Is it good to enter a SMALL niche market?

You're welcome. I should clarify, though, that there is nothing wrong with doing your keyword research and looking at monthly searches, that should still be part of your market research, but it shouldn't be everything.

I stopped using SEO to get traffic a long time ago, but if ranking is important to you then keyword research is VERY important.

As far as where people make their purchases at, that would depend on the niche, what product / service you plan on selling, and what your business model is going to be.

If you look at the information product business model in the form of a PDF or membership website, it's pretty darn easy to perform some due diligence because even with a precursory keyword search in places like Google, Clickbank, Youtube, etc. you'll be able to find competing products and services as well as find advertisers.

I'm not trying to get out of giving you more specifics, but it really does depend on what you plan on pursuing.

I've been marketing online in a wide variety of niches since 1999 and if there's one thing I can share with people is this: nothing has made me more money than niches that have rabid, repeat buyers OR a very specialized niche that has fewer buyers but higher ticket items.

I know I guy who makes tons of money buying and selling yachts, all online. I met him at one of Yanik's seminars a few years ago. It just blows my mind at how creative people can get in ways of making money.

I shared with people about a year ago in this very forum that I noticed that there were a bunch of small to medium-sized medical suppliers who had websites and were selling 1 to 10 million a year in total sales. BUT they didn't have a single affiliate program!!!

Out of sheer curiosity I found a few of these companies and started cold calling them, asking them about their affiliate program and their sales force. I only called a few but most of them had neither!

I didn't pursue this because my interests lie elsewhere, but I saw an under-served niche here.

I'm a tenacious researcher and have been known to cold call businesses, take out business owners / managers out to lunch, spend hours at the library, buy other people's products and dissect them, etc.

The first place to start is usually Google, Bing, Copernic, etc. and perform some keyword searches and play very close attention on who is on the first page. Both the organic and paid results.

Does your niche have a periodoical? Any type of trade journal? Are there any experts that require certifications? What ancilliary niches / products/ services can also be cross-promoted?

People who know me on this forum know that I have been a dating coach for well over a decade. But I didn't just market dating advice products and services to my clients or my list. I sold them fitness products, health supplements, teeth whiteners, weight loss products, etc.

Check and see if that particular niche has FB groups, forums, etc. If you can find out where they hang out, chances are you can find out where they buy.

RoD

Here's something to consider. I got it from a really smart SEO guy back when SEO still meant something. He did all the keyword mumbo jumbo. And even if it didn't make sense according to the SEO playbook he still didn't eliminate the niche.

So what was his ace in the hole? Ads. How many ads were displayed along with the various keywords. 5 or 6 ads that continued to show up after a couple of weeks and it was a go, regardless of keywords. Of course he made the call based on the results of the five top search engines. Just something to think about. Good luck.