How To Find Hot Niches With Dead Simple Market Research

[FrankHaywood]

After getting a few questions from my blog subscribers recently about how to do market research, and also seeing a lot of discussion about market research tools, it seems that getting ideas for niches is a problem for one group of people. And then following through with the research is a problem for another group.

And then some others (the majority) struggle with both.

So I thought it would be a good idea to do a short video for them explaining a dead simple method I use.

Then I thought "what the heck?", why don't I share this with the boys and girls at the Warrior Forum and then send my subscribers there instead? And pick up a few WF referrals too...

Two birds, one stone.

I've now done the video and transcribed it and I've copied the text to this post, which is why it's a little large (sorry).

This method uses free web based tools to find a niche, and I'm sure you'll straight away realise you can use the same method to uncover lots of other niches too. To my knowledge, no-one has openly discussed this exact process before and I suspect it may be considered a competitive secret by some. You may tell me otherwise if you know better.

Using this method, pretty much the base research needed to decide if a niche is worth pursuing is done for you before you even get going - finding a niche, amount of search, and keywords to target.

In fact I believe that these freely available tools plus a bit of old fashioned brainpower are every bit as good as the expensive paid for ones.

And... I also suspect that a lot of the paid for tools use the free online tools in the background to do the job, scrape the data, and then amalgamate it all and put a pretty interface on the front.

There's no doubt that probably speeds things up a little, but in most circumstances you don't need it, and in some cases it may deter you from pursuing a worthwhile niche or even end up confusing you.

I've been confused many times to the point of agonising over what to do. I hope this will help you to avoid that same confusion I've felt in the past.

So.

You don't need expensive tools to do market research, like I said, all the data you want is available online for free.

Okay? I'll stop waffling now. Here's the transcript from the video...

=========================

In this video I'm going to show you how to find hot UNTAPPED niches just by spending a few minutes at an easy to do market research method which doesn't cost you a penny.

#1 - I'm going to show you how to use a new(ish) search tool from Google to find high level niches where people are searching for products to BUY.

#2 - I'm going to show you how to dig a little deeper into that niche using the Google keyword tool to find a sub-niche that's getting a reasonable amount of search each month.

#3 - I'm going to show you how to check the number of competing pages just by doing an ordinary Google search, so you can tell when a niche is worth pursuing.

#4 - And finally. I'm going to show you how to select a good domain name based around your target product.

Okay, let's get started.

The first place we're going to look is the Google Keyword Tool at:-

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

This is supposedly a tool for AdWords account holders (accounts are free), but you don't need an AdWords account to use it.

Once you've gone to the page, you'll see there's a link to a relatively new tool called the Search-based keyword tool, and this is what I'm going to use to show you how to find HOT niches.

Search-based keyword tool

The Search-based keyword tool is supposed to work by you entering your domain, and it then shows you relevant keywords based on the content on your web site. But you can also use it in reverse to find RED HOT niches.

Once we've found a suitable one we'll then go back to the Google Keyword Tool and use it to find a better defined sub-niche that's getting either a lot or a reasonable amount of search.

Okay?

Right, once you're on the page for the search-based tool, scroll to the bottom and click the link that says "Or see top keywords across all categories".

Search-based keyword tool

On the left you'll see a bunch of categories that are getting the most searches on Google right now. Okay?

This.

Is.

A.

Goldmine...

...

Google are literally telling you what people are searching for to BUY. And they're categorising it all up for you.

How can you go wrong?

Okay?

Let's take a look at one of them.

Click on Consumer Electronics and this will expand downwards to show some other categories.

It will show you in the right hand pane some likely candidates for us to spend our time on. But we're not going to bother with any of those, we're going to dig a little bit deeper.

The sub-category I'm going to take a look at is Home Audio and Video.

Once you've clicked on that, then in the right hand pane you will see keywords that are getting huge amounts of search each month - they're getting the most amount of search within their sub-category.

HUGE amounts of search.

But better still, these are all PRODUCTS that people are BUYING.

And Google is telling you this for FREE. For free! Free! Hehe.

Who needs an expensive marketing tool when this information is ready for grabbing and has been pre-processed and packaged up for you, from the biggest database in the world?

This is the most accurate data you could wish to get and gives you perfect examples of hot markets, because people are SEARCHING for them.

I GUARANTEE that you can find plenty of niches here that you can start mining for GOLD.

In fact... more niches than you'll know what to do with when you apply a bit of brainpower and imagination.

You can also see how much Google is suggesting you'll have to pay for each click if you use AdWords.

