This is one of the most common mistakes newcomers make – they decide on a product that would be of interest to them but do not conduct any market research and then become disillusioned if there is little interest.

It is vital to determine the demand in your particular niche before you start, and, if there is little opportunity, to change course and try something else. There are numerous ways to research your potential niche.

Surveys and polls

This is one of the best ways to conduct your research. Ask your potential customers what THEY want, what influences their buying decisions, and what they may like and/or dislike about the current market options. This way you can tailor your product or service to meet their needs. Two way dialogue is critical with potential customers.

You can post questions and polls on your blog or website or send to your email list. This also encourages customer interaction and will gain their trust so they will be more likely to consider purchasing your product.

Use tools like Survey Monkey or Poll Daddy to conduct your own surveys and polls and act on the results to maximise the earning potential of your niche.

Keyword research

Search engine data can help you determine the demand for specific keywords or phrases pertinent to your niche.  Do a search for your product as a potential customer and if that search is very popular it means that there is a healthy market worth pursuing. But it also means that their may be a lot of competition for that particular phrase as competitors optimise their own websites to capture these customers.

Is there any way you can drill down further into a sub-niche which may be more profitable? If so try doing a search for this and if it is still popular but less so than the original search then this means that there is still a healthy market but there is likely to be less competition.

Use Google AdWords.  It is a great free keyword research tool specific to Google which is by far the most popular search engine used. Type in your keyword and evaluate the results to target your niche appropriately.

Another great tool is Google Trends. This allows you to investigate keywords and you get a graphical representation of historical data which will show you its popularity over the last several years. It also allows you to see demographic data which shows you the places that are most likely to search for that keyword/phrase.

You could also use Google Insight to investigate search trends by category, seasonality, geographical distribution or properties.

Check out the competition

Take time to investigate the competition and to develop your unique selling proposition to make you stand out from the rest. You can use this information to target your strengths against their weaknesses. The internet has made it very easy to investigate your potential competitors. Look at the product or service they supply, their pricing strategy, and customer service. You could even sign up to any newsletter they supply and use their own strategies against them. Be bold and this could give you the edge that persuades a customer to spend their money with you rather than them.

I hope this has given you a few ideas about researching your niche and how important it is to do this before you produce your product or service. Conduct it thoroughly, target a great niche and milk it dry! Good hunting…

Every business needs to know how well they are performing and this is the premise behind exit surveys, customer feedback requests and suggestion boxes. If you don’t monitor customer feedback or your stock, expenses and revenue your business can quickly go downhill and you may be caught completely unaware.
There are several key areas you should be monitoring on your website(s) and they generally fall into two categories, namely traffic or server performance related. Here are some of the things you should be monitoring:

Monitoring your traffic

Traffic totals. You really need to know how much traffic your website is generating. As has been said before, more traffic equals more sales so if the trend is heading down, you know you MUST find out why and act as soon as possible.
Referrals. As well as knowing how much traffic your website is generating, you also need to know where they are coming from. Is a particular article or blog post generating more traffic? If so you can target your promotions more tightly to take advantage of this valuable information.
Searches. How are people finding your website and what keywords are working well for you? You may be surprised by what you find! I have had people visit my site with really obscure searches but if these keywords were relevant to my niche this information would have led me to properly optimise the page to generate even more traffic.
Number of pages viewed per visit. Are people only visiting one page per visit? If this is the case you need to work on convincing them to visit more pages, especially those that contain your promotions and are going to make you some cash!
Which pages are being visited? If you put something on your site that other webmasters are linking to and sending a lot of traffic your way make the most if it! Put some sales copy on that page to entice visitors to take a look at the rest of your site.

