Predicting a profitable niche

I think the volume is decent if it's a product people will buy and you can charge a decent amount.

Is it a growing/trending niche?

At the very least it doesn't sound like you'll have to invest much in traffic so the risk is low other than your time investment. Could be a nice little revenue stream if it converts.

I would base it not off Google, but for what niche you know the most about and can make a good product.

As an entrepreneur, or a businessman, you can't rely only on the actual information. You have to think if the product you build will still be needed 3,6,12 months from now, or even more. Google can't tell you that, but if you are experienced enough in your field to write a book, then you should be experienced enough to predict that. You can't be 100% sure but you must have an idea of what is going on and what will happen in the future.

The question is: Does this niche only search or are they willing to pay for a product? Are there other products out there?

Also, I'd check the PPC. Are people advertising here? If not, why not?

Search volume is only one part of the equation.

Sal

I have to say that I no longer go for a niche. You can spend a ton of time and money testing, only to find that your products flop.

These days I go where the money is.

HINT: Major publishers do a ton of research and rarely commission a book unless there is a ready made market and high sales potential.

So I am happy to follow them and then go from there. Works a treat for me because I am tapping into an existing market which has a history of buying info products.

A few years back, my wife took a shot at the whole niche thing when it was the next big thing... PPC, surveys and all that stuff. 12 months later she had zero to show for it.

My advice is to stop mining for that undiscovered niche that will deliver the jackpot and find something popular and do ti better than anyone else.

Remember... everything you need to know is revealed in my sig file.

Sal

• The #1 result for any given search typically averages are 40-45% of the clicks resulting from that phrase.

6,000 x 0.45 = 2,700 visitors.

• The #10 result averages roughly 2-5% of clicks.

6,000 x 0.02 = 120 visitors.

• So you're looking at between 120 and 2,700 visitors monthly from this one search if you're able to rank and stay positioned in the top 10.

I typically search for "gold nugget" key phrases in subject areas that I have some kind of insider information. This allows me to predict what people are going to be searching for before Google is even able to provide information to other people trying to delve into the niche.


For instance, I am a retired World of Warcraft player. While still heavily involved in the game, I predicted a phrase that no one was yet searching for, but that I thought would soon become very desirable. While the niche was still "fresh," I wrote an article to fulfill that search and submitted it to GoArticles.com. Without any further promotion (no backlinking or social bookmarking) that article gained nearly 30,000 hits in the 6 months that followed.


Google's keyword tools are valuable in indicating what is currently happening, but the most dramatic results will always come from tapping what's around the corner....before it's even here yet.



Hope this helps!
-Sam

Thanks a lot for your input guys (and gals). I'm going to go ahead with this niche. I'm giving myself two weeks to see this project through. I'll be sure to share the website and niche here when I'm done. Thanks again!

Alexa,

Thanks for the feedback. If you're not using google as your main source of traffic, what are you using?

Thanks!

Does your product or service solve a problem for people in that niche? If your product or service makes life easier then you will have little problem selling it, regardless of the size of the niche.

If there was a market of only 200 people, but THEY ALL had the same problem, and YOU CREATED A SOLUTION to that problem, in all likelihood all 200 people would buy it.

What if that problem was a RECURRING PROBLEM, i.e something they dealt with everyday, and it was worth $100 a month to them in lost time and effort to resolve the problem and you provided a Software as a Service solution to that problem?

That's $20,000 a month in recurring income from just a market of 200 people in the entire world! That's $240K a year. Now imagine that such a service could be run on a shared hosting account with a simple database. Mind you, there are only 200 customers, so this isn't an unlikely scenario. It costs you $70 a year in hosting to produce $240K in revenue and with the whole market being 200 people, it only cost you $500 in printed materials and mailing costs to DIRECTLY target and market to those people in their real world mailbox.

The size of the market ISN'T the question, THE SIZE OF THE PROBLEM YOU ARE SOLVING FOR THAT MARKET is the question!

Bear in mind that 6,000 monthly searches is only based on one keyword and it's not going to give you the whole picture. Before I even do any keyword research I look at the market itself. Some things that I look for are:

* Competition - I like to see other players in the market so that I can study them.

* Advertising dollars - I follow the money.

* Repeat buyers - Does the market have buyers who buy again and again?

* Product / service mix - Does the market have a wide variety of products and/or services?

* Need / Solutions - Does the market have a real need and can I provide the solution(s)?

Don't limit yourself to "ranking", look at other distribution channels such as paid advertising, publicity, strategic partnerships, etc.

RoD