It’s often said that you need to be passionate about your market, but do you? Does your passion or your hobby matter when it comes to making money?

Well, it most certainly matters to you. And, unless you have a passion or hobby that nobody else in the world has ever heard of, there are probably plenty of other people who share your passion or hobby… and are maybe even more into it than you are!

Being deeply involved in a hobby or passion is the stuff that successful niche marketing is made of. Most really successful niche marketers have turned what they care about the most into successful businesses. For example, I know a husband and wife team that turned their love of keeping chickens into a successful online (as well as off line) business.

Unless you are passionate about the subject, it’s hard to stay focused on it long enough to make it a success. I read somewhere that 82% of blogs never make it past the four week stage, and of those left, 80% will fail in the next year! So passion and dedication are your two biggest assets.

This means you must be willing to put in the time. Keeping on “keeping on”, is the only way you’ll ever be successful at niche marketing. This means that you can establish a money-making web business around the theme that you love the most.

There’s no reason why you can’t build a niche marketing site if you can correctly define your niche, make certain that people are willing to pay for the product or service that you are selling, and locate that specific audience. And it’s all about your greatest passion, or the hobby that you most enjoy!

Imagine that! Being able to make money and do what you love doing at the same time. It doesn’t get any better than that!

Until next time!

Ian

Hi All

Just last week I had a conversation with someone who was struggling to find a market to go into for internet marketing. Trying to decide something like this is critical if you’re going on to make it your ongoing business rather than simply, say, selling a one off affiliate product.

This is the advice I gave him. I hope it helps you if you’re struggling in this area too:-)

I play a lot in the health niche (as I talked about at the 2011 Internet Marketing Gold Event) because I have a health care background. This means I feel comfortable talking about the subjects, understand the jargon, can evaluate information etc.

I also play in the internet marketing arena because I have immersed myself in it for the past 10 years or so. My products don’t generally fall into the “make money”area but I lean heavily towards the more technical aspects of product creation, web development, online business tools, etc

I also play in the off line product creation market and have acted as a consultant on several audio CD / DVD / paper manual type products, as well as having created several disc and manual based products of my own. I have done that because I have learned a LOT about the technicals of multimedia, print, graphics, video, as well as all the technicals surrounding creating digital disc based products.

So why am I telling you all this? Well, as well as setting out my credentials to talk on the subject, basically I strongly feel when choosing an area of business you should play to your strengths.

For example If you’re a teacher then create a product targeted at teachers. You already understand the dilemmas and problems related to teaching, so use that strength. If you are an office worker, and you can use spreadsheets, then create a training program to teach others about using them. Or create spreadsheets to sell to certain business sectors like estate agents, small businesses, authors or journalists.

This process short-circuits all the research you would normally have to do to produce a product. If you already know the problems and difficulties of a group or profession then you can go ahead and create a product answering those problems from your own experiences.

You don’t have to stick to occupations knowledge. Your life experience can give you the same boost. Have you successfully raised a big family? Did you overcome a big setback in your health? Have you successfully managed a life crisis like bankruptcy or emigration to another country? All these can be used to create your first product.

The second thing is you need to be in a market that is big enough to sustain a business. And this is where I diverge from most of the guru types in IM. Most gurus will tell you to niche down your business. Most Niche markets are fine if you want a small sustainable home based business, but if you want to grow your business past that size you need to play in one of the big markets where people are spending money.

Why do all the IM gurus spend their time telling us all how to make money online? Because their great guys and infused by an philanthropic spirit of giving? Well, you already know the answer, it’s because the IM market is huge and people don’t mind spending hundreds, even thousands of pounds on products. If it were true that you could become very wealthy selling niche products then all the gurus would be selling ebooks on Zen gardening and how to dye your cat, not in how to make money online!

So to wrap up. Play to your strengths and target a big market were people are already spending money.

One more thing. Please don’t do into “how to make money online”. For a beginner it’s terribly difficult to make any money, or get any traction, until you have at least some sort of reputation or presence, and until you have actually made some yourself!

Ian

You’ve seen the claims! I have seen the claims as well. Get rich by publishing on the Amazon Kindle platform! Well, does it work? Is it worthwhile buying a $97 ebook or a $267 eCourse?

