The Online Sunshine Plan

Keywords are a search engine thing. They are the words which simply keep coming up in any given subject.  Their value changes from search engine to search engine. We will mostly cover Google in this book, simply because it has form 2/3rds to 9/10th’s of the traffic, depending on who you are reading and what they are talking about.

But if you go to any social media with search functions, you’ll find different values for those same terms. EBay, for instance, has a much smaller set of terms that you can use in any given search. As well, they mostly deal in real objects, not ideas or relationships. So this changes what search terms people use. On twitter, you are limited to 140 characters – and so you won’t find stuff described in 4- or 5-word phrases as you will on Google.

Yes, keywords are also key phrases.

The Long Tail

To explain how keywords work, let me introduce this “long tail” concept. Chris Anderson worked into Internet and Marketing history when he found an interesting mathematical curve on Amazon. Simply, while there are a handful of market leaders who seem to have the bulk of the sales for their few products, there is usually just the same dollar-volume or more for thousands of other, similar products which sell only a few at a time.

This graph then goes from a peak at the left, with high-volume, popular items – over to  a long, ever-continuing line to the right where the total sales keep diminishing. Anderson called these very small-volume products the long tail.

Of course, read his article and get his book. And the title of this section is linked to a Wikipedia article which is a definitive read (if you can tolerate academic verbiage.) The additional note here is that this Long Tail most accurately applies to Internet-based economies and sales – which is what we describe in this book. When you are selling tomatoes at the height of season in a farmers’ market, it’s a different model.

Myth versus Myth

Here’s where I tell you again to disregard and disbelieve what I tell you. Remember that 97% garbage rule above?  The trick is that all these marketing ebooks and silliness out there worked for somebody at some time – even if they only ever sold a single copy (or helped sell some other copy of something.)

“One person’s trash is another person’s treasure” goes the phrase. So when I tell you to be prepared to throw out 97% or more of what you read, I’ll also tell you that what someone else throws out might be useful to you and vice versa. The key is workability, of being able to apply and use that data in your own life. In other words, you are able to get myths from me just as you could get them from anyone else.

My conclusions are based on my own data and experiences. “Your mileage may vary.” What I work to find are consistently repeating data that are widely used. And then try to get to the underlying principle below these which not just explains the data under discussion, but will also give solutions in other fields, other discussions.

The data about Niche Markets are like this. Lots of stuff to wade through, most of it is garbage, some is useful.  The recurring data revolve around being able to “capture” or “dominate” a single niche market and then expand into related (or dis-related) niches. Most big corporations are formed this way. They start out in hand soap, then expand to laundry soap, dish-washing soap, home and house cleaners, etc. Eventually, like some furniture stores, they find that the financing of major purchases is more remunerative than selling the furniture itself. Seemingly dis-related, but really a logical extension.

Know your Niche

A niche is part of this long-tail scene above. Whatever you are interested in is a niche subject. As well, every major subject breaks down into niche subjects. While everyone eats, breathes, drinks, and eliminates (except politicians who always seem to be full of it) there are as many ways to do these as their are people on this planet. Breathing is different if you are participating in sports, or using is as a therapeutic method for releasing tension, or if you suffer from asthma. Food itself is  a huge subject, full of various niches. Just recipes itself make for thousands of cookbooks being published every year.

Now let’s blow up another loaded term: dominate. There practically is no such thing – because you can see from the above that while someone might get the majority of sales in a particular area, they won’t be able to get all of them.  Even where someone tells you they can “dominate” the Google standings, I will show you later on that this doesn’t mean they’ll even affect your own sales – search engines are only one way to help potential clients find your solutions.

“Dominate” is just another marketing gimmick. Has to do with people and their various personal needs. Most people know that cooperation and coordination with others gets you a lot further – in every area of life. So someone using this term is either misinformed or just hyping you.

You can work in any niche to move up to the higher realms of being one of the top dogs of sales in any area. But that is up to you and your community.

The myth of broadcast promotion

This brings up another unlabeled, unrecognized myth – which again stems from our TV and Radio network-based promotion empires which started after WWII. (Since their ratings depended on quality content in order to attract advertisers, you’d think the quality of shows and news would have increased over the years…)

That myth is: that by sheer increase of promotion, a company can increase “market-share” and so “dominate” any given market.

Let’s take this apart:

1. It runs on scarcity. That only so many people are in any given market for a given product. Might have been true when TV sets were expensive and stations which broadcast were few. There are three things you can do with any product to increase the number of users -

a) Get users to switch from another product to yours.
b) Get more users for that type of solution – broaden the market-base.

And while these are fairly well known, there is a traditional strategy which is only now coming back into use -

c) Improve the quality of the product – it’s ability to improve life-conditions for potential and existing clients.

2. It runs on a numbers racket – 2-3% will buy anything. So simply contact more people. And so the drive to buy advertising during the “big events” like the Super Bowl, where tons of people are watching.  (But doesn’t this also say that this same amount of people are readily persuaded, readily addicted? What type of clients are you actually getting?)

3. It ignores the fact of the Long Tail – that as many or more clients are buying a wide variety of other, related products.

4. Again, it probably only works in a silo – tall, thick-sided structures which permit no escape from whatever is held inside. Advertising executives love a limited number of network channels – they hate cable and the Internet. Too much choice, too many options.  Too much freedom. (Note that many governments also hate the Internet…)

And I’m not going to try to change peoples’ minds here, especially not network executives who depend on selling advertising to keep their business model afloat. Also, I’m not going to try to describe advertising double-speak like “brand extension” in terms that actually make sense. Madison Avenue has nothing to do with starting a small business or expanding it online – even if someone could actually prove that this stuff still works or ever worked. (Much like what they’ve done to teaching math in public schools. Bus went over that cliff a long time ago…)

But the small business owner or start-up has no business trying to use these failed methods to expand what they have going or to get started at all.

Real Niche Promotion

The strategy is simple, and I’ve already laid it out, somewhat:

1. Find the community which needs the solution you have.

2. Find the communication lines this community uses and get on them.

3. Listen to that community and start helping them with their problem.

4. Eventually, they’ll ask you about your solution.

5. Ensure they are serviced professionally and are given – in every single case – far more value than they ever expected or asked for.

6. Accept the word of mouth and reward those who bring their friends to you from the community or other communities.

7. Keep listening to the communities you are part of and see what other life-problems you can help with solutions for.