Ridiculous prices - they're just taking the mickey. There's no way I'd pay any more than a few cents per click if I were using AdWords. These prices are all just a joke.

But somebody out there is paying them, so you have to assume that somebody is making money from those niches...

Well that doesn't matter, we're not going to pay anything.

What we're going to do is pick a likely niche and then see if there isn't a sub-niche or variation on the expensive keywords that no-one else is using.

(If there isn't we'll just try again.)

Then we're going to see if there isn't a domain based on that keyword. If you can get a keyword based domain and you're prepared to put in the work to put up a site that ticks all the Google quality score boxes, then you're laughing all the way to the bank.

Okay, enough waffle. Let's get on.

Just looking down this list, the one that's grabbing my interest is "hdmi cable". I don't know much about hdmi cables or what they do - High Definition something or other maybe? To do with TVs and PCs? But I do know I can do a bit of research and find out some more about them.

Now before I even look, I'm pretty sure that someone out there has probably already spotted this niche and is working in it. But that doesn't bother me at all.

Because what I'm going to do is look to see if I can't find a sub-niche within this niche, and start working that instead.

So now we have a likely candidate, let's go back to the Google Keyword Tool.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

What we're going to put in is hdmi cable... And see what other suggestions Google might have for us. Good old Google.

I live in the UK, so you can see that Google is presenting me with UK based data. But you can change that just by clicking the "Edit" button.

Right.

We'll sort by "Approximate Average Search Volume", and we'll also turn on "Search Volume Trends" to see if the niche has a history.

Right. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a winner!

"ps3 hdmi cable" is getting 49,500 broad match searches a month. Broad match means that those three words may be mingled and jumbled in with other keywords.

Such as "ps3 high resolution hdmi cable" or something like that.

Let's take a look at exact match, it just takes a moment.

Okay, 2,900 searches a month. That's not brilliant but it's okay, certainly worth spending a couple of hours work on, and according to Google no-one is bidding on those keywords. Cool. No competition.

But let's see how much competition there really is in terms of how many pages we're up against.

Okay, 1.67 million competing pages in the UK. I can beat that with a little bit of effort.

Usually, anything under 500,000 pages is relatively easy to beat. It depends on who your competition is.

If your competition is other affiliates and they're established, then you might have a hard time getting to the coveted #1 slot.

But if your competition is general shopping sites like Amazon or Game or Play.com, then they're fairly easy to beat with a little bit of patience.

I'll explain how in a minute.

In this case, 1.67 million is a little higher than I'd like, and the number of searches aren't quite as high as I'd like either - as a guideline I prefer more than 5,000 searches a month.

I bend these rules to suit myself. ;-)

You get a feel for it. Once you've done it a few times you get a feel for it.

So, if we look at an exact match search, then there's only 87,400 pages of competition, and that's very easy to beat. You could almost put up a single page and get to #1 with that.

So let's assume that in this case I've found a search term I like the look of in "ps3 hdmi cable".

The next step is to check to see if there's a suitable domain name available.

So let's go to my favourite registrar. Paste "ps3 hdmi cable" in there...

Ah, yep, I'd be interested in the .co.uk variant as I live in the UK. I'm happy to see that someone has registered the .com, which tells me that someone has had the same kind of idea as me.

Having said that, I'm willing to bet that nothing is being done on that domain.

Let's just have a look.

Yup, just a standard holding page.

Okay I reckon (a bit of an aside now) from personal research that about 9 domains out of 10 are registered and never used.

So even if you see a domain registered, you shouldn't think that's any kind of competition for you.

Now I'll only register a domain if I'm going to do something with it right away within a few days of registration, otherwise I might as well just open a window and throw $10 out.

What I'm saying is, don't be tempted to do a "land grab". You'll regret it.

ONLY register domains you know you're going to work on soon. Within a week, preferably the same day. Be strict with yourself.

So anyway, I think after this video I'll go register the ps3hdmicable.co.uk myself and I'll put a few pages up talking about PS3 HDMI cables whatever they are.

Once you've registered a domain, just put a few pages up promoting the product that people are looking for. Use plenty of words describing, discussing and reviewing the product in question, and then put an affiliate link to Amazon, maybe using one of their cool widgets to monetise the site.

Don't waste your time with AdSense. No, I mean it! DO NOT put AdSense on your site, your income will be minimal. Use something else that pays more, such as one of those Amazon widgets that I just mentioned. Or maybe an eBay widget.

