When you are building an Affiliate Marketing Website or any type of Online Business site comprehensive niche research is required to make sure that the niche you focus on is profitable, popular and can make you money.
WHAT IS A NICHE?
Basically a niche is a certain segment of the population where you intend to concentrate your Affiliate and Internet Marketing efforts and is the theme/subject of a website or blog.
Some examples of niches include:
Relationships, Skiing, Health, Video Games, Real Estate, Stock Market, Insurance, Stamp Collecting etc... as well as the sub categories or Micro Niches within the major categories.
For example, within the macro niche oh health there are several micro niches which include, weight loss, acne, balding, vitamins, staying young, aging well, conditions/diseases...etc.
Because of the high competition factor on the Internet, it is a good idea that you stick with micro niches, and especially when first beginning your Internet Marketing campaigns.
You can also go deeper into the micro niche with a double micro niche. For example, within the micro niche of weight loss you can go deeper like fat burning foods, low carb diets, natural weight loss supplements..etc.
Finding a micro niches will further cut through the competition factor and yield better results. There are lots of good micro niche markets and the opportunities are endless. And there are affiliate programs for every possible niche.
Deciding on a Niche
There are 3 main factors that should influence what niche you select.
1. Consider your interest and expertise.
This is important. It is a well known fact that in today's Internet environment the content of a website can make it or break it. Considering the amount of work involved with marketing and creating a successful Internet business, if you can avoid adding research of an unknown niche in order to create good content on your website then it is best to do so.
When I first started in this business my first site was about computers, a subject that I knew a little about but not nearly enough to create content with ease. I spent a lot of time on researching material in order to write content for my site, all though this has turned out to be a profitable site and is a very profitable niche, it made my job more difficult.
All I am saying is that if you pick a niche you know and even better have a lot of interest in then that takes a lot of burden off the process.
2. Check out the competition for a niche
This is crucial to your success. As I mentioned earlier there are macro and micro niches. In today's highly competitive Internet stage it is often best to go into the micro niches that yield enough user demand and searches and at the same time do not yield millions of search results (competing websites) in Google (see steps to this below).
3. Is your niche profitable and is there a demand?
Obviously you do not want to build a niche site if there is nobody searching for it or the products that you may promote within it. You need visitors and sales in order to make commissions, and evaluating the demand is the way to determine, or predict how many you might possibly have (steps to this below).
Niche Research Tools:
Micro Niche Finder Tool is a great tool that can help you find niches, it is not free but it can save time and provide comprehensive and excellent niche information.
Some great free tools to see what the hot searches on the web are:
Google Trends and My Simon Top Product/Service Searches.
Get a feel for the hot items within the niche and what people are talking about and buying by checking out these resources:
1. Read Industry Blogs – Search in Google by entering "blog + your niche" Check out the top blogs in your niche.
For example, If you are going for a gadget/tech niche you can visit Gizmodo.
2. Visit Niche Forums - Search for "forums + your niche"
See what people are talking about within your niche on the top forums. Find out who the customers are, what they want, what they need, what are they looking for, what are their biggest fears and difficulties etc...
Keywords and Niches
When people search for something online the words they input into the search engine are keywords, which then yield relevant website results for those keywords in the search results. So I want to use the most searched for keywords for my website so that I expose my niche website to as many search engine searchers and therefore as many visitors as possible.
Niches and Keywords are Synonymous.
This part is very confusing in the beginning, but a niche is mainly the theme/subject of your website and keywords are just how the niches are searched for by Internet users.
Gaging the Number of Internet Searches (demand) of a Niche with Keywords
For example, if my micro niche is weight loss then my keywords will revolve around weight loss, and I will do my keyword research by entering the main keyword weight loss and then seeing what keywords people are searching for within that main keyword/niche.
The screenshot, shows some of the keywords that come up when entering the main keyword "weight loss" in SEOBook Free Keyword Tool (partial screenshot of keyword results).
So my niche is "weight loss" and all the words circled in green are the keywords that people are searching for in that niche and that I can use on my website to allow people to find my site from search engine results.
Another example is to look at it backwords: Let's say my niche is weight loss and I use a keyword that does NOT show up in the tool, then my website will sit in search engine results for that keyword, BUT no one will search for it and therefore no one will ever find my website. Make sense?
Here is the Niche Nutshell:
Niche = Keywords = Website shows up Search Engine Results = Website Visitors
Optimal Niches Should Have:
At least 10,000 searches per month combined for all keywords you may use within the niche. So, according to the above keyword research results, I know that the niche of "weight loss" is a good niche, because all the available keywords add up to at least 10,000 searches (note: the screenshot only shows a few keywords, the list runs long beyond what is showed).
I use and highly recommend Keyword Elite and SEOBook Free Keyword Research Tool and Wordtracker Keywords (free trial). Wordtracker also has a free keyword tool that is less comprehensive but is a good product at: Free Keywords at Wordtracker.
Gaging the Competition of Keywords within your Niche
Competition from other websites is another crucial factor of your niche/keyword research.
