Steve Wagenheim’s Home Business Blog

If you’re first getting into Internet marketing, you’ve probably heard a lot of talk about niche marketing. You may know what it is or maybe not. It is definitely one of the hot topics of Internet marketers, and in most cases, the basis for every business. In this article, I’m going to explain what niche marketing means and how to get started with it. Hopefully, after reading this, you’ll be well on your way to finding your own niche.

Niche marketing is the concept of picking one particular area of expertise and promoting it, which can be done in a variety of ways. You can promote a very broad area, such as music in general, or you can pick a more narrow area, or niche, such as music composition, and promote that. The number of sub niches inside of a main niche, in many cases, is almost unlimited. The broader the niche, the more sub niches you’re going to have.

The most difficult part that people have with niche marketing and how to get started is in picking a niche to promote. After all, there are countless numbers of things in this world that you can focus on. Just go to the search engines and type in any word you can think of in the English language and you’re bound to find thousands, if not millions of sites containing that word. If I type in “music” into Google, I come up with 943 million sites. However, if I type in “music composition,” that narrows it down a bit as I only get a little over 1 million sites.

The key with niche marketing is to find an area that doesn’t already have a lot of competition. The reason for this is simple. You want to make things as easy for yourself as possible. Why go up against millions of sites when you can find a niche where you are only going up against a few thousand sites? The reason you want to do this is because the fewer sites you’re competing with, the easier it will be for you to climb up the search engine rankings.

So, what I suggest you do to get started is what I tell all my students. Sit down with a piece of paper and a pen. Yes, get away from the stupid computer for crying out loud. You spend enough time there as it is. Sit down and make a list of all your interests. Then, after you do that, go to Wordtracker and Google and find out how many searches are done on your niche and how many competing sites there are. Everybody has their own idea of the numbers to look for, but personally, I want 50 daily searches minimum and no more than 50,000 competing sites.

Do this much and in our next article, we’ll pick up from here.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim
Want to get your hot little hands on 30 niches that I have personally researched and discovered to be prime targets to make cash easily? Visit my site at:
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In the world of copywriting, there are words that you should never use. Not because somebody said so, but because studies have been made to determine what words set people off in the wrong way. These are words that will drastically kill your sales. In this article we’re going to examine five of these words and explain why you shouldn’t use them, as well as give you some substitutes for them.

The first, and probably most deadliest word you should never use in your copywriting is the word “buy.” The reason for this is because when people hear the word buy they immediately think of spending money, and people don’t like spending money. So this word will immediately turn them off on your sales copy. Instead, you want to use the word “claim” because there is no connection with spending money.

The second word you never want to use in your sales copy is the word “learn.” The reason for this is because learning is hard. Learning makes people think about what they used to do in school that they hated so much. Instead of using the word learn, use the word “discover.” This will make it appear as if the information magically entered their brain. This is a much better word.

The third word you never want to use is the word “tell.” Nobody likes to be told anything. Instead what you want to do is use the word “reveal.” For example, you might say something like, “I will reveal to you the secrets of making money online.” This is much better than “I will tell you how to make money online.” So never use the word tell. Instead, use the word reveal.

The fourth word you never want to use is the word “things.” This is one of those very general words that really doesn’t reveal anything to the person reading the copy. Instead, you want to use words like “tips,” “tricks,” and “techniques.” These words are much more colorful and descriptive and will work a whole lot better in your sales copy.

The fifth word you never want to use in your sales copy is the word “stuff.” This is another one of those words that amateurs use when that say things like “When you learn this stuff…” Absolutely horrible. Instead, you want to use the words “insider secrets” or “secrets.” So the sentence you would use would be something like “When I reveal to you these insider secrets…” and so on.

By staying away from these 5 words, you will greatly improve your sales copy.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim
Want to write copy just like the pros? Visit my site at http://www.bcipe.com/ and discover killer copywriting tips that have allowed me to write my own copy for years and earn myself a 6 figure a year income selling my own products.

When I first starting promoting my first business online, I was told by all the big boys that promoting on message boards was a total waste of time. Well, I was never one to listen to what others told me to do without at least testing it out first. Well, I’ve been using message board advertising now for over four years and doing it successfully. Want to know how? Keep reading and you’ll find out how message boards can bring effective results if you use them correctly.

Message boards are sites where people come to post ads for their income opportunities, acne books, sports products, or whatever. There are message boards for just about every niche imaginable. The problem with these boards is that because the top ones are so busy, your ads don’t stay on them for very long. Some boards are so busy, an ad can literally be gone in a half hour. Because of this, it can be difficult to get your ad seen at all. However, by using a few techniques, you can actually get results with message board posting.

