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Newbie on niche. A bit confused....

by scooby
9 replies
Hi all,

I'm a newbie and this is my first post here

I've 2 questions:

1) How do you get your niche? Pls don't shoot me wth the "read this or that ebook..." first, coz I believe I'm kinda info overload, thus the confusion now. Most, if not all, that i came across seemed to indicate 'get into a niche then, use keyword tool...', but keyword tool only allows you to find how viable your chosen keyword is (no?), but coming to a headstart of getting the keyword is what I'm scratching my head - HOW?
Coz of those keyword tools (albeit they are FREE) I tried, just put your already-chosen keyword in the search box, . Again, HOW do you choose which keyword to put (yup, the niche question)?

2) Assuming Q.1) answered, - I found a niche, and am aware there's loads of pay keyword tools (thanks to the gurus affiliate links in their ebooks + emails) . Aren't they more or less same wth free ones? Also want to know- is there any among them that has geographical indication for a particaular searched volume?
Uhmm....

Eg - keywords "new found Vit UVW fresh goats milk colostrum", "must farm fresh" but most 85% of the searches comes from area ABC. Without knowing where the main geographical search comes from and we'll be apt to promote any "fresh goats milk colostrum", "must farm fresh". But what if (hypothectically) none of the milk seller is from area ABC but some far off county area JKL, NMO, etc...u get the picture.
My guess is, no one wants to order their 'farm fresh milk' send thru FedEx Express Freight ?
#bit #confused #newbie #niche
  • Profile picture of the author winebuddy
    Your questions are unclear and not very 'to the point" and you may not get any responses... but

    1) How do you get your niche?
    Interesting way to put it but I think you mean "how do you choose a niche"? If so, that's all up to you. Your niche should be something that you know something about (it'll make you a more credible source), and something that people spend money on.

    While you don't have to be an expert in the subject matter, it's best to have a working knowledge of it - OR - you could spend some time researching the niche and GET a working knowledge of it.

    Also, the niche should be a sector of a mainstream topic - not just "fly fishing" but "tying flies" or "fly fishing in Yellowstone". In other words, a subset of a broader catagory. You'll have a lot better results and much more targeted visitors if you approach it this way.

    Another example: Home Gardening. A better niche is "Growing your own spice garden". Sure it's home gardening and sure it's growing stuff - but it is very specific and leaves you room to talk about thousands of spices and herbs you can grow at home - along with all the things you could sell - including a "how to" manual.

    Remote Control is another market - but a niche in that market would be "remote control saliboats" - pretty narrow but there are fanatics out there and there are people who are just getting into remote control that may want to take up remote control sailboating.

    Here's the KEY: once you have your little niche picked out, the keywords will be obvious. like "remote control sailboats" and "remote control sailboat parts", and "model sailboat kits" - I think you get the picture.

    The more clearly defined the niche is, the easier the keywords are to come up with.

    As far as geographical areas that the keywords would work in - there are some things that are probably common sense...

    I wouldn't think you'd sell many "RC sailboat kits" in northern Africa (but the again, I could be wrong). By the same token, selling surfboards to people in Kansas probably wouldn't work too good either. However, there would STILL be some ethusiasts in Kansas who would buy them.

    Your example about goat's milk is, in my humble opinion, not applicable as milk is a perishable product and almost always bought at local or farmer's markets where it's fresh.

    Hope this helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jon MacPherson
    Hi Scooby,

    At the top of the Main IM Discussion Forum is a sticky called New?... Scroll down for 3 great threads on niches.

    Good Luck, Jon
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    • Profile picture of the author scooby
      Thanks guys.

      -Winebuddy -
      So I gather it's all about getting a feel of what's around you, sensing your environment ( market acuteness?) , personal interest all that? It's pretty subjective then... lots of those ebooks are basically telling this too. Aren't there anything more structured ?( I'm not talking about total rigid step1 -> step 2 ->etc kinda thing [though it would be appreciated] but say, a blueprint or something.
      ..and the "fresh milk" eg, is a bit far fetch, I agree:p...but thank u for getting it.

