Too many online marketers bounce around from one niche to the next, thinking the more they cover, the greater chance they have of making real money online or creating an quick conversions.

But as long as the niche you choose is a lucrative one, your goal should be to go deep within it to effectively mine it for all its worth rather than taking a scattershot approach.

How to Mine A Niche Online
Mining a niche isn’t a matter of guesswork. It’s a very scientific process of going after the right keywords. The traffic you generate can come from PPC, SEO, or, in my preferred case, article marketing. What most budding marketers do when they target a lucrative niche is they go after the highest demand keywords thinking that’s where the big traffic is. This is a mistake.

High demand keywords are where the potentially big traffic is, to be sure, but it’s also where the greatest competition lies. In a high profit potential niche, it’s going to be very difficult to compete against people who are dominating Google for those phrases and likely have been for years.

Success lies in going very deep, which means focusing your efforts on the mid-tail and especially long-tail keywords. This will also mean you’re going to create content on the same topics over and over. Even if it seems redundant to you, I can assure you it won’t be to your readers, and you’ll also make a lot more sales/conversions, which is what we’re all after, right?

Let me explain.

Think Small To Get Big Results
If I’m trying to drive sales in the lucrative anti-aging skin care niche, I don’t just want to target keywords like “anti-aging” or “skin care,” I want to go deep. I want to go after keywords that contain 3 or 4 phrases in them that are highly specific and less competitive, like “anti aging cream formulation” or “best anti aging skin treatment.”

These are the phrases that have much less competition. It doesn’t matter if the demand is less because I want you to target a lot of these types of keywords.

Rather than try to get more traffic from a competitive keyword that you probably won’t get a good ranking for that’s also less targeted, it’s much better to get less traffic from each article that is much more targeted. And, then, if you have enough articles out there on many of these long tail keywords, your overall traffic collectively from them will grow to large levels.

Don’t worry if you’re creating content on similar topics because of the keywords. Just remember, it’s a different person typing in “anti aging cream formulation,” that is typing in “best anti aging skin treatment” so even if you’re covering some of the same points in each, you want to rank for both phrases — and as many of these types of keyphrases as possible..

If you follow through on what you’ve just learned, you will be ahead of the vast majority of online marketers competing in your niche.

Taking a little time to organize your account can help you to better target your potential customers. It can also save you time and effort when it comes to managing your advertising.

The video below will show you how a few minor changes to your account structure can make a big difference to your advertising performance.

by way of SearchEngineWatch.com

• Add keywords gradually, and in new ad groups when possible. Ideally, ad groups should consist of no more than 15-20 tightly-related keywords around a theme.
• Test one thing at a time. If you just added new keywords to an existing ad group, don’t start an ad copy test at the same time. If you just turned off the search network, don’t start fiddling with your bids too much.
• Test ad copy systematically. Always test against a control ad — don’t throw everything out and start anew.
• If you’ve made major changes to your landing page(s), don’t change your PPC campaign too. In fact, you should test the new landing page against the existing page and pick the winner of the test, instead of changing your pages first.
• Interpret test results from each PPC engine, and each channel (search vs. content) independently. They can and do act differently, and what works in one may flop in another. It’s OK to take one engine’s “winners” and try them in another engine, but don’t be surprised if they turn out to be “losers” in the new engine!

read the full article here:  SEW

If you’re starting a new Content Network campaign in AdWords, watch the video below; you may find it to be particularly valuable in setting up your content network targeting.

The most common thing I see when reviewing clients online marketing strategies is ineffective Pay Per Click campaigns (Google Adwords) that are costing them a fortune with no ROI or targeted leads.  Below are a few things that will help make your 2010 Google AdWords efforts profitable.

Lets assume you already have a Google Adwords Campaign setup to drive highly targeted traffic to your website. Here are the top 7 things based on my experience that you should check or hire me to check for you to force your pay per click campaign into profitable and fruitful efforts.

1. Wasting Money and Clicks on the Content Network – Edit your campaign settings and turn off the “Content Network” check box. All you are doing is telling Google to only show your ads on the search network when people are actively searching for what you are offering. My experience is lower click through as a general rule with the Content Network, and it can have an adverse effect on the profitability of your search campaigns. ** NOTE: the Content Network should be targeted in separate and individual campaigns as it requires a completely different set of rules for efficiency and profitability. By no means am I recommending that you stay away completely, just do not blend search and content together.

2. Use your Keywords more often in your display ads. – Make sure you are using your keywords in the ad title, the body text and also in the display URL. This will make the keyword highlight in bold and draw the users eyes to the keyword that they were searching for. The more you can use the keyword in the ad without looking like you are keyword stuffing the better. Think higher relevancy for increased CTR.

3. Lazy Keyword Selection….. The Lazy approach is to group loads of keywords together in one ad group. This will affect how relevant your ads are and will also give them a lower CTR. A simple example is “Cheap Sneakers”, should not be in the same ad group as “Air Jordan Sneakers”. If you are creating an ad group for “Air Jordan Sneakers” it could contain “Air Jordan Sneakers”, “Nike Air Jordan”, “Michael Jordan Shoes”, but not “Cheap Sneakers”. Focus on drilling down to highly focused niche groups for increased effectiveness and click through to conversion.

