Today, I would like to discuss some common mistakes made by people new to Niche Marketing.
One of the biggest mistakes I see when people first start trying to market online, is that they just repeat what others are doing. Of course it makes sense to learn from the methods that others are successfully using and put them into practice, but if you simply jump into a niche that is saturated with people promoting the same hot topics, chances are you will just fade into the crowd.
In my last post Niche Marketing: Building Authority In Your Niche I discussed what you need to do to stand out from the crowd. However, in addition to the tips I gave in that post, today I want to mention keyword research. Because keyword research, when done properly, will also help you stand out from the crowd.
Keyword Research is an essential tool for not only narrowing your niche but will also help you target strong keywords in what may be a competitive niche. My best current example is The Hunger Games.
I have written a series of Hunger Games pages on Squidoo that is targetting one of the hottest entertainment niches in 2012. The Merchandising is excellent, much of it officially licensed, and there’s a huge variety. Yet, despite all the competition, that niche is bringing in some nice sales for me.
But here’s where I am beating the competition. Each page is a very specific topic within the niche and each page focusses on some very specific search terms. To give an example:
My best selling product is a Mockinjay Pin. The competition is huge – 387,000 pages when I searched that term on Google a minute ago.
Am I targetting “mockingjay pin”? No, I am not. What I am targetting is where can I get a mockingjay pin, which is the search term people are using who actually want to buy one of those pins.
(And if you are not sure about keyword research, I have written a series of pages that will help you. Check out: An Introduction to Keyword Research. Make sure you read all the pages in the series – there’s four.)
Another mistake you can make is to offer expertise, when you are only just starting out. For example, how many times do you see on sites like Squidoo, Wizzley and Hubpages, a new member offering tips on how to succeed on that site?
Who has more credibility? The person who has only published 5 pages on the site? Or the person who has been around for awhile and can demonstrate that the methods they use are successful?
How about the people offering relationship advice? Who will you listen to? Those who are promoting a get your ex back ebook because it is a hot topic that they have been told converts well, or the person who actually DID save their relationship and it is quite clear they did because they are telling a genuine personal story?
What about a new product? You know it is going to take off big time, but so will a lot of other people. The biggest mistake you can make here (apart from NOT doing keyword research) is to leave it too late to publish, when the danger is that you most certainly WILL fade into the crowd. So, how can you stand out from the crowd?
You need to get your content about this new product published way ahead of time. This will give you a head start over the competition, because a lot of the competition won’t realise that the product is even planned. Get the content published, build authority for that content and you stand a better chance of featuring in the first couple of pages in the Search Returns, when the product is released.
Next time we will discuss topics that generally convert well to sales. Some of these topics are not ones that I particularly like, but that wont stop me from discussing them, because they are good examples of the psychology and thought processes of buyers. And to be successful in Niche Marketing you need to be able to think like your potential buyers.
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Very good explanation of some common mistakes made in the niche marketing field. The keyword research is so important. We may “think” we know how people will search for something but in my case, I am almost always a few ticks off the mark. Finding that keyword phrase to use for the url and title really makes a difference. The research will also give you other keywords to incorporate into your content that will round out your overall message and get other targeted traffic. I have also found in my research that there are often phrases that will warrant a complimentary article or two.
In addition, words and phrases are regional. Just because you say something one way, that doesn’t mean that all people do. Keyword research can help you discover other terms for the same thing.