How to find a good niche?
- Thread starter pearz76
- Start date
- Status
the only IM i know is Instant-Messenger, or it could also be something like Internet-Marketer.
Btw mrdon, how much do you know about hasselhoff? Is he still alive or living as an elderly? From my "contacts" i heard that this guy was in the series "baywatch" am I right?
Btw mrdon, how much do you know about hasselhoff? Is he still alive or living as an elderly? From my "contacts" i heard that this guy was in the series "baywatch" am I right?
I've always found great niches when I am looking for something myself. If I am having problems finding something around town or the price is too high, I look online. If it's hard to find online, then it's a niche. Chances are others are looking for it as well. Take the product or service you are considering and use the tools in the post above to see if there is a decent market for it.
Just think, hmm...what have I tried to buy recently that has been a pain in the ass to find? Everything I buy or consider buying I think...can I get a better price online? Then I check online & if I don't find anything or very little, then I look into it a little more.
Just think, hmm...what have I tried to buy recently that has been a pain in the ass to find? Everything I buy or consider buying I think...can I get a better price online? Then I check online & if I don't find anything or very little, then I look into it a little more.
I have found that good niches to create sites around are generally not small "things." For example, Golf Carts. I'm sure that CPM is high and it is not a small thing; but niche. Wherever you look you can find niches to create content around. Try and carry a legal pad with you wherever you go. Write down at least 20 niches a day, and eventually it will become second hand to you. Hope this helps.
Made for Adsense sites can be good if you set it up right. Don't just slap the site up and wait for the money to roll in. Edit the articles - it's definitely easier to reword and add to an article than to start from scratch but the main point is alter the articles. Remember other people this same site with this same information, how is yours going to be different.
I think the biggest mistake newbies make (myself included at one point) is not taking the site and making it mine.
I think the biggest mistake newbies make (myself included at one point) is not taking the site and making it mine.
Rule #1
Find the niche, then develop the product.
In this case the website.....
Here is an 1 article of 16 that i wrote for a blog i am working on It is actually designed for a offline company planning to go online, but many of the points are still relevent:
Find the niche, then develop the product.
In this case the website.....
Here is an 1 article of 16 that i wrote for a blog i am working on It is actually designed for a offline company planning to go online, but many of the points are still relevent:
Niche Marketing-Defining Your Strategies
Defining your niche market(s) is the single most important thing your web business can do.
There are millions of business and personal web sites, covering just about every topic.
That is why it is vital that you pick the right 'Piece of The Pie' to carve out for yourself.
Otherwise you could spend thousands of dollars and countless hours on your site and not accomplish anything. Or at least, not nearly as much as what you expected.
Ask The Right Questions:
1. What do You do?
2. Who are Your Customers?
3. What Solutions do You Provide?
4. Why do Your Customers Need You?
5. How Would Your Customers Find You Offline?
6. How Would Your Customers Find You Online?
What Do You Do?
The first step in understanding your online potential is to learn what you do.
The goal is to fully understand how to find the best niches for your business.
In order to do this most effectively it is essential to understand how people perceive you.
This is typically a lot different than what you think they think.
You can see this in web sites that spend most of the time promoting their credentials.
Your site and business, as a whole, would be better off promoting the benefits and value to the customers as it pertains to the product(s) and/or service(s) you offer---then backing those up with the credentials and testimonials to create trust with the potential customer.
In this case, the content will have been written to speak directly to a specific type of person. The message was written in a certain way and the testimonials speak directly to that main point. Subsequently the trust building credentials are displayed in the order that best speaks to the market that has been targeted.
The best way to attack this question is brainstorm.
Start at the base and work your way up. You should consider everything. There might be a hidden market in there.
The thing that needs to be understood about the internet is that the way one person gets around compared to another, is usually quite different. Even if they both end up at the same place.
They might be using different SEs (search engines). They may be using a favorite directory. They may have seen an add on TV or got an email or text message from a friend. And not least of all, people use different search terms and phrases.
Additionally, the results from computer to computer will also start to display a wider range of results as localized search is integrated into the search engines.
EXAMPLE: If you type in USA or United States or United States of America, you get different results. Even though we know that they are the same thing.
Imagine that you sell tires.
How much internet traffic do you think you would get if you used your web site to say:
You are a tire store.
Right at the top it says: WELCOME.
Then the site explains that You sell tires, and you have for 20 years.
There is a picture of the building and maybe a wall shot with rows of tires, maybe a picture of a stack or two.
A long paragraph about awards and your mission statement.
You are located in Some Town, Texas, U.S.A. And the company is family run.
Now imagine if you spent the same space to say:
You sell Goodyear and Firestone, Truck Tires, On road and Off road Tires and Tires for Motorcycles.
