Start with something you know well

If you're reading this post then you probably have an interest in Internet marketing. If you have an interest in Internet marketing then you've probably heard it said that it's best to start in a niche you know a lot about. It's finally occurred to me just how good this advice is.

For the last couple of weeks I've been working on setting up a niche site targeted around a load of stuff from easynicheproduct.com. I really think there's every chance for it to succeed but it's been an uphill battle the whole way and if I didn't have an excellent content writer working on blogs and articles for me, then it would definitely have flopped before now. So don't get me wrong, I'm still going to pursue this niche, try to build a list and create the site but this morning I had a bit of an epiphany.

I returned to a forum that I have been posting in regularly for a couple of years and you know what? There were Internet marketing ideas absolutely everywhere. I posted in a couple of threads and thought, "Wow, I could so make a product for this." I posted in a couple more and though, "Wow, these people are all hungry for information on this topic." So as well as working on my existing niche site I think its time I started working in an area that I know really well.

So next time you read that little bit of advice, don't just dismiss it and think it doesn't apply. Go and read a forum related to a topic you know a lot about and see how many ideas go off in your head.

Prelaunch Starts Tomorrow

I'm afraid its another progress post today and won't contain anything particularly useful. I've managed to stick with the whole motivation thing since Sunday and I'm proud to say that I've finished my namesqueeze page complete with free ebook and viral, refer-a-friend system.

As of tomorrow evening I'll be starting to promote the site and building my list. I'll be making use of the forum promotion techniques described below as well as submitting articles to a number of directories.

Hopefully over the next few days I'll be able to bring you some more interesting content and not just updates about how my project is going. So, wish me luck!

Domain Name System

I just posted this explanation of domain names, IP addresses and DNS to CYN and thought it might be useful to someone else. Its very raw and unedited due to being a forum post rather than a well thought out article but the content is reasonable I think.

---

Here's a quick explanation of the domain name system (although a quick Google search will probably explain better than I ever could).

Let's start with a couple of definitions -

domain name - the name people type into their web-browsers or email software.
IP address - the numeric address (in the form 123.123.123.123) of a computer on a network connection (in this case network can mean Internet)
DNS (domain name system) - the system of the Internet that allows domain names to be converted into IP addresses.

Basically, think of domain names as people, IP addresses as phone numbers and DNS as a phone book.

You want to call your friend John - you want to go to www.google.com
You look in the phone book to find his phone number - you (or rather your web-browser) looks it up in the DNS
You now know the phone number to call John with - your web-browser now knows the number it needs to contact to show you www.google.com

So it works like this -

You register a domain name with company X and, by default, they will set it up to point to an IP address of their's which will have a load of advertising on it. If you have signed up for hosting with them then it will be the IP address of whatever server is going to provide your hosting.

This new information is then submitted into the domain name system and eventually propagates to all the other name servers. This bit can take a little while which is why you're told to be patient. It can happen within 5 minutes but can take up to 24 hours or so.

If you haven't signed up for hosting with company X then you edit the DNS information for yourself to tell it where your hosting is (by providing an IP address for it to point to). This is called the A record. There is a separate (MX record) for the mail server that will handle email sent to name@domain.com.

So what does all this tell you?

Basically that you can find a new hosting provider and update the DNS entries of your domain names to point to the new host and (within 24 hours) be back in business.

As ever, your mileage may vary, but that's a simple round up of how this stuff works. If anyone has any questions or wants a hand to deal with any of this stuff feel free to let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Motivation

I was planning to start work on my prelaunch stuff today but preparing a presentation for work got in the way. This means that I'm going to have a very busy day tomorrow getting everything in place ready to begin my prelaunch on Monday.

That's not the topic I want to talk about in this post though. What I actually want to discuss is motivation. This is a pretty interesting topic for me because I'm usually a reasonably highly motivated person but getting started in Internet Marketing is proving a real challenge for me. I've spent a few weeks reading everything I could lay my hands on and asking questions of anyone that would stand still long enough to listen. Now its time to take action for myself I keep seeing potential failure looming at every step even though I know that the only real failure I can actually suffer in any of this is a failure to act and missing out on this great opportunity.

