Hi All, First of all, this is my first post here so go easy... I've been researching SEO now extensively for about 2 months, bought some eBooks, etc.. All with the goal of starting my own online business. But one thing I'm not quite sure is this -- how do I know what to sell? I know some folks say you should sell something consistent with your interest, hobbies, etc. And that makes sense to me. Put more succinctly, how do I know or how can I estimate whether or not a particular market/product will be profitable? I have a specific product idea to sell. The #1 search phrase I'd ideally like to rank for shows over a million and a half (1,500,000+) searches in Overture last month. So that tells me that a whole lot of people are searching for this. But oddly enough it doesn't seem to be a crowded market--meaning I can't find too many sites actually selling this (at least not on the first few pages of the Google SERPs). I can't believe I've stumbled on a nice this good...I must be missing something. So tying into my original question, can I tell that this product would be profitable for me simply based on the search engine stats? What if I look at Alexa page views/rankings, etc? The #1 site in the SERPs has an Alexa traffic ranking in the 190,000 range -- I have a feeling that's a pretty good ranking but then again I'm not sure... Any help is appreciated! Thanks, -data
Forget Alexa. Try typing the most obvious keywords for your topic into Google and seeing how many SERPS there are. What about the backend? Are you intending to sell/ship products? Are you set up to cope with that? You will never know if it can be profitable until you know what your costs are going to be. A new site might take months, years even, before it shows enough profit for you to leave the day job ( if that is relevant to your situation). SEO is not a magic bullet. You are going to have to live and breathe the subject. matter... build a better mousetrap than anybody else has got and they might have been around for years. If you have it all worked out them go for it! If you are not sure of the subject matter a little more homework is in order.
Sorry for the double post... Okay, a search in Google for the main keyword phrase returns 13,000,000+. Yes, I'm relatively setup to ship, etc.. But believe me I have no misconceptions that I'm going to get rich quick or anything like that...I understand this is about building a business, and that can take time. But just want to make sure this is a decent market first... -data
13,000,000 is a decent market. I make my bread and butter on terms that average around 670,000. That´s a lot of competition too.
datadugout, Is this item/thing a hobby of yours or is it just a random thing that you thought might work? Keep in mind that many of us make money without actually selling the product. Brandon
It's somewhat random, but it's something that there is a big market for in the offline world...but as far as i can tell not too many people selling it online. Not quite sure what you mean by saying you make money without actually selling the product? Are you referring to things like affiliate marketing, Google AdSense, etc? Or just that many other sites sell information as opposed to what I'm talking about (i.e., a tangible product)? Thanks for clarifying, -datad.
I don´t actually sell anything but I make money from Adsense and advertising. I´m not going to ride home in a limo any day soon but, you know, it pays the rent and I work for myself.
Thanks for the responses everyone. Looks like the space is a bit more crowded than I thought! It's just that on page one of the Google SERPs for the main keyword, only 5 of the 10 are related to this market...the other 5 are about some pop song that has the same title as the search phrase.. hehe... Anyway, I look forward to reading up here on Digital Point and contributing to the community...looks like there is some great stuff here. Regards, -datadugout
As a side note: Do not sell a better mouse trap...the old one's work just fine according to the market. Seriously, there are over 1000 patents for 'better' mouse traps, and the number one selling trap is still the cruel metal bar torture type.
datadugout this is what it's all about. You start with an idea and research it and it may be gold or it may turn out to be dirt. But the point is that in the process, you gain knowledge, other viewpoints, other ideas. And the process repeats.
I agree with Akeeldin. I too came accross statistics like this. For example "prom dresses" - lot of searches and little competition. Few if anyone buys them online, but they do want to search and look and compare. You could probably make some money on adsense at certain times of the year.