Training Series # 10

Discovering your Niche’

Training Series # 10

When it comes down to making your decision to enter the Internet Marketing Field, there are many questions you have been asking yourself. This being aside from the one “big” question of how do I get started making money off the internet.
We will certainly get to that.
First, let us get down to the most basic points of learning how to start and how to make money from your decisions.
When we were thinking of which module in the series to start with, it was a big toss-up between learning affiliate marketing, and selecting a niche market.
As you can see, Niche won the prize.
This is because we wanted to follow the theme from the best book on internet marketing that is available today, Internet Marketing Defined.
Not having the ability to solve the age old question of which came first the “chicken or the egg”, we really wanted to put you on the straightest path to profit on the internet.
So, the decision to do the “Niche Discovery” was a no brainer.
Now, so that we are all on the same page, let us make clear what a “Niche” really is.
It is simply a part of a group of people that share common interests and/or problems. And we say a “part” of a group because not all potential clients in a specific group will share the same interests or problems.
Keep in mind that a niche’ is also called a “tribe” or “Targeted list” or “Following”, it may come by many names, but this is where the bulk of your sales will come from.
(Example): Let us say that you have chosen to work in the “Health” niche. Now, of course, this is a very popular, very large, (and growing niche), not all the people in this niche share the same interests or problems. Certainly a person with chronic heartburn has no interest in learning to control their bladder urges… You get the idea.

So, that brings us to the process of drilling down into a niche to discover where it is that you have a more advanced knowledge than the people inside that niche, (or willingness to research and learn). Herein lays the sweet spot that you need in order to start forming the ideas for products and/or services that will help the people in this niche to solve THEIR problem.

All kinds of companies effectively use niche marketing strategies in their overall marketing campaigns.
It is an especially useful strategy for smaller companies with limited budgets and products or services that are targeted toward a certain segment of the population.
Now if you read Internet Marketing Defined, you are already familiar with the concept that “Selling to everybody, is selling to nobody”.
We cannot emphasize this concept enough.

You see, the internet is jammed packed with folks selling every product under the sun through ads and retargeting methods. It is estimated that above 85% of the ads you see are not reaching their target market. The reason for this is laziness. Marketers are not taking the time to research and understand the people they are attempting to reach and ultimately turn into customers, and more importantly, repeat customers.
Even the best-laid niche marketing plan is doomed to fail unless you’re committed to genuinely listening to your customers.
So, here is where you must focus. Do not confuse a “field” with a “niche”. The intelligent approach to internet marketing is to NOT have a product.

First, find the “field” that you have expertise in, or a very strong desire to participate in. A niche that you will find interesting and fun and will enjoy working in.
Now that you have the theory and the why explained to you.
We now give you the “HOW”
With 3 simple steps to find your own niche. With a little trick thrown in for good measure.

Step 1. Finding the Keywords that will work for you.

This is the really fun part when it comes to finding your niche!
You get to play around here, and search for niche ideas, which is super-easy with Google’s External Keyword Tool.
This is a free tool that allows you to find out both local and global search volumes for certain keywords, related keywords, suggested keywords as well as the competitiveness of those keywords too. (Make your XL spreadsheet to track your searches).
You’re going to want to find keywords that pull in a minimum of 2500 global searches a month you’ll also want to be sure that they are not overly competitive.

Step #2 – Checking Out the Competition of Your Keywords

Once you’ve spent some time finding niche market keywords, and keyword phrases, that you want to work with, and figured out what keyword you’ll focus on, you can then check out how competitive is really is.
Go to Google.com and type in your chosen niche keyword.
You then get to see how many other pages get listed in the results for the keyword.
On the first page you get to view the top listings after the paid ads. What is important here is the number of paid ads that appear before the organic search results. This will give you a good idea of how competitive the keyword really is.
Trick: Once you have this page up, go ahead and refresh your browser button a couple of times. Watch the side bar and the overhead bar to see how many ads get displayed that are pertaining to your keywords. This will tell you a big story if the ads keep changing. That means that a lot of competition is sending out ads and it will be difficult to get placement for that keyword.

Step #3 – Deciding on going forward or more research.

Based on the results of the competitiveness test you’ll be able to figure out if you are going to move forward with your niche idea.
Here’s the deal – in our chosen example of “chronic heartburn”, there were just over 83,000 websites that popped up in a simple Google search on the keyword. Plus – you hit the refresh button 10-times and the only 3 PPC ad’s for the same keyword were the only 3 ad’s that were shown on each attempt. Meaning, there is very little ‘paid for’ competition.
This lets me to determine that because the organic competition is low, and there is very little paid advertising on the keyword, in this case, it would be a “go forward”, rather than a ‘No’.
On the other hand, if there had of been a boat load of PPC ad’s on the sidebar and at the top of the results page, you should be choosing to not go forward and go back to niche research.

On a side note:

Passion Will KILL Competition – Hands Down!

Here’s the deal… If your chosen niche keyword has a certain amount of competition, more than you would usually be happy with, but you are super passionate about the niche you’re thinking of getting involved in, go for it!
In our experience passion will always overcome plain old competition.
It’s the passion and superior customer service behind Zappos that’s made them the driving force behind shoe sales online – even though there are a gazillion people selling shoes online.

In our Training Series we show, step by step, how to:

  • Select your niche domain name for best results
  • Set up your hosting
  • Selecting your niche templates
  • Designing your niche landing pages
  • Starting your affiliate marketing for your niche.