Monitoring website performance

Web forms. Do they all work? Sounds obvious but you may be surprised at the amount of websites that have non-functional forms. A good website monitoring service can help you keep an eye on this as the last thing you want is to have lost hundreds or even thousands of subscribers because a sign-up form stopped functioning!
E-commerce and Shopping carts. As with forms make sure that your cart is working as intended. Slow and complicated shopping carts can lose you a lot of sales so make sure that yours is functioning properly. The website monitoring service mentioned above can also monitor this for you.
Download speed. Take the time to clear your cache and test your pages. Are any images too large? If you think so, then compress them or remove them altogether. Always keep in mind that some people will not have your ultra powerful pc and will be on a much slower connection than you are so try to optimise your site with this in mind.  

Server speed. Do you have any problems with server speed? Once again this may not be a problem where you are but what about the other side of the world? Global website monitoring can alert you to any global connection problems, so you can take it up with your web hosting service.
Server accessibility. The majority of web hosts promise 99% accessibility but is that realistic and who monitors them? It has been estimated that in fact 75% of inaccessibility is not on the hosting server, but rather on the Internet’s backbone network and in global routing. If you are having any problems a global website monitoring service can help identify the problem, so that you can work with your web hosting provider to resolve it before you lose too many sales.

Are you having fun? I sincerely hope so because if you’re not having fun you won’t do your best and will then become disillusioned due to a lack of results – it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Honestly, there is no point spending your time doing something that doesn’t interest you. Web mastering should be fun, enjoy it…

However online businesses need to be approached the same way as any other business or it will fall flat. Yes, it may be easy to set up a free blog, or very cheap website, but you must develop good content and drive traffic to your site and this takes work!

I think that everybody is guilty of this misconception to some degree and it is how you deal with it that will inevitably determine your success or failure.

Sometimes it isn’t what you are doing but rather what you aren’t doing that affects your success. When you realise that you aren’t doing something that perhaps you should, it can have a great impact on your results.

There are three rules that I follow in my business and these apply to both on and offline business opportunities.

The first rule is to acquire knowledge. You MUST learn about your business and any product or service you are developing. You must become the expert that people will turn to in order to help them. The acquisition of knowledge is life-long and should be exciting for you. You learn about the business, product development, marketing and customer service. As your knowledge grows so does your confidence. And remember you need to learn before you earn.

The second rule is to determine your capital investment. This is important as you do not want to make life too uncomfortable (especially in the early days) or you will be more likely to quit. Try to use money that you won’t miss – difficult I know at the moment!! Look at low-cost or free ways to start your business. Blogs and a forum in your niche are a great way to start building your online presence and developing your reputation as a subject expert, and they are free. You may not be investing money, but you are investing time. It is also a good way to test the water to see if there is a market for your particular product or service before you commit.

The third rule is to develop your marketing plan. You must be systematic with product promotion or you will not target a large enough audience and this will mean low sales. This is probably the most important aspect of your online business, hence why so many people call themselves internet marketing experts and try to capitalise on this status. Devise a plan to capture people’s email addresses, and to push more traffic to your website. More traffic equals more sales, simple. If you use a methodical approach you are much more likely to successfully promote your product or service. And keep learning as there are always new techniques developing in this field and you don’t want to be left behind. 

Follow these three simple rules and you are much more likely to succeed in any business adventure. Now it’s up to you…

Marketing your ebook

Felix Dahn wrote: “To write books is easy, it requires only pen and ink and the ever-patient paper . . . But the most difficult task of all that a mortal man (or woman) can embark on is to sell a book.”

This is probably the most crucial step to get your information publishing business going. You will need to spend a lot of time promoting your ebook as it will not sell itself no matter how good it is! Take time to come up with a multi-pronged marketing strategy to attract as much interest as possible.

