Information for Developing a niche

What is a niche?

In internet marketing a niche is a specific target audience. A great example of a niche is Automobile Dealers. To break the niche even down more “Ford Automobile Dealers”. By developing a niche and focusing all your efforts on just one niche your more likely to see results faster than to have 100s of random niches. Choose your niche example Home Decor, then break it down even smaller in to other categories such as office home decor, garage decor, bedroom home decor etc. This is the key to success. Start Big and drill down!

Localizing your niche

Localizing your niche , helps you target your specific geographical audience. If your a landscaper in Lawrenceville, GA your probably not going to want to target an audience in Panama City Florida. Am I right? Localizing your website, will help you obtain those local clients in your service area. One great way to do this is to add your business to Google’s local business center . Have you ever noticed the results listed below?

This is a prime example of localizing your niche, as well as dominating your niche locally and in natural search results.

What is natural search results?

Natural search results are ranked exclusively by Google. This mean that they believe that your website is the best fit for the search the user “potential client” has executed. As you can see, I not only show  up  in the local business directory but I also show up in the next 2 natural search results. Not tooting my own horn but thats pretty amazing if you think about it. If the user decides to not click on my business in the business directory they have 2 more shots at it on the 1st page of Google. That’s pretty good odds that I may get the searcher to visit my site.

Dominating your niche in your local area

Most peoples goals are to dominate there nich, especially localaly.  If your a roofer and there are 1000’s of roofers in your area, but your dominating the internet of your specific area your more likely to have a better return on your “time investment” than the other guys that may or may not even have a website.

I hope this tutorial has been informative. Please leave me feed back. If your interested in dominating your local business please dont hesitate to contact me. I provide personal internet marketing training as well as managing your success for you.

Thanks

Chris

Blogging is relatively simple, inexpensive and does not consume too much of your work day. You may ask what should I blog about? Well as an example say that you are a custom home builder and you just finished up a $3,000,000.00 job. The client is estatic about the work you have done they want to tell all their rich friends about your fine craftsmanship, but they are busy people and dont really have time to take photos and email them to their closest friends. How cool would it be if you could provide them with a link that displays your fine work throughout the whole project, from start to finish. Detailed photos of before and after. They would probably be more willing to shoot a few emails out with a link to your blog showing the process of the construction of their new pride and joy.

All this may be sinking into your head like DUH! I could really take pictures of my work and blog about the process and different options of my products or services. You can talk about how you started your business, how long you have been in business. Past clients can leave referrals. You can give directions to your store/workshop/showroom. You can give your thoughts on products you sell, give advice on maintenance of the product etc. The possibilities are endless. The best news is the more you blog the more Google  can pick up keywords from your blog posting and index them for those potential clients to find

Now that you have realized this lets move on to how do I set up a blog? Do you already have a website? Do you manage your own website or pay someone to? If you answered yes I have a website and I manage it simply create a new page for each project and link them in like a portfollio. If you answered yes to one of these I can help you out. I can setup a custom blog for your business with in a 3 day turn arround. for less than $300.00 for a basic install of Wordpress and theme the blog to match your current website. This is if you have your own web hosting. If you dont have your own web hosting I can recommend you some webhost and we can get your space setup and blog setup on the same 3 day turn arround time.

If your serious about growing your business online, blogging is one of the best 1st steps. Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are some of the more complex social networking tools. In the next few post I will discuss the advantages to Twitter, FaceBook and LinkedIn.

Please leave comments and suggestions,

Chris

Find your dream home with Home Finder Free IPhone Application.

First Time Home Buyers Tool

2009 is the best time for first time for first time home buyers to buy a home. The government is offering $8000 as  a tax rebate that you can use as  a downpayment on your new home. Never in the history of this United States has this been done. Having the downpayment out of the way, lets move on to why you really came here.

Home Finder IPhone Application

The Home Finder application can be downloaded from the IPhone App Store. This is a FREE application that is packed with lots of handy features.

Search For your dream home

Searching on the Home Finder app is a breeze. Simply enter the location you want to search followed by the minimum price you would like to pay for you home, and the maximum amount you can pay for your home. Square feet, number of bed rooms,  number of bathrooms, year built and distance from your search location.

I am actually in the market for my first home as we speak. I usually choose my location, min price and max price and leave the rest of the optional fields blank. By searching in this fashion your not short changing yourself of a potential fixer upper at a much lower price.

Here is a screen shot of what I have described above

Search Results

Once your search results come back, the homes are listed closest to you in distance. As you scroll down the list, the homes will be a longer distance from the location you entered in your search.  After you select your first potential home on the list you now are able to map the location to the home, view the price of the home, use the mortgage calculator, view the details about the home. This application even goes as far as to give you the Realtor’s name, who they work for images of the home, and a link to the mls page where you can view the full details. At the very bottom is a short description of the home.

Additional Features

Alexander Mobile though of everything when they created this FREE application. In the main menu you can view recent searches, view favorites, or calculate your monthly payment with the built in mortgage calculator.

