MarketAssociate dot com

Jump onto one of the major search engines and read some of the marketing articles and you will hear the same thing - You must find a niche for your business. If you are new to Internet Marketing, this is advice you will do well to pay heed to.

Day after day after day thousands more people come online in search of wealth. In the hast for wealth, many jump right into markets that are already completely saturated and blanketed with seasoned veterans. As a result newcomers fast start to wonder why they are not making any money.

Given unlimited time, money and patience, they might succeed. For those that do not have unlimited supplies of these precious resources, aiming for a smaller niche market can be a much smarter way to start a online business.

So just what is a niche?

If you want the long answer, you can buy any one of the thousands of e-books being sold online about niche markets. You can go to a dictionary and see what definition of niche it gives. But the short answer is niche simply means distinct or individual.

Everyone and their mothers wants to start a business focusing on Internet Marketing. This is how the big guns are making all their money, so it must be the way to go.

That is the problem!!! The market is totally saturated with people who have years of experience in this area. A new person trying to swim in shark infested water, competing in such a broad market that they just don’t have a much chance of success.

On About.com, Susan Ward defines Internet Marketing as “the strategies that are used to market a product or service online, marketing strategies that include search engine optimization and search engine submission, copywriting that encourages site visitors to take action, web site design strategies, online promotions, reciprocal linking, and email marketing”. A new person coming online to start a business has little chance of knowing enough about all the above areas to be able to compete in this market.

So how is a new person to have any chance at success?

Thing Smaller - Think Niche!

Just from the above definition you can come up with the following pieces or niches:

Marketing
Search Engine Optimization
Copywriting
Web Site Design
Promotion
Linking
Email Marketing

Even if you are lucky and are extremely experienced already in one of the above niches, you will still have a lot of competition in such broad niches. This may be what you decide to do in the end, but at least be willing to explore niches within the broader areas. You may find a niche you are much better suited to.

When it comes to finding a niche market, the best resource available online is Wordtracker. You can find pieces of this program on different sites and software programs but Wordtracker brings everything together in one place for those trying to find a good niche to go into.

Using Wordtracker is a breeze. If you want to break Internet Marketing down to many more niche markets, just type in Internet Marketing and look at all the ideas that pop up. Each of these can become keywords that you decide you want to focus your niche on. Or you can pop in those keywords and keep defining your niche.

Using Wordtracker, what you will end with is a list of niche keywords that you can focus your Internet business on. Having a smaller niche will give you a much better shot at being successful then trying to build a site around a broad topic like Internet Marketing.

Remember, success in any business always comes back to supplying a product that the public has a demand for and that the market has room for. Find the right niche and you are on the right path.

Popularity: 7% [?]

I have uploaded a video tutorial on youtube the explains how easy it is to create websites that are populated with eBay auction merchandise. The video is primarily a tutorial on how to use BayRSS and how to embed auctions into wordpress posts. This is my first video and it’s really a test to see if I could get some material up on youtube using Camtasia.

What do you think about the video. Did it move you? Would you watch it if you were searching around youtube? Tell me what you think..

Learn more about BayRSS.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Last week a run into a very interesting youtube video that really caught my eye.  The video explained the world of facebook and how a affiliate marketer like me could make some substantial money on Facebook.

Now, for those that may want to use Facebook in their affiliate marketing career, Facebook is not a beginning way to emerse yourself into this career.  Making money with Facebook is a very advance technique for making money and it involves either programming an application yourself if you have the expertise or hiring out the project to a programmer.

To most programming themselves is not an option, but hiring out the project is an option is you have the resources.  For me a perfect place to get a facebook programmer is to start at your local college.  College students don’t demand as much as an pro and they are easier to negotiate with.  Also, their looking for strong project that they can put on their resumes.  So don’t be scared to approach a computer science department offering a project that a student can really sink their teeth in.

