Newbie Internet Marketing Guide - Part 2

This is very important and yet so many people fail to do this. You want to know what your prospects WANT and GIVE it to them. Instead a lot of people create a product then try to sell it to them. Why would you want to work backwards or even worst start promoting the product you created to find out that none of your prospects want it!

The easist way to find out what your target market wants... is to Just ASK Them! Seems so simple yet so many people don't do it! To do this, simply create a poll with one question or a few questions.

Also to get more people to answer your questions, tell them that by submitting their questions/answers that they will receive a free report about the information you receive. The report could be as simple as a top 10 list or how to stop common problems, etc. However, even though it's free it should still contain quality information.

Whether or not you continue with this niche topic (based on the number of people participating & the information you receive) keep your promise and send out the report to those who submitted their questions/answers.

As long as you continue with this niche topic, for those people that you send the free report to, ask them to give you a testimonial on you and your report.

This way when you create the larger product that you are going to sell. You will already have some testimonials that you can use. They may not necessarily be directly for the larger product, but they are about you and your business, giving you better credibility.

If you don't already have a Squidoo account, it's time to get one. Having a Squidoo lens makes it easy to setup a poll very quickly with no experience needed.

Another way you can find out what your target market wants is searching through related forums. Do a search on Google: "keyword phrase" + forum

Just by doing the basics and making regular modifications you will see your lens start to move up in the rankings. Even though at this point that is not the main reason for your lens, but more the merrier!
Sign up for a Squidoo Account

When you first create your lens, you will be required to enter what your lens will be about - you want this to be the same as the title of your lens. You should choose a title that has your main keyword(s) in it.

Then Squidoo will give you 4 options to choose from to setup your lens. I usually choose the last option "I just want to do my own thing." as I want to start out fresh.

Next you will have to enter your url (http://www.squidoo.com/YourLensTitle), I recommend you use your lens title or something similar. Also to keep in mind, you can add a dash "-" in between each word. The search engines will then rank you on each word rather than just entire url/title.

More and more people are starting to see good results from using a dash in their url. Now I'm not saying it's always better to do this. As most people just typing in a url, don't add dashes unless they know there supposed to be there.

Now choose what category best fits your niche topic.

Next is the rating, it's set as "G Rated - General" if your lens doesn't fit in to this category then change it!

Now you can select your main keyword and 3 additional keywords to get started with.

Ok, now that you have your lens created. Go to "My Account" at the top, you need to setup your payment settings. This is under "Your Global Payment Settings" section. Sign up for PayPal to receive payments.

Note: I'm not totally sure about this, but it's a good idea, none the less, by giving a portion of your earnings to charity, whether it's the squidoo fund or a charity of your choice. And the remaining received to you in cash. This is your choice, I usually set it to atleast 20% to charity if not more.

You can also choose your payment threshold while your at it, after that scroll up and take a look at the "Preferences" section - make sure "Share My Squidoo" is turned on, if not click edit.

Now click "my lenses" at the top to go back to your lens, click edit lens.

When you setup any lens, the most important parts to setup right away are: your bio + picture, your introduction + picture and add 3 text modules.

Note: According to Squidoo if you have less than 3 text modules, than you lens is not finsihed. This will affect how it ranks.

Bio - Your bio is located on the side of your lens. It has a default (orange) picture there. There is also another one in the Introduction section of your lens, you should make sure you changed these. They don't necessarily have to be of you, they can be of anything or anyone (that your have the rights to use) By leaving the default picture, it makes your lens look un-professional.

This is not the first impression you want to receive!

In your bio, you can include stuff about you, your business, what the goal of your lens is, etc.

Introduction - here is where you enter a few paragraphs about what your lens is about, include some of your main keywords here and bold your main keyword phrase.

Content - the most important content is using the "Text/Write" modules. You can use articles here or split up one article into multiple "text" modules. Make sure to include at least 3 text modules to start out.

You can get free content (reprint rights) from article directories such as ezinearticles.com and goarticles.com

Poll - here you can simply ask a question and add a couple of answers. You can also add "Other", suggest visitors to submit their comments in the guestbook.

Guestbook - let your visitors comment on your lens, the information your providing and any other feedback they might want to include.

There are several other Modules you can add to make your lens more original and make a little extra money as well.

Note: When adding a new modules, always make sure to edit the title. Instead of the default title, make it related to your niche. (YouTube Module - Video on How To Find A Niche)

Ok now that you have your lens setup, now you can setup a blog, I recommend using Blogger.com as it is very easy to setup and is owned by Google which means it will get indexed quicker than other types of blogs.

The reason you want to have a blog is so you can control where your traffic is going. If you already have a website, you can host your blog on your site or if you have some basic website building knowledge you can setup your own webpage.

Some ways of sending traffic to you website or blog from your lens is using an anchor link in your introduction or throughout your lens.

An anchor link is a link to a website using a keyword phrase.
Here is a short video on how to create an anchor link.

You can also choose to add a brief summary or snippet on your lens and link back to the full article or content source. Example: (Read more about yourtopic...) Use this text to link back to your site or blog.

This is an important part as you need to be able to control your traffic or you are wasting your time.

This is similar to the affect of not collecting subscribers so you can keep in contact with them.

By having a website you can redirect your traffic to where ever you want: quality content, an opt-in form, a product, an affiliate program, etc.

Now is the case of getting names and emails (subscribers) as most people have heard of by now, that "the money is in the list". Well I agree but you should only add this step once you are ready.

Go to Blogger.com and sign up for an account. Just follow the step by step process. Enter your account info, create your blog name and url (including main keyword phrase), then choose a template.

Now you can start posting to your blog. You should create your first post as an introduction to your blog, similar to what you did with the introduction of your squidoo lens. (not exactly the same though)

If you put a portion of an article on your squidoo lens, you can put a link back to your blog containing the full article.

Once you have created your first post, go to the "Settings" Tab at the top. In the "Basic" tab, enter a description for your blog, remember to use your keywords. After each change be sure to save your changes.

You can view the other tabs to make optional changes, under the "Comments" tab I recommend allowing "anyone" to comment to your blog and change "Show word verification for comments" to yes. This will get rid of a lot of spammers.

Here is a short review of what this lesson covers:

- Find out what your potential customers want
- How to setup your Squidoo lens
- How to control where your traffic is going
- Creating an anchor link from your lens to your site or blog
- Setting up a blog at Blogger.com

Actions To Take Before Moving Forward

- Setup your Squidoo lens
- Create your Blogger blog
- Create link from lens to blog
- Get some ideas of what your market wants

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