Choosing the right market – Geek Free Guide

1. What overall market are you in?

The market that I plan to target with this new website is people who are researching online with the intention to buy gadgets and tech products i.e. laptops, ebook readers, mp3 players etc

2. Have you chosen a sub-market to target (ie based on demographics, geography, interests etc)

Yes, I have chosen a sub-market. There are lots of gadget review sites out there for “techies” – but I want to bring something new to people who aren’t all that technically minded and just want to be able to read a Plain English review of a product to find out whether it meets their needs, rather than being blinded by Geek Speak! So my segment is those people who need to buy gadgets but whose eyes glaze over when you start talking about RAM, solid state hard drives and terabytes.

3. Is there a particularly under-served segment of this market you could address?

I think this is an under-served segment. As I say the big tech blogs are aimed at the Geeks but there aren’t many sites aimed at the “man on the street”. I’ve carried out some research and the closest competitor in the UK is Which? who offer access to their product reviews for a subscription fee. The other sites are either Geek sites or are they are Xfactor or Info Product Killer style review sites that just scrape information from Amazon and encourage people to buy through an affiliate link.

4. How strongly do you care about this market?

Is this the kind of thing I think about in my free time? Yes. I’m a big gadget lover and I’d much rather spend my spare cash on the latest bit of technology than drinking it away in the pub

I’m looking forward to building this site because it means I get to spend even more time reading about the latest technologies.

5. Are you good at helping people solve problems in this market?

I think so. My “real job” is all about taking technical jargon and converting it into Plain English to help the layperson understand what they need to do. Friends and family come to me for recommendations of which products they should buy when they want to invest in technology.

6. Is there evidence that people are searching for solutions?

Yes, if they weren’t I wouldn’t be wading through those thin affiliate sites on Google.

USP and Differentiation – Geek Free Guide

1. What would be your honest answer if a customer asked you: “Why should I spend time on your site instead of one of the others when they’re all on the same topic?”

“You are right, there are many websites to choose from if you want to find out more about gadgets. But the majority of them are written for people who are fluent in Geek Speak. Here at the Geek Free Guide we help you choose the gadget or electrical product that is right for you, and we do that without blinding you with technical jargon. So if talk of gigabytes and terabytes make your eyes glaze over then you should head straight to the Geek Free Guide when shopping for gadgets!”

You have been reading Traffic School: Market, USP and Differentiation Part 2 from our site Seven Somewhere, it would be great if you would stop by and let us know what you thought :)

The homework for this lesson is made up of a site critique and then an action plan which Corbett says are critical to my success in the Traffic School programme. Previous homework has been quite simple to complete, just answering the questions that were posed. This activity required me to go away and think seriously about the market that I want to be in. In fact I’m not 100% sure I have the right answers right now so I may continue to ponder these as I move onto the next lessons…

Choosing the right market – Operation Pixie Dust

1. What overall market are you in?

My website targets people who are planning a vacation to Disney World.

2. Have you chosen a sub-market to target (ie based on demographics, geography, interests etc)

No I haven’t – I try and make the content quite open so that it meets the needs of everyone. And I think that might be part of my problem!

3. Is there a particularly under-served segment of this market you could address?

I spent some time yesterday thinking about segments and whether I could target them. Here’s what I came up with:

• Families with small children – I have no experience of this so while it is a segment I wouldn’t want to target it. Plus there are other sites already doing so.
• Adult only travellers – my husband and I fall into this segment on paper, but in reality we don’t do the same activities as other adult only travellers. ie we don’t eat in the fancy restaurants or do spa treatments or play golf. We hit the parks and pretend we’re kids again lol
• Fans looking for news and updates – I personally fall into this category, but I wouldn’t be best placed to serve it. There are already a number of strong sites serving this segment and doing a wonderful job. Plus they’re based locally and do this full time.
• UK travellers – I fall into this segment too, and UK travellers tend to spend longer on holiday in Orlando than US travellers so their needs are different. There is one site already serving this segment exclusively, but I think that it is one I could target.

4. How strongly do you care about this market?

Disney World is a personal passion of mine so I care strongly about this market.

5. Are you good at helping people solve problems in this market?

Yes, friends and family often ask me for advice before they travel to Orlando on holiday. In fact this is one of the reasons why I’m thinking about narrowing my target market to UK visitors. Because when they ask for advice I give them a copy of my books but then I also end up writing long emails and lists of other information that I think is useful to them but which isn’t on my website – because that is aimed more at the US audience.

