• Home
  • About Us
  • Advertising opportunities
  • Contact Us

Associate Programs

  • Articles16 Yrs of Expert Advice
    • Advanced Articles
      • Branding
      • Business Partnerships
      • Conversion Rates
      • Datafeeds
      • Employees
      • Geo-Targeting
      • Interactive Websites
      • List Building
      • Membership Sites
      • Outsourcing
      • Super Affiliates
      • Visitor Created Content
      • Web Video
      • Your Own Program
        • Affiliate Program Management
        • Recruiting Affiliates
    • Affiliate Resources
      • Affiliate Blogs
      • Affiliate Networks
      • Affiliate Tools
      • Affiliate Training
      • Books And Courses
      • FREE Marketing Courses
      • Free Software
      • Merchant Resources
      • Recommended Newsletters
      • Research Competitors
      • Residual Commissions
      • Tracking
    • Beginners Articles
      • Affiliate Marketing Success Stories
      • Affiliate Training
      • Building A Website
        • Web Content
        • WordPress Plugins
      • Business Training
      • Getting Started
        • Business Ideas
      • Getting Traffic
        • Link Building
        • PPC Advertising
        • Search Engine Tips
        • Social Media
      • Goal Setting
      • Monetizing A Site
      • Motivation
      • Time Management
      • Writing Tips
    • Intermediate Articles
      • Blogs
      • Buying Advertising
      • Ebook Publishing
      • Ezine Publishing
      • Getting Publicity
      • Improving Sales
      • RSS
      • Squeeze Pages
      • Video
    • News
    • Product Reviews
      • AdSense
      • Affiliate Manuals
      • Autobiographies
      • Blogging
      • Content Packages
      • Keyword Research
      • Link building
      • PPC
      • Product Creation
      • Search Engine Optimization
      • Site Building
      • Traffic generation
      • Useful Newsletters
      • Useful Tools
    • Newsletter Archive
      • 1998 Newsletters
      • 1999 Newsletters
      • 2000 Newsletters
      • 2001 Newsletters
      • 2002 Newsletters
      • 2003 Newsletters
      • 2004 Newsletters
      • 2005 Newsletters
      • 2006 Newsletters
      • 2007 Newsletters
      • 2008 Newsletters
      • 2009 Newsletters
      • 2010 Newsletters
      • 2011 Newsletters
      • 2012 Newsletters
      • 2013 Newsletters
      • 2014 Newsletters
  • Recommended ResourcesThe Actual Tools and Resources I Use
  • Affiliate Program DirectoryFind Affiliate Programs to Promote
Home Choosing a niche for your online business

Choosing a niche for your online business

“How to make $1000 a month online from scratch” has proven to be one of our most popular article series. It has recently been updated to support the latest online developments and innovations.

By now, your mind should be primed and ready for success after you’ve read The Mindset. It's time to take action and get started on building your new online business.

First, a little warning. This chapter, “The Idea”, is going to be fairly long and relatively detailed, so it's time to turn off all distractions and set aside some time to go over this completely. I would recommend that you read it through from start to finish, then find some time to take the action outlined.

Some of you might be tempted to skim read and think you know it all already. This is a mistake. Something I've learned over the years is that the devil is in the details. This outline is a carefully crafted blueprint to create exponential effects. If you miss a step, you're destined to have dramatically less success. So read through this part carefully.

The chapter covers two aspects. First, it introduces you to the business model I'm recommending for people who want to make their first $1000 a month online. It may be similar to what you've read elsewhere, but it's more deliberate and calculated. So follow along carefully.

Second, this chapter will guide you on the selection of the right niche to apply this business model to. If you follow the steps outlined for this, it might take you a few hours. It's fun stuff though.

I'm going to cover the business model part on a fairly high level without getting into lots of details. It's more to put your niche selection in context. More specific instructions will follow in later weeks.

We'll be digging deep with the niche selection part.

Let’s jump right into it.

THE BUSINESS MODEL

The business model I’m outlining is designed to take into account most people's lack of resources. Specifically I'm talking about time, money and extensive expertise. It's not really glamorous, but it works.

There are 3 levels to this business model. This model works within the context of a particular niche area. I’ll be using an example throughout for the niche of “Golf Putting.” We’ll be looking at ways to discover your own niche later in this chapter.

If you’re a visual person, this flow chart should help you as I explain it below.

Chart

The whole business model can be explained simply like this. It’s worth reading slowly.

We aim to attract website visitors who need help with a subject that involves a financial transaction (for example buying a product or paying for information to solve a problem). We provide solutions for these people in the form of useful information that pre-sells them into the right products for their needs. The products can either be other people’s products (via affiliate links) and/or your own products.

Many of you may think you’re doing that already. But you probably aren’t.

Remember how I discussed the 80/20 rule in “The Mindset” chapter? It applies here as well. Niche selection is critical. We want to focus on subjects that involve a financial transaction. We don’t want to focus on topics that lots of people search for information on, but rarely will engage in a transaction. I’ll expand on this later in the chapter.

Let’s take a look at the how each of the 3 levels in the business model work.


Content Level

The content level is the foundation for this business model. We’ll be setting up a website that has lots of good quality content that serves two purposes. The first purpose is to generate targeted traffic via search engines. The second purpose is to position you as an expert and to get people to trust you. If they trust you, they’ll trust your recommendations for other products and will be happier to buy the products you’ve created.

Both these purposes will be covered in more detail in following chapters, including exact instructions on the best ways to leverage these principles.


Traffic Level

Traffic is the lifeblood of your site. It’s important to remember that the word “traffic” is a poor way to describe what’s really going on. You need to remember that you’re referring to REAL people interacting with you. Always keep that in mind. It will help you connect more with your audience.

