How to Research your Niche! - Page 2

fredhopkins · #16 (**permalink**) 04-04-2009, 10:40 AM

One warning about keyword research. Depending on what product you are looking to promote or use as a compare/contrast play, keyword research can let you down.

For example, there is a group of keywords for a product I sell as an affiliate that send about 2000 unique visitors (by themselves) a month to one of my sites. If you did keyword research on them, all of the major tools would tell you that there is little to no searches for this particular product.

I found out about this product from. . . .an infomercial. TV drives lots of traffic to the web. It doesn't have to be an informercial. Let me give you another example of something that makes me money. Ever heard of the TV show "The Biggest Loser"? Well when that show airs, a ton of people run to the web looking for information on the episodes and look for the products mentioned during the show and during the COMMERCIALS!

We position the site to take advantage of the influx when everyone is extremely curious and have a greater likelihood of making impulse purchases. If you do keyword research for that kind of stuff, you will strike out. Same thing with Google trends. Moral of the story is that you want to have many different ways to research a market place. No one way is enough especially if you want to be ahead of the trend. (Oprah has been kind to me too!

)

Here are some other ways:

Forums (I found a $500 a month niche last month by looking at a particular forum)
Niche Magazines
TV Shows
Informercials
Google Trends/Zietgiest
For Dummies or For Idiots books
Amazon.com
Pulse.Ebay.com
Shopping.com
Digg & digg clones
StumbleUpon
Facebook groups
Twitter Search (a bunch of sites keep track of popular Twitter topics!)
Etc.

I could go on but I think you get the point. Again, KW research is important but it is very limited for a number of reasons. Familiar with the concept of click streaming?

Another tip with your products, always think of positioning (compare/contrast/compliment). . .

OK, I am done rambling!

sgtmac66 · #17 (**permalink**) 04-04-2009, 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bluefox

Your site project sounds interesting sgtmac66, wouldn't mind getting the address off you. I served on subs some years ago, oberon class.

Anyway I guess it really depends if your building a page strictly for commercial purposes, or for personal interest or maybe a mixture of both.

Well mate...this is a re-design of a military website I had for years. Last time, it was both a mix of family military history as well as stories furnished by visitors..This new one, will most likely be of the same mix. It will be mostly personal, but also intend for some commercial interest as well.

This time however, instead of just recounting events of our families military history, I am trying to write it as though someone in the family during that era, wrote it down as viewing the events in that time period.

This rendition will have some of my old favorites, such as a grandfathers war-WWI, Jacks AAF (Army Air Force) and Wally's Navy. As your an old swabby, you will be particulary interested in some of the WWI sub info and Wallys Navy.

New to this is our families history in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. I also will put in what I call my AF Days...a lot of stories from basic training to other things...as well as try to get my sons accounts of his time in Afghanistan and Iraq. (Espeically interested in his boot camp experience).

I haven't got the site up and running yet, but if your interested at looking it over later on or contributing, fire me off an email...

Like my last site, I am also interested in personal stories from other military types. Last time, I had a very harrowing account of a B-24 bombers mission, an old salts dairy that he kept after his merchant ship was sunk by the Japanese and an account by a British soldier who fought in British war in the Falklands...all good stuff, lol!

sega009 · #18 (**permalink**) 04-18-2009, 12:32 AM

i believe what has helped me the most is researching on magazines at local bookstores

jonathanfigaro · #19 (**permalink**) 05-18-2009, 03:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by innovative

Hi,
There are various tools you use like keyword discovery and word tracker. These tools will give you an estimation about number of searches for your selected keywords.
http://www.keyworddiscovery.com
http://www.wordtracker.com

Thanks

Thanks for the information!

NapoLoso · #20 (**permalink**) 08-04-2009, 02:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fredhopkins

One warning about keyword research. Depending on what product you are looking to promote or use as a compare/contrast play, keyword research can let you down.

For example, there is a group of keywords for a product I sell as an affiliate that send about 2000 unique visitors (by themselves) a month to one of my sites. If you did keyword research on them, all of the major tools would tell you that there is little to no searches for this particular product.

I found out about this product from. . . .an infomercial. TV drives lots of traffic to the web. It doesn't have to be an informercial. Let me give you another example of something that makes me money. Ever heard of the TV show "The Biggest Loser"? Well when that show airs, a ton of people run to the web looking for information on the episodes and look for the products mentioned during the show and during the COMMERCIALS!

We position the site to take advantage of the influx when everyone is extremely curious and have a greater likelihood of making impulse purchases. If you do keyword research for that kind of stuff, you will strike out. Same thing with Google trends. Moral of the story is that you want to have many different ways to research a market place. No one way is enough especially if you want to be ahead of the trend. (Oprah has been kind to me too!

)

Here are some other ways:

Forums (I found a $500 a month niche last month by looking at a particular forum)
Niche Magazines
TV Shows
Informercials
Google Trends/Zietgiest
For Dummies or For Idiots books
Amazon.com
Pulse.Ebay.com
Shopping.com
Digg & digg clones
StumbleUpon
Facebook groups
Twitter Search (a bunch of sites keep track of popular Twitter topics!)
Etc.

