Wednesday, December 3, 2008

The Popularity of the People Search Business

By Samantha Carterson

Just go over to Google or Yahoo and enter "people search" and you'll discover instantly why this is a highly attractive niche. People searching accounts for nearly a third of all the searches done on these two largest search engines. Whether looking for a missing classmate or just trying to get the lowdown on somebody, the activity is enormous and non-stop. And this particular niche is expected to continue to expand for a long time yet to come.

Exactly how do you get into this business? Well, you could certainly create your own website and then spend years and thousands of dollars to develop your search database, but that method would probably not be very practical for most people. A much easier way is to join an already existing business such as an affiliate program.

It's really easy to start with an affiliate program. But how do you choose a good program? It is essential that it include a good training program, and the training should be easily accessible right there in the member's area of the site. The program should have easy setup instructions. And the website should be easy to navigate.

Don't forget to plan out your marketing strategy. Some training should have been given to you by the program owner, but just in case you didn't receive any, here is my basic marketing advice for promoting your people search engine.

You need links to your site and lots of them. Write some articles and get them posted. As a matter of fact, write lots and lots of articles. Google and Yahoo love articles, especially those found on the large article sites. Not only can your articles be on the search engines, but your articles may well be picked up to be used by other websites as well. And that means more traffic to your site. To make money you need as much traffic to your site as you can muster. This method takes time, but it's free and won't break the bank.

Posting ads on free ad forums is another marketing method, at least for those who have the time to do it. It can be effective but it does require a lot of discipline to keep reposting ads all the time. And your ads won't stay on page one very long, so you definitely have to keep reposting them. But it is free to do.

Forum advertising is another free medium that can work. Join some forums, put your link into your forum signature, and start posting in the forums. But don't *spam* -- make your posts informational in nature. Posting ads in these forums will get you banned. Make sure you read the forum rules before you start posting anything.

Next is the topic of paid advertising. The most popular form of paid advertising is paid-to-click with Google and Yahoo being the biggest and most well-known. However, if you are a beginner at internet marketing, proceed with caution, because you can spend a lot of money doing this. And you might lose a lot. Get some help with this by reading some free online articles about Google Adwords. I would also suggest that you sign up for some free newsletters as well. In the meantime, it might be best to stick with free or low-cost advertising as described above.

Do not waste your money on buying traffic. Many of the sites that sell traffic are outright scams whose only purpose is to separate you from your money. A real person will not visit your website; these sites use computer autobots to generate the traffic. Keep your money in your pocket.

I am hoping the very best of success for each and every one of you. All you have to do is get motivated and then get started. - 16069

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