Finding Your "niche"

So what is a niche?

An often used technique for affiliate marketers is Internet-based niche segments of larger markets, referred to as niches. A website can be developed and promoted quickly to uniquely serve a targeted and customer base, giving the affiliate a small but potentially durable source of revenue. This technique can then be repeated across several other niche websites. A bigger niche is harder to market to as the expense of online advertisements increases according to the popularity of the keywords used (on Adwords, for example).

Some niches may become saturated with marketers, increasing competition and thus reduce the slice of the pie available to each competitor. One solution is to find smaller, "undiscovered," but still profitable, niches, usually by searching out the best keywords to target. These lower cost keywords are called long-tailed keywords, as in the long tail of secondary keyword phrases that usually follow the main keyword in popularity of number of searches conducted by internet users. Because some are so obscure as to have few or no clicks per month, the trick is to find the right ones to target.

When you are considering starting an online business, you want to make sure you find the right product.  What do you want to sell.  What is your passion.  What subject or topic do you have a lot of knowledge about.  Let me start by telling you that selling an information product online is easier than selling a service.  But, selling a service online makes more money with monthly memberships. 

Before you spend all your time working on a website and writing up eBooks, you want to be sure that your customers are going to be interested in what you are selling.  Do your market research.  Start by seeing how many competitors you have -this is a good sign.  Read through newsgroups, discussion boards, and chat rooms and learn about your target market customer base.  If you already have an email list, send them a survey to see what they are most interested in.

Most internet marketers preach that there are three reasons why a customer will want to buy your product.  Your product has solved a problem for your customer.  Your product has made life easier or more comfortable for your customer.  You are very passionate about your product and it shows in everything you do.

When researching your niche, you may want to use www.Amazon.com and find the current top sellers.  Find out what people are reading about.  You will want to research keywords with keyword tools such as www.wordtracker.com.  You need to discover which keywords are being searched for frequently. 

Doing a little poking around your competitors sites isn't a bad idea.  This is one way to come up with ideas on what would make your company different or better.  Take a look at their traffic rankings and their related links.  By analyzing this information, you can see how many visitors they have each day and how profitable their company is.
Once you find your passion, ask yourself does this serve my customers.  You want to provide an excellent service to each and every person that spends their money with you.  This cuts down on complaints, bad reputations, and, worse of all, chargeback's.

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