Amazon are good at converting browsers into buyers and their commissions are good too.

eBay pay varying amounts, the maximum they pay I think is about $25 for a new user.

It's up to you really.

Make sure you have a privacy policy and sitemap etc so that you get a decent quality score from Google. You may even want to create an RSS feed using a service like I don't know, Feedburner, which will help your SEO.

Okay then. That's pretty much it.

Let's just recap.

#1 - I've shown you how to use the newish Google Search-based keyword tool to find high level niches based on searches of physical products, where Google is telling you what people are searching for to BUY.

#2 - I've shown you how to dig a little deeper into that niche using the Google keyword tool to find a sub-niche that's getting a reasonable amount of search each month. Anything above 5,000 is good. 10,000 is better, 20,000 is excellent.

#3 - I've shown you how to check the number of competing pages by doing an ordinary Google search. Anything below 500,000 is good, 250,000 is better, 100,000 is excellent.

#4 - I've shown you how to select a domain name based around your target product.

And that's it.

The only thing I'll add to what I've already said is don't get put off if you were say going for ps3 hdmi cable, and all the variants were gone.

Because you can just do something like take the same words and add HQ to the end (short for head quarters) and you'll almost certainly find no-one's registered any of those, so you just pick one of those instead.

And you stand just as good a chance of doing okay with it if you put the work in, as you would without having HQ on the end.

Okay?

When you've done it all for yourself once, your brain will go into overdrive and you'll come up with all sorts of variants to get at those little sub-niches.

You'll just see loads of them.

Thanks for your time, I hope you've enjoyed this, and if you have any questions, then just follow up with me through the usual channels, my blog or support desk or the forum etc.

Have fun!

=========================

Okay, that's the transcript of the short video, it actually takes less than 15 minutes to watch, and you'll probably get a better feel for what I talked about above if you watch it rather than just read the transcript.

Whatever. Everybody's got their own learning styles.

Here's a link to the video.

Market Research - Vendiva.com - Frank Haywood

If you want to download the above transcript as a PDF for reference, here's the zip.

http://www.vendiva.com/resources/fil...Free-Tools.zip

And before anybody says it, I know, I know. I could have written a compelling sales page and released this as a low cost WSO with resale rights or something.

I've bought worse.

I just hope this does someone some good, and more importantly doesn't do anyone any harm!

Enjoy.

All the best,

Frank Haywood.

[michaelmac]

Hi Frank,

Great instructions...thanks. As you've laid out in your post, it reallt isn't rocket science, but only requires a bit of patience and due diligence.

[grumpyb]

Hi
great idea BUt this tool seems not to be available outside USA
So i cant use this and be specific to my local google data servers.
If it worked then it wold be great advice BUT there are a lot of peole who do not Live in USA
The google keyword tool in Australia does not seem to support this function.
Thanks anyway I will keep and eye out in case google add this feature here

[bobmcalister]

that is good info ..thanks
and
yes you are correct ..I have bought many wso that didnt contain as much details , except the one from russ recently ...

[derrickp]

Frank great post, being good at finding hot niches is important. Without the right niche making money isn't easy. Personally I think I have master keyword research and finding hot niches, but it wasn't easy. I think you truly have given people a head start.

Derrick

[louisgeorges]

I can't believe it, I use Google's keyword tool almost every day and it was under my nose the whole time but I never saw it!

Great post... Thanks Frank!

[Donna Maher]

Frank, as usual for your *brilliant* ideas - thank you so much for sharing them. I also had overlooked that link, and now I'll remember to always check it when researching my niches!

I also totally agree with you about buying domains ONLY if you intend to use them within the week - it's way too easy to fork out the $8 - $10 for a totally awesome domain and then not remember to do anything with it. Next thing you know, you're renewing it - without having done anything with it for a year!

Blessings to you & yours,

Donna

[yourreviewer]

Frank! My Goodness, That's a brilliant post. This was one of the biggest stumbling blocks when I started out in IM. If you get this step wrong, no matter what you do afterwards is a complete waste of time, money and effort.

[Benchlegs]

Thanks Frank!
It's just what I've been looking for.

[Tradermac]

Thanks Frank for the information. I too have overlooked this in the Google page but not any more.
Great Post

[ChrisRuane]

I think this post will help alot of people who are confused about what they need to be doing - and while software tools can be helpful - they can manage without

Chris

[IMChick]

Hi, Frank. This post is excellent. I would add one eentsie weentsie tweak to your sentence on purchasing a domain name --

grab that available domain right away before it gets grabbed.

