What does niche marketing mean? Before I answer allow me to set things up a bit:

The Internet is no longer a baby. The days of being able to throw up a very general site and make big money with little effort are gone.

If you have a business you want to bring online, you need to understand how to target a specific audience. And if you want to start your own “Internet business” from scratch you need to grasp the basics of niche marketing.

Niche marketing means the same thing whether you’re an inventor, an interior designer, or a software affiliate. It’s about finding and catering to one or more niche markets.

And a niche market is a very tightly focused group of people looking for a specific product or service. Niche markets exist as sub-groups within every major market field.

For example, within the very broad video game industry there are people who only play the Xbox system.

And within the Xbox customer base there are people who focus on sports games.

And within the base of Xbox sports game fans there are individuals who like football games above all others. Inside this group there is a loyal core of Madden NFL fanatics.

Among the people who play only Xbox, prefer sports games, focus on football games, and really get into Madden NFL there are customers who play online tournaments. And within this very tight group of consumers there are people who only want to play as the Dallas Cowboys.

Can you see where this is going? The “deeper” you get into a group of customers the more specific the wants/needs you find, and this is what niche marketing is about.

And the more tightly focused a group of people, the better your odds of making sales (if you have or can acquire what they want and need). Also at this level of marketing you’ll have less competition.

For instance, many people online are looking for cell phone deals. Among this massive pool of searchers there are those who want or need prepaid cell phone service, and within this group are individuals who use or want to know more about Net 10 Prepaid service.

You could look at any marketplace and find multiple niche markets. And herein lies the key to easy money.

The Web is getting crowded. Competition is fierce everywhere. There’s more than enough prosperity to go around and there always will be, but you’ll make it easier on yourself if you find ways to get really targeted with your product offers and overall marketing strategy.

To get a little more information on Niche Marketing take a moment to browse this Niche Marketing Course Review. Also grab your free crash course on niche marketing basics.

I’ve written a few good pieces about things like basic market research, niche marketing, Website promotion, and Internet marketing tips. In fact at one time most of my business was about teaching people how to make money online.

I no longer focus large portions of my time and energy on this for a vasriety of reasons. But I was asked recently by a couple of readers to shed some light on what goes into setting up a profitable online venture.

Of course there are numerous types of Web venture. But in terms of setting up either a simple info funnel or affiliate marketing business, I’ve put together what I call the “short version” of how it’s all done:

Starting An Online Business (The Short Version)

Starting a fun, profitable online business can be simple, inexpensive, and exciting. A digital enterprise has many advantages over brick and mortar ventures, including fewer start-up costs and no heavy lifting.

This article will provide you with a simplified overview of everything involved with creating a new Internet business from the ground up. Further, in-depth study is recommended hereafter.

- Your Idea -

The first thing you’ll need is a great idea. The most successful businesses are run with passion so I urge you to build on a hobby or area of expertise. Make a list of 10 things you enjoy or know a lot about, then ask yourself which listed items relate to products and services people might be willing to pay for.

For instance, if one of your items is “hiking”, you know people buy equipment, and might even be willing to pay for a downloadable, illustrated guide to some of your favorite trails.

Once you have a list of possible themes for your new business, go to Google and do a few searches to see if other Websites are selling products and services related to your favorite themes. If you find some existing businesses like the ones you are thinking about building, congratulations!

Competing sites are a good sign. This means a market already exists and can possibly be further exploited.

If nobody online seems to be selling things related to your idea, it may mean there is no market. But don’t give up yet because you’ll find out for sure if an idea has legs by doing a little basic research.

- Basic Research -

Your next step is to locate a good keyword research tool and find out if people are looking for stuff related to your list of brilliant business ideas. There are lots of great research tools online, like Word Tracker and Keyword Discovery, that actually show you what searches people are doing on Google and Yahoo!

This is the perfect way to see if there is an interest in your business theme. If you can verify that lots of people are doing searches each month for things related to your idea(s) it means there is a pool of prospects for your future business.

Going back to the hiking example above, you might find that lots of searches are being performed on phrases like “best waterproof hiking boots” or “hiking trails in Virginia”.

- Commit To A Plan -

Once you are satisfied with your research and believe that a market exists for your idea, it’s time to create your business plan. You can write a highly detailed, formal plan using the guidelines found on sba.gov (small business administration) or you can just open up a Word document and create a simple outline of what you plan to accomplish.

The main function of your plan is to define what you’ll be doing and how you want to do it.