If this post has been educational to you please comment. If you are a user of this product and love it as much as I do, please comment. If you have any questions about this product please comment.

Thanks,

Chris

Have a question about marketing your website, your product, yourself?   Feel Free to ask me. This site is driven off of the feedback of its viewers. Heres your chance guys and gals of the marketing world. Ask any marketing question, big or small. No question will go unanswered! Please check back soon for updates to the Hardin Marketing Site.

To ask a question, simply use the comment box below. Thanks in advance for your participation.

Please follow me on twitter, if your not already a follower. We will follow you back! Help us help you.

Thanks,

Chris

Put simply, a sticky site equals customer loyalty. Customer loyalty equals revenue.

1. Content

I can’t stress the importance of content enough. Keep the content up to date, and ‘time sensitive’. Remove out of date content so that it doesn’t affect the credibility of your site.

2. Give your site a personality

There is a huge amount of information on the internet, and you can be sure your members could find what you are providing elsewhere. What your members are really paying for is the way you present that information. If they like your videos, your blog style, or just your personality in general, they are more likely to revisit your site.

3. Don’t loose focus on your niche

Don’t forget that your members joined your site because they had an interest in your niche. Whatever your expertise is, reflect it on your website and blog. You are the expert and your followers are following you to gain advise from a seasoned expert on the topic. While it is fine to include content on a slightly different subject if you are sure it will be relevant and interesting. Never lose sight of your original subject. Wander too far off the subject and your may find your customers wandering off your member list.

4. Make information easy to find

Everyone hates searching over a site for a simple peice of information. If your site is horribly cluttered, you must, must have a search bar on your site. Then clean up the clutter and organize your content in to general topics, then more broken down specific topics. Ensure the content on your membership site is organized in such a way that your members will find what they want easily. If your members view your site as a valuable information resource rather than just another website, they will want to us it again and again.

5. Provide what your customers want

I’ve heard this over and over again, and your pocketbook will reflect how successful you are. Find out what people want, then give it to them. Encourage your customers to ask for an article or information on a certain subject if they can’t find it. Writing an article specifically for one customer may seem like a lot of work, but if you think long term, that customer may then stay with you for the lifetime of your membership site.

6. Keep in touch with your members

Build a relationship with your members. Contacting your members via e-mail is essential to keep them engaged with your site. Send your members updates, informative newsletters, and reminders, and ask them for their feedback.

7. Ask them to take part in surveys

This is one way of finding out what the visitors are looking for. Ask your members to complete a survey about your membership site and then make sure you act on their feedback and let them know you have done so. Send out a special edition of your newsletter showing some of the results of your survey and detailing how you have responded and any changes you have made. Feeling that they have had a hand in shaping your site will really make your members feel engaged in your online community.

8. Allow customization of your homepage

Having some functions that your members personalize on your site will really make them feel involved. Even a simple message at the top of the home page saying ‘Welcome back [member name]’ will have a huge impact on making your members feel valued. Learning PHP is not really that bad.

9. Build a sense of community

Look at your site as if you were the mayor of  a small community. Being part of an online community is one of the main reasons your members will renew their membership. Here are a few additional tips on creating that sense of community.

10. Promote an active forum

Forums are relativley easy to setup. This provides a place for your members to get to know each other and begin to care about each other. Stopping their membership once they have become involved in your forum would be like losing a whole group of friends and experts, aka free content providers. Provide a function that allows your members to send private messages between each other. If you run competitions, or encourage your members to submit content, make sure you acknowledge the winners or contributors. Nothing makes a member feel a part of your site like seeing their name in the latest newsletter. Remember this!

If you follow these 10 steps, your online community will grow. Please leave comments / suggestions. If this article was helpful please pass it on to a friend.

Thanks,

Chris

AroundMe allows you to quickly find information about places around you.

Many times I have found myself in need of finding the closest Gas Station? A good example is the stretch in Alabama between Georgia and Panama. Now I have the AroundMe IPhone application. I just select what I am looking for. “Hotel for example” , it then quickly identifies where your gps position is and allows you to choose the nearest Hotel. It also allows you to find the nearest Banks, Bars, Gas Stations, Hospitals, Hotels, Movie Theatres, Restaurants, Supermarkets, Theatres, Taxis and more.

Fast, easy and accurate. AroundMe is your ideal day to day companion.

AroundMe shows you a complete list of all the businesses in the category you have tapped on along with the distance from where you are.

Content

Content is always the  key to success!
All the search engines scan a sites content now – usually they ignore things like meta tags. The more content you have on your site the more the search engines can scan – but there is more to it then that: people like content too. Many people measure a web site’s success by the number of visitors it gets – so ask yourself – why would people come to your web site? Do you offer them interesting and informative information that relates to your product or service? if not, why would they come? Think about it, the reason your reading this blog now, is because your interested in what I have to say.