The first thing you have to do is stand out from the crowd. If you go to most message boards, you will see the same subject lines, which is all anybody gets to see in order to decide whether or not to read your ad. If you want to get people to read you post, you have to be a little outrageous, even controversial. I use subjects that most people would say are on the borderline of just plain inflammatory. But as long as I don’t use profanity and abide by the rules of the message board community, there’s nothing wrong with being a little off the wall. It will get your ads read.

The next thing you want to do is write an ad that is also a little different from the ones you’re used to seeing. Don’t be afraid to be confrontational. Again, as long as you don’t use profanity and abide by the rules of the message board, you’ll be okay. You want to invoke emotions from people. You don’t want them to read your ads and go to sleep. Be straight forward, honest, and brutal if you have to. But don’t be dull.

Finally, seek out message boards that don’t have as much traffic. Your ads will stay on the first page a lot longer. So, even though you don’t get as much traffic, you actually will get more people to see your ad. This is probably the most important technique of all.

By following the above tips, you’ll see that you actually start to make sales from your message board posts.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim
Want to find out how I make over $3,300 a month from the crappiest advertising around, including messages boards, safelists, traffic exchanges and FFA sites? Check out my Crap Advertising Methods and find out

If you spend a lot of time on forums, you get to see a number of posts from people stating that they’ve been marketing online for a while and can’t make any money doing it. They don’t understand why. In this article, I am going to reveal the three main reasons why people don’t make money online. If you concentrate on these three points, there is no reason why you can’t make a decent living on the Internet. So please read this article very carefully. It may make all the difference in the world when it comes to your success.

The first reason why people fail to make money online is that they don’t have a plan. Many people hit the Internet with the idea that they’re going to make money and all they have to do is just pick out some site or program, promote it and the money will come. They have no plan whatsoever. They are basically flying by the seat of their pants. This kind of approach is certain to lead to failure. You have to carefully map out everything that you are going to do in order to earn that income, from setting up your site to how to promote it to following up with your leads. You need to create a budget for advertising. You need to keep accurate records. I could go on, but you get the point. Everything, every step of the way, MUST be planned out.

The second reason why people fail to make money online is that they don’t take the time to get educated. They have absolutely no idea what they’re doing. They don’t know how to create a site, they don’t know how to advertise, they don’t know anything about affiliate marketing or product creation, they don’t even know how to FTP a file to their hosting account and yet they want to make a living online. Without knowledge, this simply isn’t possible. You need an education in a variety of areas if you’re going to be successful.

The third reason why people fail to make money online is that they don’t know how to communicate with their customers and potential customers. They don’t know how to write ads, they don’t know how to set up an autoresponder to provide content, they don’t know how to create content at all, they don’t know how to respond to an inquiry and overall they have no communication business sense. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve written to somebody asking them about their site and their response was “The info’s on the web site.” What kind of a way to communicate is that? How about a little information in your reply. If you don’t learn how to communicate with the outside world, you won’t make any money from it.

These are the big ones. If you concentrate on these three areas, there is no reason why you can’t make a substantial income on the Internet, as long as you put in the effort and stick with it.

I guess that would be reason number four. But who’s counting?

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of busting your behind for peanuts online? Go to my web site and find out how I earn a monthly income that exceeds 5 figures and how I can help YOU do the same. Get your free report at:
http://www.mysecretarticles.com/report.html

By now, the term “Bum Marketing” is probably pretty old to most of you. Oddly, very few people really understand what Bum Marketing is and how to truly get the most out of the process. This article is going to show you the basics of what you’ll need to know when it comes to Bum Marketing and how to turn it into a steady income stream that builds over time.

Bum Marketing is simply a term coined by Travis Sago for article marketing. What that is, is simply the process of writing articles, submitting them to article directories and getting people to check out your web site by ultimately directing them to the resource box and link in your signature. The better your article is and the stronger your call to action is, the more chance you have of getting people to your site. But this is just the beginning of Bum Marketing. There really is more to it.

For starters, you need to concentrate on niches that don’t have a ton of competition. That is the essence of Bum Marketing, focusing on areas that you have the best chance of making a profit in. To do this, there are several steps that we need to take in order to find the most profitable niches with the least amount of competition.

The first step is to go to your favorite keyword tool (I use the free version of Wordtracker) and look up the main keyword of the niche that you want to tackle, say “music” and then take a look at all the related keywords to that niche. Ultimately, what you’re going to find is that as you go down the list, there are going to be keywords like “children’s music” that don’t have a lot of daily searches but also don’t have a lot of competition. How do you find this out? That is the next step.

The next step is to go to Google and look up the keyword phrase that you’ve found to see how many competing sites there are. If you find that there are less than 50,000 competing sites for that keyword phrase, then you have most likely found a niche that you can crack. Once you’ve done that, the next step is to find a product that you can sell that fills a need in that niche, or create your own product, and then put it up on your web site for sale.

The final step is to begin writing articles for that niche and submit them to as many article directories as you can. Over the course of time, you will find that people will read these articles and start coming to your site. This will eventually translate into sales for your product.

