Internet Marketing – Niche Marketing
Apr 6th, 2009 | By Kevin | Category: affiliate marketing
Niche marketing is an overworked term but that is indeed, in terms of Internet Marketing, is what we now need to do, we need to find our niche. Remember, we’re looking for 2-3 words so not just ‘pet’, more like ‘pet bling’ or ‘pet designer clothes’…
To begin with, follow the Zeitgeist link here and see if there is anything that catches the eye. These are the keywords that are ‘hot’ at the moment, if they excite, then add them to the list. If they are particularly new, the analysis that follows may be invalid, so please use common sense. i.e. ‘world trade center’ would have been ‘cold’ before 9/11, then hot, then cooling over the following years and now it will be hot again because of the film. If in doubt, click trends here to see the movement over the years. You do not want to be ‘buying into’ a keyword that is taking a downward trend (unless you have some inside information). If you’re still short of inspiration, try: ? Go here and click on the Welcome tab at the top of page. Under buyers you will see ’shopping destination’. Click on that. Then click on ‘more’ at the top of the page. The thousands of websites that accept PayPal are listed here by category. ? Go to the Groups link here. In the search box, type in the name of a product you’re interested in possibly selling. The search results will list the news groups discussing the product. Have a look if there is any RECENT ‘buzz’. Any groups that match? ? Go to the Amazon link here. Click on the Top Sellers tab near the top of the page. The most popular items are featured there, organized by category, and updated hourly. ? Go to the E-Bay link here – In the search box, type in the name of a product you’re interested in possibly selling. This gives an indication of the activity surrounding the item in question. Click on the Sell tab at the top of the page. Then, click on the Seller Central link at the bottom of the Sell page. Scroll down the page and click on the What’s Hot link. Then ‘Hot Items by Category’ ‘eBay Pulse’ and ‘eBay Marketplace Research’ are all worth a look. This is where you find out which categories and products are hot — and where demand is outpacing supply! *Zeitgeist means “the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era.”
So, for each of the subjects on the list, please do this:
***ACTION 1-5***
Go here. Follow the onscreen instructions and register for the free trial. Stick with the free trial at this stage. Although limited to MSN results, this will give you a good idea of what you are looking for. Note: The full membership includes Google results. Once you’ve logged in then enter the first subject idea from your list i.e. ‘anniversary gift’. Again follow the onscreen instructions, add the suggested keywords to your basket and at the end of step 4, you should have a list of potential keywords with the very important KEI number. The higher the better!
The KEI is simply a calculation between the number of web-sites competing for that term and the number of times that search term is used on a daily basis. Ideally what you are looking for is a keyword with FEW competing sites and LOTS of visitors. This is what the KEI identifies. Assuming that the best KEI has a reasonable number of searches (count above 400 should do) and the KEI is over 10 then that is your one! If your KEI is over 100 then you may have hit gold! Write it down and start over. The link to start over is at the bottom of the page after step 4. If it doesn’t meet your benchmarks then try some other words from your list for that subject. Repeat for your other six categories so you end up with at least 7 target words. What I do is usually come up with 2 or 3 options per category and score them KEI/count i.e. 15/585 so when we get to the next stage I know which ones are more valuable. Final tip: Avoid the word ‘free’ in your keywords – too hard to make any money with that one :o)
Then for each of your seven keywords, input them here in the following order: http://namewidget.com/
{keyword}{keyword}.com (with no separator), {keyword}-{keyword}.com (with – separator)
We’re looking for dot coms where possible. If you start to struggle you can always go here for some additional inspiration, using a word from down the list. You should now have a good idea of what domain names are available. Write them down! By the way, namewidget is not perfect but it is a nice, quick tool for these purposes. We are going to register your keywords tomorrow – and then they will be yours – how exciting! Until then,
To be continued in the next article in this series….
About the Author
Allen Jesson writes for several sites including one that specializes in internet marketing secrets and one that helps you make money and then of course, Allen Jesson.com.
Originally from Wisconsin, I moved out to Salt Lake City over ten years ago on a six month software development contract. I now have over 15 years in software development, and was introduced to internet marketing back in 2003. During the wild west days, our business focused on content sites for Adsense revenue. As it became harder and harder to keep up with the search engines, our business has evolved, and forced us to focus on building lists and creating products. We now have a list of about 5000 interested in goal setting, and a small internet marketing list of about 500.