It’s everyone’s quest, no matter how big you get, to attract lots of targeted traffic. As I mentioned above, creating great search engine friendly content is a great way of doing this. Easily the best FREE method.

There are many other ways to attract free traffic other than via SEO (search engine optimization). I’ll cover what to ignore and what to focus on in a following chapter dedicated entirely to traffic.


Monetization Level

Once you’ve got targeted visitors to your site, you need a way to turn that into dollars. It’s often the trickiest part for people.

This business model has a 3 prong monetization strategy. The three prongs include:

Contextual Advertising. This simply means using Google AdSense to generate some pay per click income. This is likely to be your smallest monetization source. If your other two prongs are working well, you may be wise to ignore this prong all together.

Affiliate Sales. This is simply writing about good products in a fresh and enthusiastic way that pre-sells people towards purchasing. For example, you might review a particular putter model and provide honest and helpful advice. You’ll then want to find the cheapest online store for that particular model (that has an affiliate program) and direct people there for the best price. 
 
They’ll trust you because you’ve given an objective review of the product, so they’ll be more likely to buy from you. If your review is high quality, you’ll also find other sites linking to you as well. Of course I’ll expand on this in the monetization chapter and give you the nitty gritty on making this work. I’ll also explain how you can do objective reviews without having to buy the product in the first place.
 
Oh… I’ll also be drumming into you information about what content to focus on following the 80/20 rule in that chapter as well.

Your Own Product. Now don’t freak out. Creating your own product is much easier than it sounds and it possibly could be the income stream that blitzes your $1000 goal. The way I recommend that you create this again fits into that 80/20 rule. 
 
What I’ll be getting you to do is to find experts on your chosen niche. Write a really powerful set of questions that grills them on the subject they are an expert about, then interview them using those questions. 
 
You’ll record the interview and then outsource the transcribing of these interviews. Write an intro paragraph and then again outsource the formatting and PDF’ing of the word document. Hey presto, you’ve just developed your first (of hopefully many) info products.
 
I’ll go into these processes in detail in a following chapter. For example, I’ll tell you how to get the interviews, what questions to ask, how to make your product high value and where to outsource the time consuming work for very low cost. I’ll also explain how you can easily handle the payment and delivery logistics as well. Yes… it’s going to be a pretty big chapter!

Now you understand the business model, you’ll have a more educated approach on selecting your niche. Let’s get into that.

NICHE SELECTION

This is an absolutely critical part to your success and should be given plenty of attention. Not so much that you get paralyzed, but enough so that you don’t paint yourself into a corner by picking a loser.

If you follow my selection process here, with a little luck you’ll pick a winner.


Brainstorming

The first thing you’ll want to do is brainstorm as many potential ideas for niches that would fit into the business model described.

Don’t worry about anything at this stage except for generating ideas. Even if you have no knowledge at all about the subject, write it down.

Give yourself a week on this. I find that a week is long enough to get your subconscious involved, but short enough not to get bored or worse, paralyzed. I don’t mean a week of solid work. I just mean work at it here and there over the course of a week.

Here are some brainstorming strategies I use. I focus first on ideas that come to the top of my head.

You can do the same by asking yourself the following questions:

– What do I enjoy doing in my spare time?

– What conversations do I have with other people that interest me?

– What industries have I worked in before?

– What did I learn in each of those?

– What is something I’m interested in knowing more about?

– What do I know more about than most people around the world?

– Which experts do I have access to in my circle (family, friends etc.)?

– What problems have I solved for people before?

– What problems would I like to solve for people in the future?

You probably have a decent number of ideas for subjects by now. Nonetheless, we need to keep digging. Now remember that some subjects may be too big, or too small for our final niche selection. Don’t worry about that now. It will probably help if you group your smaller niches into sub niches to help clarify things.

You can keep expanding your list by getting active. Here are a few things I like to do once I’ve exhausted what I can think of off the top of my head.

– Go to your bookshelf and write down all the subjects you own books on.

– Go to your local library or book store with a pen and paper and write down book subjects that interest you that might fit into this business model. If someone has published a book on it, there’s a good chance that people are interested in the subject.

– Read the newspaper.

– Go to a news stand and flick through magazines.

– Go to www.boardreader.com and browse the popular topics.

– Go to Yahoo! Answers and browse the categories that interest you.

– Go to Google Answers and browse the categories that interest you. It doesn’t matter if it’s retired!

– Be constantly aware of people’s common questions and frustrations in conversations.

You should have a pretty big list by now. It’s time to sift out the gold.


Drilling Down

In this step of the process, we’ll want to drill down to pull out the subjects that will lend themselves to having the best level of success. At this stage we want to cut our list down to just 5 or fewer subjects.

We want to make sure that the subject we choose fits the business model we’re going to follow. This is an important step in the process and you need to be as impartial as possible. You might have your pet subjects that will be easier for you, but if they don’t meet these criteria, you need to be willing to either cut them, or adjust them.

Here are the criteria that your niche must meet. If you’re already working on a niche website, see how your chosen niche stacks up.

) Not too big or too small. How do you assess that? As a rule, what I do is use the Google Keyword Research tool here:
 
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

 

 

Type in your major terms and press submit. Your major search terms needs to attract at least an “average” search volume. You can see if they are “average” by holding your mouse over the green bar and looking at the words that pop up. Simple. If it’s any more than average, you need to start looking at the sub-niches within it. It’s likely that the topic is too broad if it’s above the “average” mark.