[tommyfocus]

Never knew this!!! Thanks Frank for the great advice!!

[Kate Carpenter]

Thank you not only for great insight and information, but also for transcribing the video for people, like me, on pokey slow dial up!
Kate

[Terry Kyle]

Thanks so much Frank. Gold star for you fella and I hope your IPK stuff is going gangbusters too!

[scraggz]

Thanks Frank

Priceless information. Like a lot of others, I've looked at that link and thought 'I must check that out'. In future I'll do more than think about it.

As you say, when you look most of what we need is available on line for free.

Quote from GrumpyB

great idea BUt this tool seems not to be available outside USA

Not sure what you mean, I live in Perth, WA and the link is there and works. I'm not even signing in with my Adwords account. I can't imagine what settings may affect this but you should be able to access it.

Stan

[Hamant]

Hi Frank
Many thanks for that long detailed post. That was very beneficial indeed.
Oddly I came across the search tool a couple of weeks ago but as is what happens I did nit take much notice of it.
Now that you pointed out how incredible the search tool is and after watching your video, I realized how powerful this is.
Many thanks again Frank

Hamant
UK

[mocapital]

hi
amazing amount of info...i like the fact this is something you can do right away
thanks

[giwu]

That's dead simple indeed but very helpful. Thanks.

[Luckey07]

Thank you for taking the time and explaining in such an easy way. I bookmarked the video I hope they don't take it away, I would like to follow along in a separate window. It's so nice when people who know what they are doing share their knowledge with others.

Thanks Alisa

[Scott Spooner]

Wow, Frank! Great post.

I, too, have been to Google a lot - almost every day, in fact - and I never once paid any attention to this little gem. I appreciate your short, concise delivery of the info and your generosity to share it.

Again, thank you!

Scott

[bobsstuff]

Thank you Frank,
Your post and video are excellent.
I printed the post and the transcript of the video.
You are right. This would be a great WSO, but thank you for sharing it in the forum.

[Wayne Cochrane]

Thanks Frank!
Short, simple and to the point.
Grateful for your generosity.
Wayne.

[ManAbout]

And... I also suspect that a lot of the paid for tools use the free online tools in the background to do the job, scrape the data, and then amalgamate it all and put a pretty interface on the front.

Agree with this. I downloaded the trial version of Market Samurai and stopped using it after a few days. They scrap Google data and put an interface on it. I can use the google keyword tool, google searches and a free plug in like Seoquake to do what these paid tools do.

Okay, 2,900 searches a month. That's not brilliant but it's okay, certainly worth spending a couple of hours work on, and according to Google no-one is bidding on those keywords. Cool. No competition.

Actually that is NOT cool. That competition should be high. Those are Adwords advertisers, i.e. people who think that keyword is worth spending money on. The more advertisers there are bidding on the keyword the better the niche. Don't go after a niche where there are no advertisers or you will not make any money.

I agree with everything else you have said though. I have been using this method and it works well. The Search Based keyword tool is a new one for me though. I will definitely include that in my toolkit. Thanks!

[dolcevita]

Thanks for the information.

[redneo]

lol... i've read such thing on an ebook.... and don't forget to advance the search result to CPM and CPC result.

[zGold7]

Thanks Frank.
Especially like the idea of a printed transcript.
Very helpful.

[visit_faraz]

Thanks for the info.
It was really helpful.
I am bookmarking this thread.

bye,
faraz

[Austin Delaney]

Cool - Thanks Frank. Will be using this method with your price comparison service (which is pretty darn cool too!)

I think this will really help finding niches to match up with Amazon bestellers for little mini-sites;

a) Search-based keyword tool

b) use Niche taser to drill down and get the exact phrase count

c) hop on over to Amazon and see if there's any decent matches for the keyword(s) with bestsellers

d) register a domain and create a site with Vendiva

e) herd some traffic

Rawhide!

[jbsmith]

Oops...forgot a couple of very important things that will make all the difference to your process...

1. Researching your product and profit margins. Getting paid $5 per sale may not be enough if there are only 2600 searches a month and the only way you can get any serious volume is by PPC advertising.

2. You need to examine competition deeper, to understand the top 10 players - is there a way for you to break into that crowd (do at least a few of them have a weakness in terms of relevance, domain age, keyword best practices, backlinks, PR, etc...) If you find a top 10 list that is very solid in terms of SEO, chances of tapping into the traffic you need is less, so move on...

You've covered the demand side very well, just need to add in some research on competition and monetization strategies to your overall business assessment.

