Dan "The Man" Lok, Blogging & More

In the world of Internet Marketing, Dan "The Man" Lok is a household name ... or should that be "cyberspace" name? Dan went from bagging groceries to banking big bucks for his efforts on the internet. He is now a self made multi-millionaire and I had the privilege of attending his seminar this weekend.

The seminar itself was nothing short of fabulous. It was classic Dan - two jam packed days of content, content, content, all by The Man himself. Limited to just 60 attendees the feeling of being in an inner circle was definitely clear and present. Some of what I learned will be covered later on in this series of blogging, some of it will unfold in due time.

I've known Dan for almost three years now. Met him at a friend's BBQ. We spent an hour chatting over a hot grill. I was just starting my internet marketing career, he was well into his, although at the time I had no idea just how well At the end of the conversation his sage advice to me was to blog and publish my articles.

I should have listened to Dan then. As I mentioned in my post Blogging, The First Step to Mastering the Internet, knowing what I know now, I would have started my Internet Marketing career by blogging. I think there is some inborn streak in most of us, we don't listen to our parents and we don't listen to the gurus in our own backyards!

I have also been researching five topics to launch my next blog. I have come up with a good niche market, something I know about and narrow enough that it could qualify for inch-wide, mile deep, but its not something I would want to carry on for the long term. If you are wondering about what that topic might be it is embroidery.

I know something about embroidery having learned it at school --- we started with the most basic stitchery in grade one and by the time we graduated highschool we had learned not only how to make french knots but cutouts, shadow stitchery and tedious cross stitching (the kind you counted by the squares on the fabric, not pre-printed). Amazon carries both books and a decent number of magazines. The term embroidery may be too broad as there are over 28 million results when googled, but I did note that there were sponsored links on the right hand side. Clickbank was a bit disappointing in that it did not seem to have many affiliates to offer and the pricing was low, so low profits.

I could have done more research on the subject, but decided against it for these reasons:

1. Incongruent: I have some 20 sites and blogs in total. Not all are themed, but they are grouped by topic themes. This is good for cross marketing which will be covered down the road. If this is your first blog, don't be concerned. If you already have several blogs and/or websites, a complementary topic is a good idea, an example might be if you have a site on travel, a good complementary topic would be something like canal tours, travel by cycle and so on. You could then post reviews on the various places you can take canal tours, the types of boats/barges/cruises that are available etc.

2. Little Personal Interest: Even though I have a good deal of personal knowledge and could write well on the topic, it is not one that grabs me.

3. Monetization seems to be somewhat limited. The magazines were well priced for annual subscriptions which is good and Google defintely has advertisers, but I was surprised at the somewhat limited affiliates through Clickbank. If I had my heart set on this topic however, I am sure that there are better affioliates that are available with Commission Junction.

4. Product Development : Eventually to up the ante it is a rule of thumb that one should develop a product of one's own. Now this could be something as simple as embroidery patterns that can be delivered digitally to DVDs showing how to execute certain stitches. Absolutely no personal interest.

So that is one down, four to go.

ACTION: Continue checking the viability of your niche.