Why You Should Embrace the Make Money Online & Internet Marketing Niche
October 22, 2008 - Written by Gyutae Park
Most bloggers tell you not to start out in the ‘make money online’ or ‘internet marketing’ niche, but never tell you the other side of the story. Is it because they want to keep competitors out? Or is it because they truly don’t see any opportunity and don’t want you to make the same mistake? Regardless of what others say, there are in fact benefits and advantages of blogging about Internet marketing. The “gurus” are making a killing in the industry after all, right?
A couple days back I described the reasons why you should stay away from ‘make money online’ and ‘Internet marketing‘. Everything mentioned is 100% valid and true. Blogging about Internet marketing is no easy task and you can often get better results doing something else with the same amount of time and effort.
However, there is a ton of opportunity in the ‘make money online’ niche and for the right people, it can be very beneficial to blog about it. I’m going to list out the advantages of the industry and then based on my 2 articles you can decide on how you’d like to move forward. Ready?
Write about something you do anyway
Every online business, regardless of its niche or model, requires Internet marketing techniques to gain traffic and make sales. If you’re going to study Internet marketing and use the strategies for your sites, why not base your business off of it and write about it on your blog? Not only will this cut down on your research time but it will also make you a better overall Internet marketer. More on this in the next point.
Keep yourself on the cutting edge
Blogging about Internet marketing keeps you on the cutting edge with the latest techniques and strategies. You don’t need to be an expert or thought leader (although it certainly helps) in order to set up a business teaching others how to make money online. You can easily profit by packaging existing ideas and making them convenient for customers to access. Furthermore, you can apply the findings and methods you learn to additional businesses in other niches.
High profit products in a buyers’ market
Since most people doing business in the Internet marketing niche sell digital goods like ebooks, membership sites and software, expenses are low and profit margins are huge. Most information products are sold at a premium because they can potentially reward customers with a positive return on investment. In fact, few other industries can support a market like this where customers are willing to shell out $2,000 for a package of information that can be used to improve their business and increase profit.
Furthermore, high profit products also mean big affiliate commissions and increased advertising income. If you’d rather not create your own Internet marketing products, you can easily promote others’ and earn a nice chunk of change in the process. Many ‘make money online’ products offer up to 50% in affiliate commissions – meaning you’ll make just as much, if not more, than the owners. High profit products also mean that companies are able to spend more on advertising – which will increase your income even more.
Growing market
Whether you know it or not, the Internet is in its early stages and has a lot of room for growth and expansion. If you think that the Internet marketing niche is small and saturated, think again. There are millions of businesses in the US alone and most of them are just getting started in setting up a presence online. By utilizing a blog to be a helpful resource, you can get in early and establish yourself as an authority in the field.
Also, the ‘make money online’ niche is unique because anyone and everyone is interested in making money. Who isn’t? Everyone needs money to survive or indulge so almost everyone is a potential reader or customer. It’s just a matter of educating the masses about the possibilities online and motivating them to try it out for themselves.
Audience of buyers
Simply put, Internet marketers are buyers. People who run online businesses constantly invest in information and tools to help them grow and make more money. For example, in the past year alone, I’ve spent over $10,000 on web hosting, tools and licenses, Wordpress plugins, information products, and travel for trade conferences. Sure that sounds like a lot of money, but in the end it’s worth it because my revenue streams have increased as a result of those investments.
By targeting Internet marketers on your blog, you’re able to see higher levels of income for smaller audiences. In other words, because you’re dealing with a readership of interested buyers, conversion rates are higher for products and affiliate offers. In essence, you can do more with less.
No shortage of ideas – vast number of topics
Many of you may be intimidated by the Internet marketing gurus with tens of thousands of subscribers and huge email lists. How does anyone expect to compete? The answer to that is you don’t have to. The Internet marketing industry covers a wide array of topics, all of which deserve their own set of resources and blogs. For example, many have done incredibly well targeting subtopics like blogging, SEO, link building, membership sites, video marketing, BANS sites, affiliate marketing, and more. There are plenty of Internet marketing techniques and online making making methods to go around and you can easily blog about any one of them and be heard.
Everyone helps each other
One of the great things that I noticed about the Internet marketing niche is that everyone seems to help each other out. Whether it be links, social media votes, affiliate promotions, or blog comments, Internet marketers are always willing to help out and work together for mutual benefit. Connections and networking is extremely important and I haven’t seen this much collaboration done in any other industry. Sure making money online is competitive, but you wouldn’t know it from the blogosphere as everyone is very supportive.
High profile recognition
Another benefit of the Internet marketing industry is that there is a ton of personal branding involved. High profile marketers are pretty much celebrities and they have a lot more leverage when launching new businesses. If you’d like to get started in making a name for yourself in the industry, a blog is a perfect platform to relay your message and gain a following.
Free press passes & free stuff
Finally, blogging about Internet marketing and making money online essentially makes you a journalist in the field. You’re offered free press passes in exchange for coverage to trade shows like Affiliate Summit, Blog World Expo, and PubCon and you frequently receive free books, plugins, and software to review and rate. This shouldn’t be the deciding factor of working in the niche, but it’s definitely nice to be courted by related companies with products and sponsorships.
Now that you’ve heard both sides of the story, what do you think? Will you be blogging in the Internet marketing/MMO niche or will you taking your blog elsewhere? Vote in the poll and leave a comment below.
