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You are interested in setting up a business working at home on the Internet. You've set your budget and now you're wondering which direction you should take...
Finding A Profitable "Niche Market" Is The Key To Internet Marketing Success!
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What is a niche market?
A niche market is simply a group of people with similar interests and needs. They are very passionate about their topic of interest. Imagine a small pond packed with starving fish; if you have the bait specific to their needs they will like what you have to offer the best. This, in essence, is a niche.
Those who promote a product or site that targets a small, select audience can tap into a market that is otherwise not being served. Despite the limitations of the client base, the targeted nature of the business creates a devoted and active market - the aim of any business.
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But why seek out a niche market?
Well, unless you are a huge corporation with bottomless pockets, niche marketing is the way to go. You see most of the large corporations blow off niche markets because they are not trying to make an additional $1,000 to $15,000 per month like many home-based business entrepreneurs and other small business owners. They are seeking to make millions per month, and niches are too small for them - which is good for you because you won't have to compete with those companies and their massive marketing budgets.
===> FIND A NICHE THAT INTERESTS YOU! <===
Before doing any research on particular niche markets you will need to decide on the type of market that interests you. There are a lot of them on the Internet so it is important to choose the right one for you.
To begin the research it is advisable to start on a broad theme and then drill down into the market. The following is a good starting point to find your potential list of markets to review.
- A market following one of your passions.
- A market within the Internet Marketing (IM) niche.
- A market that follows the high spenders.
The first is obvious. You need to list any, and all the subjects that you feel passionate about, such as hobbies, sports, your work, or any subjects that you are knowledgeable about. If you are passionate about the subject then it would seem natural that you could make others passionate as well.
The second market - IM - is probably the largest market currently on the Internet. Although it is a highly competitive one, do not believe those who tell you that it is "saturated" - there is plenty of room for anybody to carve a niche or offer a "unique selling proposition". There are many niches within the overall IM market, and maybe there would be something that could be of interest. Some of the high flyers in this market are:
- Private Label Rights
- Reselling Rights
- Article Writing
- Search Engine Optimization
- Traffic Generation
- Blogging
- Membership Sites
The third market, high spenders, is one that tempts many newcomers, but they really don't know where to start to look. The key here is to find information regarding which subjects have the most searches made, and there is a high spending value in that market. (Lesson Three.)
Some of the highest money spending markets include the following:
- Dating
- Travel
- Stock Trading
- Diets
- Pets
- Real Estate
Again there are many niche markets within each of the above topics with room to drill down to find the best possible returns.
How Do The Internet Marketing Gurus Find Their Niches?
What The Internet Marketing Gurus Don't Tell You About How They Find Their Hot Niche Markets...
Every experienced Internet marketer knows how important it is to find profitable niche markets. Unfortunately, a lot of what Internet marketing gurus teach about finding niches is very simplistic. It goes something like this:
1. Choose a topic that interests you or that you have experience in.
2. Take the main keyword from this topic and plug it into a keyword research tool.
3. Look at the search count. If it is about 30,000 per month, it's a good niche. If it is below 30,000 searches, there is very little market and therefore it is not a good niche. If it is way above 30,000 searches, there is probably too much competition and therefore it is risky to enter this niche market.
That's it. Based on those three steps, you are supposed to find a niche.
So, what's wrong with it? Actually, nothing - except that it does not go far enough.
Firstly, there is no research into the competition. No step is taken to discover how much competition you face in that niche.
Secondly, there is no research into long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are defined as keyword phrases of at least 4 words (the more words, the better). Every marketer knows the importance of long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords can lead you to lucrative sub-niches. (See Lesson 3.)
Thirdly, there is no research into the tendency of the searchers to buy. It's not only a matter of whether the searchers have money or not. Some people in a particular niche market may have money but are not intending to buy anything.
So here's how the gurus really do their niche and keyword research:
1. Examine your own interests, abilities, knowledge, experiences. Anything from these may be a potentially good niche to market to.
2. Identify what's hot in the market i.e. what is currently the most talked-about thing, what's buzzing or new in town. Is this a potential niche?