You also repair tires and sell rims and other tire accessories and you have pictures of your individual products.
There are 1or 2 testimonials and a guarantee of high quality and great customer service.
You also have the address and contact information at the bottom of the page.
(There will be a lot more about structuring writing a web page later. This is just an example of a core message.)
The second example would have identified 9 niches in addition to the Tires market.
In the first example, a person would probably only find the tires store web site with terms like:
Some Town Tires, Some Town Tires for sale, tire store in Some Town.
In the second example a person might be able to search for the web site using key phrases that explain some of the niche markets that were represented in the text.(add in the Some Town as above):
Goodyear tires, tires goodyear, goodyear tires for sale, buy goodyear tires, good year tires, good year, white wall tires goodyear, product# of any specific tire, sale goodyear tires, free goodyear tires.
There are hundreds of combinations for just one term. Notice that there is a difference between the term Goodyear and Good Year. This list of phrases also assumes that the hypothetical searcher used the name of the town that the store is located in.
It would be very unlikely that a small operation would rank highly for those brand terms at the beginning of its existence.
Later in the series of exercises you will learn how to do some deeper analysis on the information you are generating.
Right now make a list as long as you can.
Write down every kind of variation of what you do. (if you send out products, that would also be shipping, packaging, mailing) This will be important to you later.
Part 2 below (post was to long)
Defining your niche market(s) is the single most important thing your web business can do.
There are millions of business and personal web sites, covering just about every topic.
That is why it is vital that you pick the right 'Piece of The Pie' to carve out for yourself.
Otherwise you could spend thousands of dollars and countless hours on your site and not accomplish anything. Or at least, not nearly as much as what you expected.
Ask The Right Questions:
1. What do You do?
2. Who are Your Customers?
3. What Solutions do You Provide?
4. Why do Your Customers Need You?
5. How Would Your Customers Find You Offline?
6. How Would Your Customers Find You Online?
What Do You Do?
The first step in understanding your online potential is to learn what you do.
The goal is to fully understand how to find the best niches for your business.
In order to do this most effectively it is essential to understand how people perceive you.
This is typically a lot different than what you think they think.
You can see this in web sites that spend most of the time promoting their credentials.
Your site and business, as a whole, would be better off promoting the benefits and value to the customers as it pertains to the product(s) and/or service(s) you offer---then backing those up with the credentials and testimonials to create trust with the potential customer.
In this case, the content will have been written to speak directly to a specific type of person. The message was written in a certain way and the testimonials speak directly to that main point. Subsequently the trust building credentials are displayed in the order that best speaks to the market that has been targeted.
The best way to attack this question is brainstorm.
Start at the base and work your way up. You should consider everything. There might be a hidden market in there.
The thing that needs to be understood about the internet is that the way one person gets around compared to another, is usually quite different. Even if they both end up at the same place.
They might be using different SEs (search engines). They may be using a favorite directory. They may have seen an add on TV or got an email or text message from a friend. And not least of all, people use different search terms and phrases.
Additionally, the results from computer to computer will also start to display a wider range of results as localized search is integrated into the search engines.
EXAMPLE: If you type in USA or United States or United States of America, you get different results. Even though we know that they are the same thing.
Imagine that you sell tires.
How much internet traffic do you think you would get if you used your web site to say:
You are a tire store.
Right at the top it says: WELCOME.
Then the site explains that You sell tires, and you have for 20 years.
There is a picture of the building and maybe a wall shot with rows of tires, maybe a picture of a stack or two.
A long paragraph about awards and your mission statement.
You are located in Some Town, Texas, U.S.A. And the company is family run.
Now imagine if you spent the same space to say:
You sell Goodyear and Firestone, Truck Tires, On road and Off road Tires and Tires for Motorcycles.
You also repair tires and sell rims and other tire accessories and you have pictures of your individual products.
There are 1or 2 testimonials and a guarantee of high quality and great customer service.
You also have the address and contact information at the bottom of the page.
(There will be a lot more about structuring writing a web page later. This is just an example of a core message.)
The second example would have identified 9 niches in addition to the Tires market.
In the first example, a person would probably only find the tires store web site with terms like:
Some Town Tires, Some Town Tires for sale, tire store in Some Town.
In the second example a person might be able to search for the web site using key phrases that explain some of the niche markets that were represented in the text.(add in the Some Town as above):
Goodyear tires, tires goodyear, goodyear tires for sale, buy goodyear tires, good year tires, good year, white wall tires goodyear, product# of any specific tire, sale goodyear tires, free goodyear tires.
There are hundreds of combinations for just one term. Notice that there is a difference between the term Goodyear and Good Year. This list of phrases also assumes that the hypothetical searcher used the name of the town that the store is located in.
It would be very unlikely that a small operation would rank highly for those brand terms at the beginning of its existence.