Here are some great tips to help you promote your information product:

• Pre-sell. When promoting your ebook you should include pre-launch promotional efforts to start building anticipation. Try writing blog posts related to your topic leading up to the launch. You could try posting a sample chapter of your ebook or give away a free report related to your ebook topic. You could also offer free video clips if appropriate. If you can manage to get potential customers excited about your product before it is available, they will eagerly snap it up when you launch.  
• Ensure you have a well designed squeeze/landing page for your ebook. This page should clearly describe the benefits and/or problem your ebook will solve. Take the time to write a benefit-rich headline that speaks directly to the reader’s self-interest. This page should ALWAYS have a call to action. This action may be to purchase your e-book, opt-in to your newsletter, subscribe to your blog etc.
• Testimonials work really well so try to include several in your sales page. This tells visitors that someone other than you found the content of your ebook to be useful. You could give away a few copies to friends and ask for their testimonials for a start.
• It can pay to give away free copies to bloggers. In return ask them to post a review of your ebook or maybe even post an interview with you about your ebook. This will definitely give your ebook more credibility. It will also mean that your book gets exposed to other bloggers’ audiences and this in turn may provide back links to your ebook landing page.
• Create a Squidoo lens about your ebook and use it to promote your ebook.
• If you have a blog (and you really should do) write a post about your ebook on your blog. You will find it much easier to sell an ebook if you have already have a blog and a subscriber base you can sell to.
• Visit other related blogs and write guest posts on the topic of your ebook. The whole point of this is to expose you to a wider audience and to builds back links to your ebook landing page. It will also lend you credibility as an authority on your chosen subject.
• Include your ebook in your email signature box. It might read Joe Bloggs, author of “How to…… “.
• Use Twitter. Make regular tweets about your subject so that people identify you as an expert in that subject-matter. You could also use your blog to send any posts to Twitter and Facebook. Social networking can be a powerful tool but remember that it is all about helping others first, and if you can do that then they’ll want to help you. So don’t just bombard people with tweets about your ebook and make sure that you’re providing value to your followers.
• Create an affiliate program. This enables others to market the ebook for you. Always offer your affiliates a decent percentage of the commission and supply them with the necessary marketing tools to help them promote your product. Have at least a 125 x 125 banner to offer affiliates, and preferably give them a selection of banners to choose from.
•  Build a mailing list. This is an absolutely vital step in building your business and you should always be looking at ways to build your list and thus prospective buyers. On average, people need to see a marketing message seven times before they’ll take action and buy your product. One of the best ways is to use a newsletter. Use this to provide your readers with quality information on a regular basis and you build credibility and trust, at the same time keeping your message in front of your audience.
• Write articles about your topic and submit them to article directories. Three of the best article directories are Ezine Articles, Go Articles, and Article Dashboard. Once again this creates back links and increases credibility. Also, by obtaining all these back links to your website/blog you will rank better in search engines and thus increase traffic.
• . It may be worth considering publishing excerpts from your ebook. This is basically the equivalent of Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature. Excerpts let people get a feel for your ebook, the quality of your writing, and the type of information they can expect to find inside. You can also create a free “teaser” ebook or report. Make sure your “teaser” provides lots of value and leaves people wanting more. Other things you may wish to consider are; offer tips related to your ebook’s topic, offer a free ecourse, or create a video.
• Find a Joint Venture Partner. These are basically the big players in your niche and they can really boost your ebook sales. Make sure to give your joint venture partners perks such as exclusive marketing tools and higher commissions than your affiliates.
• Create urgency with a limited-time offer. You may want to offer your ebook with a 25% discount during the first 60 days after it’s first launched. This will give your offer some urgency and encourage people to act now rather than later.
• Offer bonuses. This is a great tool – everybody wants something for free! People like to feel that they’re getting a lot of bang for their buck, so always offer a bonus or something extra to anyone who buys your ebook if possible. This could be a free report, another related ebook, free video etc. You could use this in conjunction with a limited-time offer such as only offering the bonuses to “the first 50 people who purchase” in order to encourage quick action. If you do offer a bonus, ensure to monetise it so people are aware that the bonus is valuable (“order now and receive this bonus report, normally £10, for free.”)
• Think about creating a YouTube video. This can be as simple as you talking about why you wrote the ebook, and what it’s about, or just reading a chapter of your ebook.
• Does your subject lend itself to a study course? If it does, create a free mini-course about your subject. If you give people valuable information for free, they’ll be much more likely to buy from you.
• Leave comments on other blogs Find the top blogs related to your subject and leave helpful comments. That way, their visitors are likely to click over to your site to see what else you have to say. And, of course, you’ll be able to direct them to your ebook once they reach your site.
• Search the internet for groups, forums, and discussion boards that relate to your topic. Once you join these groups, be present and active, but not pushy.
• Be helpful. Whatever your subject is, always try to be helpful to anyone who is looking for information on your topic. Answer any questions that you can Twitter and forums and regularly participate in discussions. Put the link to your eBook in your signature. Publish useful posts on your blog. Represent yourself as a helpful, knowledgeable, genuine person and members will check you out and find your link.
• If you have a lot of expertise in the same subject area as your ebook, volunteer to be an expert on sites like AllExperts.com. All the questions you answer will be for free, but you can put your ebook or website link in your profile. Users will check out your profile, see the link to your ebook, and hopefully visit your site.

