Internet Marketing Strategy ~ How Do I Choose?
Nov 18
photo credit: stuartpilbrow
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!
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Funny … looks to me like you’ve already got a site up and are building links to it using the keyword luv plugin on this site.
Follow me @momtohanna on Twitter!
Great tips about making money online! Thats cool..there are a lot of ways to earn that I dont know where to start.
You will be able to leave it ~ you will be getting ranked for the keywords and you should be good ~ you’ll have to keep an eye on your traffic to make sure it’s staying up there, but you’ll only need to add content if you find another great keyword or something like that along the way.
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OK, so if it takes 90 days more or less, does that mean once you have it done, you can leave it alone or will you continuously be adding more content. Just trying to put together in my mind a time management system.
Carole
These niche blogs ~ the way I’m showing them will probably take 90 days or so to finish. It does depend on the list of keywords you’ve created at the beginning. If you’ve got 50 to 100 keywords it will take you a while to write all that content. I will be covering all this as I go. These are not like lenses where you want to finish them as quickly as possible, these are something you do over time to get rankings for many keywords, and not get thrown into the sandbox by Google.
If your niche and your keywords can be served by digital as well as physical products that’s fine. I would worry more about the content part more so than monetizing here at the beginning. Getting your content up and ranked first is important before you start putting a bunch of money making stuff up on it.
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I am working on my first niche blogging with your wordpress tutorials. I already have 2 niches that are with digital products instead of actual products off of amazon. However, one niche has a couple different digital products that could be promoted, as well as some actual products. Do you see a problem with mixing the two? The KW are all related to the actual niche, just some can actually use a product and some an ebook?
Also, I know this is a wide open question and it will be different for everyone, but if you do niche blogging, is it realistic to set up 2 niches with all the backlinks, etc. in a month? Or should I be looking at doing more than that in a month?
Thanks,
Carole
By that I mean that the system I do now is a blend of many of the things I’ve learned along the way. Yes, I’d recommend it for newbies ~ it’s what the entire tutorial series I’m doing now is about. It’s easy enough if you know what you’re doing and willing to put in the time and effort. It’s not an overnight money making adventure ~ but it can be profitable. It’s up to you what kind of person you are, and where your talents and interests lie.
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I am interested in niche blogging. It seems like its more profitable if you put the time in. But you mentioned that I is an accumulation of everything you have done. Would you recommend this for a newbie who has not accumulated lots as of yet?
Interesting ~ seems kind of dirty pool to have your “more” link linking to Amazon. I think that site is pretty skimpy on content ~ and I’m not seeing it ranking for any of the product names it’s featuring in blog posts. Not sure I’d go that way.
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Oops! Sorry Jackie… I was looking at this site
http://www.mountainbikesforsale.net/ which I realize now has an “s” after bike and your domain does not!
Sorry for the confusion!
Kim
Not sure what you are referring to Kim ~ I am not familiar with that plugin and do not think I’m using it lol.
I don’t have anything up on my mountain bike site yet. 
Jackie
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Hi Jackie,
I noticed that you are using WP Robot Plugin on your mountain bike site. Do you like it and/or recommend it? I was considering purchasing it, but haven’t yet.
I probably would not purchase the complete package as I don’t think that I would use everything – maybe just Amazon, Articles and Ebay. It looks like it could be beneficial though – what do you think about it so far?
Thanks!
Kim
Yes you can use the storebuilder code right in the post area. You can also use the shareasale page builder code in your posts.
Yes, that’s definitely one of the benefits of wp ~ the flexibility and ability to do more things. If that’s what you’re going to do you’ll probably need to go with wp.
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Hi Jackie,
I was looking at your WordPress blog on Garen Potting Benches http://www.gardenpottingbench.itsawahmlife.com/
and it looks like you might be using Pepperjam Store Builder to add your products. I really love this concept!
I would like to implement this but don’t currently have any WordPress blogs. I can add it to a Blogger blog, but the products will only display on the first page and just in the right border. When you use WordPress, does it allow you to actually use the store builder code in the posts section, thereby enabling you to add different products per each page? That is what I would like to do, but I think that using WordPress is the best option probably – do you agree?