      -Jon-
      Thanks for the pointers
      PS. Guess, there's no keyword tool that has some sort geographical feature / metric kinda thing too, huh?
      Hey, Wait! Could this be a niche if anyone can target buyers looking for that extra feature in that tool....Any takers? (but seriously if there's out there I'd like to know)


      PSS. DIgress a bit:
      Eg, my chosen keyword is "butterflypea " & "butterflypea extract".
      Would it affect the SEO tagging thing if I get a domain, say, butterflypea-extract.com wth the '-' OR butterflypeasextract.com, etc ( wth 1 or 2 prefix /suffix /punctuation added) coz I can't get the exact whole name butterflypeaextract.com.


      Scoob
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      • Profile picture of the author ebizstrategies
        PS. Guess, there's no keyword tool that has some sort geographical feature / metric kinda thing too, huh?

        Google - Google Trends and Google Insites have geographical data if your targeted phrase has enough search volume.
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        • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
          When looking for a new niche, I like to look for new items on the market or things I have an interest in of some kind.

          While some niches are better money makers than others, those tend to be more competitive.

          You want to take a general niche and narrow down into it.

          So, I'll throw something out for you that I have no interest in as an example, but show you different ways to break it down.

          I am not a big sports person but I'll go with the sports niche.

          Off the top of my head I can think of a million things I could promote if I was doing this niche.

          I will narrow down the niche even more to baseball.

          So, within baseball you could go the route of equipment like baseballs and bats. You could go the route of promoting tickets to games in your area. You could go into clickbank where you might find an ebook to promote either on sports betting or on how to play better baseball.

          You could also look for "cures for injured atheletes" etc. You could sell shoes specific to baseball players.

          So, any of these things and a million more just from baseball.

          Next, you want a web presence, so you can make a site or a blog about your niche. When you go to make your site you want to name it with your keywords in mind.

          Your keywords will be easy to search for once you have picked the niche. You can go for what is considered the "lower hanging fruit" and find something that is searched a few thousand times a month and then incorporate those terms into your domain name.

          Then, when writing you want to use your low hanging fruit terms within a specific density within your web pages and articles so you can rank and conquer.

          The goal is that when one of those several thousand folks googles the term that google has told you is searched for that your site comes to the top of the search naturally as you have optimized for it. This will/can occur for you everywhere if you do it right.

          Now, you can go behind google as well and find what words are being geographically searched - where they are being bid on with adwords. Not all markets will have competition in the bidding depending on what you are going for. But you won't need to worry about this if you really use everything available to market your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author Hereandthere
    Just stay with the dot com and get the best variation you can. I think the s is better in your example because 2 e's together look funny, but the dash helps so go for whichever one you like. And yes i know your url is probably something else!

    BTW, re choosing a niche, poke around amazon and see what sells well
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  • Profile picture of the author gundammeister
    I have several niches that I would like to work on, but there is just too much competition. I'm having troubles finding keywords that are profitable.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kay King
      drill down! If the general niche is high on competition find an area of that niche that isn't flooded.

      I think sometimes it's easy to get the perception of keyword research as something you "do quickly" and move into the important stuff of building a site. It's easy for us to say "choose a niche and find some keywords" but we don't always put enough emphasis on the importance of those steps.

      I spent 3 hours yesterday choosing keywords for a new niche. Considering I've been doing this quite a while - why would it take so long? Because I had to find a portion of that niche that would work. That meant many keyword searches using the google tool and SEObook - it meant many more google searches to find KW phrases with reasonable competing sites and enough searches to be profitable. Those 3 hours will pay off as the new site will be easier to rank and attract traffic to. - because every page title will be a keyword phrase with good search numbers and moderate competing pages/sites.

      Choose ONE of the niches you are considering and work only on finding keywords and areas of that niche that seem to have a good number of searches - and that have good KW phrases with reasonable competition. When judging the competing sites, I use the keyword phrase in quotes because I'm looking for the number of sites using that exact phrase.

      Keyword research is odd - you can't understand it totally until you do it again and again over time. Doing it repeatedly allows you to develop a "sense" of what will work. If you master niche and keyword research - your sites will be more profitable. It's that important!

      kay

      EDIT: I should add there is no "one" way to do good keyword research. What is important is to learn to use tools you trust and to develop your own method of finding the best phrases to use.
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  • Profile picture of the author anuj291
    Well My suggestion
    Search for something you like... i have learned that u can survive only where your interest lies.... if you run after money niche in which you miht not be interested .. you will soon loose control and wont be making anythin... but in ur interest niche you will know wher to go and what to do..

    Go to adwords tool and find keywords... target less competetive keywords only...
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