Use as many of these tools as possible and you should be getting the best out of your promotion and getting your product in front of as many people as possible. Be aware that it may take 3-6 months for your marketing efforts to start paying off, but patience is a virtue and you will reap what you sow.

Good luck…

I hope that this 8 part series on writing your ebook has been valuable. If it has, please leave me some feedback especially if it has helped or inspired you.

Following on from my previous post

Compiling Your Ebook

 Once you have written your ebook in HTML or Word, you will need to compile it. The two most common formats are .pdf and .exe and by far the most popular is .pdf. PDF stands for Portable Document Format and is a distribution format developed by Adobe Corporation to allow electronic information to be transferred between various types of computers. Adobe Acrobat is a full-feature PDF maker although it is very expensive. If you want to read and print a PDF file you will need to have a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available as a free download.

The biggest advantage of .pdf books is that you can read them on any computer, including Macintosh computers. On the other hand, ebooks in .exe format can only be read by Windows users. However, the software that creates these kinds of ebooks can be handy if you want to customise your ebook.

Free PDF Makers

If you don’t want to spend so much money on Adobe Acrobat there are numerous free and very reliable PDF makers available although they may have limited functionality such as; some free PDF makers don’t hyperlink text and some may limit the size of the document that can be converted into a PDF.
I have listed several examples below. Just choose the one that works best for you: copy some of your ebook into a sample document and use this to test how different PDF converters will present your ebook.

2007 Microsoft Office Add-in: Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS

This download allows you to export and save to the PDF and XPS formats if you have Microsoft Office Word 2007. This is what I tend to use as it is quick and easy.

PrimoPDF – Totally Free PDF Creation

Another free download, although the free version does not hyperlink text.

Pdf995

You can download this pdf maker for free and is generally pretty good.

Google Docs

If you create a document on google docs it gives you the option of downloading the document as a PDF although there is a limit to how large the file can be.

Open Office

Open Office is a freeware alternative to Microsoft Office. You can create your document using Open Office and then convert it into a PDF.

 Ebook Compilers

If you don’t want to use a PDF Maker, the alternative is to use an ebook compiler. Most ebook compilers work by compiling an HTML page as an .EXE file. Your choice of compiler will depend on what features you want and how professional you want the product to look. There are not many truly free ebook compilers so if you want to use this option try to make the most of the demos and free trials before making your decision.

Ebooks can also be created as web pages using HTML. You can set up an ebook as a collection of web pages which a customer can view after receiving a password and login code. What this does is turn your ebook into a password protected website.

Now you have written and compiled your ebook.  Well done!

I hope you have found these articles interesting and informative and would value any comments.

Next time we will look at marketing your ebook…

This may well be my last post of 2011

Are you ready for the festive season yet? I have just about finished shopping and now I am organising my Christmas baking.
Christmas can be a stressful time for the budding cook, but the simple fact is you have to be organised. Anything you can do to ease the work on Christmas day is a bonus, so prepare sauces and stuffings the day before if possible.