Thanks so much!
Kim
Great post. Wish I had found this earlier in my mmo career.
M
I’m glad you’re enjoying the blog. Now get to work
I’d say they are both as forgiving. Why not get started with Squidoo since it’ s completely free, once you start making some money you can then reinvest it back into your business and start doing your own wp sites. 
Follow me @momtohanna on Twitter!
Hi Jackie,
Some days I read you for hours….I know, I should be doing not reading. Have started working with Squidoo a bit, still a little scared of WordPress and for some unknow reason still don’t comprehend RSS.
Question,
Which do you think is most “forgiving” as well as the potential to be lucrative; Squidoo Lenses or a Blog? I need to put another caveat here….I’m zip out of money, actually in bankruptcy although I do own a few domains.
I look forward to every post from you. Thanks so much for sharing!
Jennifer
This is a great post – I’m new to your blog and I really like your writing style. Like you, I’ve tried a lot of these strategies and not given enough time to some. But I believe each has their advantages like you said – and I have learnt SO much from doing it. The next step for me is to focus and be able to spend enough time on just one method to properly see it through!
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Hey Pat,
no problem ~ I’m going to do a whole post on social networking here soon is more “pressing” things don’t keep coming to my mind lol. Facebook ~ I’m not sure if the links will cont. I use it more to drive traffic than for links ~ and not much for that. It is really good for building relationships and that’s what I use it for mostly. We’ll talk more about all this soon.
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Thank you for saving me all the time doing the wrong thing for the social networking. Most ask for a blog address that’s why I was messing up.
I have a facebook page which I have no idea what to do with but if I send anyone in my friends list my links, will that count as a back link?
Don’t trust the numbers. That’s the truest thing I’ve ever heard. They’re worth knowing for general guidance, but absent real testing, it’s always a mystery what will happen. Sometimes things underperform wildly. Other times they can exceed expectations.
Hey everyone, I gave you the wrong URL in the previous post. DOH! The right URL is http://bestgetmyexbackreviews.com. So sorry!
Follow me @casurette on Twitter!
Hi Jackie!
So, I’m still being impatient then?? LOL
It is a website http://bestgetyourexbackreviews.com. It isn’t a new site, I’ve had it for 3 or 4 months now. The site itself is indexed. It is only a one page site with a pop-up.
Still any advice you Jackie, or anyone else for that matter, you could give on this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Cindy
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Hi Nancy,
I personally am doing it around different products in one niche. For example ~ mountain bikes ~ I got the domain “mountainbikeforsale.net” (don’t look there’s nothing there due to other problems~ but the concept still stands). I then looked for keywords related to different brands of mountain bikes. I found 47 relevant and related keywords like: bianchi mountain bike, canondale mountain bike, buy mountain bike ~ etc. For each of those keywords I would write a post using it as the targeted keyword ~ then build links to each page using the targeted keyword as anchor text.
With that being said ~ you can do it either way.
Whichever feels more comfortable to you and you’re going to be able to stick with.
Follow me @momtohanna on Twitter!
Jackie,
Thank you thank you thank you! As I have been trying to decide “where to go with this” after the holidays…along comes this information from you. Once again, perfectly timed: I do think you read minds lol!
Personally, I think I am drawn to the Niche Blogging model, as it seems it could be a natural progression from the Micro Niche sites we are doing with the Christmas Cash program. I love the idea of doing these around actual products.
So my question is: In a Niche Blog, is the entire niche blog targeted to one specific product (ex. Brand X Model Y Camera) or a bunch of related products (ex. Brand X cameras….or just cameras)??
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Wow Jackie,
Your background sounds a lot like mine including your love of keyword research it seems. I think I might have you by a few years going all the way back to the Super Affiliate handbook, Ken Envoy and James Martell.
What we do or trying to do, has so many ups and downs when a person is not technically inclined, which is why this second tidal wave of affiliate marketing tools, i.e. web 2.0 has been such a God send for people including myself.
