Key to success for online publishers

Niche marketing online leads to success
The common factor for success with any online business is identifying a niche market and making the most of it. This holds true whether you are publishing online or selling a product online.

For example, instead of selling old china on Ebay–which thousands of people do–find a product that is unusual, such as pottery from a small local company that produced it in the 1950s.  There may not be a huge market for the goods, but if you become the primary source and expert on it, you can be quite successful.  

Take this same “niche expert” approach if you plan to publish information or photographs online.

Big frogs thrive in small publishing ponds. 

It is better to be the big frog in a small pond, the go-to-expert on a narrow topic, on the internet.  Keep in mind that there are literally millions of people on the web and if only 1/100th of 1% visit your site you will have enormous traffic and maybe even make some money.

If you decide to launch an online magazine or newsletter, don’t try to take on the Huffington Post or Sports Illustrated Online unless you have deep pockets and influential friends. Your best bet would be to set up a magazine style website or blog and write about something local or unusual.

boys playing baseball retiredandstillworking
Thank you Pixabay for use of this free photo.

Consider writing and publishing photos about local sites for tourists to visit in your area–a topic often ignored by mainstream travel writers.

Or maybe you set up a website to cover local sports — little league, high school and recreational sports clubs or teams. If you can include photos all the better!

Including clearly labeled photos is very important! Google, Bing and other search engines like photos and will direct more traffic to your site if your site has many unique images on it.  Be sure to clearly label each photo in English indicating what image it us.

Not only will Google like your photos, people who come to your site may, too.  You may even be able to offer prints of your candid, action photos of local games for sale through your website.

If no one else is writing about your chosen topic you automatically become the authority, the expert.  And people who are interested in that topic will come to your site.

Where do the ads come from?

As a information publisher, you will want to put ads on your website in order to make money.  So go to Google’s Adsense and sign up. It’s free.  Google will provide ads to your website and pay you when visitors click on the ads.  Be sure to read and follow their guidelines.  Other companies also provide this service, but Google is by far the largest.

Important: Google’s Blogger allows you to put ads on your blog and the blog is free.  You can also add pages to create a website as part of your blog. Or–and this is relatively new–you can create a full website with a blog attached on Google–all  for free. Be aware, however, that Google’s Terms of Service entitles them to use the content you produce for any purpose they have in mind without notifying or paying you.

If you decide to try to earn money online, good luck to you!  And watch out for the scammers who promise fast money and little work.  They are lying to you!!

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