How to Build Your Business Blogspot (Part 02) : 5 Way to Blog Your Online Business

.: 5 different ways to blog your online business~ (Not to be confused with different type of blogs).

Before we go further, let's go meet a blog and ask her name~ :-P

A blog a.k.a web log (Wiki)...

• is a site that can stands on it's own or be a part of a larger website
• entries (or blog posts) are shown in anti-clockwise order. It means the most recent entry is viewed first on the first page~ (You see her "now", not her "past" first)
• can become very social - support two way communications (by leaving or answering comments) or none at all, create her own fan, win awards or receive star ratings, etc~
• has her own array of makeups~ You can change the layout, theme, background, almost everything to beautify or personalize her
• can become a robot, or in this case - a cyborg girl. Why? We can do whatever we want with our blog, we can add more blog parts (widgets, more page elements, video, slideshow, etc), put external links, chat box, or add the best part of all, we can put advertisement or highlighted products/services and earn money~   ;-)

Isn't she pretty? Heehee   :-D

Currently, we have 5 ways to build our business blogspot. From normal text, to graphical posts, videos posts, audio posts or we blog less, the way we blogs seems to evolve from one media to another. Maybe the next way of business blogging will be moblog, mobile blogging with smartphones as the primary platform, who knows whats coming up next, right? ;-) Each blogs comes with it's own identity, and can be integrated with each other. Here is our 5 Way to blog our online business:

1. common contextual blog (consists mainly of text only)
2. photoblog (gallery blog)
3. vlog (video blog)
4. podcast (broadcast blog)
5. microblog (mini blog)

Common blogs.

This way of blogging is the most popular one. Write some unique article, put links within a text and then we have our working contextual business blog. This kind of blog is best for product or service reviews, discussions, their latest news, because it depends primarily on it's contents to drive sales. Some pictures or video here and there is common but text is likely to be seen more.

Photoblog (Wiki).

This one (as you can guess) uses pictures as it's primary content. Less test or written article, but brief description about the uploaded pictures is available. Best to showcase wedding dresses/ gowns, stock photos, artwork, or jeweleries. Blogger use Picasa web album to host our uploaded pictures, but we can use other photo hosting sites and link the embed HTML inside our business blogspot. (Note: photoblog use larger storing space than normal blog because image use more space than text.)

Vlog (Wiki).

Photoblog in a new level: Videoblog. Videoblog, a.k.a. video blogging or vidlogging is a blog with most of it's entry is in form of videos about the author, or the author as the main character. In our online business case, what we can vlog is videos about how to use certain products, promote a working services, or as a soft-sell video for affiliate products. Vlog in YouTube is also great to earn from Google Adsense like these YouTube stars~

Podcast (broadcast blog).

Hurmm, this one is new to me. It's like you're making a pause-and-play blog entries. It can be an audio post, or a video post. Our post can be downloaded or streamed online. Or in other explanation, it is like a recorded radio or tv program, but in form of a blog. How to put this kind of blog into business? Products news will be good, or recorded interviews with experts in our chosen niche?

Microblog.

Twitter is my best word to describe microblog. A blog so mini that you need to restrain yourself in a few words (140 chars, like you do your texting), use shortened URL just to spread the words, re-publish re-viral someone else post again, get social with our fans, and edit your background picture to fit a portion of space on the left and the right side~ X-D Great way to tell the world about our online business, because here linkbaiting posts is just soooooo good~  ;-)

Link bait (linkbaiting) : The act of making or publishing certain contents or features in order to get traffic and reactions. Sometimes used in creating hyped post titles in blogs, videos or online news~

Well, that is our 5 way to blog our online business blogspot. Choose one that suitable with your niche nature  or incorporate everything to make the very best of your business blog. In case you're wondering what does some terms or blogging words mean, check it out here : Wiki's list of blogging terms.

• image credit: andyp uk on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license.