I doubt it because…

This is (IMHO) another “IM gold rush fever” kind of opportunity. Amazon / Kindle have already clamped down on the use of PD material in kindle publications. They haven’t banned it outright just yet but I could see the day when they might! This is just a sign that Amazon are not stupid! They are not going to let a load of slick IMers drag the good name of the Kindle down. This has rendered a lot of the “kindle courses” out there, that use PD material, useless and out of date.

I think the next step will be a similar stance against RR and PLR material for the same reason. I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon in the future take the step of wiping a whole screed of Kindle ebooks from their list, in the same way that Google have done with junk websites and ezine articles did with junk articles.

As well as that the EU are still looking at the pricing issues around ebooks as opposed to paper publications. Any bets the recommendation is that ebooks will have to be sold at a substantially lower price than paper equivalents? This will leave authors on the Kindle with diminishing payouts etc.

To make any serious money from Kindle you need buyers. Either by driving your own list of customers to your kindle book to buy it, or by having hundreds of books on the kindle platform, and relying on organic sales of around 1 or 2 per week from each on them.

Is it a business? Only in the same way that writing has always been a business. If people buy your books then you make money. Most authors don’t make any money at all. Most publishers still lose money on 80+% of their books!

AND you have the added hassle that Amazon could pull out the rug at any time.

I see the Kindle very much the same way as I see Google.

I wouldn’t want to base my whole business on them because you are reliant on someone else for your income.

Ian

A few weeks ago my publisher and I were having a discussion about an up and coming book I’m writing, and he asked me a question. His question was “If I held a gun to your head and said, ‘How do I make money on the internet right now?’ What would you say?”

Well, as you can imagine I was somewhat taken aback by his directness, but this got me thinking.

And I came up with at least 5 ways to make money online starting right now. The strange thing is that almost none of them are in the traditional internet marketing niche – you know… the affiliate marketing, email marketing, blogging, ezines, etc, kind of world.

The big truth is that there is much more money to be made in business in the real world than in selling stuff online. Think about it like this. How many super successful businesses are there online? Well we can all name the eBay’s and Amazon’s can’t we?

Now how many super successful businesses are there off line. Yep! Probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions right?

The real truth is that there is far more money out there, in the real world of business, than on the internet. Now you might think that’s a strange thing for an internet marketing blog to say but bear with me.

I thought for a while how you could combine the two words and make money almost instantly, in the real world, but using the power of the internet. Well, strangely enough there is a way to do it. In fact there are several ways to do it.

I was so impressed by what I found out there that I have compiled my research into a short FREE e-course on how to make money working from home on the internet.

Now this isn’t freelancing or anything like that. These are real opportunities that I found online for anyone to start to make money, from scratch, on their home computer, almost immediately. Sounds implausible right? But in fact these opportunities are out there.

I don’t have the space to go into it all here but if you click through to the site I’ve set up you’ll get all the facts right there.

Go to www.FreeWorkFromHomeCourse.com and you can sign up for free right now!

Thanks

IG

Hi, All.

This blog you are reading currently holds the number 2 spot on the front page of Google for my keywords, (and has done for a number of years now!) and my overall ranking has never been affected by the many “slaps” handed out by Google over the years.

Currently, about one third of the total traffic for this blog comes from the search engines. The other two thirds comes from incoming links from high value / high traffic sites like Sitepoint.com, and  I rarely do any advertising or active marketing for my blog.

So, why am I telling you all this?

The reason is a special SEO technique I’ve developed on the quiet. I call it Search Engine Optimised Content or SEOC for short. And it’s this technique that allows me to keep my position in Google for almost no effort!

So, let me tell you about it!

Content is Key
One fundamental of SEOC planning is that it’s based on good content.

You need to make sure that the content you are offering on your website is original, valuable and problem-solving. The rule should be, “Always write for the reader, not the search engines!” This will bring in the best kind of incoming organic links.

Type of Content
The “look and feel” of your website is also important, but for SEOC purposes, it’s not as important as the content.

Graphic elements within pages like photos, graphs, pictures, or images all add to the mix of content within the page. This will boost the page in the search rankings – especially if the “alt tags” and the file names of the graphic elements are keyword optimised for the page content.

This is well known SEO technique, but how do you use other multimedia files to boost your SEO weight? Well, this is how I do it.