I think Micro niches might be a great way to go for some who find themselves afraid to commit to a whole niche upfront regardless of how they wish to monetize it.
It’s difficult for me to say, because I haven’t seen the site. The on page SEO is very important and your content is very important. Are the pages you’re targeting for those keyword indexed at this point? In the scheme of things 3 weeks really is NOT very long to wait for something to show up in the search results.
Is this site brand new, or is older? Is it a website or is it a lens? There are a lot of factors involved, and it does take time for google to find your links and count them.
@Pat ~ when you’re doing social bookmarking you don’t link to your blog you link to your lenses. You want your lenses to rank so that’s where you have to point your links. You only created a blog to have a place to link to your lens.
@Margriet, just remember the energy you put in is the results you get out. If you put in half hearted energy and never really commit you will get half hearted non committed results. I get it’s scary to start something after getting burned, but dabbling can be a tough road to go in internet marketing.
@Call center I would not recommend free hosting services. There will come a time you have to invest some money in your business. Hosting is something you have to pay for. It is a cornerstone of your business and should not be left to a free service.
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For micro niche sites I think you could use some of the free hosting companies that provide considerable HD space and bandwidth but no ads and you can have your own domain, since the sites will be pretty small anyway and hits will be spread out. I guess that’d help a little with the costs but the domains will still be expensive.
Thanks for a great post. Just also want to tell you that I’ve made a few sales on my Christmas Squidoos. One great one and a few others that are smaller sales. Still not too much commission, but for the second month now I have reaches at least the 6%! After not doing a thing on Amazon for more than a year this is great for me!
My strategy is to dabble in a lot of different things. It is starting to work. I had a very BAD experience with Adsense arbitrage and now I’m very wary of the god Google!
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I will be working on the Christmas cash program for now but what to do after Christmas that is a question. Do you have to change all the lenses or leave them alone? When you do social networking, for back links, when you enter your blog address to all of these organizations does this build a back link to all of your lenses posted or only to your blog?
Hey Jackie!
I don’t know where I’ve been, but I honestly have not heard of any of the strategies you suggested above.
I know this is off topic, but I’m going to ask you about it here anyway.
I asked you about this awhile back and you said I was being impatient. Well, now my articles have gone out to over 500 different sites now using UAW and it has been 3 weeks. I also did a couple of blog posts on my blogger site, and my keywords “saving a marriage” and “how to stop divorce”, both of which had a SOC of under 20 in MNF are still nowhere to be found on Google. So, I’m not sure I understand about how the SOC is supposed to work. Any info you could provide me with regarding this issue would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
Cindy
Follow me @casurette on Twitter!
Great post. Just found you and I’m subscribing via RSS. Great content and tips! I really would like to be a stay-at-home mom with income from my website so I’m looking for all the tips I can get. Thank you!
I haven’t been spinning them ~ but I’ve only been sending out 15 to 20 at a time. If you send out more than 20 I would suggest spinning ~ at the very least the anchor text.
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Do you spin your articles on 1waylinks? I’m giving it a shot and I was wondering if I should take the time to do that, and also how many links do you usually send out for each lens? Thanks a lot!! Sorry I’ve been posting a lot on here today!
Dennis
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@henry ~ that sounds a lot like IPK ~ which was too much for me to keep at long term ~ although many people have had great success with it.
The strategy you choose really is very personal ~ taking into consideration your personality, your strengths, what you like, what you hate ~ when you find something that you look forward to doing every day ~ then you’ve found the right one!!
@Dennis ~ great. If it’s working then stick with it!!
@Dennis You could add a paid forum, or a paid membership site where people can learn from him/you personally. You could put together a tips book or some sort of coaching book and sell it ~ lots of ways to monetize. You might also look at a sporting equipment store and use ads to sell equipment on your site ~ just off the top of my head.