6. Is there evidence that people are searching for solutions?

Yes, I already have evidence in the form of my own site traffic and product sales. Plus there are other sites in this market with thousands of followers.

7. Taking all of this into account can you improve your choice of target market? Make notes of potential changes or improvements.

I think that I could definitely improve my targeting, especially if I target UK travellers who have a different set of needs. I checked my traffic stats in Google Analytics and people from Orlando represent the third highest group of visitors to my site, but I don’t have any content specifically for their needs. And I don’t really want to target “locals” which might be why my bounce rates aren’t great.

The second highest group of visitors are from London, so I do already reach this segment of the market.

One of the things I need to consider though is my hosting arrangements. I have a dotcom domain for this site and it is hosted in the US. Obviously search engines won’t be my only form of traffic but they are currently my main source and I think I may need to switch to UK hosting if I want to rank well in the UK search engines.

Also I need to think about my revenue streams. Adsense is ok obviously as it localises already. I currently promote the US versions of my Kindle books but they are available in the UK store too so that just involves some link switching. Then I need to think about my Travel Agent affiliation. They are based in the US so I need to check whether they can service UK customers who are just looking for a Disney Resort and tickets. I am already part of the Virgin Atlantic affiliate scheme but I need to join the Virgin Holidays scheme so I can promote package holidays.

USP and Differentiation – Operation Pixie Dust

Corbett talls about how important it is to be different from the competition, to give a visitor a reason to choose your site or product over someone else’s, otherwise you just fall into the “me too” box. Better content or better products doesn’t count as being different.

1. Have you ever thought about what makes your site different to your competitors?

No I don’t think I have really. I started out the site as a blog just to share my experiences, and over time it morphed into something much bigger that I have been driving an income from. I’ve been concentrating on how to make the site look better and be easier to navigate rather than why I’m different from the other competition.

2. What would be your honest answer if a customer asked you: “Why should I spend time on your site instead of one of the others when they’re all on the same topic?”

Right now, with my site as it currently stands I think any answer I gave to that question would be pretty lame.

3. What can you offer uniquely that no other site is offering?

I can give UK visitors the information they need to get the most out of their two week holiday to Orlando. Help them decide the best way to get there, where to stay, how much they can realistically expect to see and do in that time. There is only one other website targeting the UK visitor and it’s actually a forum rather than a content driven website.

4. Now revisit the question: What would your honest answer be if a customer asked you: “Why should I spend time on your site instead of one of the others when they’re all on the same topic?”

I want to be able to say: “There are many websites out there full of information about planning a Disney World ‘vacation’, but as a UK visitor planning a holiday in Orlando your needs are different. Here at Operation Pixie Dust we share our personal experiences to help you choose the best time to go, the best place to stay and the best things to see and do so that you get so much out of your two weeks that you want to go back next year!”

You have been reading Traffic School: Market, USP and Differentiation from our site Seven Somewhere, it would be great if you would stop by and let us know what you thought :)

In the interview Leo talks about how Zen Habits came about and it was because he wanted to share what he had learned about living a simplistic and frugal life with others online – not because he wanted to make money from the website. He only made a conscious decision to see if he could quit his job and earn enough to sustain his lifestyle from the blog when he saw how successful it was becoming.

This struck a chord with me because I set up Operation Pixie Dust for similar reasons;because I wanted to help people have more enjoyable Disney World vacations by sharing the tips and strategies I had learned. It was never to make money. The difference between me and Leo is that when I decided to monetise the site I didn’t make enough money to quit my day job!

Now onto the related homework for this task…

1. Have you ever measured the effectiveness of your efforts to grow your site?

The simple answer to that is no. Because I’m not sure I’d even know how to measure the effectiveness. I can measure traffic, but could I tie that back to specific tasks I had undertaken? I don’t think so. Although one thing I have seen is that if I stop posting to the site regularly my traffic dies off.

2. Do you spend a lot of time pursuing the same strategies or just jump from one thing to the next?

I’m guilt of jumping I’m afraid. I think that’s part of my problem. Instead of finding what works and then doing the old “rinse and repeat” I go off looking for other activities I could do instead. Lack of focus could be my middle name…

3. How focused is your site’s design? Do you think about how each visitor interacts with the various elements? Do you have priorities for what you would like visitors to do?

I’ve recently redesigned the site but I still have some work to do. I’ve tried to categorise the content into three distinct areas: thinking about a Disney vacation, booking a vacation and then planning what to do when you get there. I’m not sure it’s really 100% clear to the visitor how that works though.