2) Have commercial interest. So it must have people spending money within that niche. More specifically people must be spending $50 or more on average. Small transactions are not normally conducted online and people normally don’t have much motivation to research, or look for the best deals. Stick to subjects that have decent transactional value. Sure, knitting might be an OK niche, but the transaction costs are too low, and you’ll never make much money from it.
 
Microsoft have a largely unknown tool that detects commercial intention of particular keywords or phrases. Now this isn’t to be treated as gospel, but it’s certainly a really useful guide. Don’t despair if a few of your major keywords come up non-commercial.

However, take that as a warning and dig deeper.
 
See: https://adlab.msn.com/Online-Commercial-Intention/oci.aspx 
 
 
 

The term “golf putting” came up with a commercial intention with a score of 0.755, which is pretty good. As always, common sense should prevail over such tools.

3) Has plenty of available, largely evergreen content. You want to make sure your chosen niche has lots you can write about. Then you want to make sure that what you can write about doesn’t quickly go out of date. For example, you don’t want to create a website around something that rapidly changes. While new putters will come out, it’s not as dynamic as developing a site around say, iPods, for example. Whatever content you can write should make money for you for years.

4) Isn’t risky. I personally wouldn’t recommend developing a site that could have legal implications for you. Think carefully about the implications of covering a subject where you’re giving advice that could have serious negative effects on someone's life if you are not an expert (and insured) on that subject. The health and finance industries come to mind.

5) Has a learning curve. If the subject you’re looking at has a learning curve, then people will be researching online and they’ll have problems you can solve or educate them on.

6) Has affiliate programs. This is important because if the subject has no affiliate programs on the topic, we can’t monetize one of our prongs. Plus, it’s an indication that the market is not commercial enough. You can search our directory here for affiliate programs in your niche.

7) No biz op. It may be obvious for some, but under no circumstances should you create a site around the subject of home businesses or how to make money online. For some reason, this is the first thing people jump into. It’s the most crowded, cut throat, unforgiving market you can choose. Remove it from your list immediately.

As you’ve run all your niches through this filter, hopefully you’ll still have a couple left. Now we make our final decision on which one we’re going to pursue. Think of it like the grand final of “Niche Idol.”


Detailed Analysis

It’s now time to do some final, more detailed analysis on our top 5 (or fewer). We’re going to look at 3 factors in particular. These are competition, monetization potential and difficulty. This can take a little time to complete, but it’s worth the analysis.


Competition

First, let’s look at the competition levels. I’ve created a little tool to help you here. For each of your top 5 finalists, do the following:

Go to the Google Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Type in your major keyword again, but ensure you have the “Use synonyms” check box checked.

Sort by Average Search Volume (so click on the blue link that says, “Average Search Volume”).

Grab the top 10 keywords by clicking the “Add” link to the right of each keyword. Then download a CSV or text version of this.

Go to this little tool I created here: https://www.associateprograms.com/competitiontool

Type in each of those 10 words using the default settings. This will launch a window showing a Google search result. What this does is show how many pages are highly optimized for those terms. In other words, the number of people you’ll need to topple to get in front of people searching on those keywords.

Look at the section that says: Results 1 – 10 of about X

Record that X value. If the screen looks blank, then there are no results, which is a great sign.

So do that for the top 10 keywords of each of your final niche top 5. Then add up the total of number of search results shown for each niche.

The lower the number, the less the competition. Obviously less is better.

Monetization Potential

To analyze the top niches further, we want to look at the monetization potential. In particular, we want to look at two factors. The first factor is the raw demand. In this case, it’s search volume.

To get this, return to the Google Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Type in your major keyword again and ensure you have the “Use synonyms” check box checked.

Sort by Average Search Volume (so click on the blue link that says, “Average Search Volume”).

Grab the top 10 keywords by clicking the “Add” link to the right of each keyword. Then download a CSV or text version of this.

Now have a look at the green bar. Roughly guess and score the amount of green on that bar for each keyword between 1 and 10, with a score of 5 for a half green bar.

Record this against each of those top 10 keywords and total them up. This will give you a score for raw demand for each niche. Now we’re going to look at the commercial value of the niche.

We do that by looking at each of the keywords and how much people are paying per click to advertise on Google AdWords against this keyword. We can see this by using the dropdown box labeled, “Choose columns to display:”. Show the Estimated Avg. CPC.

It should now show the average cost per click that people are paying to rank number 1-3 on that keyword in the AdWords advertising system. This gives us an idea of the commercial value of those keywords. The higher those costs are, the more valuable they are to people and potentially, the more money you can make.

Now, we don’t have to pay that money, but someone is, which demonstrates how valuable the market is. If you want to give yourself a fright, try it out for the keyword “insurance”. :)

So again, total the CPC for each keyword to give a total for each niche. You can now compare each niche against one another for commercial value.


Difficulty

This part is simple. I want you to do a personal assessment of how difficult you think it will be to tackle that niche. For example, you might be intimately familiar with one of the niches in contrast to another one that you have no idea about. Obviously the one you’re familiar with is going to be less difficult to tackle.

Also take into account how difficult you think it will be to create a product (How available are experts on that subject?) and develop content for that subject too. These are all important factors.

Now you need to give each of your finalist niches a score for its difficulty factor. A high score means an easier niche. A low score means it’s more difficult.


Final Selection

Hopefully by now you’ll have scores against each of your niche finalists in competition, demand, commercial value and difficulty. Now I’m not going to say you can simply add up the results and you’ll have a winner. Some factors are more important than others here.

For example, a niche might be a winner on the analysis, but simply impossible to cover. I challenge you to get out of your comfort zone, but if you’re simply scared out of your mind, then there's no point pursuing the topic because you’re probably not going to work hard on it.