I could go on but I think you get the point. Again, KW research is important but it is very limited for a number of reasons. Familiar with the concept of click streaming?

Another tip with your products, always think of positioning (compare/contrast/compliment). . .

OK, I am done rambling!

HAHAh..yes Oprah is a kind person, and yes i've heard of 'the biggest loser' but never would have tought that it could be a way of making a few extra $ hehe.

Hsekhar · #21 (**permalink**) 08-04-2009, 11:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by themegrrl

The key is to find keyword phrases that have high search volume but low search results. My strategy is to find niches that have a decent amount of demand but little supply

I think this is a good point. But It should be very hard to find a niche of that kind. So we should go with keywords that have good (medium) search volume and low search results, You should also research about the advertiser competition of the keywords.

West · #22 (**permalink**) 08-05-2009, 07:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hsekhar

I think this is a good point. But It should be very hard to find a niche of that kind. So we should go with keywords that have good (medium) search volume and low search results, You should also research about the advertiser competition of the keywords.

This is what I love about SBI! Master Keyword List tool. You would be surprised at how many keywords out there have have a high demand but very low supply. I think a lot of us assume that people are searching for more generic terms rather than detailed and specific ones. I have a lot of high demand/low supply "long tail" keyword phrases that rank high in the search engines, thanks to SBI! providing that information.

It would be better to try your luck at getting noticed for a keyword/keyword phrase that 5000 people regularly search for but only 50 sites provide information on, rather than trying to get noticed for a keyword that 100,000 people search for, but there are already 50,000 sites providing information on it.

HeyTanyJ · #23 (**permalink**) 08-05-2009, 07:34 AM

I always go on popular sites like amazon and ebay and look up there most searched items. This gives me a good idea of what kind of products people are looking for.

bluefox · #24 (**permalink**) 08-05-2009, 08:25 AM

Right on West!
A good way to compare apples with apples is to divide the number of searches per month for a given keyword by the number of competing webpages to give you a ratio, then do the same for another keyword and make a comparison.

This way you’re making a realistic and accurate traffic to competition comparison of keywords in your niche.

It’s too easy to see large traffic numbers and ignore the even larger competition, you really want to perform the least amount of work to gain the greatest possible effect and the best way to do this is to identify underutilized keywords in your niche.

Also its best to use a ‘number’ of keyword and market analysis tools, this will give you some data overlap but you will have a much clearer picture as to the competition and prospective traffic.

Also you want to do some comprehensive competition research of the top five ranking blogs/sites in your intended niche. As this is where keyword competition will peak very sharply.

Simply run a good backlink checker on the domains of the top five sites in your target niche, this will give you a rough idea how much backlinking is necessary to out rank the top ranking sites for your targeted keyword.

Also it’s a great idea to be very mindful of the keywords you’re targeting; sometimes a keyword can lack competition for a good reason. It could be people use that particular keyword or keyword phrase in order to primarily search for free stuff so the keyword is relatively noncommercial.

Also you can find some keywords which may infer that the resultant search traffic is particularly receptive to purchases of products belonging to a much wider keyword range.

Anyway, to get proficient at identifying keywords primed for profit nothing beats practising your keyword researching skills using a number of keyword tools.

By the way Fred, fantastic post!
TV commercials and infomercials are great sources of niche ideas, though I love your entire list!

lisa · #25 (**permalink**) 08-05-2009, 02:09 PM

This is so true. The last time I checked my SBI! stats, I think I got found for like 20,000 (it was some crazy number) different keyword phrases in one month. The majority of those are long-tail keywords.

rob111 · #26 (**permalink**) 08-10-2009, 12:42 AM

I know it may sounds stupid, but i want to know what do u mean by saying "TV shows"?

BreLove · #27 (**permalink**) 09-17-2009, 06:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgtmac66

Well...I am in the begining stages of re-consitituing a military website. I haven't done any keyword searches, for a niche market, as am going to go along with what I already know and love.

I will do a search later on, to see what keywords best describe what I am producing though. This may be a bit backwords, but I like to stick with something I know quite well and love doing.

I know this is from March but I think that maybe a good thing. Since March, what type of results have you gotten from building sites that you love 1st and searching keywords 2nd. Or, did you change your mind in mid stream? Or, are you still working on this concept?

sequencehosting · #28 (**permalink**) 09-17-2009, 06:34 AM

I use the AdWords tool for links but http://www.spezify.com/ will give you a great idea of what is going on in a market.

The website is a seach engine which will only show images. It takes the most popular parts of any niche and displays it.

Really good idea to check it out.

BreLove · #29 (**permalink**) 09-17-2009, 07:25 AM

Will do, thanks! Just switched over to Firefox...having to install Adobe before I can view Spezify. The download appears to want to be a hassle.

BreLove · #30 (**permalink**) 09-17-2009, 07:31 AM

Wow...now this is a GREAT site. My niche, or so I thought, is single mothers but this is definately not the environment I was looking to be associated with. I definitely need to narrow this down.

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