I’d like visitors to either book a vacation through my affiliated travel agent or buy my Kindle book to learn more about planning a vacation. But right now I don’t think I’m achieving either of those goals effectively.

4. Make a list of the five lowest-level things you’re doing on the site each week – things you spend time on but don’t get a return from. Then stop doing them and see what happens…

I can’t really do this task because to be honest I haven’t been working on this website for a while now. At least I haven’t developed any bad habits I need to stop!

You have been reading Traffic School: Simplicity and Focus from our site Seven Somewhere, it would be great if you would stop by and let us know what you thought :)

Here’s the homework:

1. Why did you (or are you planning to) start your site?

Let’s start with Operation Pixie Dust. I started that site three years ago now because I love going to Disney World and over the years I have read countless books and forum posts and I’ve learned all the tricks and strategies to beating the lines, saving money and mostly just having a magical vacation. What makes me sad is seeing people who show up at the parks in the middle of the day with no clue what to see and just end up missing out on most of the magic.

So I came home from a vacation and decided to start a blog to show people how to do a Disney World vacation the right way. Heck it costs enough to go why on earth would you want to have a terrible time?

Now onto Geek Free Guide. I’ll be honest with you, I’ve been thinking about starting this site for a couple of months now and the reason behind it was because I want to increase my Amazon commissions. So yes, I admit I’m driven by income, which of course is not the right mindset to have!

2. Why did you choose the topic your site is about? Are you interested in the topic, or do you see it merely as an opportunity?

Well that question is easy for OPD, because I’m more than “interested” in the topic, I’m passionate about it and will talk the hind legs of a donkey, or anyone else who’ll listen

Now for GFG yes I do see it as an opportunity, but I also am interested in the topic. I’m a gadget lover and one of my friends asked me for advice on the best digital radio to buy because she calls me a techie. I had no idea as I’d never bought one but I did some research and gave her some options. That’s when I thought that I could build a website giving non-techie people the geek-free scoop on gadgets, to help them choose what’s right for them without blinding them with geek speak.

3. How long do you anticipate this project existing for? Is this something you’re committed to for the long-haul or are you looking for a short term win?

I’m in it for the long-haul for both sites, they both currently have three year contracts on their domain names and since I am a Disney Vacation Club member I have another 40 years of Disney trips ahead of me

4. Do you genuinely want to help (or entertain, or both) your visitors?

Yes – I want to pay it forward and help people plan fabulous Disney vacations, and I want to help people understand which gadgets are best for them and which they should just leave on the shelf!

This exercise has definitely been useful, especially for GFG. I need to enter that project with the right mindset, and that is first and foremost I want to help people choose the right technology for them, if I can get that right then the income should follow.

Over to you…

I got a lot of value out of answering these questions. If you want to do the same feel free to use the comment box below – I’d love to read your answers.

Oh and if you want to join Traffic School and benefit from the training as a whole rather than just my homework you better head over their quickly as there are only 30 places left.

You have been reading Traffic School: What’s your traffic mindset? from our site Seven Somewhere, it would be great if you would stop by and let us know what you thought :)

Corbett walked us through the basics of GA and while I didn’t learn anything new about what’s inside it has prompted me to pay more attention to my stats. I need a baseline to work to so that I can see how my traffic is improving over the next few months as I implement the strategies I learn in Traffic School.

I’m going to focus my efforts on two websites during my Traffic School experience, the first has been around since 2008 and is an information site with existing revenue streams including Kindle book sales, Adsense and affiliate commissions. The second is brand new, I only bought the domain yesterday, and will the revenue streams will hopefully be via Amazon commissions with some Adsense perhaps.

[Note: I was debating whether or not to post the actual websites here as doing so might skew the figures a little, but then I want this to be a case study as well as my progress journal so what the heck (I don't think anyone's actually reading this anyway lol)]

Oh and since I’m starting the course on July 12 I’m going to report June’s figures.

Onto the June traffic stats…

1. Operation Pixie Dust

This site has been around since early 2008 and used to have a healthy flow of traffic, and then a couple of months ago it really started to tail off. I’m not sure if it has anything to do with Panda but I’m looking forward to refocusing my efforts on this site and nursing it back to health!

Google is currently my main source of traffic, with other sources in the top ten being search engines too. Not surprising really since I have been focusing on SEO to drive traffic to this site.

I do also receive referral visits from Wishlist and this is because I have a membership area which uses the Wishlist member plugin. It was listed in some awards that they ran last year and now appears on their showcase site. Corbett makes a distinction between the different types of traffic and I need to focus on targeted traffic; people coming over from Wishlist will be potential customers of their looking for ideas of what they can do with the plugin, I doubt many of them are actually interested in Disney vacations!

