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Once you have accumulated the profile information, you have gained a step towards “thinking like the buyer”.

This is priceless data that you can use to meet the buying needs of your customer. You can set up your e-commerce store, develop infoproducts, predict future needs, etc., based upon your ability to more completely understand your markets’ demographics and shopping patterns.

Actually, the above section on gathering demographics and developing the ability to almost completely understand your target market’s buying habits deserves to be covered in its own book.

So, now that you have an idea of what to be looking for and thinking about with shopping sites, lets get back to the main topic of this book; where to “shop” for hot niche ideas.

On the following pages are some of my favorite places online to “Shop for Hot Niches”. I hope that you can find them to as useful in finding and choosing your next profitable niche as I have found them to be.

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Of all the techniques I have listed, blogging is the most work to keep up with. It is also probably the slowest growing method on the list. In order for one of your blog posts to go viral, people have to know your blog exists. With so many quality blogs already in existence, it may take some time to get your blog noticed. It requires persistence.

Before you decide to begin blogging, make sure you are interested enough in the topic to write about it on an almost daily basis. For a blog to be effective, you need to post at least 3 – 5 articles a week. While the posts do not need to be long, they should at least contain the elements that any technique needs to go viral; a unique point of view on a subject, informational, entertaining, and fresh.

Not only do you need to be consistent in posting new information, you also need to work at marketing your blog. There are several easy ways to start getting other people to pay attention to your blog. Start by finding other popular blogs that cover a similar subject as you cover. Leave insightful comments on their blog. When you leave a comment, you can include a link back to your own site. If some reads your comment and like what you have to say, they may head over to your site to see what else you have to offer. If the blog you leave a comment on is very popular, this could drive a fair amount of traffic to your site.

Another method of getting your blog notice is to write a post on your blog commenting on something you read on someone else’s blog. You add a link in your post pointing back to the blog you mentioned. In blog language this is referred to as a “trackback”. When you put the URL of the other blog in the trackback section of your blogging program it sends a message to the blog you are linking to informing them that you mentioned them in your blog. They come and read what you said, and if they like it, they may write something on their blog about your post. Their viewers can also click the link, which will drive traffic to your blog.

It is very easy to get started blogging if that is an area you are interested in. There are several good online blog services that will allow you to set up a blog for free. Some of these services, like Blogger.com, even allow you to set up AdSense advertising on your blog, which will let you earn a little extra income with your blog. If you would rather have the blog located as part of your own website, programs like WordPress are very easy to set up and use. The best part is, it is free to use.

If you write good blog posts, and can effectively market your blog, your readership will grow. The more readers you have, the greater the chances of one of your posts going viral. The key to success is quality material that is fresh, and holds the readers attention. You can not get away with recycling what you read on someone else’s blog.

When visitors come to your blog, make sure you give them a compelling reason to go to the main part of your site to look around. If your blog becomes popular, this method could drive a flood of traffic to your site that will continue on an almost daily basis.

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Chapter 7 - Minor League Baseball

All major league baseball teams have minor league teams as well. You can usually see them play and practice if you visit their camps. Most major league teams have camps in Florida, Arizona and other parts of the nation where the weather is warm all year long. They will stay in their on season area during the baseball season, but will then move to their baseball training camp. This is where both the major league players stay in shape during the off season and where the minor league players play.

Many people like to watch minor league games. One of the main reasons for this is that the minor league games are more affordable than the major league games. The price of ball game tickets has gone up considerably in recent years. Minor league games are much more affordable for the family.

Another reason why people like the minor league games is because the players are more accessible. Autograph hounds will want to get autographs of the minor league players who appear to be up and coming. And this is not just for collecting - either. Autographs from the big named players end up being worth a lot of money on places like eBay. Some people who want to speculate on the future worth of a player will enjoy the minor league games. You never know when you are going to meet the next big major league star.

The minor leagues are not only a way up for players, but also a way down. Some of the players who have been signed to a long term contract and who are not able to play any longer, or whose game is not what it once was, are transferred back down to the minor leagues. In some cases, their careers are revived, and in other cases, they simply play out the rest of their contract in the minor leagues.

