How to Drill a Niche Markets? Learn it the Howie's Way~

.: Elevate your niche drilling skills - what we looking now is not just a plain ordinary niche, but we're looking for a profitable one!~~    ;-)

I didn't remember where I found this guy (maybe from an affiliate), but I've been following him since his Howie's Apprentice 2, somewhere in June 200? At first I didn't care about his programs at all, but after reading a lot of Howie's pdf compared with other e-books, personally, I admit he is one of the gems among all internet marketers out there. To me he is the best when you want to learn how to get traffic for your site, most importantly from free traffic.

This time we were not learning about getting traffic, but we're going to find and drills something - yeah, finding and drilling a profitable niche market. Normally when we look for a niche, we didn't target the most profitable one. Yup, a niche is a hungry market, but of course we want a "starving" niche market instead just a "hungry" one. Why? Because "starving" market brings more money~   ;-)

The presenter of this pdf e-book is known as Howie Schwartz. To me this IMer is crazy, loves to party but his skills is quite specific and lengthy, sometimes he is the first pioneer in this field. His unique, one-of-a-kind and straightforward pdf teaches us not only how to do the drilling process, it also shows what we need to expect when we go niche drilling. Very good info for intermediate IMers, but for beginners, either you just do whatever he says or you need to do more of your homework. One of his best products (I mean his coaching service) is the Howie's Apprentice - which now is in sixth edition.

Without further delay, let's learn how to find and drills a profitable niche~

Howie Schwartz - Howie's Apprentice 04 - Click menu to view it larger

Well, what do you feel after reading this Howie's Keyword research for a competitive market e-book? Did you see how to niche-ing the way it should be? Detailed and easy to understand right? So, start finding and drills your profitable niche right now!  :-D

Links:

• Howie's Apprentice 6 : Howie's Apprentice 6 - The old apprentice is Howie's Apprentice 5.

InternetMarketingOnl9Class: "Meat and potatoes, the basis or the fundamental part. Like learning in class~~"
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Google Instant Previews: SERPs Gets a Makeup?

.: Google Instant Previews: Instant Previews show you a visual preview of your search result.. Eh?  :-?

I was thrilled to hear that the search engine giant (Google?) introduce a new feature for their search engine, the Google Instant Previews. I thought it was somewhat revolutionary, but this kind of feat is not something new to me. Yeah, it was instant, but not that new.

By the way, Google Instant Previews works by showing you the preview of the webpage in your search results. This "preview" will only be activated when you clicked the magnificent glass, errr, the magnifying glass next to your search results title. After that one fateful click, this feature will continue working when you hover over other search results. (tongue twists?)

How does it work? Sometimes reading the manual can't be frustrating. So this is a video how we can use the Instant Previews~

Introducing Instant Previews.

No wonder my own Instant Preview is not working!

I forgot to use the correct page~~ LOL :-P

Again, this is the correct end-user manual on how to use Google Instant Previews:

1. Visit or bookmark this page as your home page : http://www.google.com/webhp?esrch=instantpreviews.
2. Type your search keywords.
3. Click the Search button.
4. Click the magnifying glass next to the search results title. 
5. And, voila~ Your Instant Previews is in action~ 

I thought it was integrated in Google already, no wonder my search results does not have that magnifying glass icon. Just don''t repeat my silly mistakes here, okay? :-P

Effects to internet marketing: If more and more people love to use this preview feature, it means that clean and beautiful layout will always grab the traffic for most of the time. Combined with the text snippets (from search results) highlighted in the yellow rectangular box (refer to the video to see one), now our business blogspot need to emphasize more on content snippets and blogspot layout, haa...   ;-)

Lastly, if you one of Google search tools users, you might notice that Google Instant Previews is similar to...

Page previews from Google search tools?  ;-)

Okay, that's it for now. I know that our class has quite a long recess already. And I promise that more and more internet marketing lessons will be coming (soon?), ya? Sorry to keep you waiting.
News via PCMag and Google. More instant info from Google Webmaster Central blog~~

*** Update ***
Now Google Instant Previews is working just fine in our ordinary Google. There is no need to go to the http://www.google.com/webhp?esrch=instantpreviews link again. Remember to click the magnifying glass, okay? Thank you for reading~~   :-)
******* 


InternetMarketingOnl9Class: "Don't judge a business blogspot by it's layout. Judge on it's content~"
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How to Build Your Business Blogspot (Part 03) : My Preferred Blogspot Layout~

.: This is how your business blogspot should look like~ :-P

After deciding which way we want to do our business blogspot, now we come to the design part. This is my own personal preferred business layout. It is up to you to follow or not, but you can give it a try~ There is a strange psychological element embedded inside, heehee   ;-)

So, this is how we should design our business blogspot layout~~

Interchangeable business blogspot layout: lefty and righty~

Too striking? LOL~   X-D

The  red  box represents the Header part.  Yellow  colored box is for the Body, and the  green  one is the Footer part. All of this is the essence of a blog, and this layout makes up a great business blogspot. And, you need to choose one from these two. Why?