InternetMarketingOnl9Class: "Try blogging the common way first, use microblog and vlog to give exposure and later attract more traffic~"
:-)
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How to Find Niche Markets? Chapter 02

.: Another unexpected place to find niche markets, using inquiry sites asking people for niche market, and example of online niche store~

This post is a continuation from lesson #5: Niche market is our business.

This is really new to me, I didn't think that we can find our niche market here. Many thanks to Mark Hansen, the author of the NicheStoreBuilder.com, where he shows in his blog how he manage to find another niche just by using... Google Images! Scrolled down, another strange place to find our niche market: our own spam Inbox~ Wow~~   X-D

• Searching our niche market using Google Images brings me into another niche, photoblog with niche photo market. Here is a related article about 6 steps to conquer a niche photo market (suitable for you who prefer to post your artwork online).   ;-)

Another way to find our niche market is by using inquiry websites. The most popular inquiry site would be Yahoo! Answers I think. Where our questions can be asked online, and let the internet community give the answers or solve your problems. The silver lining from such inquiries is, you can find your niche here based on the most asked questions or the most recent unanswered questions. Here is 3 steps and another 2 inquiry websites to find our niche.

Talking about niche, instead of creating one niche per site, how about selling the whole niche market in one website? Did somebody do that already? Can we see examples of online niche store? Yes, yes, and yes. WEB100.com has one article (Jan y2K9) where you can find 7 fun and funky niche stores on the internet~ (One store is not available?)

Hope that you're happy learning this chapter on how to find your niche market. Do you know other way to find one? Share with us in the comments below~   :-)

• image credit: Brooks Elliott on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license.

InternetMarketingOnl9Class: "Expect the unexpected~~"
:-D
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Niche Market Spotted Online: Kiplinger Slideshows

.: Again, this is my 5 cents, what I thought and might not be perfectly 100% correct. I've read Howie Schwartz's pdfs before, and examples below is a good niche where we all can go for. The earliest bird gets the early worm? :-P

(If you already read how Howie's drills his niche markets, you should be able to check whether examples below is profitable, conquerable, and will it lasts longer or not.)

This niche is spotted online from Kiplinger Slideshows : 10 Top Franchises You Can Run From Home by Neema P. Roshania, just spotted today. Today?? :-P

Here is 9 niche market (SOHO?) where we should grab now~
You should check out the slideshows so you'll get what I write here~

• Dance fitness classes: This can come as informational product as we can write e-book about it. Or maybe we can pick related jazz music from Amazon to promote? Create a DIY YouTube video how to do one?
• Business consulting and coaching: Is this what I'm doing?? Urm?   :-?
• Commercial cleaning:  This idea is great for festive celebration. Go for washing kitchen utensils, lawn-mowing, or fence painting. 'How to care for your hands and save more water while washing' e-book, etc~
• Shrub and lawn care, pest control: Also great for festive seasons, (where people get too much work to do). Informational products for different types of natural pesticides, where to buy old chair or English antiques, etc~
• Non medical in-home care: Should be great for localized online business. Online associates for adult diapers?
• Disaster insurance/restoration: I really don't know about this one. It's kinda new to me. But restoration for whatever purposes is really a good niche. ;-)
• Professional tools and equipment: Always Swiss knife in my head when thinking about all purpose tools. But snapping tools is good too, you don't need to worry about keeping it safe, plus it saves more space. Great niche for creating e-books, explain each tool with it's uses.
• Printing and promotional materials: This one is pretty common. Prepare online business with free and paid professional banners/flyers/brochures templates.
• Plumbing and draining: All in one plumbing how tos~   :-P

Will this niche market make or break? You decide~


InternetMarketingOnl9Class: "Spotting niche market online? Like spotting for airplanes?"
:-?
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#9: How to Build Your Business Blogspot (Part 01) : Two Eye for An Eye

.: Lesson #9: Build an online business space that works for your customer, not for your eye.