The best way to gage the competition is by doing a simple search in Google like this: allintitle:"keyword" (the allintitle and quotes narrows the results to true competition of websites that actually have that keyword as the title of their site as opposed to just a mention somewhere within their content). and then seeing how many websites return in the results.
So I picked the keyword "weight loss pills" from the keyword tool results up above and plugged that into Google and what I get back is 35,300 competing sites, for that keyword.
Recap:
The SEOBook keyword tool showed a total of 1266 daily searches for "weight loss pills" and the competition is 35,300 sites.
What does this tell you?
That "weight loss pills" is a great keyword within the weight loss niche, because the searches are high and the competition is relatively low. And, actually "weight loss pills" could be a double micro niche and you can build a whole website just around "weight loss pills."
Analyzing Competing Websites:
It is also important to look at page 1 results in Google SERPS for competing sites.
Some things to look at:
Page Rank - If page 1 of SERPS is full of high PR sites and big guns within the niche then it will be way too difficult to get to page 1 which is ultimately the goal.
Conversely if there is nothing but PRO-PR2 then it will be fairly easy. Make sure that you only consider those sites that are direct niche sites, as opposed to say article sites and indirect sites that happen to have some content related to the niche.
Age of Sites - Age of the sites is important in that Google will favor older more established sites.
Overall, you want to stay away from keywords that generate lots of results on page one of big gun sites, like PR4+ or more than 3 PR3 sites. In this case, look for the micro niche keywords within that niche.
Keyword Research Numbers:
You want to have at least 10,000 searches combined for all keywords you want to rank for within the niche.
If you are new to this business, I would suggest less than 25,000 "allintitle" in competition results so you can learn how to rank and get your feet wet anything over that will be more difficult and something to tackle once you have experience
.
Good Luck!
I just noticed today that the Google Adwords Keyword Tool is now showing “Approx Search Volume” for the previous month and “Approx Avg Search Volume” for the last 12 months. Not sure if anyone has caught on but I think finally we have a better tool for determining the viability of keywords that we target.
Check it out and give us your feedback.
Movie Gift Basketss last blog post..Thank You Movie Gift Baskets
@ Movie Gift Baskets, this certainly gives an extra edge for keyword and niche research.
Great info for me JR.Thank u
can u please tell me which range of google allintitle competetion is good for beginner..here u have taken 35,300 in above example.
@ Ram
For a beginner I would stick to under 100,000, or even under 50,000 if you find a highly searched KW. Try to target only a couple of main keywords for the home page, or even one. This makes it easier to rank faster while you are learning the overall techniques of ranking in SERPS. So basic formula is that you want to have at least 10,000 monthly searches for all the keywords that you are targeting, this would include KW for subpages as well as home page and under 100,000 for competition. Make Sense?
Sir
Sorry for asking this again
Just for confirmation please tell me
IF the keyword has normal compettion around 7 lakhs.Normal compettion I mean the number of results if i type that keyword on google,but allintitle competition is just under 50000…is it good for newbies to target this keyword?
@Ram
Yes it is, just make sure that you have at least 10,000 total searches for the keywords, home page and subpage.
@ etherealm
By branch out do you mean add these keywords to one site? As in subpages? If yes, then definitely you should add them, for each subpage you should have different KW, this way you will all over the SERPS.
It is important to choose your keywords for every page of content as well as your overall (homepage) keywords because it is not only the home page of your site, but each page of your website that will be indexed by Google and once again, you want the most searched relevant targeted keywords for those pages.
Now, taiwan spa is very related to taiwan beaches, so why not a sub page all about taiwan spas, this way when people search for “taiwan spa” they can come to your page and then be exposed not just to that page but your entire site!
Let me know if this answered your question, welcome to the blog and thanks for the Sphinn!
it is very clear now. thanks for the reply! i just subscribed to your feeds. hoping to learn a lot from this weblog. Keep it up!
@etherealm
Thanks!
@ PC
Isn’t it great, Article Marketing is fantastic!
Hi JR,
can u please tell us how to find whether the niche has got some high paying in adsense?
Thanks
Ram
Hi Ram,
I really could not tell you because Google is very strict in their TOS about giving out that information and so it is not really printed anywhere, it is supposed to be kept secret and I really am not sure, I do not use Adsense that much. I have heard that real estate adsense pays well.
and i have heard that medicine adsense pays well too. google really keeps everything as a secret. that is good they allow us to know approximate info about keywords. we have to make conclusions about google by ourselves…
John
Hi JR,
Hope you can enligthen me here. Just for example I want to target keyword “private”. According to Google Tool is 18,100, while the number of sites at Google ( with quotes) is 813,000. For a new site, is this considered a comfortable keyword to target?
@lim seng
Overall this is a very competitive niche, but you did not search in Google with the allintitle:”KW” query, you only used quotes. The allintitle query is actually more on point and shows a more precise number of sites using actually using that KW sitewide to rank, so the actual competing sites is only 37,300, so that is a very good KW.
Use the allintitle when searching for competition, the quotes alone will give a broader search result, while the allintitle, is actually the sites that are targeting that KW site wide and that is your true competition, so if you target that KW sitewide on your site, then you will overcome the “quote” results easier and your true competitors are the allintitle sites. Make Sense?
