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.

2. Global Employee Base

The internet allows you to work with other people from all over the world. I’ve worked with people from the US, India, UK, Pakistan, Canada, and Philippines. I haven’t met any of them in person. Yet because of email and instant messenger, we’re able to create something of value that will make money online.

Right now I’m collaborating with one of my old high school buddies. He’s creating a video product and I’m going to market it. He lives in Las Vegas while I live in Dallas. We do our communicating through email with an occasional phone call.

And don’t forget outsourcing. You can save time by delegating business tasks. Sites like Craigslist, Alibaba, and Elance make it easy to find quality firms and freelancers from around the world. Much of the social media marketing for Sea Waves is done by a small marketing firm in India. Tim Ferriss, author of the bestseller The 4-Hour Workweek, created a business that makes $40,000 a month through outsourcing. His employees are located in different countries.

3. Low Competition

The number of people trying to make money online is increasing quickly. However, online business is still in the infancy stage. Many online businesspeople are not knowledgeable in good online business practices. They are taking short cuts which are causing their sites to be mediocre. If you’re passionate about a niche and if you can produce quality content, you can make money online. There are a lot of sites online, but most of them are not high quality.

Some niches are super competitive, but there are many untapped profitable niches. You’ll have to do market research to find these niches, but when you find one, it’s not difficult to make money from it.

Certain media formats are not being used widely even in the most competitive niches. If you’re good with video and audio, you can compete in most niches. Also, if you teach well, try creating virtual learning environments and membership sites. These type of sites are rare yet there is a good market for them.

Finally, many internet marketers are working alone. If you find someone to collaborate with, you’ll add more value to your business and blow away your competition.

4. Low Barrier of Entry

The overhead for an online business is much lower than offline businesses. Think about the cost of setting up a website:

• Domain name: $10
• Content Management System: free (if you use WordPress)
• Hosting: $10-$50 a month
• Web Design: one time payment that varies greatly but it shouldn’t be more than a couple hundred dollars

Now think about the cost of an offline business. Equipment can easily run in the thousands of dollars and lease payments will make huge dents in your budget.

5. Work at Home

Can you say, “No more commute”? That alone saves much time for many people. You save gas, which can be a huge savings. And if you have a family, you can see your kids and spouse more often.

6. Work Anywhere

This is similar to the last reason but it’s still a little different. I have a dream of moving to Costa Rica and living on the beach, but I have too many friends where I live. As long as there is internet access, you can move there and work.

7. Work Anytime

If you’re a night person, sleep in and work late. If you love mornings, wake up early and get your work done so you can enjoy the rest of the day. Your schedule is super flexible with online work.

8. Precise Metrics

Want to know about your niche audience, your visitors, or your competitors? It’s easy to get relevant metrics through internet tools.

With keyword research tools like Google’s tool, you can find out what people are search for. With traffic stats software like Performancing Metrics, you can precisely figure out which keywords are sending you traffic.

You can use javascript code on landing pages to learn the conversion rate of specific keywords. You can use split testing to compare the effectiveness of different landing pages. You can use pay per click to quickly send traffic to your site to test keywords, landing pages, and customer feedback.

These tools help you see what works and what doesn’t work.

Conclusion

I find that with increased gratitude and thankfulness I get more motivation to do well in online business. I don’t want to take for granted this huge opportunity to make money online.

Why are you thankful for the internet?

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