Later in the series of exercises you will learn how to do some deeper analysis on the information you are generating.
Right now make a list as long as you can.
Write down every kind of variation of what you do. (if you send out products, that would also be shipping, packaging, mailing) This will be important to you later.
Part 2 below (post was to long)
(prt 2)
Who are Your Customers?
Now that you have determined Exactly who you are. You have a better idea of some of the possible niches that your product(s) and/or service(s) will fit in to. And hopefully dominate.
The next step is to do the same style exercise but apply the techniques with your customers.
The questions of relevance here would be things like:
* Age Group
* Ethnicity
* Educational Level
* Personality type
* Male
* Female
But, within each of those groups, you could also refine the criteria. Actually you would be adding more to your list(s) since this is a brainstorming exercise. Remember that during Brainstorming, everything is written down. You will have plenty of time in the future exercises to cull your lists.
Referring back to the example of the Tire Store. You would probably have all sorts of info written down for the questions posed above. But you could also include a few of these:
* Hot Rodder
* Drag racer
* Corporate leader
* Working Class economical
* Working Class Hobby
* Sport
* Utility
* Pimp
* Bling
* Rapper
* Stoner
* Biker
* BMX
* Nascar
And I am sure that the list could go a on and on for each brand and model of the tire (and should).
The point here is to make yourself aware of the many possible different mind sets that might be at play in the decision making process of your potential client.
This process starts when they decide that they want to search for the solutions that you provide to their problems. Then it continues into how they will search for it; online and off. Some of the industries that practice this concept quite well include automobile, tobacco and beer.
We are trying to make a reliable database of knowledge so that Your decisions towards your marketing plans, from advertising venues to add copy, can be met with the highest possible chance of converting the potential customer into a valued customer and then into a repeat customer.
You should be able to make a list of at least 20 customer types.
What Solutions do You Provide?
Most people don’t go online to buy something.
People consider the internet an informational resource that they can tap at any time FOR FREE.
The first hurdle that you are going to need to do is find out how you can provide free information to your existing and potential customers.
If you were a tire store this might include developing a section on your web site for people to understand the whole tire buying process from the codes on the tires to the value of different warranties etc.
If you sold sheets, you might want to explain thread counts or even explain how a person should fold fitted sheets.
If you were selling women's clothing it would probably be a good idea to explain, in detail, how the sizes relate from company to company.
Since people online are looking for information, it is your job to provide it. And then you need to make sure that they read it.
The best way to do this is:
1.Identify the problems that a person may have.
2.Provide a solution to these problems.
3.Create a CTA (call to action). Let the reader know what you expect them to do.
Each of your products and services affect each of your customer types differently. It is important to create this 3 point list for each of the categories and possibly fro each of your products
EXAMPLE: A person who buys tires to race his/her motorcycle is going to have different needs than a person who goes on long trips or person who just drives around town or a person that goes off road.
It seems obvious. But, it is a situation that is frequently overlooked by the small advertiser.
Thankfully, when you are on the web, the cost of advertising is significantly less than offline. Targeting each of these customer bases and products requires only to write a blurb (frequently referred to as an article). Make it into a web page and link it to your site.
EXAMPLE: If you are selling tires, you would be able to write an article of a couple hundred words about what you need to consider in purchasing a racing tire, write another one about buying a touring tire, another about driving off road and another about through the city.Each article would have at least one picture with it.
Most of the information would undoubtedly be the same. But, there would be key information in each one of those articles that would specifically apply to each of the various customers needs.
If you take the time to define these differences, you will have a better chance of converting that customer.
Another very very important aspect in this process is that by writing these various articles, you will be able to more effectively target the keyword phrases that the different groups of people will use to search for your products and services in the search engines.
By the end of this process you will have what may seem like an incredible amount of work to do. And you may be thinking that you will never get your site online.
Not to worry.
Building a web site is an ongoing process. Many of these articles don't need to "go up" on the first edition. This process will give you the information you need to create a long term strategy.
[/INDENT]YOu can use this tool to help find the niches in the search engines. It is a tool put out by Yahoo for to help marketers decide which terms they should bid on...When i look at terms i always look at how many searches are made and then run the search myself. If the SERPs only show 2,000,000 or less results, i consider that a term that can be 'had' with reletive success. My benchmark on a term is about 200/month minimum if i am creating content. If i was advertyising with PPC, i would take anything, as long as its really cheap.
search term suggestion tool
There is so much on thsi subject, i would suggest that inbetweeen sratching out articles, keep researching!
AS i said, this was an article for brick and mortar going online. If you are actuayy just building a saite around a niche, use some of the same concepts, but start with broad terms in the search suggestion tools and then keep refining them until you find some thing you like, then you need to figure out if it is going to be able to develop some ROI (return on investment).
keyword term bid tool
Good Luck.
