My Top 10 Market Research Tips
It's true. If you can drink beer, you can earn a living doing it. Here's all it takes to monetize a site for beer lovers…
Question: In your Dynamic Media podcast, you said things like food, booze, arts and entertainment, always prosper. So I decided to set up a Wordpress blog on beer. I want to have affiliate ads on there in hopes of monetizing them.
So how can I find out what beer drinkers are buying? How can I match their particular demographics, interests and life-style?
Answer: Here's how to tap the keg of profits. It's a very simple 10 tips of the pint that'll whet your whistle. It will certainly cure what "ales" you.
LOL… ok, enough goofing around. Let's get down to work and polish the mugs, before the patrons start sauntering in…
1. Best bet… go to Amazon and search for beer. Choose a department like "Home and Garden" or "Apparel & Accessories" and then Sort by Bestselling.
* http://www.amazon.com
These are the goods related to beer that America is purchasing right now. You've got everything from patio lanterns, to cookbooks, to home brewing equipment.
I always look for the best selling items. This is market research at its finest. America has voted with their wallets. So it would be wise to feature these items on your site.
Tip: You MUST choose a department, then click sort by Bestselling. Keep an eye on that button, as it defaults back to Relevance. Set it back to Bestselling after every search for accurate data.
2. Look at the Wordtracker Question tool and see what questions beer drinkers ask. (Multiply the search result by 54 for accurate Google search numbers.)
* http://labs.wordtracker.com/keyword-questions
By answering these questions you'll get articles for your site. You'll also find plenty of beer drinkers are interested in home brewing as well.
It's very enlightening to search phrases like, "how to stop" or "how to start." Let the world tell you what they want started, or stopped. These are often huge markets.
Tip: If the tool complains "something went wrong" it means you have to reload the main page and fill out a captcha. They want to prevent automated robots from using the tool.
3. Use Google's Keyword Tool to find related items and do your keyword research. Type your keyword, fill out the captcha and click the "Get Keyword Ideas" button.
* https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Then once it returns results, look for the "Choose columns to display" button. Select "Show All."
You'll get tons of keyword ideas, traffic and search data. If you sort by search volume, you'll see the relative popularity of each keyword phrase.
Tip: You can also use this tool to spider your pages. Choose the "Website content" button instead of the default "Descriptive words or phrases" button.
You can plug in any url in there, and Google will tell you what it thinks the page is about. If you use AdSense, these are the types of ads most likely to appear on your page. Change the words on your page and so will the ads.
4. Do a search in Google. But don't click on anything. Scroll to the very bottom of the page.
* http://www.google.com
Look for "Searches related to" beer, or how to brew beer. You'll find keyword phrases like; beer brands, types of beer, history of beer, beer making, beer calories, beer jokes, etc.
These make excellent articles for your site. You might also consider using them as blog categories.
Tip: Related searches also means a little LSI is going on. You might want to include some of these key phrases on your home page.
5. Try MSN labs demographics prediction tool. You'll get a breakdown of the age and gender related to your keyword.
* http://adlab.microsoft.com/Demographics-Prediction
So if you look at beer. It's geared towards a male audience under the age of 35.
Tip: You can also type in any url you want, to get predictions about any page.
6. Poke at the MSN commercial intention tool. Is the keyword, or url in question, informational or transactional?
* http://adlab.microsoft.com/Online-Commercial-Intention/
For example, when looking for brewing beer, 77% of people are looking for info. Change the phrase to beer brewing kits and now they're 76% transactional.
In other words, it's a buying phrase. Those are the ones you might want to concentrate on.
7. Go search online and in the magazine stores. Look at the other websites, blogs and publications for beer enthusiasts. What kinds of ads are they running?
Are they just contextual text ads or do you see banners, buttons and skyscrapers. The bigger the ad the more it costs. The longer it runs, the better it has performed over the months.
Search from the other angle as well. Go to the sites owned by the breweries.
What kind events are they sponsoring? What are they associating their brands with? Do you notice the demographics?
8. Go look at the SRDS (Standard Rate and Data Service) in your downtown library. You can't take it out, but you can copy some info out of it. I used my cell phone camera in macro mode. It will give you demographic breakdowns of all the dirt-world publications.
Alternately, you can do the "poor man's" version of the research by going to Wikipedia and Magazines.com. Yes, I know… it's not even close to the SRDS, but at least you can find out how popular the topics are and what types of readers they have.
* http://www.magazines.com
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magazine_circulation
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_magazines
9. You'll like this one. Go on a field trip. Tell the spouse you're doing research.
Visit several pubs to get a feel for what's inside.
Most of them have brand name memorabilia on the walls like Guinness, Corona, Coors and Molson. You can find all sorts of wall hangings at eBay.com and AllPosters.
* http://www.ebay.com
* http://www.allposters.com
As an affiliate you could sell all the artwork and memorabilia. You could sell other pub related items like dart boards, pool tables and other games. Everything a guy needs to have his own pub at home.
How about brewing kits, beer making books, the history of beer or how it's made? What about CO2 systems, taps, kegs and glassware? I know a guy who spent over five thousand to have a CO2 system installed.
10. Finally… keep your eyes and ears open. Be aware of the advertising around you. Don't tune it out. Think of it as receiving a real-time degree in marketing.
Pay attention to what's being advertised on TV and radio. Check in the mall, the flyers and catalogs. People often buy what they've seen advertised. They recognize the names and brands because of the ads.
Ask yourself, when do beer ads appear on TV? Sporting events! Sell the tickets or jerseys of whatever game happens to be hottest and in the news at the moment.
TIP: If there's four teams left in the finals, sell their uniforms, jerseys and memorabilia on your site, before the playoffs are over! Switch from one sport to another as soon as the finalists are announced. Booze and entertainment are a profitable mix.
Conclusion
So this fourth of July, while you enjoy sipping a cool one, realize that if you can drink beer, you can earn a living doing it. That's all it takes to monetize a beer site. It smells like m-o-n-e-y
That's it for this edition my friends. Thank you for reading. Until next time, here's wishing you all the best for online success.
Michael Campbell
P.S.
You may have heard that Dynamic Linking doesn't work anymore. Google now spiders Javascript and it trashed the nofollow tag for PageRank sculpting.
So what can you do?
Good old fashioned link sculpting with regular links. Some of your friends already know how to do it. It's inside the private site.
Look for Link Sculpting 101 in the Dynamic Media Vault. Membership is less than a dollar a day. I hope to see you inside.