Niche Marketing: One-Page Wonders and Microsites

Brief coverage of the webmasterworld conference niche marketing panel.
Ted Ulle:
The power of long copy...people either leave with a back button or a buy button. Direct mail showed longer copy works better.

split test your niche sites
80% to your historical best
20% to your test version

• The people who are actually going to put the effort into reading long copy are the most qualified prospects.

• You should write to your BEST prospect, not necissarily to the largest audience. (My sales letter is lacking, and out of guilt I will make it much better soon.)
• As you widen your targets you lose your best prospects.
• Talks about The Tipping Point, and the effects of viral marketing by targeting your most targeted leads
• Talks abut how targeted the copywriting on the MailLoop salesletter is.
• Telling a story in first person is a strong sales technique. You want prospects to visualize the happiness and enjoyment your product will bring them.
• Typeset is important (For example I know I should change the font type on my testimonials to something like Courier New or a newspaper looking )
• create a rhythem of small agreements, and then the final agreement or purchase is much easier to make.

recommended books & authors:

• Herschell Gordon Lewis On the Art of Writing Copy

• John Caples Tested Advertising Methods
• Jay Abraham Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got
• Corey Rudl

Chris Raimondi:
Where to get ideas for niches:
don't throw away junk mail
look at one of the search sites that shows searches as they happen

for small niches sometimes the best way to test is just to put a page up and see what happens

control your visitors before they see your site

asx (I need to find a link) is free software which lets you check your site visitors in real time. customize your content to match their setup focusing on the selling points that work well for them

after people visit an adult site he gives them a popunder, using how would your boss feel about you looking at adult sites during the day and how would your family feel about you looking at adult sites during the night

Usability.gov is a good resource

Talks about eye tracking. Usually people ignore things that look like a banner or the top banner area. back when Chris ran banner farms the second banner position would bet more clicks than the top one.

Jeff Libert:
buys many long targeted domain names for type in traffic. may put sites on them down the road. buys various versions of a URL. they are cheap, and in expensive categories a few clicks a year pays for the cost of it.

pay attention to related areas and emerging technologies to make your business model futre proof

do inventory of things you enjoy.

don't register trademark domains.

recommeds Moniker

type in traffic also shields you from algorithm shifts

FAQ's:
ChrisR gave the example of hearing a person on TV say something like bring back the porn and registered the domain. it pays for itself daily.

lawsuits can be in other areas. the privacy of a hidden domain registration does not protect you against laws. it also might be held against you to make you look even more suspicious or troubling if you are sued for the site.

for search engine love register domains for at least 3 years. use real information on your domains. even if it is not your own details make sure that the phone number and related data work.