You need to take a good look at the scores and decide for yourself what looks the most attractive. It’s your decision. Embrace what the data is telling you, but also use your gut feel. Give it a few days to work through your subconscious and go with the one that your mind gravitates to. It’s probably telling you the right answer.

Once you’ve decided, don’t look back. Congratulations, you have the topic for your new online business. It’s time to begin work!

In our next article, we’re going to look at “The Plan”. This section will outline the specific tools and procedures you’ll need to move forward on your new project. It’s exciting stuff as we’ll be putting together the infrastructure to make the $1000 a month a reality, but be prepared to spend a little money to set this up.

Oh… and make sure you’ve done your homework as outlined above so you’re ready to go. :)

Apr 5, 2010Jay Stockwell
How to make $1000 a month online from scratchHow to start your online business
Comments: 50
  1. Gregg Swanson
    15 years ago

    Jay,
    This info is awesome! Most of the info you delivered people have to pay for at membership sites. Thanks for spilling the beans on this!
    To Your Success,
    Gregg
    http://WarriorFitnessTraining.com

    ReplyCancel
  2. AB
    15 years ago

    Amazing. Terrific. Very complete.

    Thanks, Jay. I'm sure you've been hearing this for the past few weeks -- but this stuff is golden. Really terrific.

    Now .. ahem .. it's time to get to work!

    ReplyCancel
  3. Dr.Mani
    15 years ago

    Amazing. Awesome. Astounding.

    Those are the first 3 words that ran through my mind as I read Jay's article, thank you for linking to it, Allan.

    I teach folks about finding niches to explore - and this taught me many new 'tricks' in the process.

    Just as people will, we do vary a bit on principles, but have many similarities in process. I do teach my students about 'following the money' but also state that my preference is to 'follow your passion' - after making sure there's profit potential involved too.

    The step by step process you outlined (and the tools you refer to) is excellent for anyone, not just beginners. I will be using the exact same process in a new project I'm just beginning, because you convinced me that this is logical, practical and - most important - do'able!

    I'll be closely watching out for the next installments in this series and be recommending this as 'required reading' for people who seek my opinion/advice. Thanks, Jay, once more for sharing this exquisite, valuable and functional information.

    One quick suggestion - leave a PayPal button somewhere on this page. I really would have clicked it after reading this post!

    All success
    Dr.Mani

    P.S. - My free report, 'Pam Meets a Guru', might be interesting to anyone who reads this article (as a story-telling approach to the same conclusion). It's here: http://www.EzineMarketingCenter.com/pam-guru/

    [Thanks Dr. Mani for your comments. It's encouraging to hear! :)

    You're right about striking a balance between being passionate about something and it's ability to monetize. It's great if you can strike both of them at once.

    However, in saying that, I'd push to be more militant about its potential to make money, than it to be a subject you're already passionate about. It's amazing how much more interested about a subject you become when it starts making money for you. :) - Jay]

    ReplyCancel
  4. Daniel Falk
    15 years ago

    Jay,
    Using your Competition Analysis tool, you didn't mention any guidelines for the Competition Search results.

    How many competitors would be just too much to go after in the organic results, if we're looking at "reasonable" SEO efforts in a relatively short timeframe?

    Also, will you be explaining how we might use the other selections your tool provides?

    Thanks, great article series, loving it!

    [Thanks Daniel. You'll need to make a judgement call depending upon the volume of traffic a keyword attracts. So, you'll have more tolerance for more competitors if the keyword has high volume.

    I will usually look at some of the 3 keyword phrases in the top 20 keywords. Turn on allinurl ONLY which means that the url of the competitor page must contain all those keywords. Having the keyword phrase in the URL is usually an indication of someone knowing what they are doing. If it is under 100, it's good.

    You're right I need to write some more instructions on it as the results are often not right from Google when you are running all 3 types of search at once (i.e. allinurl, allintitle, allinurl etc). If you use the allinurl, it's a pretty good, simple indicator. - Jay]

    ReplyCancel
  5. Oskars Rumpeters
    15 years ago

    Thanks, this is a really nice article.
    Most things are quite basic, though it's laid out so clearly, that anyone can understand :)
    One thing I don't like is monetization simultaneously with adsense and affiliate programs, that's not recommended usually, since adsense ads may show your affiliate product competitors and you can lose a $100 affiliate sale to a $0,20 adsense click...

    [I completely agree Oskars. I've included it because it varies on your niche. Some niches don't have great affiliate programs but expensive PPC traffic (which of course is reflected in what you'll get paid per click via your contextual advertising).

    You'll note I said in the guide "If your other two prongs are working well, you may be wise to ignore this prong all together."

    So it's important to do an assessment of where the money is coming from once it's established and pour your efforts into that true to the 80/20 rule. - Jay]

    ReplyCancel
  6. Debra Conrad
    15 years ago

    So... I've been at this for several years, and choosing a new niche isn't hard for me.

    But... this article is just brilliant. You have cut out all the "stuff" and got right to the point. It's easy to follow, and I couldn't find a flaw in your process.

    This one article is a "guide" to not only finding a niche... but focusing on finding a profitable niche.

    I have gone after both niches that I didn't have much passion for... and niches that didn't have higher dollar products. What a waste of time.

    Thank you for sharing this fantastic "free" guide. Unbelievable.

    p.s. It is really hard to stay away from the "make money online" niche. I didn't even dip my little toe into that market until I had already become an authority (of sorts) on niches that don't have anything to do with "making money online".

    I encourage others to do the same. Wait until you find a space that isn't being serviced.