I have all the technical skills I need (I'm a software engineer by day and outright geek by night), I have an excellent content writer turning out brilliant articles for me and I have a reasonable grasp of how to combine this with Internet Marketing techniques to produce traffic and hopefully a list. So what is the X factor, the voodoo magic, the evil beast that makes it all seem so distant from where I'm at now?

I think the answer is motivation to really work at it. To take all the knowledge I have and keep putting it together in different ways until stuff finally starts to stick. Rather than fearing the way I've engineered my prelaunch is doomed to failure I need to just get in there and try it. I'm not proposing that everyone go off half cocked without any kind of plan but now I've acquired sufficient know-how I really do need to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty.

Tonight I'm going to chill out and play in a poker tournament but starting tomorrow I'm going to really focus on getting everything setup ready to start driving traffic on Monday. Hopefully in the future I'll have the opportunity to work smarter rather than harder but right now its all about getting stuck in and just giving it a try. As I've mentioned before, I'm not actually doing this to make money (although it'd be nice) but to learn about how this all works. With that being the case the only way I can fail is to do nothing and look back on this post in a couple of months and wonder what might have been.

I invite anyone that reads this post, whether it be today, tomorrow or a year from now to really start working at something you want. Cast aside your fears that if you try you could fail, cast aside your doubts that you don't have it in you and cast aside that little voice in your head that tells you to slack of and not bother. So come join me and make it happen today.

Getting Comments

Yesterday I received the following comment -

"Andrew, can you tell me why it is just so darn difficult to actually generate COMMENTS in the blogosphere?! Even on a sweet blog like this one, I see that comments are scarcer than hen's teeth. I. for one, really like this blog and have read every post on the first page with interest. Check out my blog at [url deleted] Will you let me know what you think, Andrew?

What does it take to get people to COMMENT on blogs? That is my burning question of the day.

P.S. I originally spotted you over on the Conquer Your Niche Forum. "

Firstly I'd like to say how flattered I am that someone would take the time to post me a comment and ask me something. I think the only fair response is an honest one and I can sum it up by saying, "beats me", so I went and did a little Googling to see what other people thought.

This seems to be a reasonably untouched topic so obviously contains a certain voodoo magic and X factor that its hard to nail down. The best article I found dealing with the topic was http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/10/12/10-techniques... and even that seemed to basically turn, "respect and value your readers comments" into an entire article on the subject.

As a result I'm going to throw this open to anyone who happens to stop by and check this blog out. Traffic is low at the moment so its up to you to do your bit and answer the question. Take a couple of minutes and leave me a comment here. I'll leave anything (legal) up so take advantage of it. Tell me what makes you comment on things, call me a jerk, post a link to your blog or send a spam bot my way.

So before you leave, say something in the comments section of this post!

Introduction to Forum Marketing

I was very surprised by the reaction to my first article. I was expecting to receieve a lot of mediocre response (if any at all) but everyone seemed quite taken with it in the IM forums I posted it to and the IM contacts I showed it to loved it. On the flip side of the coin I also received a load of responses asking me what forum marketing was, if it was really worth it and, if so, how on earth to go about it. So, without further ado, I give you my introduction to forum marketing.

Getting Started

So you've found yourself a niche to promote. You've read tons of guides on sales pages, viral strategies and all that jazz but now you need some traffic. There are loads of ways to generate free traffic, so don't for a minute think you can get away with doing just this, but if you get it right then Internet forums can provide masses of targeted traffic.

Step 1: Finding Forums

Its not just about finding forums targeted at your niche (after all, if you can't do that with Google then you're in the wrong business my friend) but finding the right kind of forum. For starters you want to find the ones that have the most traffic but fortunately Google is likely to do that for you by having them at the top when you search.

What to look for in a forum -

1. Traffic - A good indication is number of registered users (usually shown on the front page).
2. Signiatures - If you can't get your link in there then you're wasting your time.
3. Community - If threads often go unanswered or only receive a couple of replies then you'll have to put in a lot more effort for less return. Find somewhere people keep good threads going and do more than just post up their own stuff.