:-P

Yes, that's right. Our online business is created solely for our customer, not for us to fancy about. It is not about how awesome our flashy animations, or how tech savvy or how contextual our content are, but it is how they think and understands what our online business can give to them. It is all about their perceived v.a.l.u.e~   ;-)

Okay, before we continue to build our business blogspot (because we are using Blogger in Draft), this is one thing about the eye that I want you to understand.

"If you can understand your customer eye, you can do much much better conversion (or sales) than other lousy business blogspot out there."

mamdohkun, August 24th, 2K10.

Actually, I'm talking abut eye-tracking, the study on how our customer "view" (and perceive) our online business. It is a very interesting human behavior study which help us to look like how our customer look upon us. Read about eye-tracking here, and study carefully how certain study samples can lose the "heat" they wanted so badly...

• But What Does It All Mean? Understanding Eye-Tracking Results (Part 1)
• But What Does It All Mean? Understanding Eye-Tracking Results (Part 2) 
• But What Does It All Mean? Understanding Eye-Tracking Results (Part 3) 
• But What Does It All Mean? Understanding Eye-Tracking Results (Part 4) 
• But What Does It All Mean? Understanding Eye-Tracking Results (Part 5)

The rational?
When we want to sell them something, or we intend to give something, how can our customer receive it if they cannot see it in the first place? That's why we need to plan or adjust our business blogspot page element placements so that they can get their solution (our products or services) fast. Please avoid over-extravaganza design just to please our own eye...

So, before we move on to how to build your business blogspot, please keep in mind that, we need to create our online space for our customer, not for our eye ;-)


InternetMarketingOnl9Class: "Our sales lies in the eyes of the beholder (our customer)."
:-P
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Recap: The Simplest, Free Online Business Plan.

.: #Lessons revision: A recap of our previous lessons~   :-)

Seriously free, but comes with hard and smart work to make sure our business (and profits) runs indefinitely.

• Zero start-up cost
• Free tools
• Very profitable

What we should do? This is our simplest and free online business plan.

• Create an online ID
• Build our business space
• Find our market
• Prepare our products/services
• Attract our customers

The simplest and free online business plan.

Create an online ID.
To use all free tools available on the Net, we need to have our own ID. With minimum of two IDs, your online business registration now is much much easier. What I meant with online ID is your e-mail account. It would be nice for you to have one Yahoo! ID and one Google ID. We'll use these IDs a lot later~

• A list of free email account services
• How to create your Gmail
• How to create your Y!mail
• Understands and use all Y!mail and Gmail services~

Build our business space.
This blog (our internet marketing online class) prefers doing online business and e-marketing without the need to use a lot of money, or I rather say it that I love to use free reliable tools out there. Not all free tools are great (and secured), and it would be advisable for you to opt for paid services if you had more money to spent. For starters, we'll use free blog services and then the earnings later we can migrate to self-host our own blogs or sites~  ;-)

• 6 free and great blog services (I still prefer Blogger in Draft though, haha) ;-P 

Find our market.
The most important thing about selling online is how can our online business become visible to our customers/prospects? Internet is a very big big world, it might be *impossible* for them to notice us. Luckily, we have internet giants who voluntarily helping us to show our business to them. But with a little trick and strict T&C. Better say it as 'hard work done the smart way'.

• Rational why (new) online business is hardly visible
• Internet giants who help us for free...
• if, Our business sells what our customer wants!
• How to really find our targeted market?

Prepare our products/services.
After finish building our business space, prepared with our chosen niche, it's time to think what we're gonna sell for our business? Are we selling products or selling our expertise? What about if we do not have anything to offer?

• Examples of products and services we can offer
• Alternate solution for not having anything (any own products) to offer

Attract our customers.
Now everything is ready, we need to go all out to reach our customer. Again, this is the most delicate and the most important part to ensure our business become a success. We need to attract our customer ethically, give them what they wanted so much - help to provide their problems with the best solution, consistently interacts with them, and leave them impressions about our online business.