Haa.. before we go to that part, let's get to know all of these elements first~~

 Red  Header:

• This is where our eternal title should resides. Think about being unique, being different, think about branding ourselves.
• While it is recommended for us to have our keywords in our title, one might opt to use simple sound being spelled or use non-related title as their alternative.
• If, our title does not have any important keywords, so include them in the blog description. Not too much, but should grab our blogspot visitor attention at their first sight~ 
• The smaller red box shows our menu tabs. It is best to have to give our disclaimer, about page, FAQs, contact info, etc here. This menu too can serve as our sitelinks in our SERP~~

 Yellow  Body:

• This ultra important part should be our first priority. If you are a newbie in this business blogspot field, use the lefty layout. If you're pretty confident, or on a neutral ground, use the righty layout.
• The larger box is of course our blog content, and the 3 boxes is our "side content".
• The medium yellow box is the place for our most wanted products, and the other two small boxes is for our related products and contents~ 
• Do focus primarily on adding the sharing button (retweet, Facebook Like, Digg, etc) or related article widget.

 Green  Footer.

• This part here is best utilized to capture our blog visitor's attention again and again and again. Such as giving out related links, as reminder what is our business blogspot is all about, ask them to participate in our mini poll, chat box, or any sorts of attentive activity.
• Increase our visitor stats (and popularity) by inviting them to follow us via Google Friend Connect, Twitter, Facebook, etc~~ 
• Footer also serve as our last resort before our visitor navigate away from our site.

About choosing the lefty layout, or the righty one. Why we need to choose? Hmmm, basically, it is about which part loads first. If you noticed, (and if you're using a Firefox browser), each time a site loads, it will starts from the left side. It means that our most-wanted products will be shown first before our text content. This is  great for newbies and new affiliates because we "accidentally forcing" our visitor to take note about our product first before reading our articles. ;-)

The first loading parts is an important impression for our visitor. It can helps them visualize the whole concept of our business blogspot - what kind of items we're selling, which niche, secure or not, etc and thus can help increase our conversion => our visitor now becomes our customer~~   ;-)

So, that is how our business blogspot layout should look like. I agree that there is many business layout out there, and if it is really working, share with us your successful layout. And don't forget to share the links too~
:-)

InternetMarketingOnl9Class: "Still searching for the most awesome and converting blogspot layout~"
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SEO Site Review at Google I/O 2010: Video Follow Up~

.: Hahaha, my break is over~~ :-P

After a festive Aidilfitri break, now we're back with our internet marketing lessons~ There should be another post about How to build your business blogspot (part 03), but let's check out our previous lesson.

Q: Did our website owner in Google I/O 2010 do their homework?   ;-)

PhoenicianStone.

• No text at all? Yup, still the same site just like the experts review, I guess the owner is already satisfied with the current site design though, hurmmmm.. :-( 
• At least some definitive description can fill the gaps, no? yes? 
• Unless you're clicking on their product links on the left side, then you can see some text.. But, it is enough for Google to rank? 

Rodsbot.

• At writing time, I had a problem loading this site. But the best part of it is Rodsbot now has sitelinks below their Google SERP~~ :-D 
• It is a very good idea to enable comments - more feedback means more keywords, hehe ;-) 

AndroidandMe.

• With 1024x768 resolution, their content is still below the fold. Is it necessary to make the first content snippets appear above the fold? Ask Matt please.. 
• But their double link tabs still there~ :-?

G-You-know-who.

• To challenge this site backlinks, we need to unite as one... Eh?? But still, I'm curious on how many backlinks they have. Seriously more than 1 million backlinks? :-? LOL~~

SurprisesGalore.

• Don't see an malware here from the SERP. But it now come with new front page design, nice~~ 
• After viewing source, no "holasionweb.com" here, haha. No more hidden malware installation anymore. Good job for SuprisesGalore~~ :-D 

TheHookUpSite.

• Oh no, it has been directed to the "right" site. Oh no.. X-O 
• Now this site is not the hook up site for the best car audio anymore... 

KathyToth.

• I don't see an changes here. But new stuff is already added. Like follow me on Facebook and LinkedIn.
• The 4 links still exists..
• One thing I really want to see is the application form. It still exists! LOL. But no Hillary here. Lucky they change it already. Phew~

4chan.

• is the largest English imageboard on the web. LOL.

SEOPackages.

