I've Tried That - We lose money so you don't have to!

We’ve been getting some good questions about the program Steve wrote about yesterday. It’s a make-money-online-guide for newbies called Niche Blitzkrieg. You can read his initial post here.

He’ll have some more details for you soon. Probably tomorrow. But meanwhile, I wanted to fill in some of the gaps, as indicated by your questions. So this post is sort of the foundation of what you need to know before you get the juicy details from Steve tomorrow.

What is a niche?
A niche is a small, specialized corner of a market. For example, say I wanted to open a store. I wouldn’t try to open a discount store because I couldn’t compete with Wal-Mart, right? But I could maybe open a small store that specializes in hand-dipped chocolate strawberries.

That’s a niche.

Everyone with a craving for hand-dipped chocolate strawberries will come to my store instead of going to Wal-Mart. I won’t make a million dollars, but my wife could probably quit her job.

What is an online niche?
“Okay, Joe,” you might be thinking. “But we’re talking about ways to make money online, not with a hand-dipped chocolate strawberries store.”

The same concept applies online. An online niche is a small, specialized corner of the Web. Something that maybe only 5,000 people search for every month instead of 50,000,000.

Say you wanted to open an online store. You wouldn’t try to sell books because you can’t compete with Amazon.com. But you could sell TV-themed bobble heads (like Dwight from The Office). Everyone that looks for TV-themed bobble heads on the Web will come to you.

That’s on online niche.

How do you make money from an online niche?
You set up a web site that serves that niche. The site will probably include Google-generated ads and affiliate links.

Then, when the 5,000 people who search for TV-themed bobble heads go to Google to find their bobble head, they’ll come to your site. They’ll click on links on your site and will buy their bobble head from links you provided for them. Boom. You just made a commission on that sale. (This is an example of affiliate marketing.)

Also, when your visitors click on ads generated by Google, Google pays you a small fee for providing the content that generated the link that the visitor clicked on. You build it, they come, they click, you get paid. (That’s a simplified example of a Google Adwords income stream.)

Now imagine you had 10, 20, 30 small niche Web sites chugging along, all of them doing the above. That’s how Niche Blitzkrieg will help you make money online.

Niche Blitzkrieg will show you how to:

• Find niches you can profit from
• Set up the niche web sites
• Get Google to notice your sites and send visitors to them
• Lather, rinse, repeat

But I don’t have any bobble heads or [fill in the blank].
You don’t have to own the product you’re selling. You would be an affiliate marketer. You send your site visitors to the people who make the bobble heads, they buy some, you get a commission on the sale.

It can’t be that easy. I’m a real newbie. I know NOTHING about this stuff. Can I still do it?
The concepts are simple. Implementing them takes some effort and some time. The Niche Blitzkrieg lessons are very easy to follow and tell you what you need to know and do to be successful. And yes, even if you make the word “newbie” look like a jaded expert, you can learn the lessons and do the tasks.

Here are some final guidelines to help you think about this program and opportunity.

Niche Blitzkrieg is NOT for you if:

• You are an experienced affiliate marketer
• You know how to conduct good keyword research
• You know how to get your site ranked well in search engine results
• You could throw up a Web site tomorrow and have it turning a profit in a month
• Your finances are so tight that you can’t spend $10-50 per month to establish and run your sites
• The idea of affiliate marketing as I’ve explained it in this post is a big turn-off
• You don’t have at least two hours per week to take consistent action

Niche Blitzkrieg might be for you if:

• You can follow directions
• You want to make money online, but don’t know how to start
• You are intrigued with the idea of affiliate marketing as I’ve explained it in this post
• You can devote some consistent time to research and site development

That’s it for now. This foundation should help you understand the Niche Blitzkrieg sales page and Steve’s detailed review of it when he posts it. If you have questions, speak up in the comments.