I did a search before posting this, and I didn't find this discussed. I joined an IM coaching program late last year, and its helped me focus my IM efforts. I think its very weird that this is not discussed more. The closest I can find is discussions on keyword research, which is actually the 2nd step. The first step before building sites, creating articles, making squidoo lenses, hubpages, or whatever method you want to use to promote a product/service is NICHE research. I know that might sound obvious, but if you think about it, you can see its not. Its not a good idea to simply say: "I will sell ___ on eBay to earn some extra money." Then get setup as a retailer and go to a wholesaler and buy a bunch of ___ and start listing them. Same is true for an idea you might have for an eBook, membership site, or whatever. This is true for affiliate marketing as well. For newbies, how to do niche research? Note that keyword research is part of niche research, but you really need to zero in on a niche. This might happen at roughly the same time as you do keyword research. I feel that the niche drives the keywords. The keywords confirm the viability of the niche. There is also a bit of intuition involved. Its an art rather than a science. The more you practice it, the better you get at zeroing in on a good niche. A good niche is one that has a lot of people searching for keywords in that niche, and at the same time, as competition that you can beat with your IM skills (seo, ppc, whatever). If competition is too steep, then you find a niche you can compete in. This is a matter of degree, rather than an absolute. For example, you might be able to compete in a certain niche simply because you have more resources or money to market in that niche, whereas a person with no money is better off going into a niche that has less competition. Continued below....
Read Cashvertising the book. It will help you understand emotional triggers that are universal to everyone. Lately, I have been using Microsoft Ad Center (they have a plugin for excel). Its buggy, and it doesn't always return all of the data it suppossed to, but it is still useful. I use this to find niche ideas. Note that I don't always arrive at a niche in a linear fashion. Sometimes, I will be looking at the returned results, and based on practice and experience and what I learned in cashvertising, I might see something that triggers an idea. This is the "art" part of the process. In MS ad intellegence (in Excel) 1) click keyword wizard, select option "vertical". A vertical is a broad niche like dating, fitness, or whatever. 2) get 500 keywords for each vertical. Select no more than 1 vertical per session, otherwise you will bog the server and it won't deliver anything to you. Picking the vertical is up to you, but some are better than others. Also, some verticals require a lot of creativity to monetize. These might be better to zero in on, if (and only if) you are creative enough to come up with a way to monetize. LIke how would you monetize the vertical Arts&Ent --> Television ? 3) next, pick time period of last 30 days. Next, select campaign association. Next, max suggested keywords = 100 4) keyword KPI's, you want monthly traffic, and montetization. Note MS adcenter won't always return monetization data. Its temperamental about that. Historical date 12 montsh, forecast = 3mnths, but its up to you 5) Paid Search monetization settings: Time period = 30 days, position = aggregate, match type = aggregate 6) run. Note this could take a while. Go make some coffee or something. Then, use GKT (google adwords keyword tool) or similiar (market samurai, or whatever) to find the keywords in that niche. You also need to look at the number of searches. I don't have any hard rules on this, but I would like to obtain at least 9 keywords, and have roughly 40k searches per month for EXACT. This is 40K for all 9 total. More keywords are fine, but it could be more expensive as you have to have more articles written, etc. the more keywords you have. The flip side is that fewer kewords might mean more competition. I like to see at least 1k hits minimum for a keyword, but this can range up or down depending on the number of keywords you have on your list. save your keywords by downloading the CSV spreadsheet from GKT. To be continued below.
Hi cbulen, The one thing I did not see you discuss is..... building a list. In my opinion, there is nothing, and I mean nothing more important than this... especially if one is looking for a long-term, sustainable business. Yes, of course you need a 'niche'. Actually, finding a niche is the easiest thing to do. Your life is surrounded by them. In this day and age, keyword research is.... (are you ready?) totally unnecessary. You only need keyword research, when using, and depending on the search engines for your traffic. And, if you've been around for awhile in this business, the past way of doing this business is getting to be almost impossible. 1. find a niche 2. do your keyword research 3. check the competition 4. Build a website 5. SEO the website 6. etc 7. etc. Most of the folks that I know that make money online have a one-page squeeze page offering something of value. And I emphasize the word 'value'. Folks have to, of course, opt-in to receive it. Do they? How many times have you opted-in? Then, you keep on giving them helpful, using, valuable information for FREE. When they trust you, you can them make some suggestions to them as to what might be helpful to them. (sell them) But, you're saying...... "great, where's the traffic to that one-page site of yours"? I personally am tired of fighting Google and Bing. I'm also tired of fighting the major corporations and HUGE authority sites that people are getting hip to when do their shopping. So, I'm gonna say what you've heard a thousand times...... social marketing is at this time, the best way to go. You do not need backlinks, SEO and etc. The IM business for the average person is now about 'relationships'. Build relationships, and you've got a viable, sustainable, long-term business. Not just someone passing by your store, possibly buying something from you, and Hasta La Vista...... they're gone.... for good..... Just some opinions........ all the best Cliff
pick your fights carefully.. don't go into super crowded niche.. try to predict the next "wave" and jump on it... <--- this is the best actually.. work smart!