At no point in marketing history has it been so easy to own your market. If you have a product, service, or personal interest to offer and want to be the Internet leader in this space the path to success is relatively straight-forward. The strategy is really as simple as: If you want to be the expert, BE the expert. Fill your niche market with the content, discussions, and answers and then make them authoritative. Here are 5 simple steps to filling the void and becoming the expert.
Start with a Niche
This is where I work the hardest and spend the most time with my clients--discovering and finding their first niche to attack. Your starting point should be an inventory or survey of your business. What are the products and services you offer? Who is your ideal customer? How did your current customers find you? Are there any similarities in your customers' personal interests? What makes your approach unique?
This inventory should have given you a few key concepts. Those concepts contain keywords that define you and your current expertise. Refine these concepts into a list of keywords and take the next important step--find out if anyone cares!
Go to Google's Keyword Tool and see which of these keywords or phrases get a significant amount of search inquiries. Once you have a few picked out that have a reasonable number of inquires per day it is time to begin taking control of those terms.
Build a Foundation
Owning any space on the Web is solely about authoritative content. Internet consumers go to the Web with their questions. Search engines index, sort, and prioritize the answers they get. They do that by what their little automated "spiders" conclude are authoritative. Your challenge is to convenience these little pieces software code and your curious Web searches when they arrive you are the expert on topic.
To become the authoritative source in your chosen niche you have to create the center point for your authority. That focal point, of course, is a website. The quickest and simplest strategy to build an authoritative repository of content is a blog. Depending on your expertise you can host your own or create a free one at Wordpress.com. Once you have your site you should systematically begin posting (blogging) articles that tell readers (and the search engines) what you know about each of those keywords and phrases that you know they will query when faced with the problem you can solve (i.e., an FHA mortgage, finding short sale bargains, setting up a day trading business, building a downline in your network marketing business, etc.).
Now that you have your foundation, don't forget the two final important pieces: give them something free to take away (and pass around to friends), and a way to contact you.
Create a Network
With a focus on what your niche is and where you are going to send people to prove it, you need to build a fan base. Don't get confused. These are not customers. Your network should be "sneezers" and entertainment. Your network serves three purposes: promote, validate, and entertain people when they arrive. Understanding your goal(s) in building the network I will share a few of my favorite techniques:
- Promoters: the quickest way to build an initial base of promoters is using your Blogroll, MyBlogLog, StumbleUpon, and Digg. Find like minded (content and topics) individuals and promote their stuff. That means links at first and traffic over time.
- Validators: This takes a bit more time because you need to build a bit of credibility. Once you have a good base of quality content, drop an email to some of the top experts and bloggers in or related to your area of expertise. If they like it you will begin to see yourself mentioned, linked to, and promoted.
- Entertainers: Most of the time these will come on there own. They are the colorful personalities and commenters. They are the rivals. Sometimes they are bloggers or commenters that take your counterpoint. Or, my favorite, competitors that validate you are a threat to their business.
Become Authoritative
Being authoritative is sort of the capstone concept. It is the result of creating a solid foundation of quality content and creating a validating and promoting group of people around that content. This powerful combination creates an obvious authority to visiting consumers looking for answers and a strong link structure that tells Google, Yahoo!, and MSN's little search bots this is the place to find out about [fill in your niche here].
Expand the Niche
Owning your little niche of the market is only the start of the opportunity. You may start with how to create mind blowing email campaigns and expand to all of direct marketing. You might start with FHA loans in Livonia, MI and expand to the Nations' "Home Loan Experts." You may start with how I use Twitter and expand to a social media guru.
Design your approach with expansion in mind. Create milestones and benchmarks to assess where you are and where you are headed. And don't forget what you are attempting to do. This is not your teenager's MySpace page. You are not looking to gather a bunch of meaningless followers and funny quips on your web pages. You are running a marketing campaign and business website. You are demonstrating that you are the professional, the expert, customers want providing the solution to their problem. You want to generate solid leads for sales.
Nothing generates more leads and produces better sales results than being the best in the business. The Internet creates an infinite space to work within, frame off your niche and become the expert. Then build on that platform to whatever success you can conceive.
Bill Rice is a leading authority on lead management and the lead generation industry. He is a frequent writer, sharing insights on sales at BetterCloser.com, providing commentary on the lead generation market on Lead Marketwatch and speaker, featured at venues like Leads2007, LeadsCon, Ohio MBA, and Online Lead Quality Summit.
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