Internet Marketing Strategy ~ How Do I Choose?

November 18, 2009 By Jackie Lee 44 Comments

With so many different ways to make money online it can be really hard to decide which internet marketing strategy you will focus on. I must say I’ve done quite a few of them, probably should have given some of them a little more time and focus, but hey…

Today I thought I’d give you a run down of some of the pros and cons of different internet marketing strategies to help you make a decision on which you will use to move forward over the next 6 months. There are of course, not all of the strategies available to you, but they are ones I have tried and can talk to you about from experience.

Keyword Sniping

This is the strategy I learned during some coaching I took a couple years back. I did it for about 6 months, although when I look back I realize I probably didn’t do “enough” to really make the money I wanted. I did learn some very good lessons from this strategy I will talk about later.

What is it?

Keyword sniping is choosing 1 keyword or keyword phrase. The keywords need to have plenty of search volume as well as a high CPC (cost per click in adwords ~ so you will make money when people click ads on your pages). The site is usually about 4 or 5 pages/posts ~ all focused around different variations of your main keyword. You have to do all the linking etc to get traction in the search engine results ~ and being #1 here is really important.

Pros:

It can be pretty easy to set up these sites. It’s not too hard to find keywords that fit the criteria to use. It can be very hands off money once you’ve done the initial work. Sometimes it’s easier to get peopel to click an ad than to buy a product (depending on the keyword).

Cons:

You are completely dependant on the whims of Google. If they change something big your whole network could be affected. You have to do a LOT of these sites to really be sure of good income. (BTW ~ 10 is not a lot lol) For each site you need a domain name so it could get expensive. These sites can easily get “sandboxed” and not show up in the rankings for a long time. (up to a year)

What did I learn?

The biggest lesson I learned from working this strategy is you can NEVER count on the numbers. I put up 10 sites and by the “numbers” I should have been making 10K a month. I got almost all of my sites to the #1 position in google, even the one that was supposed to be making me $50 a day ~ and I was no where near that amount. So my first lesson was keep building until you reach your goal. Don’t sit around and wait, expecting what you’ve built based on the numbers is really gonna do it for you. (this is true in any IM strategy though).

I also learned that I personally don’t like depending on google 100% for my income. (that’s a personal thing, and I know TONS of people who make lots and lots of money from adsense ~ it just makes me a little too nervous.) This also led me to create my first product ~ which teaches how to do keyword research for this type of strategy.

Micro Niche Sites:

Very similar to keyword sniping, however, you are choosing keywords based on small niches or products. These sites are often times only 1 or 2 pages ~ you can use an straight html site or wordpress platform to build these sites. They are very focused on the one keyword, which works great when the keyword is specifically product related.

Pros:

It can be very easy to make a sale when you are targeting specific product keywords. The sites are quick and easy to put up. Keywords are everywhere ~ and are basically endless because new products come out every day and not many people are focusing on product keywords. (many many more marketers are focusing on selling info products). Depending on how you do the linking you can quickly get indexed and ranked for these kind of sites. You can also incorporate adsense on your page for a second stream of income from each site.

Cons:

Each site needs its own domain so it can get expensive. You have to build a LOT of sites to make sure you reach your monetary goal. Some of these sites will tank and not do a dang thing (this is true in all IM strategies)

What I learned:

I first was introduced to this last year with IPK. (Info Product Killer). That course is completely based on doing quick html sites ~ which I have no idea how to do so I didn’t really follow along. I decided to use squidoo lenses and see what would happen ~ well we all see what can happen. The real lesson I learned though was I do not have to “stick to the script” of a product. I can take the basic idea and tweak it to suit my purposes and it will still probably work (if I’ve kept the main idea intact). Big lesson for me, HUGE.

Niche Domination

This is what I consider OWM. You pick a small niche ~ SMALL NICHE ~ very specific and then you dominate all the keywords related to that niche. So like Nick did in Conversations with Nick he found all the keywords he could related to “cure your golf slice” and dominated the search results for them. He then offered them a product that exactly solved the problem and it worked.

Pros:

You can do this on Squidoo for free. There are tons of little niche markets like that to be found.

Cons:

It takes a lot of work and a lot of focus to do all the steps involved in a niche domination campaign. It can be overwhelming at times. You don’t own your content because it’s done on free platforms. You get free traffic from search engines when done right. It can be hard to perfectly match the product and keywords and when they are not specifically relevant your conversion will suffer.

What I learned:

I learned a LOT about SEO doing this. A lot of information I was able to take to other platforms, including this blog, and use effectively to get traffic. I learned about linking ~ and just how important it was. I did a lot of these and that allowed me to finally understand the “it’s a numbers game” mentality. I was able to see how a lot of lenses didn’t do a damn thing, but then there were some that did great. I wouldn’t have gotten that if I hadn’t built so many lenses.

Niche Blogging

Niche blogging started for me by picking a big niche, and then writing tons and tons of content about topics related to that niche. It has become for me ~ picking a much smaller niche, finding “good keywords” within that small niche and then writing 1 blog post for each good keyword I found. I then build links to each of the post pages, and in the end there is a whole site, and each post is pulling in traffic for its keyword. I also have found that choosing a product related niche works very well ~ and makes it really easy to make sales from each page of the blog. You can of course add adsense to the mix as well if you wish.

Pros:

You don’t have to buy as many domain names. You can create a quality site that really gives people information but also makes you money. You have many many opportunities to make money from the blog. You can target multiple keywords at one time. It’s easy to make sales for relevant products from each post on the blog. It will be passive income when the initial workload is finished.

Cons:

It takes a lot of work. You have to do link building not only for the site, but for each individual page for this strategy to work. It can get overwhelming.

What I learned:

This is basically the culmination of everything I’ve learned over the last couple years, and I love it. It puts together my favorite pieces of internet marketing, and the things I enjoy doing, which makes it really easy for me to stick to long term. The big lesson from this was take a step away from the ebooks, and just try what you think will work. You don’t have to follow the rules all the time ~ you can make your own rules. Lucky for me, it happened to work.

So there you have it a few different internet marketing strategies for you to mull over. If you haven’t already chosen an internet marketing strategy to focus on for the next 6 months, take a look at these and see if one may be just what you’re looking for.

I’d love to hear what you think ~ about these strategies and other strategies you are going to use. Like I said, I’ve tried a lot of things lol, but I haven’t tried them all ~ so if you’ve tried something I haven’t talked about let us know!