After all, what people are really trying to do when they research a niche is to find a profitable business - not just a market.

Jeff

[Mike Russen]

As always interesting info Frank - thanks like the previous poster have bookmarked this thread

[MaryAnnBarlow]

Thank you Frank... excellent video! And I also appreciate the conversion to pdf... that's quite handy.

Mary Ann

[lollieamp]

Thats a very useful resource for beginners =)

[BrentHodgson]

@ManAbout

You know that you can use the Keyword Research tools in Market Samurai for free, right?

Obviously it's faster, gathers more data, and has more features than the Google keyword tool itself.

I hope this helps

Brent

[semmyw]

Thank you Frank! Nice post.

[Marhelper]

Originally Posted by FrankHaywood

#4 - And finally. I'm going to show you how to select a good domain name based around your target product.

This is one of the real keys to the whole process, thanks for the thread.

[Antilles]

Hi Frank (and others on this thread).

I've been looking into this with great interest but stumbled across a possible problem with a niche I was researching - the bit regarding the registration of domain name.

For example if your niche search term was 'cheap sony dvd players', and you registered the domain cheapsonydvdplayers.com, could you not be pursued by Sony (or whoever owns a trademark) for trademark infringement?

Anyone got any ideas on the legality of this?

[MissC7]

Thanks for sharing this market research method. It's very easy to do. I've found some interesting niche ideas already.

- Cynthia

[sundown16]

Thanks Frank for the awesome post! A lot of thought went into it, much appreciated.
Finding the right niche, and or market where people are actually SPENDING MONEY
is absolute critical.

[Christian Chan]

I think this is too much of work. You might as well go to Clickbank Marketplace or eBay Hot Items to find out what sells.

[Ray Erdmann]

Originally Posted by louisgeorges

I can't believe it, I use Google's keyword tool almost every day and it was under my nose the whole time but I never saw it!

Great post... Thanks Frank!

I was in the same boat too...I can't believe I never even saw that link before!

This was a GREAT POST!

Thanks for sharing Frank! Much appreciated.


Ray

[FrankHaywood]

Originally Posted by Antilles

Hi Frank (and others on this thread).

I've been looking into this with great interest but stumbled across a possible problem with a niche I was researching - the bit regarding the registration of domain name.

For example if your niche search term was 'cheap sony dvd players', and you registered the domain cheapsonydvdplayers.com, could you not be pursued by Sony (or whoever owns a trademark) for trademark infringement?

Yep, you could. In fact I thought better about using the PS3 in the domain in the video and I've just left the site alone. Normally I'd have something there by now.

I know this doesn't deter most affiliates though, and some will say it's key to their success. I know some people who've had cease and desist letters with claims of "passing off", but after they've transferred the domain to the trademark owner that's been the end of it.

I think it depends on the company. Personally I'm delighted to have people use similar sounding or worded domains to my own products in order to promote for me - publicity is PUBLICITY - but many companies aren't as clued up or as enlightened.

It's a risk you can choose to take if you want to, I've now chosen not to in the case of PS3, but there are others where I do use names that maybe I shouldn't, and they do perform well.

-Frank

[FrankHaywood]

Originally Posted by Christian Chan

I think this is too much of work. You might as well go to Clickbank Marketplace or eBay Hot Items to find out what sells.

You go for it Christian! I'll stick with what I know works.

Somebody said (I think Tim Ferris) that it's lonely at the top. The more people that think it's too much work will leave the market for those that are willing to do it.

All the best,

Frank

[GeorgR.]

where is the icon for "ten thumbs up"? nice!!!!

[iw433]

Thanks a bunch. That's why the forum is the first place I go when I fire up the old comput in the morning.

[bwall]

Great post Frank. Thanks for the detailed information about market research.

[KentuckyJeff]

Thanks Frank, for sure some of the most valuable information any NewB needs.

And yes, you could have made a WSO out of it.

I just paid $17!! for a WSO that I can't believe anyone would actually charge money for. It was ridiculous. It was nearly 15 pages or something, but could have been a single sentence of OLD information that I heard shortly after coming online in 1989.

It's even outdated now!!

Buyer Beware!!

[HQArticleWriting]

very nice detailed info. i'm printing this out and bookmarking this thread!

[Sipboy3000]

I must admit that this was some excellent info Frank.

I consider myself well versed in keyword research and never used this tool like what you showed. However, I have used it to find very good keywords that convert pretty well.

Thanks for the video and the transcript.

[GeorgR.]

ha..i didn't know we can "rate" threads...i just did