Start an Internet Business - Search for your Market
By: Derek Jones | Posted: 10th June 2007
One of the more time intensive tasks when you start an Internet Business is the one of finding your niche market, as well as a product that will sell well in that market. For the purpose of this article it is assumed that you have racked your brains, as well as your family and friends memories to create a list of possible businesses that you would be happy working in.
In order to clarify things, it would be best to state what the term "Niche Market" means.
A niche is defined as a "specialized market" or "an area of the market specializing in one type of product or service". In other words it is a narrowly defined group that have the same specialized interests and needs, where the group as a whole will have the following characteristics:
1. A strong desire for the product or service that you offer.
2. You can create an offer that will interest them more than those of your competitors.
3. You can create a method to present your offer to individuals within the group.
4. The group will provide a sustainable volume of business.
5. The group is small enough that your competition is likely to overlook it.
With the above in mind, and taking one business at a time, you will now need to decide on the best keyword or keyword phrase that defines the niche, and then use it to research the volume of traffic being searched on that keyword, and also the amount of competition that there is for that particular keyword.
For example, if you were interested in "dog training", then start by researching the keyword dogs. This keyword is searched for on Yahoo over one million times per month (demand) - when searched in Google it returns in excess of 100,000,000 results (competitors). This indicates a very large market plus a very highly competitive market.
Now research the keyword phrase "dog training". There are over 130,000 searches per month on Yahoo for this phrase, and the Google results are greatly reduced to around 10,000,000. This is still a large demand, but it is still highly competitive.
Next check the keyword phrase "dog training aids". This is searched for 770 times per month and has 1,500,000 results. The demand is now greatly reduced and there is still a lot of competition here. However, if you check Google for the full keyword phrase "dog training aids" in inverted commas, the results drop down to just under one hundred thousand. Now the competition is not so fierce. maybe this could be your niche.
Once you have found a appropriate niche it is necessary to delve more into its depths. Forums are an ideal place to find out about your niche, in particular what your niche market is looking for. To find your forum, enter into Google the term "your keyword+forum", without the inverted commas. Then search the results for a forum that you feel reflects your needs.
Check the posts for the information that is of interest to you. Find out, and get used to the language of the forum. Check out the posts of the moderators as these will be the specialists within the particular forum. In this manner you can get a feel for the niche, find some of the needs within the niche, as well as answers to some of the problems that you have already come across within it. In this way you can glean enough information to become an expert within this niche, especially if you start posting to them and interacting with the other members of the forum.
The above analysis is very basic but provides the principle involved. There are tools to help with keywords, but other than that it is plain hard work carrying out the research itself. Start an Internet business on a solid foundation and it will serve you well as you continue to grow.
Derek Jones - trying to ease the frustration of newcomers to the Internet business world. Sign up for a 7 day Ecourse which will help find answers as to what is required to start a Business at: Sign-up page