• No more bandwidth limit exceeded, LOL. They already do their homework, eh? :-) 
• Thing is disturbing my curiosity is how they guaranteed the Google top 10 ranking in SERP. And, wow. If you go to their SEO portfolio, Duxcollege.com.au (at writing time), and test each keywords in Google.com.au, it is amazing most of the SERP has Duxcollege in first place, and all of them is in top 10! 
• Yes, I'm not affiliating with them, but I want that SEO technique so much! Hehe ;-) 

AppBrain.

• Now AppBrain has their sitelinks (a.k.a. breadcrumbs) up and running in Google SERP~ :-D
• They did move the Changelog to the bottom of the page, and let the user comments stays above. And they introduce a new comparison meter with stars, the "Android market comments". Nice~~ ;-) 

AirportCarparks.

• At writing time, this site has gone already... (scraper site?) 

GrowinStyle.

• Still unfriendly URL with itemid=## blablabla, but no worries~~ :-) 

JimDantona.

• Still no address on the site with city and state.
• HMTL still not in unison. "default.htm" still exists.

DiscountPlusSizeDresses.

• At writing time, I had problem connecting to the site. Their JavaScript is pointing me to somewhere else, just like the video. It is better to link directly to the product page instead or redirecting to another new page. 

NextSprocket.

•  How to get more links? Come up with a cool idea. And think about marketing them. 

SyriaAlaan.

• Site design has changed.
• Link buying is not recommended. 
• This site also comes with unrelated mixed content. By doing this, people won't stays here for long.

More recommended tools and tips by experts from Google I/O 2010:

• Use AdWords Keyword Tool to find the actual keywords that people type and search for. 
• To help with meta description, this is one free meta description generator for us. Good meta description can help increase our web traffic.
• Think carefully about linking strategy - it's best to point to related sites.
• Google Webmaster tools can be used to detect malwares, common keywords search from our site, internal and xternal links, fetch as Google bot, etc~
• Where to check the latest WordPress update? WordPress 2.7+ has already have the automatic update feature, but, just in case this is the link about updating our WordPress.
• Branding. Plan to brand our site, firstly by using unique names (Bing, Yahoo!) or unrelated domain names. (What trending now is people love to use names from sounds. Ping, Bing, etc. We can think creative sound as our domain name?)   ;-) 
• Moderate our comments. Delete or remove spammy comments. New feature in Blogger.com has the comments inbox to manage all user comments~ 
• Use Google Skipfish to check for malwares in our site?
• Content is the king? To rank high in SERPS, we need to give original content in our site.
• Choose a good hosting plan, probably the one with good uptime. Read reviews first and do your comparison before getting one.
• Plan to use Google Web Toolkit? Learn how to get started here~
• Try to add "related article" or related stuff inside our website. People will spend more time reading our site. :-D 
• More text is much better? What search engine wants is th same thing what the user wants - valuable content! 
• Unfriendly URLs (URL that uses more syntaxes, idemid=##, .asps) does not SEO. But it is better to have keyword in our URL, or the best one like WordPress, our URL is full, completely the same as our content/blog title. 
• Learn how to unite all links into one, with rel=canonical by Matt Cutts. Complete with video~ 
• Please optimize and prioritize the best content to appear in our first page. This to ensure that people will get in love (aka get interested) the first time they come to our page. ;-) 
• We can and always can to build our website with ease using the free Google Sites~
• AJAX sites IS crawled by Google. 
• Google MayDay definition? What MayDay's impact on Long tail keywords?
• It is advisable to do one very good website rather than having multiple websites with low value~ 
• Which one is better? Website ends with .com or .info? Google usually not looking much at TLDs. But lately site ends with .info is a spam site... 
• About strange or errors of HTML tags - should be OK with Google if it is not too much. But if manipulative/excessive use of, say, H1 tags all over the place, there might be a problem. 
• And lastly, about URL shortener services. Use URL shortener with 301 or permanent redirect. Read Danny Sullivan's reviews on URL shortener services. 

That is our review about Google I/O 2010 video: SEO Site advice from the experts on May the 20th, 2010. Kinda late already, right? :-P   But, it is regretful for site owners who get the opportunity to have their site reviewed, but no action is taken. But it's OK. There is still more time to make the changes. We definitely have learned many important things from the video, and it's time to apply our knowledge in building our business blogspot~   ;-)

Remember to check out our incoming lesson: How to build your business blogspot (Part 03)~ Until then, here is some "tidbits" after our long reading~ Hehe :-D

Travie McCoy: Billionaire ft. Bruno Mars.

Problem viewing video? Visit this alternate link. (sorry for the explicit lyric...)  :-(

InternetMarketingOnl9Class: "I wannabe a billionaire, with internet marketing~~" ♪♫♪♪~
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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~~"
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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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