Next up let’s look at visitors. As I say the number of visitors used to be much healthier than this but it’s really dropped in recent months.

Now I’ve been beating myself up in recent weeks about Panda and what on earth have I done to my website, but if we move to look at trends over time we get a different picture… For some reason my stats only go back to March 2010, I think that may have been when I switched domain names and I must have started a new Analytics tracking code. But look at this graph, year on year my traffic is higher than last year but it looks cyclical.

While the information on my site has a range of information from thinking about going to Disney to booking and then planning what to do when you get there, the most popular content is in the thinking/booking area. And I wonder if people start to think about going to Disney during the winter months, with traffic peaking in early January to coincide with special offers and plans for the New Year.

Ok let’s go back to June 2011 and have a look at the top ten performing pages.

I was expecting that particular page to be Number 1 because it is the one that I have dedicated time to promoting. It actually appears twice in this list because I switched my theme during June to the Penthesilea theme and in doing so I decided to change the URL of that particular post (with a 301 redirect from the old URL).

It receives significantly more traffic than the second page which is where I give away some autograph pages that I created. Note I said giveaway; I used to use that page as a gateway into my membership programme because I offered the pages as a bonus to people who signed up. I stopped the programme last year and moved to offering the content in a Kindle book instead so for the time being I’m just giving the pages away. This might change again as I learn more from Traffic School!

I also have quite a few Page Not Founds which are from a three day period in the middle of June when I had a technical issue and lost some of my media files from WordPress (including the autograph pages). That page shouldn’t appear in the listing next month (July).

Again How to Celebrate your Birthday appears twice because I decided to alter the URL, this one is popular because people search for terms relating to free Disney birthday passes (a one off promotion they ran a couple of years back) and this page ranks for those terms as it’s about Birthdays at Disney World.

Health Assessment

Well yesterday I would have said that my traffic health at OPD was terrible, but now it looks as if it’s actually not that bad and that my traffic is seasonal. I’m going to try and track down some older stats to prove/refute that theory.

There is definitely improvement to be made though and I would like to double my year on year traffic over the course of the next six months.

I have a decent level of traffic coming from search engines already, especially Google, but it is dangerous to rely on such traffic so I want to spend my time looking at other methods to bring people to the site. I’d also like to increase the time they spend on each visit and the number of pages they view. It would be good to have more people come back regularly too!

Site 2: Geek Free Guide

As I say, this one hasn’t even been unwrapped yet so traffic reports will start in July.

You have been reading Traffic Reports – June 2011 from our site Seven Somewhere, it would be great if you would stop by and let us know what you thought :)

Having spent the last few weeks in the Hustle Project with Corbett Barr I’ve been thinking seriously about the direction I need to take my business. My biggest obstacle right now is traffic. And I don’t want to learn about black hat – throw up a thousand links over night and see what sticks – strategies. I want to do this the right way – and Traffic School is going to show me how to do that.

It’s an investment at just shy of $600 but it’s one I’m ready and willing to make right now. Corbett is a great guy and he has some other brilliant people lined up to show us the ropes. In fact I’ve already had my expectations exceeded thanks to an email exchange I had with Corbett, as I was waiting for the email with the joining instructions to hit my inbox he sent me an email welcoming me on board. And before you say “bet it was a canned email responder” it may well have been, but the email he sent me in response to my response back to him wasn’t!

I’ll be tracking my progress here in the coming weeks and months but I thought I’d let you know the doors were open in case you wanted to join too.

Here’s the link to the “sales page”. Oh and that’s not an affiliate link.

You have been reading I’m the newest member of Traffic School from our site Seven Somewhere, it would be great if you would stop by and let us know what you thought :)

Source: The Hustle Project

I found this discussion really interesting because I skipped over selling services and went straight into selling products and affiliate marketing.

The benefit of selling services is that you can generate a full time income quite quickly, the trade off is that it’s very hands-on. Selling products and affiliate marketing take longer to build up an income, but once you do it’s quite passive.

At the moment I’m focusing on the passive models because I work full time and therefore I’m building an online business in the spare few hours I have each week.

I have been giving some serious thought to the Selling Services revenue streams since this webinar and I think it is something that needs to be built into my long term strategy but I don’t feel like I can build it in right now because I can’t necessarily devote the time to clients.