    [Thanks for your kind words Debra. I completely agree on staying out of the make money online until you're well established. I'd be careful even then that it doesn't rob your time. It's comparatively a small niche, and you're competing with some of the most brilliant marketing minds around. I'd prefer to carve off a chunk of another market where my competitors have no clue. :) - Jay]

    ReplyCancel
  7. Lorry
    15 years ago

    I think this segment is terrific. I desperately needed a step by step plan for identifying a subject to start with and your system has quickly, easily and effectively allowed me to do that. Thanks so much, Lorry

    ReplyCancel
  8. Dawn
    15 years ago

    Awesome... This is some of the best business advice I have read. Even after four years of business school. The information follows the advice given... content vs. technology

    Also gives particular examples in very layman terms. Found myself so excited to stay up all-night and work; however, the advice to set work and play hours shouted in my ear. Because, I want this to succeed and not burn out. Thank you....

    ReplyCancel
  9. Paul
    15 years ago

    Jay - thanks for this plainspoken series. It's definitely the best thing I've found so far to get started.

    I have a niche which I'm excited about and for which I know I can create a lot of exciting content. My gut tells me that this is the one. However, using the niche discovery method in this article, the numbers aren't good. Maybe I'm not using the right keywords? The other problem may be that it's a sub of a much larger category (millions of search results.)

    Should I move on or are there other things I should consider?

    ReplyCancel
  10. Eric Ooi
    15 years ago

    I tried accessing the adlab.msn.com link but I'm getting a RunTime error. Is this caused by my PC or the MSN server? Pls help. Thanks.
    Eric

    [I just tried the link using Firefox and then IE. It worked with both browsers for me. Try again and see what happens. Allan.]

    ReplyCancel
  11. Sasikumar R Nair
    10 years ago

    Hi Jay,
    Would very much appreciate an amended version of this article in the light of the recent developments at google where they have started displaying their actual search figures rather than the green bars.

    ReplyCancel
  12. Brian
    14 years ago

    Hi,

    How would you quantify an average search volume? It seems like the Google Keyword Tool has changed its output since this article was written, instead of the bar graph showing search volume now it displays actual numerical statistics... very nice, but how do I know what's average and what's low?

    Type in your major terms and press submit. Your major search terms needs to attract at least an

    ReplyCancel
  13. ovdemonz
    14 years ago

    Dear All,

    Just to summarise what Mr Allan teaching up there :)

    Content Level
    Meaning: Write similar good quality content review or post-mortem as the article above (Choosing a niche for your online business)" so that it will " position you as an expert and to get people to trust you" Thus indeed will drive more traffic search via search engine. See... base on the reply everybody was impressed by the idea :)

    Traffic
    Since Traffic is the lifeblood of your site and It will help you connect more with your audience.
    Meaning: Since we are dealing with human over here, always have the 'Leave a reply' so that people can interact to the author vice-versa. Apart from that to ensure your lifeblood continue to flow :) always have the 'Spread The Word' and 'subscribe now' options as above to ensure your lifeblood continue to flow :). In simple get the traffic it self to amplify itself.

    Monetization Level
    ha haaa ..>:) this is the time to convert your traffic (the real person just now to dollar and cent :P

    Contextual Advertising: Put some Google Adsense

    Affiliate Sales: Like the "Powerful new affiliate training
    Let Dan do most of the work" and "Kill your PPC competition"

    Your Own Product: That is the hard part..anyway Mr Allan own product was the article it self. ;)

    By now you all already have the idea right..:).

    to Allan,
    That was great insight bro. Keep it up for the good work

    Cheers

    ReplyCancel
  14. Stone
    14 years ago

    Hey guys!

    No one has still commented on what are the numbers to look for with the new reporting from Google for a good average value (no longer a bar). The earlier question from Brian was not advice but a quote from Jay's article. Please advise. Thanks.

    [As a very rough guide, choose keywords that have Google demand figures between 300 and 3,000 a month. If you go lower, you may not get much traffic. If you go higher, they'll probably be too competitive, especially for a beginner. The more experience you get, the higher you can aim. Ideally, you want to identify a niche that has a large of group of suitable keywords, so you get traffic from a wide variety of keywords. For your main keyword, somewhere around 3,000 or perhaps up 6,000 Google searches a month is a good option for a beginner to research. In the Google keyword tool, choose the settings All Countries and then Match Type:Exact. Allan.]

    ReplyCancel
  15. Chaplain Paul Slater
    14 years ago

    Aha! This is the key I typically miss in Niche selection:

    "We want to focus on subjects that involve a financial transaction. We don

    ReplyCancel
  16. Matt
    14 years ago

    Hi,

    I could do with some clarification with Jay's competition analysis tool. Should my default settings be the same as the picture shows above as mine aren't? When I change the search terms to the picture my I find no results for the keyword phrase I have selected. I realise this is a good thing, especially as the keyword phrase is searched for around 6000 times a month and the product retails for $200 - $500! I just want to make sure I've done it right.

    Thanks for the great information supplied.

    [Read the instructions, not the screenshot. Allan.]

    ReplyCancel
  17. swapnil
    14 years ago

    thanks your nice article is Awesome (A++++++)

    ReplyCancel
  18. export import data
    14 years ago

    Really nice and informative article. Thanks for putting out there. (10/10)

    Amit Ghosh

    [Thank you! I appreciate your comments. Allan.]