@lim seng
What I searched is allintitle:”home based business opportunities”
Thanks JR. I am still awe with your trove of tips. I used only quotes b’cos that was what I have learned from others. I notice there is a difference with allintitle. All this while, when I see there is a huge search results for a certain KW or KW phrase, I avoid it like plague. My concern is, my new site will be lost deep inside, even tho’ the number of searches is reasonably high. Another thing I realize is my certain posts with targeted KW would appear on the first or second page, then vanished and after some times they reappeared back. Why is it so?
@lim seng
Always use the allintitle it gives a better picture of what’s going on.
That in and out of SERPS, is just the regular Google dance, everyone goes through it. Google is always updating the SERPS, and while we only see PR updates on the toolbar every 3 months, in actuality Google does update their own internal rank for sites all the time and so they rank sites accordingly, so just build those links, and stay on it.
In reality, SEO never stops, we have to stay on top of link building even when we get to page 1.
A new site will be lost deep inside, but once you begin to build links and make sure that your On-Site SEO is top notch, then you will rise up. That keyword your looking at is a good one the competition is very low and the search number is high. In fact I am going to delete it out of these comments, as many niche thieves are out there.
Check out my free ebook for 8 Step Checklist for On-Site SEO, those steps will help you to rank much quicker.
@JR, wow! Thank you for your very prompt and informative reply. So in the nutshell, just compare the searches and number of sites (using allintime with quotes). You see, my past method was, I went for lower searches, so that my post will at least appear on the first or second page in that KW, rather than being lost in the wilderness. As I found most KW with high search comes with equally high number of sites. That is the reason I avoid those KW with high searches.
Anyway, I came across your site some time last year, and I’m still haven’t finished reading all those great articles. Great in the sense, they are “action-oriented” articles. Not just for reading pleasure found in many other internet marketing sites.
@lim seng
Thank you! Let me ask you one thing, you mention looking for keywords for “posts”, are you referring to KW for individual pages and blog posts of your site? Or are you talking about site-wide main kw? There is a difference.
@JR, yes, I am refering to individual blog post.
@lim seng
In that case then you do want to look for lower competition KW, because you will not be optimizing the whole site for it, just a single post. For my posts I usually shoot for 20,000 or less in competition with at least 30 searches a day, sometimes less if the 30 is not possible.
Jr, One more thing. Do I set the feature of Google KW Tool, Match Type to “Exact”? Thanks.
@lim seng
Which Google tool are you referring to, are you using?
@lim seng
I think you may be using the Adwords Traffic Estimator, and not the Google Adwords Keyword Tool???
@JR, I am using the Google Adwords Keyword Tool.
@lim seng
With that one I just enter the kw without quotes, I think that is a broad search as it also provides synonyms.
Anyway, your explaination above, you used SEOBook Keyword Tool. As I have mentioned in my above reply, I used Google Adwords Tool and I targeted only lower searches and most if not all my blog posts appeared on the first or second page on those particular targeted KW phrases. And I merely used quotes and not allintitle:” “. Sorry for being long winded over this KW stuff. I am still at rather clueless.
@lim seng
I usually use the SEOBook and check the results against the G tool, there is no tool that is truly accurate so you can only get a best estimate and checking results in a couple of tools is a good thing to do, especially for the main site keywords, the most important ones.
It’s no problem, believe me that who KW thing can be a nightmare, in fact I have nightmares about KW’s
You are doing it right for your posts, this way you will be all over the serps, instead of like others who just pick titles at random!!
@JR, I know there are various conflicting views about KW. The best way is to try it out for yourself. Gone are the days when I used to write the so-called creative post titles peppered with puns, proverbs and whatnot. Since I am also using Adsense in my blog, I have to take into consideration, so I won’t receive irrelevant ads or psa. I am trying out your suggestion as explained in this post. Again a big thank you JR.
@lim seng
You are welcome, anytime. Good point about Adsense, many do not realize that you have to target KW to get relevant ads.
@Olivier
Yes testing is good, no KW tool is totally accurate, I use three tools and then make a best judgement comparing the numbers.
Your not kidding with your comment about G favoring older sites. I have a competitor who’s site is about 18 months older than mine, and that site out ranks mine even there there is a similar link profile, but with my real estate site having nearly 2x as many do-follow links
my favorite tool to find niche keyword is Google Adwords Keyword Tool,i thinks its so accurate
.-= Radenmas´s last blog ..DOWNLOAD LIRIK DAN LAGU PIALA DUNIA 2010 =-.
Good post JR been having a difficult time conducting niche market research now i know what to do.Thanks
To your unlimited success,
~Kebabope Morapedi
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I use software to help me do my analysis and it really has helped. The other night I was researching keywords for one of my niches and found this keyword with 22,000 searches that had commercial intent (what happen to adlabs?) and then realized the domain name was available so I bought it and got one page on it before I went to bed. The next morning I was ranked #8 on Google for that keyword!
Do your homework and some really cool things can happen.
Jackie
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