And that is all there is to Bum Marketing. By the way, it’s called Bum Marketing because even a bum with no visible means of support can do this simply because it requires no capital outlay.

Bum Marketing can be very effective if done correctly.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim
Want to write the kind of articles that will really make your Bum Marketing come to life? Pick up a copy of my http://www.honestincomeprogram.com/tcawamg.html and start making money with Bum Marketing TODAY!

Okay, I know this sounds like a really stupid question, but you’d be surprised how many people write articles without any real purpose in mind OR they write the article and defeat the purpose by writing it all wrong. I know that’s kind of vague but don’t worry, I’m going to explain in detail what I’m talking about in this article, which I assure you, has a very definite purpose.

Let’s start with the people who write articles with no purpose in mind at all. They usually pick a topic and just start writing. They’re all over the place. They may start with their feelings on a particular subject and suddenly go into some facts and figures and ultimately end up talking about things that have nothing at all to do with the original topic. It’s what we call in the trade, rambling. I’m sure you’re familiar with it. An example would be if I started talking about my Aunt Hilda right now…which I won’t do.

But what about the folks who do have a purpose in mind but end up killing that purpose? That may be a little harder to understand. So let me give you an example. Let’s say you’re writing an article on the government of the United States. The purpose of the article is to educate people as to how the government operates. You’re not writing an opinion piece. You’re just reporting the facts, such as what the bodies of government are, voting procedures and so on. Giving your opinion on whether the government is good or bad and going into a long dissertation on it, doesn’t fit with the theme of the article. You’re defeating the purpose.

In both scenarios, you have to stay focused on your writing. That’s the bottom line. This article was made for the purpose of showing the reader how to stay on topic when writing. It didn’t start talking about writing style or punctuation or anything else. It was focused only on that one thing.

Write your articles THAT way and you’ll never have trouble writing an article again.

To YOUR Success,
Steven Wagenheim

Want to write articles that get people’s attention and can earn you up to $200 per article written? Then check out my Complete Article Writing And Marketing Guide that you can find at:

http://www.honestincomeprogram.com/tcawamg.html

This is my own book that I wrote from over 30 years of writing experience.

If you’ve been a fan of Google for a while, you probably know all about their Hot Trends site. Maybe not. Well, if it’s new to you or if it’s something that you’re not quite sure is something that you can add to your Internet marketing arsenal, this article is going to do two things. First, it’s going to briefly tell you what Hot Trends is and then it’s going to give you some advice on how you can use these Hot Trends to your advantage. You might want to make a note of this.

Okay, so what is Hot Trends? Well, to put it simply, Hot Trends relates to searches that users of Google make from hour to hour. A hot trend is usually something news related, but not always. Usually it’s a story that just broke and a lot of people are talking about it. Sometimes it could be an event that’s coming up. For example, a big hot trend right now is the World Series because everybody is waiting for it. Hot Trends are current. Because of that, they also live and die very quickly. So how can this help you with your marketing?

Well, by going to the Hot Trends site, you can see what is up and coming. The trends are ranked from 1 to 100. Just because something is low, however, doesn’t mean it’s not hot. Many trends start out low and end up very high before they die out. By keeping current on what is hot, you can find opportunities that you can jump on and make an income from.

For example, just recently, Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops passed away. This was a very hot trend for a couple of days where marketers who had Amazon accounts cashed in on some sales of Four Tops CDs. This is a very common kind of hot trend. After the few days have passed, everybody forgets. But during that time, those who keep up with them, make a killing.

The key, and this is the hard part, is to recognize the trends that have potential and eliminate the ones that don’t. For example. News of a convicted killer being sentenced to death is unlikely going to bring you any income at all, even though it’s a hot news story. You want to look for things that are entertainment or business related. Those are the ones that have the more potential.

If you want more info on how to take advantage of Hot Trends, there is an excellent resource in my signature that you can check out.

This may be one of the easiest ways to make money online that there are.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to make the fastest money online possible with NO money, NO web site and NO skills. Check out Hot Trends – Instant Cash at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/hottrends/index.html

A lot of people think that because email marketing is free (not always) that it’s cost effective, no matter what kind of results you get. Well, the truth is, that’s not entirely true. It depends a lot on how you go about your email marketing. That is going to make a HUGE difference. In this article, I’m going to explain the basic two types of email marketing and why one may be more cost effective than another for you. Hopefully, after reading this, you’ll be able to intelligently decide which is the better solution for you.

The two types of email marketing come down to either marketing through your own server and ISP or marketing through a third party site or company like Aweber or GetResponse. Okay, so what’s the difference? I’m going to explain each.

