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The Usual Newbie Help Request - Now With Pointed Questions!

by ScottR12
3 replies
See my post count over there? It says 1 (at least, at the time of this writing). That's this one - my first foray into interacting with other internet marketers because, frankly, I'm having a lot of trouble and all the signposts for progress point to each other.

I have a basic understanding of the fundamentals like keyword research, niche research, ppc, article marketing, etc., but I'm searching through the forum to grab as much information I can find to find stuff that clicks. However, there's only so much sifting I'm humanly able to do, so I'd like some pointers/links to posts/threads you've seen that have the information I'm looking for. The 30 seconds it takes you to read this, 5 seconds to remember a post about the topic I'm asking about, and 15 seconds to reply could save me hours of digging or months of frustration.

First, a little history. I started doing Internet Marketing last December, when my friend convinced me to start with display advertising on a cpv basis. It wasn't particularly appealing, but for the $5k+ I sunk into it (I was breaking even and tweaking, I was certain I could profit), I only lost ~$400. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't particularly interesting.

Next, I tried some PPC. Set up a review lander, bid on some keywords, dropped about $110 (read: an Adwords Coupon plus the mandatory investment) and saw 0 clickthroughs (also, 0 sales. Coincidence?). And I hadn't made a technical error in the links, just a convince-the-viewer-he-wants-this error in the copy.

Now I've picked up a copy of One Week Marketing, read it and the bundled materials a few times, found Bum Marketing by Travis Sago, and I'm liking the skillset it takes. I can write (and I'm improving, or those books on my nightstand are going to have their money back guarantees tested (sidenote: they're borrowed)), I like doing the research, and the small capital investment fits nicely into my limited budget.

So! Questions for the Warriors:

(1) First, niche research. There's the usual - Google Trends, Yahoo Buzz, Amazon Marketplace, Shopping.com's Top Searches, and my new favorite, the Google Wonder Wheel. These don't really turn up long tail keywords that are easier (nothing's easy) to get organically ranked for, not that I expected them to be handed over on a silver platter, but I'm wondering how the longer keywords come about. Limited contact time with branching in markets makes brainstorming tough - what other ways do you use to drill down into niches and subniches and sub subniches?

(2) While we're on the topic of niche research, what are some effective ways to determine the entry barrier on these niches? Travis recommends doing an exact search in Google and checking out the optimized results, some other folks recommend basing your opinion off intitle: and inanchor: searches, and I'm a little lost on how Travis expects one article with minimal (read: he doesn't talk about any) backlinks to get ranked up to the first page of Google when the broad search turns up hundreds of thousands and the exact search turns up thousands. Are the articles just that optimized?

(3) Third, blog creation. It's like the step in cookbooks where it says 'Roast for 5 hours' - it takes half a second to read it and 5 hours to do it, except in this case it takes half a second to read it and I have no idea what people mean when they say this. Yes, yes, go to blogger.com or buy a domain and toss up wordpress... and backdate your posts? How much content are you putting up there? What content are you putting up there? This question is definitely not meant to be answered in this thread except by a 'Hey, this thread I'm linking you to explains what you're looking for, go read that'.

(4) Fourth, product creation. Like blog creation, it's said so flippantly and casually that I feel like I should have known this before I had ever heard of internet marketing, and yet I wouldn't even know how to start on something like that. Thoughts? Other threads that capture the essence of product creation?

That's all I've got for now. I'm sure more will occur to me sometime soon. I'm not necessarily looking for lengthy responses to my questions (though it would definitely be appreciated) but rather links to other threads on WF that cover these topics in greater depth.

Thanks in advance!
-S

PS. I numbered the paragraphs ex post facto to make it easier to respond, in case it struck you as strange that I numbered them and wrote them verbally sequenced.

PPS. This turned out to be a really long post. Apologies for stealing that 2-4 minutes of your life, I don't think you'll get them back.
#find a niche #help request #newbie #pointed #questions #request #usual
  • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
    Questions 1 and 2 tend to be carefully guarded, because people are afraid you'll find out their secret and get all the money.

    Which is largely why I've just shrugged and walked away from the KW research thing. I think it's overrated. I know several six-figure AdSense earners, and the story I hear about their latest success always seems to go something like this:

    "I was walking down the aisle in the grocery store and there was this kid with a toy. And I said 'hey, what is that?' and he told me all about it and it was a Veeblefetzer so when I got home I looked up Veeblefetzers and they're like $40 on Amazon so I made a Blogger blog and wrote twenty articles about Veeblefetzers and now that blog makes me $400 a month."

    Do you see what's missing in there? Keyword research. A lot of the top guys just plain don't do it. He didn't write articles about the things people are typing into the search engines, he wrote articles about the things people wanted to find when they searched. He didn't care what they were typing. If he writes an article about what they want to know, it's the search engine's problem to match it up to what they typed - not his.

    Now, if you believe the keyword guys, this is because the people who do this have magic powers. Normal people can't do that. You have to be a special kind of person with the AdSense gene, and then you can rank your website and get lots of clicks without keyword research. But normal people should hire a professional keyword researcher, which hey presto guess what I just happen to be one and would you like to hear my rates?

    Um, no. I don't believe it's magic powers. I believe keyword research will simply allow the blind dog to find a bone more often, when the real problem is that you've got your eyes closed.

    Question 3... heh. I have a product out on this, Zombie Blogging. I'll answer your question very quickly, though: you don't backdate the posts, you forward-date them so they pop up one at a time over the course of a month or so. Ten to twenty is a good number. Two or three a week. As far as what kind of content, primarily it just has to be something someone would want to read. Or watch. Or hear. Don't forget, you can also post video and audio and pictures on blogs... okay, that bit's not in ZB, but it's still true.

    Question 4 is mostly a mental hurdle. If you sat down at your computer and typed out everything you tried with PPC and what happened and what you learned from it, you would look at that and say "nobody is going to pay to read my stupid rambling experiences with PPC, because I didn't even make any money." But that's bullsquat, because they will. Lots of people are already sitting here reading your thread and drooling over the idea of learning what cost you $110 for a few bucks.

    Oh, and you're an excellent example of why you never judge a member by their post count.
    Signature
    "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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  • Profile picture of the author Warrior Dude
    Since you are a big Travis fan you should check out his project he has going on.

    Watch Us Put Clickbank Checks In Mom's Mailbox (From Start To Finish)
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    • Profile picture of the author ScottR12
      Thanks for the tips, CD. I didn't know you could forward date blogs. As to the content, do you just do some basic research and talk about your supposed experience with a product (ie TruthAboutAbs or some such, which it's unlikely we'd ACTUALLY try but are willing to promote) in a fake blog style?

      If you or anyone else is willing to do a hypothetical high-level walkthrough, I've got a hypothetical situation ready. One of the big gravity gaining items this week (not that I much look at gravity, but it does give an indication of promotion trending) is a natural remedy for bad vision with eye exercises and such. Were I to promote this, would I talk about my experience with the product over time, using anticipated results? 20-30 blog posts laid out over a month or two, talking about improvements? 10-20 articles linking back to the blog?

      Incorporating what CD said, I shouldn't really look at the kinds of keywords people are targeting, but focus instead on what they want to find. Would the additional articles pointing back to the blog push it high enough in the SERPs?

      Minus the time commitment of writing 30-50 articles/posts things, this seems too easy. What have I just missed?

      Cheers,
      -S
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