Doing niche research is the first fundamental step when it comes to finding a topic to promote online. If you simply go out and wildly promote whichever product has the biggest commissions, or the largest audience, you’ll find yourself competing with thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people – and a saturated market is a harbinger of doom for anyone involved in internet marketing.
Good niche research involves finding that “sweet spot” where competition is relatively low and yet there are plenty of unanswered questions from people who are ready and willing to spend money. Sound like a tall order? Not when you have the right tools and mindset.
The Biggest Mistake You Can Make with Niche Research.
One of the mistakes I see people making over and over again is targeting a broad niche (which really isn’t a niche at all!) Things like “weight loss”, “dating”, “gardening”, “dog training”… these are incredibly broad keywords with mountains of competition.
Then you’ve got the people who think they’ve found a hot niche, when it really turns out to be vastly saturated. These are the niches like “weight loss for women”, “dating for divorcees”, “organic gardening” and “dog crate training”. These are a bit narrower, but you’ll still find it a tough uphill climb if you’re trying to target one of these popular terms.
Drilling Deeper to Find the Gold Nuggets.
Of course, you can take any one of these terms and drill a bit deeper to find the niches that are in that “sweet spot”. For instance, weight loss using Chinese herbal medicine is a definite niche where you can stretch out a bit to include traditional healing practices like acupuncture, qi-gong exercises and so forth. Digging deeper with the organic gardening niche gets you interesting suggestions like square foot organic gardening (for people with apartments or small living spaces who want to maximize their garden area).
The Biggest Pitfall in Niche Marketing.
It may be that you come across a niche with zero, or very little competition. Before you leap out of your chair thinking you’ve hit the jackpot, consider why it has little to no competition. I hate to break it to you, but it’s usually not because you’ve stumbled upon some top-secret, red-hot market just begging for products. It’s because the market is a dud and people aren’t looking to spend money.
Overall, you want the niche you choose to have some competition (that you can easily outrank with a little work and better content) and some unanswered questions or issues that your product could resolve.
The best places to find these kinds of questions are through online forums, “Answer-style” sites like Yahoo Answers, and places like that. Even the old Google Answers site is archived and can still be searched (but no new questions posted).
Give these niche research ideas a try the next time you’re examining different potential markets to target. I guarantee it will cut back considerably on your workload, research time and effort. And once you carve out a niche for yourself and begin to become an authority on that topic, the potential for your income is limited only to your imagination.
Please share your opinion by leaving a comment.
Thank you
Comments 19
Hi Alex,
Thanks for this post – I agree with you completely. It’s just logical that wide “niches” have fierce competition, and narrow niches fewer interested people. So, the clue is to hit the right balance between those two and hence the best profit potential…
Kanute
Author
Hi Kanute,
Yes, hitting that “sweet spot” is the key.
All the best,
Alex
Alex,
Problem is finding these “sweet spot” niches with enough search volume.
The majority of these long-tail keywords are relatively low search volume, many are “0” search volume on Google keyword tool.
You would probably need to have 100+ of these kind of sites in order to make some kind of revenue.
Just my thoughts on that..
Author
Hi John,
You’re right, finding long tail keywords with high search volume is hard and that’s exactly why I created Stealth Keyword Digger.
Yes, thanks for that. It has been very helpful.
I fully agree as well. It’s every budding IM’s dream to find a niche that is not bombarded with people promoting it and I find the number of “Gurus” promoting niches like the “make money online” niche to these newbies to be downright misleading and on the cusp of dishonesty.
It’s extremely refreshing to find someone like yourself who only sends people on his list to good quality products and your Stealth Keyword Competition Analyzer is the best WSO I’ve ever bought and I highly recommend it.
Keep up the great work.
Author
Thank you
Great post Alex. However I want to state that when you find a niche and there are very weak competition what do you do, drop the niche? I don’t think so, I believe you should check the profitability, this is the main factor.
Example is using model numbers to target physical product, the competition is very weak and you make good money.
What is your opinion on this?
Thanks again for the post.
Author
Hi Dan,
Yes, you are right; model numbers keywords usually have very low competition and they are definitely worth going after.
What I’m saying in the blog post is to look out for niches with very little competition as they are usually not worth pursuing. You must always do an in depth market analyses before diving into anything.
But keywords with low competition can be a goldmine especially when they are physical product or model number keywords.
All the best,
Alex
A relatively easy way to test the niche market is write an article on a content site and see what traffic/clicks/affiliate sales you get before investing in a website.
Without stealth, I know I would not be having the success I am. Cheers.
I don’t know what to say but it’s a good idea. I got a new idea from this post. thanks Alex.
If perhaps you have another product beside SKCA I will be glad to buy it from you. thanks for creating SKCA.
From some of the comments, it seems a few folks on this page may not have used Alex’s excellent Keyword Digger software. http://www.stealthkeyworddigger.com/
If you are already using SKCA, you know his product quality. SKD has a 60 day MBG—unbelievable no-brainer.
Thanks for mentioning “Answer-style” sites, Alex. I had not thought of them.
Author
Hey Dennis,
Yes – “Answer-style” sites are great for market research, they are like a dream come true for niche marketers.
Thanks for a useful guide to niche research Alex. This is something I always struggle with. Brainstorming for me usually just comes up with broad terms. In the past I’ve let great domain names drop simply because back then I didn’t know how to dig deep enough. I’m getting better these days though!
Cheers,
Geoffrey
Drilling down to find long tail keywords which have lower competition and usually lower searches is a very effective method of targeting a niche, especially when you uncover enough of these long tail keywords that cumulatively add up to enough traffic achieve your income goal.
As you mentioned though, you don’t need huge amounts of long tail traffic because of how close this traffic usually is to making a buying decision.
Hey Alex,
A great post, the pitfalls you mention are definitely worth mentioning again and again. It’s too easy to find a niche with no competition, or, just as bad, to find a niche of high-paying adwords, and just as high competition. Your Competition Analyzer has made a big impact on my niche choices!
Best,
HansM
Great stuff Alex. I have been caught up in the trap of “finding a super hot niche” only to find out that no one buys anything – which was why it had no competition. It wastes a lot of time.
Your suggestions for how to find your niche is very good and I will put it to use. Thanks a lot.
Very nice post again from you Alex! You just keep on with this good stuff and good advices, thanks!
And as you say, I think one of the most important things is to give answers to peoples questions (solution to a problem) and if you can give the answer and solution (physical or digital product) you have a winner…
-Jarzale
Thank very much, your post really helps me that how to find niche keywords.”Good post”
I need more help.
Thanks again