3. From the above two steps, identify potential niches. Then run these potential niches through these 'filters':
a. Are people in this niche ready to buy and not merely information seekers or looking for freebies? For example, 'how to score an 'A' in your SAT examination' would probably not be a very lucrative niche because it would interest only students who may not have the money to buy anything much.
b. Is there a problem that the people in this niche cannot solve themselves? Any niche involving technical expertise would nicely fit into this criteria. For example, 'how to solve Windows Vista registry problems' would likely be a good niche because very few people are technologically competent enough to deal with these problems.
c. Do the people in this niche have an urgent crisis that needs to be overcome? The more urgent the better. For example, 'how to stop your teenager's drug habit' is an extremely urgent crisis that begs for answers.
d. Is there an 'evergreen' need in this niche that is not a just a fad? 'How to improve your golf swing' is an evergreen need compared to 'strategies for World of Warcraft' (World of Warcraft is a PC game). Once the fad for World of Warcraft is over, the market in this niche disappears.
Obviously, the more 'yes' answers you get to the above questions the more potentially profitable a niche is.
4. Once you have identified a potentially profitable niche based on the steps above, it is time to look for some long-tail keywords. These long-tail keywords will reveal some sub-niches which you can further profit from. For example, if you type in 'golf swing' into Wordtracker, you would get a whole list of related searches. Look for keyword phrases with four words or more. Some of them are 'stack and tilt golf swing', 'biomechanics of golf swing', 'what is the proper weight distribution during the golf swing' etc.
5. To find out how much competition there is in this niche, simply type in all the keywords you have into Google's free keyword analysis tool. This tool will give you the estimated advertiser competition (which is the same as marketer competition), average search volume for the previous month and average monthly search volume. The great thing is that this tool also gives you synonyms for the keywords which means you get more keyword suggestions. You identify keywords with as little competition but as many searches as possible.
The steps above represent a much more complete way of niche discovery. You will not only find profitable niches but also the relevant keywords that go with these niches. By doing this you make a solid start in your niche marketing.
Your next step will be to find a reliable wholesale supplier or drop shipper. But without the right advice that can be like walking through a minefield. Just because a website is listed on page 1 of Google for your search does not mean that the business is legitimate.
However, there is one service out there that I can wholeheartedly recommend, and that is Chris Malta's WorldWideBrands. WWB is the only wholesale product sourcing service to be accredited by eBay.
WorldWideBrands is not a wholesaler or drop shipper, but a supplier research service. WorldWideBrands has a team of research experts who are constantly searching for honest, good quality suppliers. The suppliers have to meet the stringent list of requirements in order to get placed on one of the WorldWideBrands directories so you can be sure that any supplier you find on the WWB listings will be legitimate and reliable.
How I Found My First Niche Market
In my case, I did not start out online as an Internet marketing start-up expert at all! I began with a very narrow, very specific niche in an area that deeply interested me - mahjong.
I love playing and talking about mahjong, but not just any mahjong. I specifically play Japanese Mahjong. As I live in Japan I am lucky enough to get a lot of opportunities to play Japanese mahjong.
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Mahjong is typically a game for four players, but in the part of Japan where I live, Hiroshima Prefecture, there is also a popular three-player variation.
Now, before I came to Japan I had never heard of three-player mahjong. My Japanese friends taught me how to play the game and eventually I got around to putting the rules down in English and made a website about it.
There was the beginnings of my niche!
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My website was not just about mahjong, which is actually quite a large niche market, but about Japanese mahjong, specifically about the three-player variation.
My website is still the only website on the Internet to deal comprehensively with the Japanese three player version of mahjong in the English language!!
My website attracted quite a lot of interest and I set up a page selling Japanese mahjong sets. The unique selling proposition was that they were "genuine Japanese sets, difficult to find outside of Japan and with no arabic numerals on the face of the tiles" - in other words, these sets were for "real" mahjong players who wanted a taste of the mysterious orient.
I did not expect to sell many sets since the shipping costs are pretty high and the sets themselves do not come cheap either... But, they did, and do, sell.
Next, I added some more niches to my site - more Japanese games, such as Japanese Hanafuda playing card decks, and Japanese chess. Also, I found that new niches would be added according to customer demand! People often mail me and request items and some of them prove to be good sellers, items such as a particular comic series or a range of Japanese pens and so on.
But it all started with a site about Japanese three-player mahjong!!
Thanks to that niche site, I was able to raise a 25% deposit on a property purchase and now live in a pleasant modern detached house in a quiet suburb of Hiroshima!
Never underestimate the power of niche marketing!
David Hurley
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This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
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