SeaWaves Blog

Happy early Thanksgiving!

Here is the US, Thanksgiving is a pretty big deal. Families get together, eat a lot of turkey and pumpkin pie, watch American football, and think about what they’re thankful for.

One of the things I’m definitely thankful for is the internet. I’ve researched SEO, social media marketing, blogging, and internet marketing for about 2 years now. I learned some internet business skills and with those skills, I entered the online business game a couple months ago. I did some freelancing and now I work full-time for Sea Waves. It’s been a learning process. And I’m still amazed that I can make a living working online.

Here are 8 business reasons why I’m thankful for the internet.

1. Global Customer Base

The internet allows you to sell to the whole world. Many niches would not be profitable even in a big metropolitan city. However, these niches become profitable online because the whole world is your customer base. That’s a lot of prospective customers.

Profitable local offline businesses can increase their earnings by going online. I know of a local gaming store that greatly increased their profits by building an online store. They have a good reputation and they leveraged it to create a successful online business.

Also, more people are getting online, so the worldwide customer base is growing.

Read the rest of this entry »

Maki has an excellent post about the difference between niches that deal with information and entertainment niches. When people think of blogging, many of them think blogging is passing on information that people can use in their lives. For example, a weight loss blog gives dieting tips and a business blog teaches you how to increase profits.

But don’t forget about the entertainment niche. Some of the highest trafficked sites have to do with entertainment. For example, celeb blogs get a ton of traffic because celebrity keywords have very high search volumes. And Maki says that entertainment has an advantage over information niches because entertainment taps into the emotion while information works primarily on the mind.

Because of this emotional pull, he writes:

Entertainment sites are inherently easier to monetize and are excellent ways of earning some extra cash.

Then he gives four reasons why the entertainment niche is a very profitable industry. Also, these reasons highlight more differences between the entertainment niche and the information niche. Maki’s four reasons are in bold and the comments after the reasons are mine.

1. Unilateral Content Structure and One-Way Dialog

Probloggers will tell you that engaging your readership is important for building your blog. However, that rule doesn’t apply to entertainment blogs. Visitors of entertainment blogs are looking for the latest news about TV shows, movies, or celebrities. They’re not looking to engage the entertainment blogger. And even though they leave comments, they don’t expect the blogger to respond. In information niches, the readership is much more likely to engage the blogger and except him to respond to their comments.

So, in the entertainment niche, you can basically just report the news and get a lot of traffic. Of course, adding your opinion will build the brand of your blog but it isn’t as important as in the information niche.

Since you don’t have to interact with entertainment visitors, entertainment sites are low maintenance. This will save you a lot of time and you can use that time to earn more money.

2. No Need to Solve Problems, No Need to Provide Specialized Knowledge

Good marketing is based on figuring out your audience’s problems and then providing a solution. But with an entertainment site, you don’t have any problems to solve. Your audience won’t be visiting your site to get solutions to a problem. They’re there to be entertained. So again, you save time in the entertainment niche because you won’t have to do the in-depth market research that’s required to be successful in information niches.

Also, Maki makes a great point about the wide appeal of entertainment sites. He writes:

Entertainment is a flat, one-dimensional niche that only requires you to consistently offer zero-barrier information based on popular and widely established concepts (celebrity brand names etc.). Anyone can enjoy pictures of Christian Bale or Jessica Alba but not everyone is fascinated by a blog about Wordpress.

3. Non-Savvy Audiences Are Great for Conversions

I’m not sure if I fully agree with Maki on this one. Yes, entertainment audiences are more likely to click on an ad because they are less tech savvy and less ad blind than information audiences. However, when it comes to affiliate links, I think entertainment audiences are less likely to convert because they’re not looking to buy. I think information audiences are more in the buying mode.

4. Exceptional Traffic Potential + Ease of Monetization

Like I said before, the potential traffic for entertainment sites is huge. Think about it. More people will search for Britney Spears than social media marketing. More people will search for the latest movie blockbuster than the latest internet marketing product. The entertainment audience is much bigger than niche markets.

Also, monetizing an entertainment site is easy. Maki says that the entertainment visitors don’t mind if the entertainment sites are too commercial and filled with a lot of ads.

Conclusion

If you’re looking to start a site or buy a site, you may want to jump into the entertainment niche. Here are Sea Waves, we have a couple entertainment blogs. These blogs are doing pretty well for us. Feel free to check them out for inspiration in starting your own entertainment site network.

http://popcrunch.com/
http://hiphop.popcrunch.com/
http://style.popcrunch.com/
http://tv.popcrunch.com/
http://celebritycowboy.com/
http://style.celebritycowboy.com/

Read Maki’s whole blog post: Four Reasons Why the Entertainment Niche is Great for Making Money