With emailing through your own server, you essentially are paying for your hosting fees for the month, your domain and the script that you purchased in order to accomplish the task. Now, hosting fees these days are pretty cheap. I know hosting services that are as little as $5 a month. And a domain will cost you about $8 for the whole year. As for the script, heck, there are some decent email scripts that are free to download. Of course you’re better off getting a paid one. But a decent one won’t run you more than $100. That’s a grand total of maybe $168 expense for the whole year.

Now, with a third party service like Aweber or GetResponse, you’re paying about $20 a month. You have no hosting or domain fees and no script costs. So your whole expense, using these services is about $240 for the whole year. As you can see, there really isn’t that much of a difference. However, there is HUGE difference between the two as far as the kind of results you can expect to get.

With your own hosting and script, you’re never going to get the same high delivery rates as you would from a great service. Your hosting account simply doesn’t have the resources that Aweber does to keep you off the black list. When this happens, your emails don’t go through. This greatly reduces sales. Plus, if you get enough spam complaints, your ISP can shut you down altogether.

So as you can see, while it may appear to be more cost effective to do this on your own, you’re really better off going through a third party service and spending the extra money. You’ll make more sales and have less worry about losing your account in the process.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of not getting your emails delivered, read or opened? Sick of not making any sales from your email marketing efforts? Visit my site at:

http://www.stevewagenheim.com/emailmarketing/index.html

and get your hands on 5 years of my personal experience with email marketing…experience that has earned me tens of thousands of dollars yearly.

On the surface, copywriting looks very simple. And, if you want to be technical, it is. The X’s and O’s aren’t really hard. Write a solid headline, a good intro paragraph, a compelling story, solid bullet points, include some killer testimonials, make an impossible to resist offer and close the deal hard, and you can’t help but make sales, right? Or is it? Is there more to this? Well, in this article, we’re going to dig as deep as we can…into WHY a prospect REALLY buys your stuff. I think you will find this a real eye opener.

The best way to really explain this is with an example. Let’s say you’re selling a make money online product. It’s something that tells the prospect that with just an hour work each day, they can make $200 a day. That comes out to about $6,000 a month or $72,000 a year. That’s not bad. Now, on the surface, a beginning copywriter would think that the reason this person wants to buy this product is so he can make this money. And while that is true, it’s not the whole story. In other words, it’s not as deep as we can dig into the psychology behind this purchase. So let’s dig deeper.

Why do they want the money? Well, one might say that it could be for lots of reasons. They want a new car, new home, maybe a new boat. Maybe they just want to pay off some debt. Maybe they want to buy some new furniture for their home. It could be just about anything. But that’s still not the whole story. Sure, things are important, whatever they are. But WHY do they want to buy these things? This is where we have to dig one more level.

For a new car, you might say that it’s because they want to impress their friends with their new vehicle. With a new home, it might be to impress the people next door with your wealth. But this still doesn’t get to the real heart of the matter as to why they want to do this. That’s where we have to dig to one final level.

It all comes down to one thing…quality of life. They want to improve the quality of their life. And therefore, each of these things, in their eyes, is going to do just that. This is what you have to focus on as a copywriter. You need to dig down to that deepest level so that these people can have the quality of life that they want.

To YOUR Success,
Steven Wagenheim

Want to write copy just like the pros? Visit my site at http://www.bcipe.com/ and discover killer copywriting tips that have allowed me to write my own copy for years and earn myself a 6 figure a year income selling my own products.

You know, we are so busy running our home businesses, thinking purely about the profit and operation, that we sometimes forget about a few things that could really screw our business up big time if we don’t take care of them. In this article, I’m simply going to give you a gentle reminder about a few items that, if you fail to take care of them, you could be putting your business at risk. And the last thing you want is for all your hard work to end up flushed down the sewer.

At the top of my list of critical things is anti virus protection. Yeah, I know. You’re careful. Nothing’s going to happen to your PC. You don’t go to any of those bad sites or open up any emails that could cause you problems. Guess what? Viruses hit everybody. I don’t care how careful you are. Sometimes you could go to a site that looks completely harmless and get zapped by one of these buggers. Don’t let it happen to you. Get yourself protected and get it today.

Another critical thing is firewall protection. There are people out there who will think nothing of trying to hack into your computer and steal your password and credit card info. Why do you think it is that you hear all those horror stories about people’s PayPal accounts getting hacked into and all their money taken out? I know, it’s not going to happen to you. That’s what all these other people thought too. Please get yourself a firewall and protect against people hacking into your machines.

Finally, there is something that NOBODY wants to think about. Your house burning down or something horrible happening that fries your PC to a crisp. Guess what? No onsite backup is going to help you here. Everything is going to be toast. That’s why you need an offsite backup like Carbonite. This way, if anything happens, you’re protected.

I know you don’t want to think of these things, but it’s YOUR business and nobody is going to care for it like you will. So please get anti virus protection, please get a firewall and please have an offsite backup.

Your business will thank you for it.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at:
http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!