I have just cooked a honey glazed ham and am preparing the veggies for tomorrow. I am so used to this now but I am sure last-minute panic will set in!! I have also just finished baking a Christmas loaf which is a nice light alternative to Christmas pudding.

I have quite a lot planned for 2012. I have several guides and ebooks which I am putting the finishing touches to. I really hope you decide to make 2012 the year that you decide to take control and work for yourself – it is very exhilarating when you finally make that decision.

I just want to wish you all a Happy Christmas and have a fantastic 2012. Let’s hope that next year will be bigger and better than 2011, and I hope you realise all your hopes and aspirations for the New Year.

Designing your ebook cover

Remember the four “P’s” of Marketing:

Product, Pricing, Promotion and Placement.

But I think there is a fifth “P” and that is Packaging.

 Presentation is very important in marketing nowadays so try to make your product unique and stand out from the competition. Unleash the inner graphical designer! Because it doesn’t matter how well written your ebook is, or how valuable the information contained within it is, if your package is poorly presented.

You only get one chance to make a first impression, and believe me; people do judge a book by its cover.

“Your cover matters. Way more than you think.” — Seth Godin”

Tips for designing your ebook cover

1. If you have are lucky to have Photoshop on your computer, there are many tutorials that will help you create a great looking ebook cover. Please be aware that you do not need to use the full version of Photoshop, so if you are thinking of purchasing it (and it is very expensive) you could just buy Photoshop Elements which is a fraction of the price and contains all the tools you need to distort your images and produce a cover.
2. Another option is to use an ecover generator such as professionalecovertemplates.com or Ecover Generator Software. With these you can create an unlimited amount of ebook covers. Some people recommend that you get your first cover made by a professional because you can then edit the source Photoshop file for future ecovers using your choice of ecover software. As there are numerous ecover generator products on the market, pick the one that best fits your needs and budget.
3. A third option is to consider hiring a graphic designer to design your cover. If you don’t know anybody personally, you can find graphic designers at freelance sites such as Elance.com, Guru.com, oDesk.com and RentACoder.com. You could hire a graphic designer to design your entire ebook if you wished!

Once you have created a graphic for your ebook cover you can have it converted to a three-dimensional (3-D) image by using Photoshop or one of the various ebook cover software available.

4. I’ve also created an ebook (including the cover page) using MS Word 2007. To insert a cover page using this version of Word you simply go to the Insert menu and select “Cover Page”. You’re presented with a series of pre-formatted templates. Choose one, click on it, and it’s automatically inserted at the start of your document. You can edit it to your heart’s content. Easy!

Next time we will look at compiling your ebook…

Choose the title for your ebook

A lot of people spend so much time writing their ebook and then spend hardly any time considering their title. Your title has to be catchy enough to capture your readers’ attention, and it should also contain the keywords that people will use to search for information on your topic.

If you can, try to use a title and a subtitle together such as:

Quit your job: How to get rich working smart, not hard!

This format works because the title gets your attention, and it often makes a promise: such as the promise of being able to quit your job. The subtitle is longer and more descriptive. It should also contain some benefits or the solution to a problem: we all want to get rich while working less. Another powerful tool is to try to elicit an emotion with your title.
It is important to make sure that you test both your title and subtitle. You can use email responders to send out the same promotion using several titles for your product. Monitor the results and stick with the one that produces the most sales.

Never underestimate the power of a good title, and take your time choosing it.

Once you have the idea for a title you need to make it keyword rich.

Select the Keywords for your title

Use Google Ad Words to research and find the best key words to use for your title. This is key to your success as this will push you up the search engine rankings and help Google searchers find your ebook. It will also bring more traffic to your site, and thus hopefully more sales. This is one small part of search engine optimisation (SEO), a huge subject on its own, and something I will cover in the future.

