- version would be suitable.Go for the $389/- version if you have multiple web-sites running and your business model is solely online. Web Site: http://www.webceo.com/cgi-bin/go/clickthru.cgi?id=linkflow
What next ?
Use keyword research to identify the most likely phrases for your business.
Master keyword research just like I outlined in this article and create a massive list of targeted keywords.
Make a list of the 5 most promising keyword phrases.
Head over to your favorite domain listing / hosting company (eg. http://www.GoDaddy.com) and see if you can buy that phrase in the .com domain.eg. Self-cleaning-Widgets.com
Point your existing website to this url. If you don't have an existing web-site, create your new website using all the keywords you identified.
Submit your site to the search engines.
Happy hunting!
