You are probably quite weary of the endless emails that flood your inbox on a daily basis now that you operate in the world of online marketing. Anyone with a product to sell claims to have discovered the “secret”, the “key”, or the “hidden truth” to online marketing success.
I know I am. And I must confess, I have found myself spending more hours than I am proud to admit, surfing around marketing websites, and signing up to learn about these latest, greatest, “must have or I am doomed to failure” autoresponder series and courses (that I never complete, incidentally). And a stroke inducing glance at my credit card statement confirms that I have also thrown a lot of money at such courses as well.
So, this week I have ‘bitten the bullet’, and unsubscribed from basically all of the courses I had signed up to. Mostly, they have done nothing but distract and confuse me. I have made a profound realization.
And I’m here to tell you, the truth about being successful in an Internet business is a lot less complex than you have been led to believe. Regardless of what you have been told, the success or otherwise of your business comes back to humble (or should I say mighty?) keywords.
If it helps to make sense of it, consider the keyword as the thought in your prospect’s mind, when they go online to search. Now, before you even start to consider this, there are a couple of things that you will want to have defined for yourself.
Firstly, who is your ideal prospect? There is an old marketing adage that says “If you are trying to appeal to everyone in general, you’ll get no-one in particular”. And never a truer word was spoken. The very first thing you are going to want to do, is think about your ideal prospect (or your niche).
Niche marketing is the process of finding and serving one or more small yet profitable markets. Niche marketers design custom-made products or services for the markets that meet specific needs.
Now, in the Network Marketing or Direct Sales industry we suggest that the most powerful niche for you to target in your online business in the first instance, is other network marketers. There are a couple of very important reasons why this is the case.
The first, is that these are most often people who are already involved in the industry, so obviously, they already have a degree of knowledge about, and a belief in the business model.
The second is that nine out of ten of them are very likely struggling to market their business in a way that is professional and leveraged. As online marketing educators, we are able to teach them to build their business online in a way that is both of these things. Not to mention far more enjoyable than the “old school” offline methods most of them have learnt. I actually have a cringe inducing recollection of being taught how to “market” at an MLM training event, that involved sitting at the train station at peak commute time, and handing out “biz opp” flyers to disgruntled commuters whilst pretending to be waiting for the train. The words “professional entrepreneur” don’t spring to mind as much as “creepy stalker”.
Now don’t think for a moment that you are (or should be) limited to this niche. The brilliant thing about working online, is that if have a notion about a potential niche to market to, you can basically take the guesswork out of the equation by completing thorough keyword research.
And you might find that narrowing down your niche by geographic location is very effective as well. For example, if you are a living outside of your country of origin, you may consider creating marketing campaigns specifically for that country. Certainly, if it is a non-English speaking country, you will have a massive advantage over marketers who only speak English.
So, a great way to start thinking about the keywords that apply to this niche, is to very simply brainstorm keywords you think your ideal prospect might be using to search for what you have to offer.
Next, take your list of potential keywords, and go to Google’s keyword tool to get an idea of both advertiser competition and search volume for those words for the past month, and year.
Now at this point, I am going to direct you to Mike Koenig’s training in the Pro back office (again) about advanced keyword research (no point re-inventing the wheel after all). I also want to bring your attention to training coming up by Shelby Larson, about SEO. The details of the next call are listed in the Pro back office. This is going to be incredible training, make sure you listen to the recording of the call if you are not able to attend the live call.
This is foundation stuff. It does not matter how clever your article, ad or video is, or how many widgets you have thrown onto your blog, if no-one is going to see it. And if the search engines can’t find it, because you have not used relevant keywords, trust me, no-one is going to see it.
Now, bear in mind that the use of relevant keywords your niche is using to search, should continue on through each step of your sales pipeline. What I mean by that, is if you use a specific set of keywords in say, a Google ad e.g. “Online Marketing System”, the next place your searcher is taken to, after they click on the display URL in your ad should also contain the phrase “Online Marketing System”. It will create a logical and consistent transition for your searcher from one place to the next. This is very important.
People are generally quite fearful when they are searching for information online. No-one wants to be scammed, ripped off, or made to feel foolish. So it is your job to create a keyword ‘chain’ which logically takes them from one place to the next in a predictable manner. They should not get any surprises when they hit your landing page.
So, invest the time in learning about how to complete thorough keyword research on your niche. I promise, if you neglect this element of your business, you are going to spend a great deal of time feeling very frustrated, and spinning your wheels.
Make today a great one.
Cheers,
Tan