For instance, you might decide to start a hiking equipment review blog where you can post articles and consumer reviews about the best boots, packs, trail rations, and more. Or you might decide to focus your site on reviewing the best trails in the southeastern U.S., basing each review on safety, scenery, whether each trail is appropriate for children, etc.

Your plan should also include the nuts and bolts of how you’ll make money and promote your site. Maybe you’ll sell e-books with detailed trail guides, or perhaps you’ll recommend specific brand-name boots as an affiliate and earn commission on each sale that is generated from one of your reviews.

For promotion, you might decide to place ads in a few hiking magazines or hire a search engine consultant to help you attain top position in Google’s results pages. Ideally, you should develop a promotion/advertising strategy that embraces multiple avenues.

- Your Web Presence -

The next step is to set up shop. You’ll need a domain name, or Web address, a hosting account to store all the files and data that make up your new Website, and either a professional designer or a great course that teaches you the basics of putting your own site together.

You’ll also need an online payment processor to help you receive payments. Paypal is a stable, free processor that allows users to accept credit cards and echeck payments.

You’ll probably need a professional programmer to help you build and maintain some of the more technical aspects of your site. Your local Yellow Pages can be a good place to find a capable programming assistant, or you can check with a local college to find a Web development student who is looking for some extra spending cash.

- Traffic Generation -

Once your site is finished and ready to receive visitors, the real work can begin. Driving substantial traffic to your Website will require a great deal of time or a significant financial investment (or both!).

You should spend time researching current traffic generation techniques before getting started. The last thing you want to do is put your precious time or hard-earned money into advertising programs that turn out to be gimmicks.

There is a lot of information online about how to promote your Website. Unfortunately most of this content is junk.

The best way to learn effective site promotion is to find marketers who are already successful and ask for their help. Many entrepreneurs enjoy helping others, and some even offer comprehensive coaching programs you can invest in.

Believe it or not, the overview you have just read is a basic guide to putting your very own Web business together. Obviously there are many finer points missing from this outline, but you now have a solid idea of the general flow.

For a more in-depth study of how to make a great living online I highly recommend registering for my free niche marketing crash course. This series will give you more details on the basics and introduce you to a variety of helpful resources for taking things to the next level.

Often a Website owner decides to “dress up” their menu display by using button graphics instead of plain text links. It’s a great idea to give your navigation more punch, but I recommend you avoid going with image files for your buttons and instead choose a simple CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) layout.

Here are my reasons:

Graphic files can increase the time it takes your site to load into a browser.

Search engines cannot read images.

CSS, when used properly, will give you far more control without the need for java script.

Using a little bit of CSS, you can create a very nice menu array that your visitors will think are dynamic image files. When you hover over any part of this kind of CSS menu you can even watch the buttons change color and seem to depress into the page.

Pretty cool huh?

CSS menus require no heavy java script code that could slow your load time. You simply add a short section to your external style sheet to tell a browser how to display the buttons in terms of size, colors, font style, etc. and then reference these specs in the HTML document where the menus reside.

In simplest terms this is a two-step process that takes all of ten minutes to complete.

And search engine spiders will read the anchor links placed in this sort of menu as direct text linkage. What’s more, you can apply the title= attribute to further enhance your onsite SEO.

Here is the code you’ll need to add to your external CSS to fly this sort of menu:

.buttonscontainer {width: 120px;}

.buttons a {color: #;<BR>
border: 1px solid;<BR>
background-color: #;<BR>
padding: 0px;<BR>
padding-left: 0px;<BR>
font: 12px Arial, sans-serif;<BR>
font-weight: bold;<BR>
text-decoration: none;<BR>
border-color: # # # #;<BR>
display: block;<BR>
margin: 3px;<BR>
width: 100%;<BR>
text-align: center;}

.buttons a:hover {border: 1px solid;<BR>
padding-left: 0px;<BR>
padding-top: 0px;<BR>
padding-bottom: 0px;<BR>
padding-right: 0px;<BR>
background-color: #;<BR>
border-color: # # # #;<BR>
color: #;<BR>
text-decoration: none;}

Click Here to see what the above menu codes look like in a browser.

Of course you’ll need to edit the color specs above, in addition to changing any borders, margins, etc. as you see fit.

Open your HTML pages and, exactly where you need to define your slick new menu buttons, open two divs with class=”buttonscontainer” and class=”buttons”, add your button text and anchor, and close both divs.

Play around with this coding in your own design scheme. The sample menus I showed you are really only the beginning of what you can do with this foundation.

For more great tips be sure to check out our complete Web Design Course.