In my previous article I have shared my revised approach of the niche selection process. I assure you that once you start applying the mentioned techniques you will discover a few niches weekly. Certainly it is next to impossible to embrace all niches discovered.

Which ones to choose? Those that have plenty of adv money in them.

Just a simple example. Let’s have a look at those Internet entrepreneurs that you are likely to know. To be exact, I suggest that you have a look at their website portfolio focus:

Jeremy aka Shoemoney – focus on mobile industry, particularly ringtones
Darren aka Problogger – gadgets (digital cameras, cell phones, etc)
John,  popular wickedfire forum owner – finance
Capitalist Pig – finance, mobile
Xboxundone – mobile, adult
Kieron - shopping, finance, poker

I think you do not need much analysis to see that these guys focus on those industries that have good income potential. I do not want to say that their website portfolios are limited by the mentioned niches – they run many websites, each of them, but the most profitable, I would say pillar niches are those that are mentioned above.

You can run quite successful websites that get good amount of traffic, but you are likely to turn those visitors into a few dollars due to the low payouts of CPA or CPC advertisers in those industries.

Summary: My intention and advice are to start a few ‘boring’ websites in those niches where one can earn really good income. It will take time to grow those websites, years in fact. But it is the current state of Internet marketing business that we should accept. If you are lucky or smart you will make this period shorter.

I like the progress of a few websites from my portfolio when it comes to traffic stats, but when I analyze  their CPC income I feel really upset to see that they get tons of .05-07 clicks (AdSense), the same applies to Kontera network ads. And potential of CPA income is very limited as well.

Yes, I do realize that it is much harder to succeed (= get good rankings with organic SEO or low bids for PPC promotion) with that type of websites, that the competition is super tough in those niches, but I am sure it is worth it. You can enjoy your other (‘hobby’) websites when you have free time or at the weekends. Added to that you can drive traffic from your popular low income websites, but you need a few boring websites in the money niches. Otherwise you are destined to do a big amount of work for a few dollars.

Technorati Tags: website niches, seo, affiliate marketing, internet marketing

I have recently discovered that the algo to discover new website ideas I used to apply in the past does not work as efficiently as I would like to.

So, what other ways can you use to get ideas for the websites that will be competitive? One of my greatest discovery of the latest time (that seems so obvious) is to focus on new and emerging products, services and trends.

I certainly use a few of the ‘old’ discovery ideas, but you should remember that it is a hard task to complete with websites that people started years back in all those popular (and profitable) online niches – mortgages, credit cards, insurance, making money online, real estate, health, etc.

I do not say that you should not try, I just want to say that you will have much better chances to succeed if you focus on some new trends that are happening in those industries (a real estate sample – zillow.com)

What are those new sources of ideas I currently use? I have a list of trend, innovation and futurist websites that give me ideas:

PFSK
Influx Insights
Agenda Inc.
SpringWise
Trendwatching
Nowandnext
Corante
iftf
Plausiblefutures
Shapingtomorrow
Trendcentral
Ginthinking
Imaginatik
wfs

I also use top news and business portals: Forbes, CNN, Economist, TechReview, NYtimes, etc. and websites focused on new online technologies, applications and services (techcrunch, readwriteweb, programmableweb)

Summary: These new sources do not do miracles – I mean do not expect to discover a load of new cool ideas after reviewing them just once. I keep visiting and reading them practically every day scanning for something new and promising, making notes and then adding new notes, keeping an eye on one industry, product or service waiting for some proof from more than one source.

All ideas go through WordTracker demand check – if the search volume is low at this time – it does not mean that I send the idea to the trash basket. I just make a note that it is not the correct time to develop this topic right now. Next is a look at Google SERP first page – who are on top?

Monetization is the next issue on the list. Certainly, there is always contextual advertising (YPN, AdSense), but it is much more profitable to run some CPA program along with that. If you expect many eyeballs, CPM is also a viable option.

Contextual ads from my experience tend to be less frequently clicked (visitors get blind to these units as they once got blind to banners) and less profitable (there is too much online property now aiming at a limited number of advertisers).

Technorati Tags: website ideas, seo, affiliate marketing, internet marketing

What do you need to earn good income online? You need:

much online property,
much traffic,
content,
links,
a few established websites (or at least one) to feed your affiliate ventures,
and profitable affiliate programs joined.

Yes, this is the approach I am testing over a few past weeks.

I have hired a group of college students that are generating keyword targeted unique articles (keyword research is one of the subjects that we should research deep – I have spent much time playing with WordTracker tool these days). I get one original posted article per 1.00$, not bad price in my opinion.

I have joined a few CPA programs with Azoogle, Millnic and CJ networks and generated landing pages on my established websites – now I count the days when I will get some organic traffic to these highly optimized pages.

I have started a few PPC campaigns for these landing pages using MSN AdCenter and Google AdWords. The results are positive and growing. I have made a sort of PPC guide that I practice at this time.

My next move is to optimize my music website that gets good traffic, but very few ad clicks, for CPM networks.

My e-commerce activity sucks at this time – the suppliers grow prices for the products I sell online and the customers are unwilling to accept the increased price for now. But I know that my competitors’ prices go up as well – so I hope my customers will be active shortly again.

Yes, I spend less time on webmaster forums and less time posting on this blog, but all of a sudden I have discovered that there are more profitable, not so crowded niches (compared to these niches - making money online, SEO and similar stuff) that I can easily conquer relying on my experience with dropshiparea.com – this is my impression after a few weeks of my new working algo.

Summary:  My idea is simple, not new – let’s do things in bulk and diversify. I review all my affiliate marketing archives (I guess I have about 20-25 big folders with prints of articles, interviews and forum discussions I have made in the past two years) scrutinizing them for the ideas that I might test – datafeeds, long-tail keywords, cloaking, comparison websites, etc, etc.

All money I am getting at this time is re-invested into new projects and staff. I have a deadline to grow and the income level I would like to achieve by the end of the year. I am not sure yet if the goals are likely to be fulfilled, but I think I will detect a few techniques that really work online now.

One of the past mistakes was my doing the same stuff month after month with very modest results. I put an end to that practice and that was probably the smartest move I made in 2007 so far.

Technorati Tags: ppc, cpm, cpa, cpc, cpl, affiliate marketing, internet marketing