The easiest way to find out if a forum is suitable is to watch it for a couple of days before you waste time signing up. Check out how long threads can be expected to hang around, how many views popular threads get and generally how much attention people pay to each other.

Step 2: Signing Up

Now that you've identified several forums that you're going to target you need to make an account on each and get posting straight away. Don't bother filling in your signiature yet just get in there and introduce yourself. Create a thread, or post in the one specifically for introductions, and say hello. Then go post in as many threads as you possibly can just to get in the swing of posting to that forum. Say hello to other newbies in their intro threads. Offer congratulations to people who have announced something great. Commiserate with anyone posting about something bad. Don't think about it, don't worry about saying the wrong things and certainly don't start advertising yet. Just get in there and get posting.

A lot of people feel awkward posting in a forum to begin with. A lot of the regulars have created a sense of community and newbies feel like outsiders when confronted with it. Don't be daunted by it. Do you really think these people signed up to an Internet forum because they are anti-social types? Seems unlikely doesn't it. They're eager to socialise with new people and you should be too.

Step 3: Create Threads To Get More Sig Views

Once you're settled into the forum and have posted a few times in other people's threads you need to get in the habit of creating your own. At best people skim read the replies to other people's posts but if they've clicked on the topic itself then they're going to read the opening post. Don't spam the forum with any old rubbish (its not going to stay on the front page long anyway if you do) but aim to create interesting discussion that people want to be involved in.

Conclusion

The most important thing to take from this article is the need to get invovled in the forums you join. Get to know people, post often and generally become part of the community. The more people get to know you the more curious they'll be to check out your signiature link. So don't be afraid of it, just get out there and start posting.

Bonus Tip

Before I go I want to share one last bonus tip for creating fantastic threads with very little extra effort on your part. Since you're going to be a member of several different forums, simply take the topics of the best threads from each and repost them to the other forums. Some of the time the interest level just won't be the same but generally if it was interesting to one forum it will be to the others as well.

Progress So Far

Today I thought I'd bring you an update on how my Internet Marketing plans are progressing. It's all very well reading and rereading as much as I can but I'm clearly not going to make any money until I actually put some stuff out there.

We'll gloss over my first project which, like most people, was focused in the Internet Marketing/Money Making/Scam type niche and was really never going to go anywhere. I escaped that one with minimal losses after only purchasing an over priced domain name and 10 quids worth of Google Adwords. So considering the small outlay I guess it was a good learning experience.

Plan number two was inspired by the 15kchallenge that I've posted a link to before. Dan Raine is frankly a genius and I feel no shame in using a load of his ideas for my own ends. So stop number one was a subscription to www.easynicheproduct.com (don't worry its a regular link not an affiliate one) and a couple of hours spent coming up with ideas based around what I found.

Several ideas jumped off the page at me but one really hit home as having loads of potential. Like the typical wannabe IM guru that I am, I'm not going to share the niche itself but it seems to have a pretty big potential customer base and not too much IM competition.

Having identified the niche I've started posting in a couple of related high traffic forums, creating articles and generally starting to drive traffic towards two blogs. One blog is a collection of the articles and the other is an interesting experiment blog related to the chosen niche. Once things have progressed further I'll discuss it more but for now I just want to see how it works out.

So, its all starting to come together and its time to register for Aweber and throw up a namesqueeze page to start getting subscriptions for my VIP launch.

Before I go I want to share my latest marketing idea. I doubt I'm the first person to think of it, but I'm pretty sure I didn't read it anywhere. After the typical namesqueeze page where you offer a free ebook to anyone who signs up for your launch, take visitors through to a second page where you offer them another ebook if they refer 3 or more friends (also including an easy form through which to do it). Really simple and I'm hoping, really effective.

Let me know what you think!

Russell Brunson's DotComSecrets

While I write this I'm listening to Russell Brunson's 2 hour Internet Marketing seminar recording. The guy is really smart and has absolutely loads of good ideas. As always you have to sign up to his list to get it but other than that its entirely free and definitely worth 2 hours of your life to listen to.