@Aiden ~ you can use any platform for these sites ~ there are people who will say no way to using blogger but there are some very successful people using blogger. I say if you really don’t have the money get started with that, and then move to wordpress when you have some cash. You may have to build more links only because when you have the exact keyword in your domain name you seem to get a bit of a boost in search engine ranking ~ but it’s definitely doable. The only bad thing is that you don’t own your content ~ so as soon as you can afford it I would move to WP.
@Jeffery Congrats on finding something that works ~ I haven’t read the aff super handbook but I’ve heard it’s really good. Everyone teaches something a little different when it comes to niche blogging, and all of it works ~ just a matter of how you want to do it.
@Tina ~ the whole concept of micro niche blogging is to sell one product related to one keyword. For example: fairy costumes ~ you would build a site based on that one keyword and sell fairy costumes. I suppose you could sell different fairy costumes so I guess it depends what you mean by multiple products.
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Thanks for all the info, Jackie. I am so new to this and it is overwhelming at times. You spell it out so well!
I have a quick question about the Micro Niche Blogging. Are you able to sell multiple products within the niche or do you promote the same product on every page?
Thanks,
Tina
My business model has evolved over time. In the beginning I was selling products (both digital and physical) on eBay. Eventually I moved into Internet Marketing.
When I first made the switch, not knowing any better, my “business model” (and I use the term loosely) was a piece-meal work of elements of a few different business models, and not the good ones, just the ones that seemed right.
Eventually I got straightened out and now I am using the model in The Super Affiliate Handbook which is similar to the Niche Blogging model you described.
Wasted a lot of time and money doing it my way.
– Jeffery
Thanks again Jackie, for a very informative post. At this point I ‘m more inclined to go with either of the first 2 strategies (keyword sniping or micro niche sites) since I already have a few of these sites. Like you said however, I need a lot more and spending money on domain names can get expensive, and I really don’t have that much money to spend at this time.
So I was wondering, instead of getting our own domain names can we use a free blog platform like Bloggers?
Aiden
Jackie
It is very hard for me to just do one thing. I want to try it all. The only problem is I realize I will never get really good at anything that way.
I’ve decided to focus my time on the marketing strategy I’m most familiar with for the next 6 months. Once I get good at that I will move on to something else.
Ken
On the subject of strategy, before I started to focus on internet marketing my brother and I were building a baseball training website. We both have a ton of knowledge and experience (I played 4 years division 1 college and 2 years pro… He played 4 years division 1 and is going into his 2nd pro season).. My question is how could we monetize our main site and the blog? My brother has really put a lot into it, and it would be nice to generate extra income during his playing season. I know this is probably a broad question, I guess just a few quick tips or ideas is all I’m looking for! Thanks!
Dennis
Follow me @dennis_winn on Twitter!
Right now I’m sticking with the SCC blueprint and Squidoo lenses. I’m not going to switch to anything until I succeed at this. While it may not be my main focus in the future I want to at least start making money from something! The hardest thing for me is to have the patience to wait for my lenses to climb the rankings! Right now it’s really tough to stay focused!
Dennis
Follow me @dennis_winn on Twitter!
Jackie,
Thanks again for another great post! You obviously read minds?
I’m keen to give this project a go but I’ve been rather betwixt and between. I started off with a model that’s advocated by one of the few trustworthy Internet marketers I’ve come across (I can count them on one hand and you’re one of them!) The model (a picture may help) consists of an HTML product review site with traffic generated directly from EZA and Blogger as well as via Squidoo and Hubpages. I’m sure it works for him but it’s a lot of work and it’s probably more effective driving traffic straight to the review page.
I’ve also, at the same time, gone the Squidoo micro niche route as per your Christmas Cash model, which I kinda like. I seem to be having more joy with this approach.
Another GREAT post Jackie!!
I have been working through all of those things for the last year or so and trying to figure out what works for me as well. I guess the very fact that I understand completely what you are talking about in this post is a definite step in the right direction.
For me, I too have found that blogging, Squidoo pages, and then also selling on Ebay is something I am good at and I LOVE – Now, to just ramp it up!!
Jane (MoneyMom)