Niche Finding is the last step of Brainstorming and the practical result of an accurate and deep research market. In this step you will be able to find a profitable niche market which you can start building your website around that niche.
For those who don´t know what a niche market is, it is a segment of a market that has specific targeted customers. In other words, a niche market is a focused portion of a market, addressing a need for a product or service. So, in most cases, terms such as “Words”, “Keywords” and “Key Phrases” can be used as the synonyms of Niche Markets.
In the Market Research process, you were supposed to keep in mind 3 important factors while researching a market for your website (Demand, Supply & Profitability). In fact, this step is the practical aspect of a market research process and at the end, you will be able to find a profitable potion in the market that you can start building your website in that niche.
Since most of your customers will find your website through search engines, it would make sense if we focus our market research on this media. Then, we can go to the next level and expand our research process. But now, the following factors will be focused and monitored on search engines and in most cases, Google.
First select one of the general or broad terms you came up before as the main topic for your website. The point is to find a list of other related terms or keywords to your topic and determine if they meet the criteria or not.
There are some criteria for each and every factor and I am going to go through all of them. Bear in mind that most of the numbers are for estimation purposes only.
1. Demand
It is defined as the number of searches done by people on the Internet. If we find out how many people search a specific word or keyword in a search engine, then we will simply get a better picture of the existing demand out there.
A profitable niche is a high demand part of the market meaning that there are already a lot of potential customers looking for that specific topic. The more the number of searches, the greater the potential.
Basically, you should select a keyword that is searched more than 100 times per day (+3,000/Month). This estimation just tells you that there are a quite number of searches done each and every month. So, you would determine if it is worth building a site around that keyword or not.
On the other hand, you have to check the trends, as well. Just because the number of searches is high doesn´t mean it applies all the time. Sometimes, an occasion or a news could create some demand in the market that won´t last forever. Checking the trends over a longer period of time would give you a better indication. If that specific keyword has been searched on the Internet for a long time without any big difference, then you would consider it as high-demand keyword.
2. Supply
It is defined as the number of competition out there and shows how many websites are using the same keywords on their web pages. As I mentioned before, you should check out this factor through search engines and determine how much the strength of competition there is.
I would only recommend using the big and famous search engines in this approach. And as you may know, the leading search engines are Google, Yahoo! and MSN. In most cases, I would prefer to focus my research only on the most powerful one, Google.
You can check this factor by entering your specific keyword in the search engines between quotes(“”). That way, only the web pages having that keyword in the exact order will come up and you will see the number of your competitors. Remember that your potential customer would not type that keyword in the quotes. It is only an indication for you to figure out the strength of competition.
If you pick a low-supply keyword, you will have better chances to beat your competitors. So, it is too important to select a zero-to-low niche market at the beginning in order to avoid competing with a large number of other established websites.
Basically, that number should be less than 30,000 web pages. More conservatively, it is better to go for less than 10,000 web pages. In fact, it depends on the first factor. If your keyword has a decent number of demand (+200/Day), you can still consider 30,000 web pages as a low-supply keyword.
Sometimes, you would better check other elements of competition, as well. For example, how many web pages are using your specific keyword in their “Title”, “URL Address”, “Text” and “Anchor Text”. In the next posts, I will talk about them in more detail.
3. Profitability
It is defined as the grade of potential profitability and measured by checking if there is enough money to spend or not in that specific niche market.
You may find some high-demand and low-supply keywords, but don´t start building your website around them until you find out they are profitable. Otherwise, how would you be able to make money from your website?
Checking the potential profitability of a keyword is not a simple task. Basically, this fact can only be gained through testing and analysing the results. Since, this is your first website and you don´t have any previous test results then you should use your logic in this approach.
Basically, if there are potential customers in a specific niche market, then there should be some advertisers willing to spend money for promotional purposes, as well. People want good results from their projects and if there is not enough money to spend, they would not keep their projects running.
So, you can get a better indication of a potential profitability of a specific keyword. Just type it in a search engine like Google and check if there are some sponsored links at the right side of the results. If yes, chances are that there are already some advertisers making money in that market.
Also, you may check if there is any related affiliate program for your topic or not. In most cases, you don´t have your own product or service and want to monetize your website by promoting other´s stuff. So, if there is not any single affiliate program out there, you would not be able to monetize your web pages.
Just enter your keywords along with terms such as “Affiliate Program”, “Referral Program” or “Partnership Program” in the search engines and see what comes up. Check out the results and if you find a relevant program, join it.
As you may see, finding a profitable niche market is dependent on the above-mentioned factors. If you overlook them or do the process wrong, you will hardly succeed. Later, you will realize how important it is to pick the hot keywords for your niche market, even in the steps like Marketing and Monetizing.
Now, you have come up with some related keywords that are high-demand and low-supply with some potential profitability. At this point, you can start building your website based on those keywords. In the next posts, I will get though them all. Of course, you don´t want to miss out any single post, so subscribe to the blog RSS Feed today!
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Hooshmand Moslemi