So pop along to http://www.dotcomsecrets.com and sign up to the newsletter (form on the top right) and you'll be able to download the mp3 file.

Just to reassure you, that's not an affiliate link or anything like that. Its just a regular link to his site because I think its really worth your time to listen to what this guy has to say.

Forums: Get noticed and get more traffic

Getting noticed on forums, especially when you are new, always feels like a bit of a hit and miss affair. Some posters seem to have that X factor about them that gets their posts read, replied to and discussed far more than others. For some its simply because they've been around longer and people know they always turn out good content but until then you need something extra to get people to read your posts (and then click your sig links).

Step 1: Be active, not reactive

Most people who post in forums follow a herd mentality. They joined because they felt they had something in common with the group and they like it to stay that way. This simple fact has a big influence over how they read and respond to various threads. They'll only click on topics that appeal to them (more on that next) but more importantly they'll read the opening post, work out what they think and then look for other comments to back up their line of thinking. When they do this though, they're just skimming the replies to make sure that they're not drifting too far from the herd. This means they're not really paying attention and so they're not going to click your sig links.

So even if you respond to nearly every thread with really informative, well thought out replies people are not going to remember your screen name or take as much interest in you as they will if you start threads that make them feel comfortable. Don't take this as a suggestion to never reply to other people's threads, but if you want to get noticed and get people clicking your sig links then you need to be starting threads of your own.

2. Create interesting titles to get more clicks

Even forums that have a small number of threads on the front page still present people with between 10 and 20 titles that they can click on. Its human nature to start at the top and work your way down but most people will get distracted after only a couple of threads so you need to do the best you can to grab their attention. The more people read it, the more people will reply and the more it will stay at the top. Getting lots of forum exposure with minimum effort is all about creating this positive feedback loop that keeps people interested and involved.

So what can you do to grab attention and increase clicks -

1. Ask a question - Everyone has an opinion and they'll be dying to give you their's if you give them an opportunity.
2. Use an emotional trigger - "Useful tip" or "Useful tip that could double your sales" which would you click on?
3. State the obvious - "IM is harder than it looks", everyone knows its true and people will feel comfortable with the thread and more likely to read it.

Step 3: Get replies

Creating lots of threads isn't any good if they disappear fast (and they will on the kind of high traffic forums you want to target) but its a pain to have to reply to any slight comment people make in order to keep your thread visible. What you want is for the high volume of traffic to work for you rather than against you. So make sure your opening post leaves lots of hooks for people to reply to and guess what, they will.

Asking questions is an obvious way to do this but there are other options such as setting people up to write anecdotes, "I've found that x & y but would be interested to hear about other people's experiences" or make an obvious mistake that the more anal retentive members of the forum will feel compelled to comment on.

Conclusion

Following these simple steps will get you more interest in your threads, more discussion in your threads and make a better name for you in the forum. And what's more, even if you don't reply very often in your own threads, people will still associate all the discussion that goes on with your screen name resulting in you being a more valued forum member in their eyes. All of which results in more views in future and ultimately more clicks for your sig links.

Good Keywords

I've recently learned a lot about SEO and how keyword rich content is very important for getting listed highly for your niche. After a week or so of manual investigation on Google (which is very time consuming and rather dull) I stumbled across Good Keywords, an excellent tool developed by Softnik Technologies.

So, if you haven't done so already, pop along to www.goodkeywords.com and get yourself a copy. Its free!

Let's say our niche is vodka (a subject dear to my heart right now after a heavy night's drinking) and you do a Google search to see what you're up against. Surprise, surprise, the number one website on Google is a company that has probably invested millions in marketing and has a PR7. Not really what we want to be competing with now is it?

What we really want to know is what vodka related keywords are being searched for so we can write keyword specific articles targeting those and have a much better shot at a high search ranking. So what do you need to do?

1. Fire up Good Keywords
2. Click Keyword Suggestions (the very top box)
3. Type 'vodka' into the base keyword box
4. Click Go!