It may also be worth considering buying the domain name for your title although I would only do this if it is a guaranteed seller or you are just wasting money.

Next time I will look at designing a cover for your ebook…

D.     Editing your work

 Make sure to edit your work. This is a really important step and you need to take a bit of time with it. Any type of writing that is filled with spelling or grammatical errors can put people off and tarnish your image as a credible writer. You can bend the rules at times to make your writing style more relaxed but just be aware of the pitfalls of grammatically incorrect text. Always remember that you want to provide a smooth reading experience for your readers. Keep these points in mind whilst editing your work:

• Check your grammar, and also check for spelling or stylistic errors. Also try to ensure that the way you have organised the ebook is logical and makes sense, and that you transition well between sentences, paragraphs, and sections.
• If your information appears to be unclear or incomplete, try adding examples and explanations to enhance that information. Also remove any irrelevant information. Be brutal – can you do without it; if the answer is yes, it is probably best to leave it out.
• If possible, try to give yourself a break between writing and editing. This will ensure that you are looking at the article with fresh eyes.
• Try to get several people who are well-read and well-educated to proofread your work. Ideally these should be people you know and whose opinion you respect. Listen to their comments about the organisation and content of your work. Ask them to point out any spelling mistakes and/or errors in your grammar. Ask them to be constructive. This can sometimes be difficult with people who know you but assure them that constructive criticism is a powerful tool. You could also consider hiring a professional editor to go over your work for you.

So, now you have chosen your topic, conducted your market research and finally written your ebook. Next time we will look at choosing a title for you ebook…

c.     Writing your ebook

Here are some tips to remember when writing your ebook:

• If at all possible try to answer the question “What is the purpose of your ebook?” in your introduction.
• Think about your readers whilst you are writing. Is this ebook giving them good value? Visualise your perfect reader and ask yourself what they would want to know about this topic. Make decisions about the content, form, and style of your ebook based on your understanding of your readers’ expectations.
• Try to write in a way that makes the reading experience easy and enjoyable. Put your own character into your writing and it will appear much friendlier. Don’t be afraid to write as you would speak. It may not always be grammatically correct but your writing will be less stilted and more flowing. One idea is to use a Dictaphone and record yourself talking about the subject. Compare this to your writing and you will see the difference. Combine both to produce a nice flowing script.
• In conjunction with the last point, try to break up the length and structure of your sentences and paragraphs to make sure that your writing doesn’t become monotonous.
• Give your readers’ eyes a break by leaving sufficient white space.
• Indented quotes and examples, as well as section and sub-section headings, will help you keep your reader’s alertness.
• Could you use an image and/or graph to get your point across? “A picture paints a thousand words.”
• Make use of lists, both bulleted and numbered.
• Find a font that’s easy to read and stick to it. There is nothing worse than continuously changing fonts! Stick to the more common ones such as Arial and Times New Roman.
• Get a good dictionary and Roget’s thesaurus.
• Try to open each chapter with a hook to grab your reader’s attention. There are a number of ways to do this. You could start with a few thought-provoking questions or shocking facts that relate to your readers’ problems. Also try to keep each chapter’s title clear, concise, and compelling.
• Try to keep in mind hot selling points for each chapter. This will help you remain focused on your topic and you are also preparing to market and promote your ebook whilst writing it!
• Add quotes that are relevant to your subject.

  ”The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what – these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence.” William Zinsser

Keep your subject matter narrow.

Remember; don’t make your subject matter too broad or general: give your readers specific ideas and solutions they can use right away.

“Shrink your subject. Most of us are way too ambitious when we set out to write. So we end up with a flood that’s a mile wide and an inch deep. Give your readers some depth so that they can enjoy the water. Pick the most interesting, unusual, or surprising aspect of your subject and dive in.” Jack Hart

If you keep these tips in mind when writing your ebook you will be well on the way to writing a clear, concise, informative and enjoyable product.

Next time we will look at the next important step; editing your work…