The minor leagues have the same rules as the major leagues. Watching a minor league game is very similar to watching a major league game. You will not get the loads of food that is sold at a major league baseball game, but you will see some good playing.

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While you are in the process of creating your product, all of your attention and focus is going to be on that product. Once you have created it and built your sales pages so that it can be promoted, then you need to look at the next stage, which is to consider how you are going to promote it.

As you will probably understand by now, entirely irrespective of how good your product is or how original the ideas behind it, if no-one knows about what you’re doing, then you are not going to generate any sales.

In other words, once your product is completed, the next thing that you must focus on is driving visitors to your sales letter.

In order to do this, there are many different traffic generation tactics that you can employ. For example, you may decide to spend money on Pay-Per- Click advertising, or to write articles and submit them to the major article directories as methods for driving traffic to your site.

The disadvantage of doing this should, however, be self evident. If you choose to do all of your promotion yourself, that immediately limits what you can achieve because there only so many hours available in every working day. By following this route you are therefore naturally limiting your sales potential, as well as limiting the development of your business.

If you have been an active affiliate marketer yourself, then you should already appreciate how limited you are when you try to do everything yourself.

On the one hand, you have already seen how effective affiliate marketing is as a marketing strategy, and you will no doubt have enjoyed some of the financial ‘fruits’ of marketing as an affiliate at the same time.

On the other hand, however, once you have created your product and put everything in place to sell it, the profitable way forward is to start recruiting your own affiliates. In reality, this is the only way that you can hope to enjoy the volume of sales that will generate the levels of income that you would like to enjoy.

Knowing that having your own affiliate sales team is the way forward, the next step becomes obvious.

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Companies are often surprised by the amount of time and effort it can take to produce one good blog. Blogging software makes the writing and publishing process easier, but responding to reader comments, finding time to write regularly, and creating links and multimedia components can take some time. For this reason, many companies place all their effort on creating their own blogs, sometimes to such an extent that they ignore other blogs in cyberspace. This is truly a mistake, since in many cases, other blogs can have as much impact on your marketing as your own online efforts!

What Are Other Bloggers Saying About Your Company?

One of the first steps you will want to take when marketing using other blogs is to find out what others bloggers and online writers are saying about your company and your blog. Other people’s and companies’ comments are read by readers and potential customers, too. Many blogging software packages allow you to search for links to your blog or company website in other people’s blogs. You can also run a goggle check on your blog name, company name, and URL addresses to see what others are saying about you. Regularly checking online to see what is being said can help you get a sense of how your efforts are working. Remember: blogging is a community effort, with links in other blogs and comments in other blogs affecting how readers see you. You need to keep track of how you are doing to understand how your online presence is affecting your business.

Responding to Other Blogs

Once you begin reading comments about your company and online presence, you may well wish to respond to the comments others have made. Before you do so, do take some first. Read and reread the comments you wish to respond to and make sure that you understand them. Make sure that you understand the tone as well as the words – you will look and feel silly if you respond angrily to a post that turns out to have been written in a teasing or tongue-in-cheek manner.

Calm down. In cases where comments are negative, especially, it is easy with blog software to respond at once. It is better to calm down first and allow yourself the time to respond in a clam manner. Stay clear and on topic. When you respond to a posting or blog, make sure that you are clear and that you stay on topic in order to prevent an out of control name-calling exchange. Clearly state what you are referring to, what comments you have about it, and what actions (if any) you are going to take or want to see taken.

Decide how to respond. You can respond to a person directly, through their blog commentary, or through your own blog. If you respond to a blogger or commentary directly, be aware that other readers who have seen comments about your company may not read your comments. Plus, your email or response may eventually end up online, anyway, possibly edited or cut from context. Responding via someone else’s blog gives you more control, but still has you remain on someone else’s space. Commenting on your own blog gives you the most control and ensures that readers will come to your blog to read your comments. Of course, you can also choose to not respond at all.