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Ha I’m really glad you wrote this. I’m sure you read my comment on the previous post stating how much I disagreed with what you had written. This post however I agree with 100%.
Hey Alan, no problem. I wanted to present both sides of the story and let you all decide for yourselves what you thought the best course of action was. Judging from the topic of my blog here, you can probably guess where I stand.
Thanks for this. I think that the internet marketing niche is GREAT if you know what you are doing.
Good luck with your blog!
No problem Joel. Internet marketing is a fantastic niche if you can provide value to users. It’s not easy unless you’re truly interested in the topic and/or have expertise. Good luck to you as well.
I think its a great niche and the only niche I am passion about
Well if that’s the case, then power to ya. Follow your passions and you’ll see great results.
Now you confuse me further….(no, it’s a joke). It’s good that I don’t read both articles in one go as it gives me ample time to weigh the pros and cons.
Personally, I find the MMO niche to be very much appealing as there are lots of money making opportunities to be discovered. However, one should have the right approach to be successful in it. The key is honesty. My point is if you are yet to cash out your first adsense check, don’t ever say that it’s the best monetizing program on the planet. Period!
Well, since I’m not changing my niche into MMO any time soon, there is no decision that’s needed to be taken at this moment but you made me think….
Yet another awesome and insightful article, G-style. Stumbled!
Haha, thanks a lot Yan man.
I agree with you about the honesty component. Everyone in the Internet marketing niche is out to do 1 thing – make money. By being honest and helpful, people are more willing to listen to you and consider you a useful resource.
That applies to blogging tips as well so don’t think you’re not included in that, Yan!
That applies to blogging tips as well so don’t think you’re not included in that, Yan!
Appreciate the nudge…and will keep that in mind, as always.
Yan
Yep, no prob.
I’m really liking your Thou Shall Blog by the way.. What theme do you have on there? It looks great.
Thanks for the visit and your kind words. By the way, I’m using the Sketch’d Theme from wefunction.com with some minor modification. It’s one of the best grunge theme I’ve came across so far.
Yep, looks good.. definitely a lot different than the themes most blogging bloggers are using. I’ll check back often to see what you’re up to.
One thing I observed is, you are replying for each and every comment. I haven’t seen any blogger like this. Every one will feel that the author is responding on our comments.At the same time you can increase your number of words in your article with new keywords. One shot two birds. It is good, You should mention this technique in your coming articles, so others also implement this as one of SEO technique.
I think commenting is an important part of blogging. If readers take the time and effort to read my articles and share their thoughts, the least I can do is to thank them individually and offer my feedback. It’s something that I enjoy doing and obviously has some SEO benefits as you mentioned.
It takes a lot of time, but in the end I think it’s worth it.
It certainly adds interactivity to our blog, thats an important factor
I didn’t realize that responding to all the comments has its SEO benefit. Come to think of it, it really makes sense. Never did I pay any attention to the use of keywords on my reply and now I will. Thanks for the tip.
Yan
Well, I mainly do it to interact with my readers but SEO is a side benefit. The more content you have on a page, the more the search engines have to crawl and index.. which will help you to rank for a lot more long tail keywords.
Yeah I do make it a point to response to all the comments as well as I feel that’s one of the best way to connect with my readers.
OK, this is off-topic I thought I should ask you now… I do notice that all links on your paid review are dofollow, do you care to explain why? You don’t seem to worry about the big G, do you?
Yan
Which paid reviews are you talking about? Usually I do add nofollow to reviews, and affiliate links go through a tracking script so they’re not followed as well.
My apology…I must have mistaken about the whole thing but I remember sometime ago I read one of your review and the links are dofollow…probably I must have looked elsewhere. Not an issue..I just want to hear your opinion on this as I’m still setting the links as dofollow on all of my paid reviews.
Yan
Yeah, I highly recommend you use nofollow on your paid reviews – especially if a lot of your traffic comes from Google search. The last thing you need as a up and coming blog is to get penalized by Google.
Thanks! Actually I’m aware of the consequences. It just makes me wonder why Carl ‘kidblogger’ who is doing paid reviews with dofollow links week after week is still able to maintain his PR.
So I thought the only way to prove it to risk it myself and see how it will actually affect my PR. Thing is I wasn’t affected by the last update and I’ll see what happen next….
Anyway, thanks for the conversation.
Yan
Its amazing how good a case you make for both sides of the coin. Now I’m confused as to what will really work!
Haha, sorry about that. Internet marketing is a great niche to go into, but only if you’re doing it for the right reasons. Same thing applies to any other niche… you have to find the right balance between passion and potential.
While this is not a niche for everyone, you have made some pretty good points on why it can work for many.
You’re absolutely right. Internet marketing is not the niche for everyone, but everyone seems to think that it is because they want to follow what the “gurus” are doing.
Internet marketing can work for many.. but so can a thousand other niches that you may not even be considering.
I found “Keep yourself on the cutting edge” to be true when blogging in the MMO niche because as I write,I learn…it’s a wierd type of self therapy/learning thing.
making money online is one of the things that interest a great deal of internet users worldwide. it keeps the internet moving. honestly it is the niche that is easy to write about.
thank you for the great post winningtheweb.com
Ha I’m in actuality pleased you publish this post. Second step is more important in out of all steps. It’s necessary to always represent with advance technology which will help to engage to reader.