Who are Your Customers?
Now that you have determined Exactly who you are. You have a better idea of some of the possible niches that your product(s) and/or service(s) will fit in to. And hopefully dominate.
The next step is to do the same style exercise but apply the techniques with your customers.
The questions of relevance here would be things like:
* Age Group
* Ethnicity
* Educational Level
* Personality type
* Male
* Female
But, within each of those groups, you could also refine the criteria. Actually you would be adding more to your list(s) since this is a brainstorming exercise. Remember that during Brainstorming, everything is written down. You will have plenty of time in the future exercises to cull your lists.
Referring back to the example of the Tire Store. You would probably have all sorts of info written down for the questions posed above. But you could also include a few of these:
* Hot Rodder
* Drag racer
* Corporate leader
* Working Class economical
* Working Class Hobby
* Sport
* Utility
* Pimp
* Bling
* Rapper
* Stoner
* Biker
* BMX
* Nascar
And I am sure that the list could go a on and on for each brand and model of the tire (and should).
The point here is to make yourself aware of the many possible different mind sets that might be at play in the decision making process of your potential client.
This process starts when they decide that they want to search for the solutions that you provide to their problems. Then it continues into how they will search for it; online and off. Some of the industries that practice this concept quite well include automobile, tobacco and beer.
We are trying to make a reliable database of knowledge so that Your decisions towards your marketing plans, from advertising venues to add copy, can be met with the highest possible chance of converting the potential customer into a valued customer and then into a repeat customer.
You should be able to make a list of at least 20 customer types.
What Solutions do You Provide?
Most people don’t go online to buy something.
People consider the internet an informational resource that they can tap at any time FOR FREE.
The first hurdle that you are going to need to do is find out how you can provide free information to your existing and potential customers.
If you were a tire store this might include developing a section on your web site for people to understand the whole tire buying process from the codes on the tires to the value of different warranties etc.
If you sold sheets, you might want to explain thread counts or even explain how a person should fold fitted sheets.
If you were selling women's clothing it would probably be a good idea to explain, in detail, how the sizes relate from company to company.
Since people online are looking for information, it is your job to provide it. And then you need to make sure that they read it.
The best way to do this is:
1.Identify the problems that a person may have.
2.Provide a solution to these problems.
3.Create a CTA (call to action). Let the reader know what you expect them to do.
Each of your products and services affect each of your customer types differently. It is important to create this 3 point list for each of the categories and possibly fro each of your products
EXAMPLE: A person who buys tires to race his/her motorcycle is going to have different needs than a person who goes on long trips or person who just drives around town or a person that goes off road.
It seems obvious. But, it is a situation that is frequently overlooked by the small advertiser.
Thankfully, when you are on the web, the cost of advertising is significantly less than offline. Targeting each of these customer bases and products requires only to write a blurb (frequently referred to as an article). Make it into a web page and link it to your site.
EXAMPLE: If you are selling tires, you would be able to write an article of a couple hundred words about what you need to consider in purchasing a racing tire, write another one about buying a touring tire, another about driving off road and another about through the city.Each article would have at least one picture with it.
Most of the information would undoubtedly be the same. But, there would be key information in each one of those articles that would specifically apply to each of the various customers needs.
If you take the time to define these differences, you will have a better chance of converting that customer.
Another very very important aspect in this process is that by writing these various articles, you will be able to more effectively target the keyword phrases that the different groups of people will use to search for your products and services in the search engines.
By the end of this process you will have what may seem like an incredible amount of work to do. And you may be thinking that you will never get your site online.
Not to worry.
Building a web site is an ongoing process. Many of these articles don't need to "go up" on the first edition. This process will give you the information you need to create a long term strategy.
[/INDENT]YOu can use this tool to help find the niches in the search engines. It is a tool put out by Yahoo for to help marketers decide which terms they should bid on...When i look at terms i always look at how many searches are made and then run the search myself. If the SERPs only show 2,000,000 or less results, i consider that a term that can be 'had' with reletive success. My benchmark on a term is about 200/month minimum if i am creating content. If i was advertyising with PPC, i would take anything, as long as its really cheap.
search term suggestion tool
There is so much on thsi subject, i would suggest that inbetweeen sratching out articles, keep researching!
AS i said, this was an article for brick and mortar going online. If you are actuayy just building a saite around a niche, use some of the same concepts, but start with broad terms in the search suggestion tools and then keep refining them until you find some thing you like, then you need to figure out if it is going to be able to develop some ROI (return on investment).
keyword term bid tool
Good Luck.
10 years time frame ?Dave said:
find your flash to bang and improve it.
What is the fastest way to get sales/click after you upload your site
- Status