Niche Marketing is a terrific way to maximize the impact of your Internet Marketing efforts.  Choosing a niche that not only you know is profitable, but that you hold a firm interest in, will help you achieve the best results possible.  Finding the right niche and getting your niche site up and running can be easier than ever by using some of IM Report Card’s top rated niche marketing tools, as rated by our members.

Micro Niche Finder(197 grades, A-)from James Jones is an SEO-oriented research tool that allows you to research keywords and niches. The primary feature of this tool is to allow you to easily discover micro niches that have not been taken full advantage of yet and can easily be dominated. The tool also features an indicator that allows you to quickly get an idea of the competition level.

Keyword Explosion (20 grades, A-) is an info product, spreadsheet database and online researching platform developed by Internet marketer and software program Jonathan Leger. Aimed at Google AdSense publishers, Keyword Explosion focuses on uncovering profitable niches that may make for high paying websites. Mr. Leger brings his considerable search engine marketing experience to bear with this product.

Mony-Tree(19 grades, B+) is an online software niche site builder that helps you create niche websites that are ready for you to start promoting. Through their niche website wizard, you choose from among several different templates and you provide the niche and keywords that you want to use, and the program builds you a niche store around it.

Build a Niche Store (19 grades, B+) is a software program that allows you to build ecommerce sites. The software bases its product displays from the eBay network so you will have to be an affiliate of theirs in order to use it. The intuitive process takes you from choosing a template to a niche store with relevant product listings.

Niche Profit Classroom (42 grades, B) is a membership site created by Adam Short and Alen Sultanic. The membership teaches Internet Marketers how to set up niche businesses even if they are on a limited budget. The site contains video training, is updated with new strategies, and members are given additional support via interviews, teleseminars and webinars.

What good is a website or blog without traffic?  IM Report Card has an extensive list of websites and programs that claim to increase and generate traffic.  Whether through SEO, link exchanges or more, there are several easy ways to start increasing traffic to your website today.  Here is a list of five of some of the highly rated traffic generation sites reviewed on IMReportCard.com.

Traffic Travis (A- grade, 148 reviews) – Experienced internet marketers know that SEO is not as easy as it sounds. For one, you need to have the right frame of mind and be equipped with the right tools. In addition, SEO can involve a lot of investments for tangible results to appear. Fortunately, Traffic Travis can help you succeed in whatever niche you’re involved in.

EasyHits4U (B+ grade, 376 reviews) – EasyHits4You is a traffic exchange that allows members to earn visits to their websites by visiting other members’ websites. This program also offers banner advertising and text ad advertising by assigning earned credits. Bonuses can be earned as well for viewing sites and simply for signing up, and traffic credits can also be purchased through the program.

Article Marketing Robot (A- grade, 17 reviews) – Article Marketing Robot is a traffic generating tool that will show you how to get traffic on complete autopilot through article submissions. Article marketing will not only get you ranked on the major search engines quicker, but it also helps you surpass your competitors. That is where the Article Marketing Robot software comes in, by helping you generate and submit articles that will get your website indexed faster and push you to the top of the search engine rankings.

247TrafficPro (A- grade, 17 reviews) – 247 Traffic Pro offers you quality traffic to help generate sales. Traffic exchanges can be tiring and boring; they make 247 Traffic Pro fun and exciting while delivering quality traffic to your website. To use the service, it doesn’t cost anything. 247 Traffic Pro is not a paid to surf program, but it is a traffic exchange program. When you refer people and they are your direct referral, you get paid recurring income.

Splash Page Maker (A- grade, 15 reviews) – Splash Page Maker is a web-based tool that helps you build splash pages. This program is intended to help Internet Marketers that use traffic exchanges to get traffic to their sites. For people who have no specialized knowledge of HTML or graphic design, Splash Page Maker will make creating your pages a breeze.

Lots of discussions have recently been running concerning the recently introduced Google Authorship. It’s important to understand what Google Authorship is and how it affects your web page’s position on the search engine’s result pages, as well as the Google CTR (click through rate).

What is Google Authorship?

This is a method that Google introduced to give authors the chance to identify themselves as the real owners of a given piece of content. Using the “rel author” markup, you can associate a web page that you have authored with your G+ profile. Author information containing your name, image and G+ information will then start appearing on the Google search engine result pages that contain your web page as one of the search result.

How to implement Google Authorship on your websites

This is a simple process that only takes a few minutes. All you will need is a Google + profile. This is how to do it:

• Log into G+ and go to your profile
• Click on the Edit Profile button
• On the About tab, go to Contributor To link and add the URL of your website, set the permission as public and save
• While still on your profile, copy your profile id (a 21 digit number you will find within the URL in the address bar of your browser)
• In the following html code, replace “your-code” with your profile ID <a href=”https://plus.google.com/your-code?rel=author”>Add to the circle</a>
• Paste the html code with your profile ID in the header section of your website and wait for some time (about 24 hours) for your Google Authorship to start appearing on Googles SERPs

Benefits of Google Authorship to SEO and CTR

Improves Google SEO

Before the implementation of Google Authorship, the sites listed at the top of the SERPs are seen as most relevant and useful, without the ability for users to differentiate which sites are actually the most credible or trustworthy sources of information.  Google Authorship makes it easier for authentic and credible sites to be found.  Additionally, given the rapidly growing social media trends, Google Authorship is making search more social by putting a face and name to the website.

Increases in Google CTR

It is logical that readers are more likely to click on content that has its authorship known than on that which does not. The presence of a profile picture on Google Authorship also helps readers to easily identify your content. So if you have established yourself as an authority in your field, the click through rates even on the other pieces that you have authored will be increased.

Win, win, win?

Sure, there’s a clear objective from Google to build up its Google+ network using Google Authorship, but… so what?  This is a beneficial relationship for 1) people searching on Google and getting better access to relevant, credible content 2) content-based websites trying to rank on Google and 3) Google itself.  It’s an excellent opportunity for smaller blogs with excellent original content, but low rankings in the search engines to gain exposure for themselves in the SERPs and worth taking advantage of!

Posted May 21st 2012 to Blogging,Google SEO,Internet Marketing,SEO • Comments (1)