• Internet marketing sisters?
• Brief explanation about internet marketing

There you go, that is our simplest and free online business plan. You should get the overall idea how we gonna do it, and please start taking actions now! The sooner the better~   ;-)


InternetMarketingOnl9Class: "No pain no gain, because we reap what we sow~~"
;-)
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Niche Market Examples: Get the Big Picture

.: Haha. It's funny when I think about it. ;-P

This blog should be posting how tos and article about internet marketing in chronological order, or baby steps in doing internet marketing from a to z, but I had to postpone that "chrono" order because this recent article I'm going to write might help me and other internet marketers too. There's nothing to worry, we might get back on track later, okay?   ;-P

Before this we did mention about the 3 methods to find our niche markets, so, this article is about how to get one from the internet itself.

What I normally do after facebooking and checking out my email is, I love to read the Yahoo! daily snippets. From there I get to know the the current viral web phenomenon, resolved questions and answers, daily history, and he most important is, finding my own niche market there. Picture above is one snippets that I wanted to share~~

This snippets (The popularity issue) leads me to discover a for-sure market that get the most sales. Such data which you won't find it posted in front of any bulletin board out there, and getting this valuable information directly from them may give you so much hassles then, so this information is a gem. And what's inside that makes it a gem?

It tells us what is the most popular products in certain niche! :-D

I'll give you examples what I think~

• Car colors: Striking matching stickers for white cars? (Not my expertise) ;-P
• Banana: Selling banana-based foods online? Banana in a tin? (I remembered sandwich in a can, haha). Process banana peels into something else?
• Sales clerk: Crash course how to be one? Service where to find much better posts?
• Cereal: Healthier nut cereal? Parental advice for giving cereals for toddlers? Portable allergic-to-nut-or-not device?
• Chip: Green flavored chips? (Healthy chips~~)
• Shrimp: Shrimp = Fish????? Places to enjoy the best seafood. Collection of recipes..
• Dog: How tos trainings, foods, solutions for purebred dogs problems.
• France: Eating places in France? Personalized marry-in-France package?
• Lipsticks: Sell more pink products~ Self help to make diy lipsticks?
• Sneakers: How about photoblog of pimped Nike-pedia?? How to pimp one?

Take your imagination wild, but serve the hungriest niche first~   ;-)
(Reminder: While every information is just a matter of opinion, but you need to make your own judgement, either this works with you or not.)

And, from this article (which leads me to another website), just to show you that humans cannot be judged simply from numbers and digits, or computer programs, niche markets might depends on your analytic ability to project whether it is profitable or not. Talking about projecting (I mean predicting), they did give us a site that displays on-the-way trending or viral things on the web~

Finding a niche market from such websites - half of our work is done, eh?   ;-)

You may use the above examples or think about other related products of your niche. Get the big picture first (the overall market), and then go dig deeper (go niche). Finding the most popular products or services might help you a little, but what's important about finding a niche is to find the market full of hungry buyers. From there, we will get only the paying customers~   ;-)


InternetMarketingOnl9Class: "Do add up if I'm missing something, Thank you~"
:-)
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Internet Marketing : Recession-proof Business?

.: Off topic: Online business is a very profitable business of the future! (Even explaining what is online business is a profit itself~)   ;-)

From Yahoo! HotJobs(R) : 5 Job Sectors with Recession-Proof Pay, you will likely to feel very happy and delighted that you ventured into doing an online business (after reading the last job sector). Do you realized that without an academic scroll you can make much more than your graduate friends? Unbelievable, but it's the truth. ;-P

While I'm not encouraging all students out there to quit their studies, online business is not going to fade away anytime soon. With 444.8% growth of internet users (from Dec 2000 until June 2010), opportunity for an online business to prosper is very high. Plus, the computerization for almost every gadgets we have today, must-haves online connectivity for office and home use, internet and online business is meant to stay here. (forever maybe?)   :-?