Other multimedia files can be used as SEOC content in this way. Linked audio files, linked video files, database files, PDF documents, email newsletter archives, etc., can all be keyword optimised to support your site content and to draw attention from the search engines.

One word of caution here. More does not mean better! Linked multimedia content must be relevant, and keyword optimised, otherwise it’s just so much filler. The reason for this is that the search engines can’t spider an audio podcast or video footage to decide on the content.

Multimedia files like this need to be identified to the search engine spiders by keywords linked to the file. The obvious way to do this is to name the file with a keyword phrase. For example, an MP3 podcast file maybe named something like “CreatingMarketingStrategies.mp3″ instead of  “PodcastMarch2012.mp3″.

This means that whenever someone searches for something like “How do I create marketing strategies” the link to your podcast has a much better chance of making it onto the search results. This result would be impossible if the file had just been called “PodcastMarch2012.mp3″ or something just as nondescript.

By following this simple rule your website content will stand a much better chance of making it onto the pages of any given Google search and staying there.

This gives you  an immediate advantage over your competitors and also helps to put you in Google’s good books!
This isn’t all there is to SEOC.  So, in the next few weeks I’ll be telling you more secrets to keeping your website on Google’s front page using just your content.

Ian G

Hi All

Last weekend I was relaxing in the mountains! In Scotland, where I’m from, I’m fortunate to have some sizable mountains close to where I live. Now they’re not high enough for say skiing, but they are a good, stiff day trek!

So, like I say, I was taking a day off, and climbing to the top of a nearby mountain called Goat Fell. It was a nice spring day – one of the best we have had this year – so there were quite a few families on the lower paths to the top. The car parks were busy with kids running around, families with baby buggies, older people strolling in the woods, and people walking their dogs.

As I got about half way up the crowds had thinned. There were some younger couples, no kids here, and only a couple of serious walkers with their dogs.

By the time I was close to the top there were just a few hard core trekkers like me. The last stage of the climb was steep loose shale, and the clouds were right down and you could only see a few feet in front of you. Up there the breeze was significantly colder, I was crunching through frozen snow, and I was wearing my hat, gloves and outer shell jacket to keep warm.

As I got to the top I broke through the cloud layer. The sun was bright and the view was stunning. I could look down on the white cloud layer and could see for miles. It had been worth all the work and sweat. As I started to eat my lunch at the summit it struck me that this is a lot like internet marketing.

Most people will do the easy stuff, and you’ll be just part of the crowd. You’ll be mixing with everyone. You’ll see all the free information that everyone knows about and reads!

As you take the next step to internet business success it might be a bit harder, or need more work, but you’ll leave some of your competition behind, because they can’t really be bothered putting in the time or effort.

The next step might require a bit of serious investment in your education, or might require you to get some help by signing up to mentorship program. As you take this next step you’ll leave some more of the competition behind, again because they think it’s too hard, or they can’t be bothered!

When you reach the summit of your internet business goals you’ll find that the top of the IM mountain is a fairly sparsely populated place.  There are only a few serious players at this level.

This is what internet marketing is like. If you’re only ever prepared to play at article marketing for your traffic for example; if you’re content to sell other peoples products as an affiliate; if you just want to use low quality free PLR or resale rights, then you’ll surely be stuck at the bottom. If you never really invest in your education or skills, then you will always be stuck in the “car park” with the dog walkers, day strollers and kids!

If you only ever go after the next, biggest, shiny system or “make money online product” then you might get further up the path to the top, but you’ll never reach the summit. You might make a bit of money on the side, but you’ll never leave your day job, or have a proper internet business!

To reach the top with the serious marketers then you need to play the game as a serious player. You need the right resources, and you need to invest in the right services, education and traffic. You need to take the actions that result in success!

Every time you do something that’s a bit more difficult, you will leave more and more of your competition behind. Every time you do something that takes a bit more knowledge or skill, the crowd thins out a little. Every time you do something that takes a bit more time or work, you’ll find the path a little less crowded.

And then one day, you’ll break through into the sunshine and discover that you have arrived at the top of the internet business mountain, with the serious players.