    ReplyCancel
  19. MJ Williams
    14 years ago

    >>The whole business model can be explained simply like this. It

    ReplyCancel
  20. Kyle
    14 years ago

    When I try and use the google keyword tool, it doesn't have a bar for monthly search volume. It only shows the number of searches, so I can't tell if it is average or not. What number is an average global search volume per month? Can I change it so that it shows a green bar instead of numbers? And for the commercial intention tool, does it really have to have a high commercial intention to be profitable? Last question lol: If I wanted to teach people how to play a sport, for example basketball. If I taught them about that sport and then told them that they should use a particular product to enhance their game, would this work? Or should I just focus on the product and not tie in sport lessons with the product?

    Great article!
    Thanks for the feedback!

    ReplyCancel
  21. Jay Stockwell
    14 years ago

    Hi Kyle,

    I'll answer each question inline:

    > When I try and use the google keyword tool, it doesn't have a bar for monthly search volume. It only shows the number of searches, so I can't tell if it is average or not. What number is an average global search volume per month?

    Since I wrote this post, they have changed it to a numeric value which is even more helpful. I would look for keywords that are searched for more than about 1000 times a month.

    > Can I change it so that it shows a green bar instead of numbers?

    Unfortunately not.

    > And for the commercial intention tool, does it really have to have a high commercial intention to be profitable?

    No it doesn't. On the flip side, it isn't guaranteed to be profitable if it does have high commercial intention. Like any tools, use it as a guide, not as gospel.

    > Last question lol: If I wanted to teach people how to play a sport, for example basketball. If I taught them about that sport and then told them that they should use a particular product to enhance their game, would this work? Or should I just focus on the product and not tie in sport lessons with the product?

    It's important to put yourself into the mindset of the reader. What do they want to achieve? More than likely, they want to radically improve so that they are killing everyone on the court. Preferably without much work, and in very little time. Of course this is impossible, but is there some truth in there? Work on selling them something that will help beat everyone on the court. Sell them on the result, not the mechanics of how to do it.

    So perhaps they can do that with a combination of learning, training and products.

    ReplyCancel
  22. hakan
    13 years ago

    hi Mr. Stockwell

    at first , it's my duty to thank you because of this new world that you introduced to me and for this great article.

    in this part i have a problem that i think you can help me. i choosed niche after your instructions. now i have a subject that has medium search and high commercial value but i don't know whether i can use another brand of this product in my site or not?
    for example, i want to work on LG LED tvs beacuse it has both medium search and high commercial value if SONY LED tvs have the same traits should i put its affiliate too, or i must concentrate on one of them?

    and there is a basic question that whether LED TV is niche or LG LED TV ?

    i'm sorry if my questions are silly. i'm amateur in both online business and english language.

    if anybody can help me i would be glad.

    THANKS TO EVERYBODY AND SPECIALLY TO JAY STOCKWELL.

    [Your questions aren't silly. I good place to discuss them would be on our affiliate forum. The link is at the top of the page. If you're promoting one product as an affiliate, it's a good idea to promote a similar product as well. This enables you to compare them, point out any differences and explain why one is better than another, or why one is better for certain buyers. If you promote only one product, your site would probably end up looking like a large advertisement and would not be convincing. In short, comparing products helps your visitor, so it's a good thing to do. Allan.]

    ReplyCancel
  23. K.D Williams
    13 years ago

    Great stuff Jay!!!

    I've been working in the radio business for a lot of years. I have never seen as much thought put into the potential of a topic than you have here.

    Let me add to the msn adCenter labs tool you mentioned...

    Along with looking at the commercial potential of a niche, you should also take advantage of their other audience tool - demographics prediction.

    In my business, you have to know where they are listening, why they're listening and - especially - who is listening. This is done to give us a better idea of what our audiences want so we can better cater to them. If you know the demographic makeup of your potential audience, it would be easier to position the design of your sites and marketing campaigns to those targets.

    Just my two cents.

    ReplyCancel
  24. will
    13 years ago

    Hello Jay,

    Finding a niche has been very challenging for me and I have read you article and I have a few questions but I'll only ask one for right now. I copied the following excerpt from your article so you can understand my question.

    1st excerpt:

    Type in each of those 10 words using the default settings. This will launch a window showing a Google search result. What this does is show how many pages are highly optimized for those terms. In other words, the number of people you

    ReplyCancel
  25. vanleurth
    13 years ago

    How come you have comments from 2008 and 2009 if this article was published in 2010? Also, I tried "dating" in the OCI tools and it came up non-commercial. Is there any other tools available that will give me a more accurate result. Dating is all over the place and the tool says is non-commercial. Strange

    ReplyCancel
  26. Jay Stockwell
    13 years ago

    I wrote the guide a while back and now have since updated it. So some of the comments relate to older content.

    ReplyCancel
  27. book report
    13 years ago

    This will launch a window showing a Google search result. What this does is show how many pages are highly optimized for those terms. In other words, the number of people you

    ReplyCancel
  28. Buy Term Paper
    13 years ago

    Your posting is very good and having a theme base for which people like is great. Thanks a lot!!!

    ReplyCancel
  29. research paper help
    13 years ago

    Thanks for sharing, I have never seen such a great site before

    ReplyCancel
  30. Nicole
    13 years ago

    I have decided for myself to move on with Affiliate Programs. Thank you for sharing this useful information!

    ReplyCancel
  31. Pee
    13 years ago

    WOOOW! Great information; so much revelation and insight; THANK YOU!

    ReplyCancel
  32. workerbee
    12 years ago

    Thank you for taking the time to explain the process. It has cleared some things up for me. The niche had me going in circles.but your voice comes across clearly.

    ReplyCancel
  33. mba information technology
    12 years ago

    Starting an online business is definitely not easy, but the resources listed here help with been successful.