Relevant content and lots of it is the key to a successful web site. There is always room for more content on a web site, and you can never have too much. Always remember this!
Writing articles about aspects of your industry is a great way to generate content.  Write what you know! You are the expert tell everyone what you know.
Its a good idea to set aside an hour a day or at least an hour a week to devote to adding new content to your web site.

Images

If your selling a product. It better look as good as the description. Video is also another media you can use. If you are selling something that has a visual representation then professional looking photography is key. Even a high dollar resort will not look good if the photographs are amateurish. If you care about what you have to sell, then it’s worth investing in some professional photographs to show people what you have. Remember, on-line people can’t get a hold of your product. So you need to give them some really good photographs so that they can feel confident that it meets their needs. if your in Atlanta and need some professional photographs, I recommend http://www.inspiredimagez.com .

I hope you have learned something from this post. Please leave comments, suggestions.

Thanks,

Chris

Being a small business, means a small budget. Big businesses advertise to create name recognition and future sales. A small business doesn’t have excess funds for that. Instead, design your advertising to produce sales …now. One way to accomplish this is to always include an offer in your advertising – and an easy way for prospective customers to respond to it. If your selling a service, give them a taste of it for free. Always have a free version of your membership service. This turns the unbeliever into a fan.

2. Offer a Discounted Version

Some prospective customers are not willing to pay the asking price for your product or service. Others are more interested in paying a low price than in getting the best quality. You can avoid losing sales to many of these customers by offering a smaller or stripped down version of your product or service at a lower price. Making some money is always better than no money at all . Right?

3. Offer a Premium Version

For the other half of the world who are not customers looking for a cheap price. Many are willing to pay a higher price to get a premium product or service. “You get what you pay for has always been my thought, when it comes to the growth of my business” You can boost your average size sale and your total revenue by offering a more comprehensive product or service …or by combining several products or services in a special premium package offer for a higher price.

4. Reduce Your Ads

Tri, the size of your ads so you can run more ads for the same cost. You may even be surprised to find that some of your short ads generate a better response than their longer versions. A great example is Adwords on Google. These are short text ads, but can also be the larger graphical ad, if you have the funds for that. Try a variety of ad sizes and formats, discover what works best for your situation.

5. Take Advantage of Your Customers

Your customers already know and trust you. It’s easier to get more business from them than to get any business from somebody who never bought from you. Take advantage of this by creating some special deals just for your existing customers. Example, I get weekly email deals from office depot. Create a mailing and atleast promote monthly to active customers as well as those who have not purchased from you in a while. Announce new products and services to them before you announce them to the general market.

Also, convert your customers into publicity agents for your business. Develop an incentive for them to tell associates and friends about the value of your products or services. An endorsement from them is more effective than any amount of advertising – and it is much cheaper.

Use these 5 marketing tips as a simple, low-cost way for your small business marketing and promoting to find customers and generate sales quickly. Please leave comments, suggestions.

Chris

Leaving effective comments:

You’re probably old enough to know that not every comment that gets thrown into an opportunity for interaction creates the desired effect, much less become appreciated by those who hear or read it. If you don’t use this technique carefully, you will either waste the opportunity or simply allow it to create the wrong impression.

Effective ways to leave comments:

Choose the sites you leave comments on carefully.

Ever wondered how Trump has become so rich so fast? Because he chooses his battles well. You’ll never find his brand in less than a Macys. Not because he’s a snob but because he focuses on building a brand, and being on equal ground with other greats. Keep this in mind before you leave comments on a website. Just because you have the burning need to drive traffic to your blog doesn’t mean you can just drop by a site, any site, and write there. This is considered as spam, and the blog or forum owner will just delete your comment or post.

Choose the sites and blogs whose forums you participate with carefully. Find out if the site deals with a topic or subject related to your own blog. Practice only purposeful commenting. The kind where you leave only well-crafted comments on sites that will help build the buzz about your blog. If the site is completely irrelevant but you have the urge to leave a comment, do so only during your spare time. Otherwise, focus your energies only on more productive activities.

Think before you type:

Before you leave a comment with the purpose of driving traffic to your blog, at least write one that is useful. Your goal is to be noticed AND respected for your opinions so leaving useless and dead end comments such as ‘Cool!’ and ‘Way to go!’ just won’t cut it. If this is the best you can do, forget about leaving comments right now and focus on other strategies to drive traffic to your blog. Better avoid this technique than be embarrassed or be viewed as lame or mediocre. But if you can write and have something meaningful to say, by all means, do so.

With every comment you post, make sure you keep it short, concise, to the point and useful. Talk about relevant topics and avoid those that will do nothing for your purpose. The most important thing of all to remember when posting comments with the intention of driving traffic to your blog, is put yourself in the position of the blog or forum owner. If it was your blog, or forum, would you find this comment useful and would you allow it to be posted on your blog. Most quality forums and blog comments are all moderated so if its low quality, it will be deleted.

Quality Comments = Quality Traffic.

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