One thing that will really help you dominate your niche is to learn the basics in SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Now, SEO is an absolutely HUGE subject, and whilst its not the objective of this course to teach you SEO, it is my job to encourage you to either learn the basics yourself or hire an SEO expert freelancer to help you out.

We’ll be covering how to really dominate your niche market in great depth using a variety of strategies. If you can get the basics of SEO in place too, you’ll go a long way towards dominating your niche. Its not necessarily something you need to spend hours learning, but it will help if you can get the basics.

There are thousands of SEO resources in Google, but here’s two which I find useful:

http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/

http://www.seobook.com/ - Learn, Rank, Dominate!

SEO can be split into:

On-Page Optimization (H1, H2 tags, meta-tags, keyword density, alt images etc)

Off-Page Optimization (one way, authority back links pointing to your site)

Spend a bit of time learning the basics for on-page optimization and it will come natural to you in every web page you create. Alternatively, go to somewhere like Rentacoder.com and hire an SEO freelancer to set your on-page optimization for you.

Off-page optimization takes a lot more time to implement. Getting one way links from authority sites does take time, but here is a great resource I recommend:

http://www.linkvana.com/

Domains and Hosting

 

I always recommend the following for domains and hosting for the simple reason that they are inexpensive, reliable and secure. Additionally both provide live support to help you with any set up questions.

 

Domains: http://www.namecheap.com

 

Hosting: http://www.hostgator.com

 

 

Copywriting

 

Also see the section on Conversions in the chapter entitled “How to Really Dominate Niche Markets – Part 1”

 

A website should be:

 

Clear – Your sales letter should tell the prospects exactly what your product will give them, how it will help them, how it will give them what they want.

 

Compelling – It should be compelling enough so that they will take out their credit card and buy whatever you have for sale. It should excite them, it should give them some clear reasons why they should buy your product.

 

Believable – Tell your prospects precisely what they will get, and don’t talk about things which are simply not believable. E.g. it will cure baldness overnight, or you’ll be able to run a mile in under 3 minutes!

 

Achievable – Don’t over-promise and under-deliver.

 

Its practice, practice, practice.

 

If you choose a niche like karate or baby clothes or rock climbing, you’ll find that you don’t need to be the best copywriter in the world in order to get results, as you’ve got very little competition, and as long as you get the basics right, you’ll still make sales.

 

Hiring a copywriter can be expensive, so unless you have the funds available, copywriting is a skill you simply must take the time to learn – and the best way to learn is to model your site from other people’s successful sales letters.

 

 

Video Marketing

 

Video marketing has been around for some time for both online and offline uses. A well made video can be a huge traffic / buzz builder. It can also create massive back links to your website which will help you with the SEO side of things. You don’t need any high end equipment to take advantage of video marketing. Editing and portability have never been easier.

 

The new revolution - Flip Video Cameras – Flip video cameras are very small handheld devices which have been designed for maximum "ease of use" and because of this they have been an outstanding hit. They usually cost between $90 and $220, and can be purchased at Amazon and similar vendors. You only need to point and record to capture great looking live videos. Uploading the captured videos to your computer has never been easier with the embedded software. The newest Flips now have HD technology to improve the look of your video captures.

 

 
Video Editing is Simple – Once you’ve captured your video, you’ll often want to customize it for additional elements to drive home your message. For example, you may want to include text overlays, music backgrounds or perhaps edit out the bad scenes. Mac computers have great video editing software built right into them and PC users can access simple software programs such as Camtasia Studio or Sony Vegas. You can easily take raw footage shot on a Flip Video Camera and convert it into a professional looking high power message for publishing on your website.

Better Sales Conversions – You cannot deny that audio generally works far better at holding your attention than simple words on a page and that video works even better than audio in maintaining your prospect's attention. You need to capture the attention of your audience and keep them in place for your message before they get bored and click away. Video is the perfect medium for achieving this as it makes the experience more personable and allows people to make connections with other people, which builds trust. Furthermore, the longer you can keep your prospects on your site watching your video, the more Google and its spiders will class your site worthy a higher ranking.
 
 
Uploading Video to the Net Has Never Been Easier – Here is another area that required incredible technical skills until relatively recently. Videos need to be converted to a format that people’s web browsers can understand in order to play correctly on a website. There is now a host of ways to get your video online that never used to be available. The easiest method is upstreaming to YouT or Google Video. YouT performs the conversion for you automatically so you don't need to sweat it. Software such as FLV Producer is now available that you can put on your desktop that will easily performs the conversion for you on your own computer so you can use as you see fit. Adobe Flash is also a very popular format and will automatically prompt viewers to download the Flash plug-in if they don’t already have it installed. Alternative hosted platforms such as Audio Acrobat also allow you to upload in your already recorded format and point your website to them and they will play your video for you already converted. Other Web 2.0 sites such as Hubpages and Squidoo allow you to simply upload your video from your computer with no worries at all.
 
Here is the point: You Need to Use Video in Order to Remain Competitive. Now that you know how simple and inexpensive it can be to make a video production, then you need to stay ahead of your competitors in their marketing efforts. Target audiences pretty much expect to be presented some kind of video or audio message to enhance what you’re presenting in words. Without it, you risk coming across as boring and unsophisticated.