    ReplyCancel
  34. DJ Dutch
    12 years ago

    Two very enthusiastic thumbs up! When I started mobilediskjockey I fell into the trap that you described of spending more time making my site look pretty than having much content. Thanks for getting me back on track!

    ReplyCancel
  35. Paul
    12 years ago

    The MSN Online Commercial Intention tool no longer works. Can you please recommend some other tool for this purpose? Many thanks, Paul

    ReplyCancel
  36. Maverick
    12 years ago

    Hey Jay,
    I read a notice the other day from Google advising that the original Google Keyword Tool will be phased out. The new version that is up now has a lot of changes in the nomenclature IE: the "Average Search Volume" link has been eliminated and the

    ReplyCancel
  37. Ryan @ Milwaukee Condos
    12 years ago

    From your experience building sites and using Google keywords tool do you think they're 100% accurate. Some of my results and even when comparing pre-traffic estimates seem to show me that they inflate the numbers a little bit.

    ReplyCancel
  38. Retire Wealthy
    12 years ago

    Allan,

    I appreciate the information you have here. It is a solid approach. But I'm curious, and I don't mean any disrespect to you. Why is it that you say 'under no circumstances should you create a site around the subject of home businesses or how to make money online'? It seems that this is precisely what you are doing with this very site. And it's not just you. I've have seen this countelsss times where people who have mmo sites warn otheres to steer clear of this niche. Is this an attempt at discouraging competition? It seems that way.
    Again, I am not trying to be insulting. You seem like an hosest person who genuinely wants to help people. And that makes me more curious about his issue? Can you provide insight? If it is "secret" information, then a private email answer would be greatly appreciated. Sorry if I seem rude, I really am just looking for an answer from someone who might know. Thanks so much.
    -Eric

    ReplyCancel
  39. Bill Wynne
    12 years ago

    Great filter for choosing a niche. I am creating an ebook and I was done with my chapter on choosing a niche but you brought out some good points that I had to include.

    ReplyCancel
  40. Joe
    10 years ago

    Awesome! Post. Just need some clarity though. I'm a bit confused because it seems I'm getting conflicting advice on the niche selection aspect of online business, or maybe it's just my perception.

    Here's what I mean. In this post, you said that the make money online niche is one that we should keep far away from because of competition levels, cut throughs etc.

    On the other hand, we have equally credible experts like Armand Morin, Eben Pagan and yes, even Charlie Page who say that at least for a newbie, when starting out it is better to target one of the huge niches.

    Eben Pagan, for instance, in one of his free gurublueprint training videos, specifically advised to target the Health Niche, the Relationships Niche or the Make Money Niche when starting out.

    He said it would be easier to succeed in these niches when starting out because at least 1 in a 1000 people worldwide is looking for a solution to problems in these markets. I may have misunderstood him but this appears to be the gist of what he said.

    Secondly, Armand Morin, one of the most respected Internet Marketers says that when starting out, it is better for you to focus on a market (he even despised using the word niche) where you can be a small fish in a huge gigantic market. He said this is better than focusing on a niche where you are a big fish in a small pond. According to him, it’s easier to make more money in the big markets.

    Last but not least, Charlie Page, very respectable, helpful online marketer. He said when starting out, it is better to focus on the big niches like health, make money online and relationships (just like Eben). And his explanation really made sense to mind. He used the analogy of fruits on a tree. He said, these huge markets have the low hanging fruits, meaning customers who are easy to get.

    So please if you would, help me gain some clarity on this aspect of niche selection. I like the make money online niche personally. And as far as this niche is concerned, I even have positive answers to many of the questions you suggested I ask myself before choosing a niche. For instance, my personal library is filled with books and ebooks on marketing (offline and online), copywriting and business in general. I am part of many high value membership sites online and I’ve read a lot of information there. Even though I haven’t yet started applying the information because I was focused on finishing university, I have still helped many people on sites like yahoo answers and in many cases my answer was chosen as the best answer by the asker.

    I feel I am ready to tackle this niche (some aspect of it), so please let me know why, in light of the views of the above marketers, it would be a bad idea to do so.

    I really appreciate the post

    Thanks

    Joe

    ReplyCancel
  41. Joe
    10 years ago

    Thanks Allan.

    This really clears up some indecision in my mind. I find your advice on keyword selection and having a USP very helpful. Mal Emery over there in Australia likes to call a USP a UCBA, meaning a Unique Customer Buying Advantage and its importance is starting to make more sense now.

    Thanks

     

    ReplyCancel
  42. Emmanuel
    10 years ago

    some time back I was really confused as to How was I going to make money online? I thought of adsense and Affiliate marketing but discovered that I was headed for nothing due to the face that my young site doesn't have traffic. But I think with this Post now I am going back with a smile to revamp my new baby website. Thanks

    ReplyCancel
  43. Evelyn Guzman
    10 years ago

    Hi Eric,

    The same thing happened to me.  Please let me know when you get over this hurdle and I will do the same.

    Jay and Allan, this is great! This is the best I have read on the subject.   I wish I read this before I started my web site.

    Thanks,

    Evelyn

    ReplyCancel
  44. Evelyn Guzman
    10 years ago

    Hi Sasikumar,

    I am not getting the green bars either.  Perhaps they want us to sign up for an account?  Once you find out the answer to your excellent request, please let me know and I will do the same from my end.

    We have to be thankful though for the excellent help we are getting from Allan and Jay.  They are the type of people that are helping me want to stay on.