Onto this week’s “homework”…

1. What services could I add to my business to diversify my income stream?

The simple answer to that is web design services, I could help people to improve their online businesses by designing and building websites. This is what I’ve been considering but right now it’s not the right time for me to introduce it.

2. If I had to create a product what would it be?

I already have a number of fixed price products; the Penthesilea theme and my two Disney vacation planning Kindle books, so really I should be thinking about bigger-ticket products, or continuity programmes.

I tried a continuity programme for my Disney vacation planning before and the uptake was terrible. You can’t really drip feed information to someone planning a vacation because they want to be able to access it at their own pace depending on how much time they have before their trip!

I do have an idea for a product that would bring in a monthly income, but if it’s alright with you I’m not going to share it here. The idea is still in its infancy and I think it could fill a gap in the market but it will take a few months to develop and launch it.

3. If I had to pick one niche or product to affiliate with what would it be?

I suppose I would go with my heart and stick with Disney vacations as a niche. I am passionate about the subject and there are a variety of income streams available to me in the form of my own product, my affiliation with a travel agency and other products I can promote.

I need to accept that I am already in the right niche for me and focus on building a business within it, instead of jumping around looking for other areas to move into!

4. What’s my crazy idea, my big dream, my special ops project?

Sticking with my “Disney vacations is the right niche for me to be in with my business” decision the thing I’d really love to do isn’t actually all that crazy. I’d like to be a Disney vacation planner. As in travel agent. Helping people plan an amazing vacation to Disney World from end to end. Not just helping them find a good deal on their hotel and tickets, but helping them tailor a vacation to suit them, giving guidance on what they should see and do, and giving them the tips and strategies they need to be able to see everything that want to and have a wonderful time.

It’s not actually that crazy an idea, so one day maybe I’ll actually do it

What about you? Do you have a crazy ambition or a big idea that you’d like to see come true? I’d love to hear what it is – the comment box is all yours!

You have been reading The Hustle Project: Products & Services from our site Seven Somewhere, it would be great if you would stop by and let us know what you thought :)

The Group is called The Hustle Project and it’s just a group of people who are trying to build online businesses being “mentored” by these two great guys who are successful – really successful – in their online activities. Every couple of weeks they run a really insightful webinar talking about various stages of a business strategy and sharing their own experiences of what worked for them.

So anyway, enough background, we’re a few weeks in and so far I’ve been “thinking” about the homework tasks they’ve set, but I’ve not done anything concrete. So as this is supposed to be my accountability journal I’m going to start documenting my homework tasks here.

Webinar 1: Choosing/refining a market for my online business

Homework activity 1:

I’m at a cocktail party and someone asks me what I do for a living. How do I answer?

How does that make me feel?

How would I like to answer that question?

That’s kind of tricky too, because I’m not 100% sure where I want to take my business, which is why I’m in this Group I’d like to say something along the lines of: “I work with small businesses and individuals to help them reach out to people using the internet. I design great websites which are easy on the eye and easy to navigate, so that people can find the information that they need to solve their problems.”

Homework activity 2:

If I had just five minutes to help someone in their life or their business what would I do?

Seriously? Just five minutes? Can’t really do anything life-changing in five minutes. But here’s what i could do.

I could give you a quick lowdown of the things you need to do to make sure you beat the crowds if you’re off to Disney World (but I wouldn’t be able to shut up after just five minutes!)

I could give you a recommendation of a great book to read.

I could tell you how not to drive traffic to your website.

I could tell you how to add tracking tags to your Amazon links so you knew which website or even page sent the visitors.

I could tell you about WordPress and why it’s the best CMS for building websites.

I could have a look at your website and give you some ideas for how to improve it.

Okay… turns out I could do quite a lot if you had a problem and we had just five minutes!

Homework activity 3:

How could I explain my package, brand, product, or idea to my mum?

My mum is at the opposite end of the Geek spectrum from me, she’s not great with the Internet or technology. I’d probably tell her that: “I want to design websites for people to help them get more customers” or “I teach people how to make money with Amazon”, or “I share the things I’ve learned from endless Disney holidays so that other people can enjoy the parks too without getting hot and tired and cranky standing in lines.”

Turns out I do a lot online already, but my brain is always buzzing with ideas and I need to pick one to focus on!

Feel free to answer any of these questions down there in the comments – I’d love to hear your answers. I’ll be back in a while with the homework tasks from Webinar 2.

Oh and if you want to join the group yourself the doors are still open via this link.

You have been reading The Hustle Project: Developing my online business from our site Seven Somewhere, it would be great if you would stop by and let us know what you thought :)