Take your first steps up the mountain of success now! Take my online video course and learn how to create your own high profit sales sites online in less than 24 hours! Click this link here. ==>CLICK HERE<==

Yesterday I confessed that I was one of the “failures” in life, until I re-assessed my life laws! I have never shared these with anyone before, and it’s taken me years to get them shaped into the 6 laws I want to show you now. These are the laws that turned my life around.

So here goes, as promised – Ian Greenwood’s 6 Laws for Wealth.  I have distilled these from my own life experience of going from a broke no hoper to a successful online business owner… so they must mean something!

1. Doing is more important than thinking! By this I mean that all the thinking in the world will not progress your life one little bit. You need to BALLANCE your thinking with the right actions based on your thinking, decisions and goals. They need each other. Actions, need thinking, need actions! And life rewards action! You must actually do stuff to progress your life. That is, take action!

2. Life rewards completion. I’m amazed at the number of people I talk to that would like me to look at half completed projects, ideas and products. There is no point. Life will only provide the reward when you have completed the process. Half finished products don’t sell. Half finished websites don’t attract traffic. Half completed sales letters don’t make money. Life only rewards completion.

3. What you do today dictates what you are tomorrow! This is called ‘causality’. What you do today causes your life tomorrow! Every day, where you don’t actually do anything to progress your goals, business, or life, is another day wasted! You must actually take action. Thinking about it doesn’t count – you must actually do something every day to progress your life. Your life tomorrow depends on what actions you take today!

4. Your life will move towards your predominant focus! This is not “the secret” in another form. This means you need to focus on a plan to completion! Without focus you’ll never complete anything. You need to focus on one path, one project, or one plan – then you will experience success! Hopping from one half completed project to another will never get you anywhere. It’s a recipe for failure.

5. Time – you need to use it, or loose it! I lost nearly 15 years of my life trying to “make it big” through following dubious get rich quick schemes and biz ops.  I know I will never get that time back. I wish I could. I wish I had learned all this when I was 18! But I didn’t. We all walk our own path in life, and we all only have one life. Every minute you spend progressing your life towards your focus is an investment in your future. Don’t waste another minute!

6. Educate yourself! It amazes me the number of people I come across that want to sell online, but have never even bought anything themselves online. They want to start a business on eBay, but have never bought anything on an eBay auction! They want to run a multi million dollar business on the internet, but they don’t even know the basics of putting up a simple webpage online! Educating yourself will never be wasted time, money, or effort.

And this brings me full circle really. My big break came when, at aged 43, I went back to university to learn Multimedia Computing and Web Development. I left all the “get rich quick” nonsense behind, and concentrated on educating myself in the area I wanted to work in.

I had focus, and knew where I was going. I took action and stopped thinking, planning, wishing, and hoping.  I worked for 3 years to the completion of my degree and what I did then  has dictated the rewards that I enjoy now!

At the time could I afford to become a student again? No, probably not, but I got by! At the time was I supported by my family and friends? No, they all thought I was crazy to go back to university and change my career. Did I become instantly wealthy and successful? No, but I had focus and could see where I wanted to end up!

Am I saying that this is what you should do? Of course not! We all have completely different circumstances and lives. You need to decide for yourself where your path is and what you need to achieve. You need to choose your own path to wealth and prosperity!

But you now have my laws to guide you. Remember:- ACTION, COMPLETION, CAUSALITY, FOCUS, TIME, EDUCATION.

These will progress you towards your goals faster than all the schemes, scams, systems, strategies, techniques and tactics, programs, plans and processes put together!

So, get to it – and thanks again for reading.

Ian Greenwood

Well, what is My Big Confession!

I have been thinking for some time about the real reason that some people become wealthy and some don’t. Why some can start a business online, and some try – but fail. Why some talk, wish, and dream about getting their own business up and running – but somehow never do.

I really need to confess something to you all, right here and now. I was one of the failures! For years I bought all the schemes, scams, systems, strategies, techniques and tactics, programs, plans and processes going. And not one of them made me a penny.  But I believed that by positively believing, and reading these manuals, I could bring about big changes in my life.

For almost 20 years I really believed that I was going to succeed. But it never came true. When I was over 40 years old, I was so poor that I had to move back home with my elderly parents because I just couldn’t afford a place of my own.

