Stand Apart in the Competitive World of Domains & Hosting

I have recently entered the marketplace for domain name registration and hosting; and boy is it competitive.

Their are thousands of options for hosting and domain name registration and it can be ENORMOUSLY difficult to make your site standout.

Some things I have learned about how to narrow your marketing focus so that you will be able to avoid directly competing with the big boys that offer rates that you cannot.

Niche Market

Find your little corner of the industry and stick to it. By focusing on select groups of people (example: musicians in the united states) then you can market directly to this specific target audience and you are then better able to advertise (whatever method you choose) more effectively.

Niche Marketing and AdWords Advertising

I am currently in the midst of experimental Google Adwords campaigns to hone in on what keywords and ads have the best click and conversion rates - like many will tell you, Adwords is serious stuff and if you are going to try and sell clicks for the keywords "domain name registrar" or "cheap hosting" then prepare to start a bidding war with multi-million dollar web companies.
Is that what you want to do? although you will be hauling in clicks from people who are looking for your exact product - are they going to find it? By using the mainstream keyword you are going to be paying a substantial amount per click and you are going to get terrible placement.

Instead, by Niche Marketing you can target a different audience ( a more specific, refined audience then simply "people who need domains or hosting" and instead target "musicians in the united states who need domains or hosting". By doing this - yes, your are limiting your amount of potential customers - but you are going to get great ad placement if you choose the right keywords for that niche and low cost-per-click.

How to find your keywords

There are many tools available for free online that can help you find the popularity/prevalence of use of certain keywords. I suggest using:
Overture Keyword Selector Tool
and
Google Adwords: Keyword Tool

Believe me, you are better off spending your advertising dollars on longtail keywords and a niche'd target audience then trying to advertise to the entire internet about your dime a dozen ebiz.