SEO, Social Marketing, Online Niche Business – Denise Sanger

Many women ask me how I got started in business for myself. It was not an easy road in the beginning but I learned so much along the way and after a while, it was easy to repeat it over and over. A bit like lather, rinse, and repeat. But there were many, many bumps and setbacks along the way. If I only knew then what I know now!

I’ve been in the toy industry for 25 years. Still am. I own a wholesale toy business and a complimentary retail toy business focused on outdoor toys. These two businesses are actually very good examples of how I became successful in online businesses. They are both “Niche” businesses so to speak.

The wholesale business is focused on summer gifts and toys such as wholesale pool toys, wholesale beach gifts, and sea shell jewelry for gifts shops. The retail toy site is the right hand consumer division of the wholesale site and focuses only on outdoor toys and activity toys. The retail site also is the consumer sales arm for our very popular beach products.

The wholesale business focuses only on water toys, beach toys, and beach gifts. If you look up the traffic for the term “toys”, you will find that there are 124,000,000 searches monthly for that term. But realistically, how many people are looking to open their wallets when they type in the term toys? Further, how quickly do you think a website can rank for this very competitive term?

Now this is where it gets fun. Looking further down the list you will see baby toys, outdoor toys, toddler toys, and many more. The more specific the term, the less traffic there is HOWEVER there is still very significant traffic actively searching for these items. A person searching for toys isn’t ready to make a purchase but a person searching for toddlers outdoor toys is actively looking for something to buy to fit a need that they currently have.

Does this get your mind thinking? Take a few moments and jot down things and ideas you are interested in then go to Google Keyword Tool (you can do a search on Google for this tool) and just take some time and look at the amount of traffic for that idea or product. Remember, start with the most basic term. In the example above, my basic term was toys. Your idea may be for kitchen cabinets or baby clothes – something that interests you. This is only an exercise to get you actively thinking of a niche that you can begin to build your home based online business around.

Questions? Thoughts? Let me know! When I got started, there really were no mentors out there. My goal is to help you get your successful online venture up and started quickly.

P.S. If you would a program to help you find the perfect niche, I strongly recommend Niche Blueprint I’ve used it over and over and over with tremendous results. To see a demo of this great product,Click Here!

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If you want your own business but do not know where to look or how to start, this may be the course you’re looking for. With an easy to follow format, you will receive a new lesson every week for 12 weeks. The course will cover how to select a business, researching your niche market, where to find product, should you use dropshippers, easy shopping carts to sell your product, setting up your website to rank, and more. This course is $97 per month and you will receive a lesson every week with easy to follow steps to make sure you stay on track. You can also add personal coaching by Denise that will help you get over the bumps in the road as you are building your online business.

Running a business may not be for you. There will be work involved in getting your business up and running then profitable. If you are looking for quick fix, this isn’t it. There is no such thing. But if you’re truly looking to learn how to create and run a successful online niche business, this course is for you.

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With the economy so crazy right now and most people struggling to make ends meet, it’s a wonder anyone starts a new business.  But it’s actually a perfect time to start your own online business.  Want to know why?

1. The internet is worldwide – you literally have millions of people all over the world ready and eager to buy what you’re selling.
2. The overhead of starting an online business is extremely low.  You don’t need to rent an office or warehouse and many times you don’t even need to carry inventory.
3. Many people turn right to the internet when they lose their current day to day jobs.
4. If you’re one that has recently lost your job, do you really want to go back and make someone else rich?
5. You control your own destiny.

What are you waiting for?

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I just returned from the Surf Show trade show in Orlando and had a great time.  The best things about traveling to trade shows besides meeting existing and new customers  are visiting new cities, eating at restaurants you’ve not visited before and just getting away from your day to day schedule.  Before I left for this trip, I scheduled all of my article launches with Ezine Articles, Submit Your Article, Hub Pages, and Squidoo so that my article marketing program continued as if I were in the office.

Many people wonder how writing articles will help them in the promotion of their website and this is probably one of the most asked questions I hear.  Articles are WONDERFUL for incoming links to your website.

A few tips to help you with articles:

1.  When writing articles, take a few moments to think about your title.  By incorporating your keywords into the title of your article, you can rank quickly in the search engines for these terms.

2.  If you’re looking for incoming links, start with the long-tail keywords then work up to your main keywords.   It’s easier to rank for the long-tail keywords than the more competitive keywords – plus, the long tail keywords generally convert better because these words match the search query that your customers are using.

3.  The best places to place articles are Ezinearticles.com, I-Snare, Squidoo, and Hub Pages.  These are the BEST places for getting links to your website.