I was so much in debt that I had to take a horrible part time job in a filthy and dangerous workshop that paid just £5 per hour, just to keep from going under financially. For more than a decade I never had a holiday because when I didn’t work, I didn’t get paid – and I couldn’t afford not to get paid!

In the recent big film “The Secret” wealth gurus Bob Proctor, Jack Canfield and Rev. Michael Beckwith explain “the secret” of The Law of Attraction. The law goes something like this. If you think about becoming wealthy – you will. If you visualise the wealth you want to have, you’ll attract it into your life. What you think about will become real in your life.

Well, now you’re probably thinking that I’m going to tell you that my life turned around when I began practicing this law. Actually, if that’s what you’re thinking,  your completely wrong! Positive thinking like this does not work! Full stop, end of story.

Positive thinking will never bring about a big change in your life. This has been proven. Optimism is not the “golden ticket” to wealth and prosperity. The universe just doesn’t work like this.

In the natural world, like does not attract like. In the physical world, like forces repel – opposites attract! The natural world is in balance. Cold cancels hot; Light cancels out dark; positive cancels negative; high pressure cancels low pressure. The whole world is in balance.

The eastern philosophy of Yin and Yang is more accurate than “the law of attraction!” Newton’s third law of motion states that “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction!” In other words, the universe is in balance! All the forces of the universe tend towards equilibrium!

Optimism, or positive thinking, has it’s sweet spot. You can be too optimistic, and this can be as bad as being a negative thinker! You need to balance optimism with reality, common sense, and good facts! So what ‘s the real way to get forward in life?

Well, all I can do is tell you where I managed to get my breaks.

Tomorrow I will tell you my 6 Laws of Wealth. These have worked for me, and they will work for you. BUT they may not be what you expect!

See you then

Ian

Coincidently I got this from a friend and fellow internet marketer today.

“Saving Money on eBook Security
 Hi, this is Phil.
If you sell, or hope to sell information products such as eBooks, reports or even courses, then very soon the dreaded word – Piracy – will raise its ugly head.
In this two-part blog I would like to share with you what I do to help prevent my books being downloaded for free, and save you a whole heap of money by avoiding solutions that look good, but don’t work. Please keep in mind that this is just my personal view. Other publishers may well differ, but I hope it gives you some insights that will help you make the right decisions and save money at the same time.
Before I start I need to make a bold statement.
It is not possible to make any book – electronic or paper – free from illegal distribution on the InterTwitter.
It’s like protecting your home against burglars…”

If you want to read the rest of this great post go to:-
http://www.homepublish.com/newsletter/004/index.html

It’s  great read… and a complete eye opener!

Hope you enjoy it.

Ian

Well here we are at Christmas again!

I wish all my readers a Very Merry Christmas and a very happy, productive and profitable 2012 when it comes.

I really can’t believe just how quickly the years seem to pass now. No sooner is it New Year than we are looking at Christmas again.

But 2011 has been a year of big change in the internet marketing arena.

One big change was that we saw the Kindle become a big player in the publishing world and almost on it’s own reinvent and reinvigorate the world of ebooks for the masses. It also gave new life to many of the paper books ebooks that were already out there, but had had their day in the lime light.

Add to this the rise of tablet computers and the iPhone and all the android devices – well the market for ebooks is bigger than ever!

All these together make 2012 the perfect year to start looking at ebooks again as a method of marketing your online business.

I love ebooks because they are super fast to produce, practically free to publish, easy to deliver and have huge profit margins.

This means that, after all those new ways to view ebooks, there are now several new channels right onto the screens of those who never even knew what an ebook was a couple of years ago!

Talking about new things. In the new year you will see several new areas appear on the site here at Greenwood central. I will be posting some exciting new video training, and you’ll be able to download a new series of podcasts on all manner of internet marketing strategies, techniques and tactics. So look out for that, as well as several other new and exciting additions!

And of course you’ll have the usual mix of great, useful, and profitable content through the blog here, and through the Greenwood Letter. And some great news as well – there will be a totally new look for the Greenwood Letter next year, along with some very exciting new original content and some great offers and free give away gifts.

So if you don’t currently receive the Greenwood Letter then sign up for your free lifetime subscription in the box at the top right hand corner of this page.

So once again – Lots of happiness, peace, joy and prosperity for you and yours this Christmas – and I will be back in 2012.

Ian