Now that is out of the way and if you would like to program an application yourself.  Well, here are a few good resources to take a look at that can help you out.  One of them walks a beginner through a entire .Net project on creating your first Facebook application.  I recommend that this be the first exercise that you do.

1. http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WPF/WPFacebook.aspx
2. http://developers.facebook.com/resources.php
3. http://www.merchantos.com/makebeta/facebook/facebook-php-tutorial/ - This website has links to other websites that touch on php programming. 

These are just the tip of the iceburg.  Their is such a brave new world when you embrace the social network and definitly their is a lot of money to be made.

What is your opinion?  Have you ever made any money on an facebook application?  Lets talk about it if you have..

Here are the videos that I spoke of earlier…

Part 1 - Facebook

Part 2 - Facebook

US $20.82 End Date: Friday Jan-16-2009 7:28:30 PST Buy It Now for only: US $20.82 Buy it now | Add to watch list

US $19.99 End Date: Saturday Jan-24-2009 10:34:26 PST Buy It Now for only: US $19.99 Buy it now | Add to watch list

Popularity: 8% [?]

If you have been following this series then you know about my little DJ Systems site. 

Well, I wanted to give you a little update as to money earned on the site.  It has not been a winfall of money thus far.  Quit frankly it is one of my under achievers at this time.  But on the positive it is making some money.  Just not a lot..

Drumroll Please…  To date the return has been:

eBay - .35 cents

google adsense - $5.35

Wow.. not a lot of money..  To some they may say just give up on the site.  No..  I don’t give up on my site I just keep posting and adding to it till it makes money. 

Also, I am getting traffic on the site.  A lot of it is outside of the United States.  So, since the site is targeted more for the United States I believe this is the reason that I am not getting to many eBay sales.  Something that I will have to work on.

As of today, this site has not indexed very well either so I know that I still have plenty of work to do with it.  I will continue to work on getting it indexed better and see what happens.

As for advertising, I have not done nearly enough.  I have not written not one article for the site nor published anything.  I have not promoted it my gaining more backlinks but it is still getting traffic. 

That said, their is still hope for this site..

Keep visiting to see what happens…  Peace!!!

Popularity: 9% [?]

If your anything like me you are always searching for that next Christmas toy to promote.  But why would I like to know that right now.  After all, it is not Christmas.  But the problem is that if you start promoting toys around Christmas time you probably will not get the search engine serps that you are looking for in such a small amount of time.  So, I decided to try to find the best selling Christmas Toys of all time and start producing content for these area. 

The number 1 best selling toy of all time and is still selling like hot cakes in Barbie Dolls.  What little girl does not want to have their very own Barbie Doll.  I know my girl wanted something Barbie.  In a matter of fact she ended up with the Barbie Mariposa Styling Head just for starters.  Barbie seems to never go out of style.  After being introduced to the public in 1959 the Barbie franchise has continued to produce millions of dollars yearly and Christmas time in one of the best times to cash in.  Learn more about Barbie.

The second best selling Christmas Toy of all time in GI Joe.  Now, what boy does not know anything about GI Joe.  I mean he is a all american hero.  Saving america from the evil that wants to rule the world.  I even owned a number of GI Joe dolls when I was a kid.  Even though GI Joe is not as popular as it was in the 80’s their is still a crowd of people that collect GI Joe and buy a lot of these products for their children mainly because of their childhood.  Don’t think that GI Joe is out of the running because they are still selling.

The third and last best selling christmas toy is the old favoriate lego’s.  Legos have been around for years and I don’t think that they are going anywhere soon.  They keep reinventing themselves with movie deals and staying close to the times.  Women, children and adults love lego.  They bring back imagination and allow children to create new and exciting cars, buildings, and even sculptures that tend to last the test of time.  I have even heard of a man who creates life size sculptures of people in legos for a price.  So, I don’t believe that they are going anywhere.

These are the top 3 best selling Christmas Toys of all time.  And I don’t believe that they will be knocked out of the box this year or any year to come.

Popularity: 12% [?]