4. Generic & Non Specific Landing Page – If you are running an ad about a specific product or service then make sure the landing page is only about that product or service. You will get more conversions because you are giving your potential customers exactly what they are looking for without making them search for it on your site. This means DO NOT send your Google ad clicks to your home page that has numerous additional links on it. In addition to the Lazy Keyword example above, if they were searching for the keyword “Air Jordan Sneakers” then send them directly to your Nike Air Jordan Sneaker page. You will see your conversion rates increase.

5. Not Using Negative Keywords – Keywords that you do not want your ad to show up on. You do this by placing a dash “-” in front of the keyword in your keyword list or within the designated location underneath your campaign settings. Nearly all clients existing AdWords campaigns that I review do not use this feature, which is bad because it means they are paying for clicks on non relevant search terms. This is especially the case if you are buying clicks from “Broad” keywords, because your ads will be triggered on keywords that utilize “additional” words than what you have selected.  Ex: Broad match keyword you are bidding on:  Sneakers.  When a user searches for “Nike Sneakers” your ads may be shown and will potentially be clicked even if you do not sell Nike Sneakers.  In this case I would enter a ” -Nike Sneakers” or “-Nike” negative keyword into the list to prevent your ads from showing on that particular phrase.

6. Neglecting to Split Test Ads – Always, Always, Always …. create a second, third and sometimes fourth ad and make small changes to your copy and split test which gets higher click through and conversions. An example would be testing the use of punctuation and/or capitalization in the copy body or URL’s to increase conversions. eg. www.moreclicks.com used as the display URL in an ad is likely to get 1% or 1.5% less click through than www.MoreClicks.com. If you are not currently split testing your ads then stop reading now and go implement this because it is the best thing you can do for your business.

7. Using Unprofitable Generic Keywords – Some Keywords are more profitable than others – Focus on the “buying keywords” rather than “generic keywords” to keep the cost of your clicks down and only pay for clicks from potential customers who have a higher probability of buying. Ex: Say you are an electronics retailer and you are selling specific MP3 players. Don’t bid on the keyword “mp3 player”, instead focus on your buying keywords such as “iPod Nano Video” or “Microsoft Zune MP3″. Your more likely to land a more relevant visitor that has a higher percentage of buying.

If you follow the above 7 things to Increase your AdWords Profits in 2010, I am sure they will do just that!

Here is to your success in the New Year.  May all your efforts be honest and fruitful.

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Here are some quick tips I’ve learned from my own trials and errors that will help you avoid common mistakes…

1. Be careful when you set your cost per click and daily budget for each ad. Don’t allow yourself to spend more than you can afford to spend.

2. Don’t bid on the main keyword for your product. There’s way too much competition and you’re guaranteed to pay high costs per click. Find your Niche and stay as highly focused as possible.

For instance, don’t bid on “widget” if you’re only selling blue widgets. Instead, bid on “blue widget” or even more specific phrases, such as “buy blue widget.” This way you know the people who see your ad are looking for a blue widget, not a red or green one, and you’ll have a better chance of selling to them.

3. Bid on longer key phrases that people search for instead of just the main keywords or phrases. These keywords have less searches for each one than the main keywords do, but they also cost less per click. You can often utilize your Analytics to see what key phrases have led visitors to your site. In addition, if you have an on-site search engine, you should be able to see what people are searching for once they land on your site.  This can be extremely valuable.

And if you use enough of these key phrases the total number of searches could exceed the number of searches for the main keywords. So you can potentially have more click-thrus and sales this way because the visitors are usually more targeted.

Do keyword research with Google Keyword Tool or Wordtracker Keyword Tool by typing in your main keyword. It will show you what phrases people have searched that include your keyword. Use this list to determine the long key phrases you want to bid
on.

4. Check your ads several times during the week for their performance. If they aren’t getting good click-thrus, tweak your ad copy and/or keywords. After all, there’s no sense wasting money on advertising that doesn’t pull in leads or sales.

5. Don’t worry about making an abundance of profit at first. I don’t mean you shouldn’t expect to get sales. What I mean is, if you spend $10 per day and make $10 per day, you’re breaking even, so use the $10 you make each day to test your ads more. Fine tuning your sales funnel does not happen overnight and takes time to perfect the entire process of search to click, click to opt-in and/or lead to customer.

Once you eliminate some of the common mistakes that cause advertisers to fail using Google AdWords your profits will increase and your advertising costs will decrease. And that’s the way it should be.

Looking for additional assistance with  your Adwords Campaigns? Are you not seeing the light at the end of the Google Tunnel?  I am here for you.  I can help you achieve your goals and streamline your lead-to-customer funnel by implementing highly targeted marketing actions.  Google Adwords is the vehicle that brings you targeted leads. But, how you nurture those leads will define success.  Visit my coaching page and sign up for a training session or a FREE 15 coaching call:  Do it NOW.