Bottom line, article marketing provides an incredible boost to your website marketing program. Schedule time into your week to publish articles at least to Ezine and you’ll see positive results in your website.

Until next time!

Denise

Popularity: 30% [?]

Often when I begin my day in my home office, I remember rushing around in the morning to get my girls off to daycare then later school then sitting in traffic trying to get to work.  Not a very pleasant memory!  This is one of the main reasons why I love working from home – my commute is now less than 1 minute.

Another reason is flexibility.  My younger daughter is now a senior in high school and of course we had to get her senior pictures.  The company scheduled her appointment at 1:45 p.m.  If I still held a “J-O-B” I would have had to take the afternoon off to make sure we got to her appointment on time.   Over the past several years I have been one of the lucky moms that could go on field trips with my girls and some of these field trips were amazing!  If I were still working in an office, I would have missed the trip with my older daughter where we went snorkling over a reef in the Florida Keys and many other field trips.  Flexibility is truly the answer to having balance in your life.

Now that I’ve realized how lucky I truly am, my goal is to help other stay at home moms be able to have the same experiences that I have.  Bookmark this site for more tips and ideas for starting your home based business and my internet business course.  Sometimes it is just a matter of finding the right niche product to get you started!

Questions?  Please email me – I’m here to help.

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What exactly is a momtrepreneur?  It’s okay if you’ve never heard of this term as it’s relatively new but chances are you already know a momtrepreneur.  A momtrepreneur is a mom who not only has a family, but has a successful business too!

This is the woman that is able to help out at school doings, drive the car pool yet always seems to have it together.  How does she do this?  Momtrepreneurs are especially talented at multitasking.  These are the women that you see checking their emails on their Blackberry while waiting to pick up their kids.  These woman are not only the best multitaskers, they are also very dedicated to balancing family and business and are some of the most successful woman that I have ever met.

How do you become a momtrepreneur?  Do you want to be able to schedule your day around your children?  I wish I could have done that when my children were younger but I have successfully been able to do this for the past 5 years.  Now my oldest daughter is a senior at FSU and my younger daughter is a senior at the local high school.  When my children were younger, it wasn’t so easy to start a business outside of selling makeup or other products people didn’t really want.

What did I do?  I found a niche business that enabled me to quickly build a business in the wedding industry selling wedding favors then later wedding jewelry.  I have since sold both of these businesses and several others for nice chunks of change.  You see, I like to build the business but when the business gets to the point that it’s taking up so much of my time that it’s time to hire employees, I decide that it’s time to sell it and stash some of the money and reinvest some of the money into a new business.  Today, I own a wholesale toy and wholesale gift business along with an online outdoor toy store and we warehouse inventory.    You may want to build a business like mine that you will own the rest of your life, hiring employees, and handling inventory.   It’s really your choice.

BUT, before you go further, decide what it is you really want out of your business.  Do you want to be involved 100% in the day to day operations or will you be okay with hiring a virtual assistant as your front line person?  Do you want to inventory or do you want to drop ship the merchandise from your supplier to your customer?

Stop right now and jot down what it is you realistically want from your business then bookmark this blog and I’ll help you achieve the business of your dreams.

Until next time….

Denise

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I just checked some stats on Suwannee County Florida and it advises that 75% of the kids graduate from high school.  Not sure if that is a valid number or not, but I can tell you that many kids my daughter started high school with in 8th grade are no longer in school in 11th grade because they’ve dropped out for one reason or another.  It’s 2009 – why does this continue to happen over and over again?

The really sad part?  Most of the kids that drop out sit at home and do absolutely NOTHING all day long.  Nothing.   Why?  Because they have no means of getting anywhere, no computer to continue their education and many do not have phones in their homes.  To me, that’s a waste of a future.

The kids drop out for various reasons including pregnancy, suspension, and boredom.  Many people tend to believe that kids should be celibate and the local school only teaches abstinence.  Unfortunately, that’s not practical and doesn’t provide kids with the information they may need to protect themselves not only from pregnancy but also from disease.

These kids and young women need help but with the economy the way it is social services are being cut further and further.  What to do?  All of us need to stand up and help these women and try to break the cycle.  Personally, I am offering to mentor young women in my area.  Simply email me at denise@usapooltoy.com and tell me about you and your circumstances.   It is important to note that I will not do the work for you but will be available to listen and guide to help you either become a business owner like myself or help you prepare for a job in the near future.

Ready?  Just do it – email me at denise@usapooltoy.com

My businesses:

USA Pool & Toy
New Cool Toys Online

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