    Best to you all,

    Evelyn

    ReplyCancel
  45. Sajid
    15 years ago

    Very informative blog. Helped me a lot. Thanks for putting out there.
    Sajid
    http://www.iphonecellinfo.com

    ReplyCancel
  46. kevin
    14 years ago

    you'll record the interview outsource the transcribing of the interview write intro paragrapg again outsource into pdf'ing out of word document what the heck is all that and what is evergreen content and a csv you said this was for begginers, half of those people already had web sites where can someone go that really is a begginer to learn how to do this???

    [Trying clicking on the "Beginners" link at the top left of this page and read some of the articles there. Allan.]

    ReplyCancel
  47. Craig
    13 years ago

    I've found that the MSN "Detecting Online Commercial Intention" tool returns a different value for the same search terms each time I try it. No matter what the search term might be.

    ReplyCancel
  48. Marjorie Robinson
    13 years ago

    This is exactly what I've been looking for. I've been trying for months to focus on niche product to market, but with the million and one distractions and information overload on the net it has been virtually impossible, leaving me absolutely frustrated. In fact, I did start to jot down all my ideas in a notebook, but your plan and model has provided me with the tools to continue and expand my research to for a product niche I truly would enjoy marketing. This is the best information I've read since starting my research.

    ReplyCancel
  49. Nick Bradshaw
    12 years ago

    I think MSN online commercial tool is working again. It's a great tool to understand the competition and keyword buying intension. Thanks for the tip

    ReplyCancel
  50. Allan Gardyne
    10 years ago

    Hi Joe, Very good points!

    My views come from my own experience. I've been publishing an affiliate marketing newsletter and affiliate forum since 1998. Here's what I've seen in the past 14 years, so many times it's depressing:

    Someone buys a book on how to make money online. Without really thinking about it too much, they assume that the best way to make money is to do what the author of the book is doing - tell people how to make money.

    So they start a website or blog on that topic. Then they email me or write a post on my forum asking why they're not making money. They look so ridiculous with their little blogs giving advice on marketing when they don't know how to do marketing.

    I advise them to start in a less intensely competitive niche. (Today Google says there are now 35.1 million pages containing the phrase "how to make money".)

    Another reason for recommending starting with a less competitive niche is that many beginner affiliates give up after one or two failures. To me, it makes sense to start with a modest goal that you have a good chance of achieving. In my Affiliate Program Tutorial, I suggest $300 a month can be a useful goal for a beginner to aim for. When you reach it, aim higher. I set a low goal, because I want people reading my tutorial to BELIEVE they can do it.

    Early wins build confidence. Get a few "easy" early wins under your belt, learn from your mistakes as you go, and then tackle tougher markets if you want to. But even if you're tackling a so-called "easy" market, it makes sense to do research to find high search, low competition keywords, as Christine Gierer says she did in this interview: Christine Turns Hobby Into Profitable Business. 

    Joe, you may be be an exception to my rule. With your intelligence, research experience, and a keen interest in marketing, you may be able to carve off a little sub-niche, add a large dose of personality, and make that sub-niche your own. It CAN be done. I've seen individuals come from nowhere and make a name for themselves in only six months or so. But such folk are exceptions.

    There's a lot of logic behind the argument that you should go where the market is. It's also a very strong argument to say you should find a desperate need and fill it. If you decide to jump in and chase the big money, it will help an awful lot if you come up with your own angle, your own unique selling point. I'd recommend doing it only if you've figured out a powerful USP. Most frustrated, failing beginners in the "how to make money online" niche haven't appreciated how important it is to do things that make you stand out from the crowd.

    Good luck!

    ReplyCancel

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Jay Stockwell

Jay Stockwell is an Online Marketing Expert with over a decade of experience helping both start-up and multi-national companies get "stacks on deck".

13 years ago 50 Comments Business IdeasBusiness Ideas151
Recent Posts
  • When to Use Black Hat Marketing (Almost Never)
  • How Much Money Do You Need to Start an Online Business?
  • 3 Emails You Need to Send When You Have an Ecommerce Store
  • How to Start an Ecommerce Business 24 Hours
  • Drive Targeted Traffic using The $5 Facebook Ad Strategy
Latest Directory Listings
SG Health

Make money with multiple health affiliate programs and unique offers. This is a two-tier program paying residual commission of 30% on the first tier plus 5% on second tier sales. no minimum payout, unlimited cookies, get paid every 2 weeks. Sign ...

Exotic Nasal Spray

Exotic Nasal Spray is an advanced new technology uses a tried and tested unique blend of 9 herbal ingredients, which work together to help combat erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation. Affiliates earn 50% commission on sales.

Never an Outbreak

Never an Outbreak offers a proven, all natural treatment to prevent cold sores and genital herpes outbreaks caused by HSV 1 and 2. With over 65,000 satisfied customers already, Never an Outbreak's protocol has shown itself to be effective in all...

Audio Book Fest

Thousands of audio book titles across various genres from well known publishers such as BBC, Simon & Schuster, Time Warner and Harper Collins. Instant download after purchase. MP3 format available. Free samples available. No monthly subscription f...

Moonshadow Rainmaker

The Moonshadow Rainmaker is a free book browser with tens of thousands of books. You can plug it in to your website or blog. The Rainmaker will generate referral fees for you by sending customers to Amazon and other vendors. Add a free Rainmaker t...

Other Pages
  • Create an Account
  • Directory Dashboard
    • How to submit an affiliate program
    • Add an Affiliate Program
  • Advertising Opportunities
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Disclosure & Other Legal Stuff
  • Privacy Policy
Proudly hosted by Cloudways

We wanted the fastest WordPress hosting, so after tons of research, we picked Cloudways and couldn’t be happier.

Copyright © 1998 - 2020 AssociatePrograms by Bedrock Co. All rights reserved. View our Privacy and Disclosure policies.