It really is as easy as that. A few moments later you'll be presented with a load of related keywords and an indication of their traffic. If nothing else this is a great source of inspiration for what you should write your next article about.

If we scan down the list of vodka related keywords (ignoring the half dozen or so brand name entries it turns up) then, at number 7, we find "vodka drink" has a reasonable amount of search traffic. A quick Google search of this one turns up a much more appealing list. The number 1 entry is a PR5 that isn't even a top level domain page. Looks like a much more promising search term to target to me!

There's a lot more to Good Keywords than this but I'm just getting started with it myself. If you have any interesting tips then please include them in the comments so other people can benefit from your experience.

Google Analytics

Well, I've just got Google Analytics setup on my blogs and intend to set it up on my other sites. Its incredibly easy to use and best of all, you can share the statistics with other people who have a Google Analytics account. The only downside is its not real time so you'll only see an update every 24 hours or so. Still, it'll keep you from checking back every few minutse to see if anyone new has stopped by!

So what do you need to do?

First of all, visit http://analytics.google.com and sign up for an account. During the process you'll be given some crazy looking code and be told you need to put it on to your website. Don't panic!

Every website is made up of the same building blocks known as hypertext markup language or HTML. Its made up of what are known as "tags" which describe how the page should look. For example, to make some text bold in HTML you would write <b>This would be bold</b> and the main part of the page (the stuff that's actually displayed) is contained in <body></body> tags. Now you know all you need to about HTML in order to get Google Analytics working for you.

Simply copy the code you've been given (all of it, don't accidently miss out a character here) and find the HTML of your site. On a regular page, this will be a page somewhere your webhost has given you, on Blogger.com you need to edit the template etc. Once you've done that, scroll to the very bottom of the page and find where it says and paste the code Google gave you just above it. Don't forget to save/publish or do whatever you need to in order to make it live!

Finally, to check that its all working, log into your Google Analytics account and check that the status column in the main table doesn't display an error. If it does then you've most likely copied the code wrong or not made the page generally available.

Still confused? Need some help? Leave me a comment letting me know your problem and I'll see what I can do. Failing all else I'll sign you up for an account and install it for you. It really is that quick and simple, so go give it a go!

Time for some actual content

This is just a quick update to bring you some sites that I've already found incredibly useful and to say a big thank you to all the more experienced people who have offered so much advise for so little in return.

www.15kchallenge.com - Dan Raine's excellent challenge, tutorial and all around awesome blog about making $15k in 30 days. He didn't quite make it but he does detail all kinds of useful stuff along the way. Don't forget to read the comments as well as the posts, this stuff is gold!

www.warriorforum.com - An absolutely brilliant site with loads of incredibly experienced people. Visit often, take in as much as you can but don't forget to post and get involved too.

www.twoplustwo.com - Check out the Money Making and Business forum. There's not much content there at the moment but they've started an excellent project to help each other get started. Get over there and get involved!

www.wehelpnewbies.com - This site doesn't have many members yet but the creator Craig Desorcy has written up some fantastic articles and produced some even better videos. Best of all ... its free.

Right, that's enough for now. I've read loads of other excellent stuff over the last couple of weeks but the sites escape me for now. So stay tuned and don't forget to post some comments with your own advice.

In the beginning there was poker

Ok, so why am I starting my Internet Marketing blog with a post about poker?

In short, because that's where my Internet Marketing investigations began. I've been playing poker for a while now and really started to take it seriously about a year ago. I deposited $500 and started reading my ass off. A year later and I've turned that $500 into $5000 and I'm a regular poster at www.twoplustwo.com.

That's where I discovered the Money Making and Business forum and had my eyes opened to the wonderful world of Internet Marketing. At the same time a friend of mine got into it as well and showed me all kinds of informative stuff (including the infamous richjerk guide). Needless to say I blew through about $100 on a domain name, some adwords advertising and so on, earning absolutely nothing. Almost like I need to learn more about it ...

So here I am! Over the coming weeks I'm going to chart my progress in the world of Internet Marketing and share what I pick up. So keep visiting, contribute extra advice in the comments and most importantly take action yourself!