You keep hearing over and over about finding your niche. You have tons of people on these forums asking for ideas about a niche. Niche seems to be the word of the day (ARGH!!! - Remember Pee Wee's Playhouse? ... Oh well ) My question is how can you tell if your niche will be a good one or not? Is there some special formula to figure this out? On Wordtracker you have KEI On NicheBot you have Ratio I understand that if your keyword (keyphrase) has a high number of searches and low number of competing web sites that's great. But isn't there more to it? Doesn't a lot of it come down to the actual product you're selling? (Or in some cases the content which equals the type of ads on your site) As an example: A niche web site about cheat codes for game systems. Searches per day - 164,291 per day (according to DP's Keyword Suggestion Tool) Competing web sites on Google - 9,180,000 To me that's a lot of people searching for a topic every single day. Think of the traffic potential. But what kind of income are we talking about? According to SpyFu there are only 7 AdSense advertisers. I guess you could do other ad formats like popups, banners, etc. But how many people will click? How much money is there to be made in this topic? Then look at your competition. What is the actual chance that you will be able to rank above them? If you are going against names that have been in the industry for years with thousands of pages of content you had either be very patient and motivated to create lots of content on your own or pick another "niche." So to me it kinda boils down to this: 1.) Pick a topic you are interested in and are passionate about 2.) Figure out how you will make money on that topic (ads, products, etc.) 3.) Research the keywords using various tools 4.) Determine the ranking potential of each word 5.) Build content around those word(s) 6.) Do all of your other SEO stuff (links, etc.) 7.) Pray that you chose the right niche! Does that about sum it up? How does everyone else look at their niches? Do you have a certain ratio you look at (No. Searches /divided by/ Competing web sites)? Or is it more about the profit potential of the items being sold in that niche? Interested in hearing back from everyone. Thanks Chad
"1.) Pick a topic you are interested in and are passionate about" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ IMO, if you are fortunate enough to have time to work with, just start with #1, create some unique quality content, start blogging, and use non-spam ways of promoting your blog on forums and other blogs. Your other suggestions are fine, too. I think a niche needs to start as a fun hobby, I'm lucky to have plenty of time to learn the 'SEO garbage'.
Thanks gemini181 for your comments. That's exactly what I am thinking about doing. It is a topic that I work with daily and something that is very interesting to me. Anyone else have any thoughts on this subject? Chad
I agree. Working on a niche topic should be more related to what you know and enjoy. I have several key word phrases that keep my sites quite busy. None of the keyword tools report them as getting any hits - zero, nip, nada - NO HITS. So my advice is while those tools can be helpful - don't make all of your decisions on their results.
I think, the more websites you make, the more topics you try, the easier it is to see how well a niche is going to work for you. Trying to see if ranking for one certain term is possible really should not be your thinking, in the long run you'll probably get more traffic from long tail searches and referrals than one phrase Mech lecha high, mecha hiney ho...(Remember the Genie used to say that - PeeWee scarred me for life)
I also keep hearing about niche. I understand what others are saying about a product. Which is fine and must be very difficult to focus in on. I decided on my particular niche and it has done me very well. Not just internet wise but landed me a part time job which I enjoy, landed me a column in a rag that reaches over 3 million people, landed me product reviews in my niche, landed me people coming to me to advertise on my site. Which subject did I choose? Fishing. It's a hard passion of mine. Which niche did I choose? My geographical area. I did not want to go big I started small and grew from there. It's great to try to tackle the whole market but I found that it's better to take a small bite. People look for specifics and require detailed information about what they are searching for. I couldn't really be bothered if some one was looking to fish Alaska. I have no real life info about that area. But if you are looking for fishing in the Thunder Bay area of North Western Ontario, Canada then you are eventually going to hit my site. By the way. It's google this, yahoo that and affilliate blah dee blah blah. Choose your geographical area and advertise for online and physical shops and store fronts in your area first. Then branch out to further regions. here's one I don't get. Type in Outdoor Goods Stores in Google #1, Yahoo #11, MSN #3. Do you think I can make a buck off of that!!!!! Nope! Drives me nuts! Ha Ha Roger
Great replies from all of you. I really appreciate that. YMC & bigmac: I only know for certain what the tools are telling me in terms of number of searches, but as you say there may be some obscure long tail searches that would be more profitable. I forgot about the Genie Mahumba: That's great that you found a topic that you're so interested in and it's worked out for you. I wish you the best of luck. Great web site by the way. I didn't see your web site at first when I searched for Outdoor Goods Stores, but then I realised that you are using quotes to find your site. In my experience very few people use quotes around their searches unless they are a more experienced searcher. If you search for "outdoor goods stores" you are looking for that string of text on a page. If you search for outdoor goods stores (without the quotes) you are primarily looking for a topic with those words associated with it. Once again thanks everyone for your replies. Chad
Hi Chad, No I didn't use quotes. Google still #1 Yahoo #11 and MSN #3 spots for those words searched. Thanks for the comments on the site. Roger
xchoas and Mahumba, You are seeing different result in Goolge because you are in different regions. In the U.S. version, you need the quotes to make "outdoor sports goods" number one. If you go to www.google.ca it's number one without the quotes.
KEI is a good indicator but not perfect. Several high KEI words I chased got a fair ammount of traffic but failed to convert while lower KEI works got lot less traffic but better conversions. I still use KEI as a guideline but just one of many tools I use. Some niches are great as they provide a service or product that people need but just cannot run out to the local store and purchase yet your not competing with 1million other websites. They me be products that people would rather purchase privately. An example: Plus size lingerie is an example and a niche. Many plus size ladies do not feel comfortable purchasing those items at a local store and would rather do it from the privacy of thier home.
Your niche could be a subject you are personally interested in and find no relevant information on the internet
Ahhh I see. Google.ca If I type in google.com it redirects me to google.ca How can i stay on google.com? Roger
Unfortunately most webmasters just start sites to make money and pay little attention to content. How many times have you heard people say they started a site because they liked the topic and ended up making a lot of money at the end? I can give you some very good examples. I think that in order to make money online you have to create something unique and do it in a way that people will talk about your site, create a buzz. You will get traffic quicker form enthusiastic users than from any search engine.