working at home online

Share The Knowledge

In the previous article we discussed The Importance Of A Niche! Now we are going to discuss:

 

How To Research Your Niche Ideas For The Selection Of Your Niche!

 

In the article The Importance Of A Niche we defined what a Niche is – A group of people looking for something, your audience.

We also discussed many points to be considered in the selection of your Niche. Perhaps if you haven’t already read that article you might like to click here and read that article to familiarize yourself with all the points discussed.

I would imagine you already have some ideas of Niche interests!

So now let’s explore how to research your Niche ideas and find Your Niche!

 

First – We Need To Look At Your Niche Ideas Through Your Eyes!

 

I suggest you start by first making a written list of your ideas for your Niche.

You want your Niche subject to be of interest to you, perhaps something you are passionate about, maybe a hobby, or something you are trained to do, or something based on your career experience, or maybe something you have always wanted to learn about.

Remember, it must capture and hold your interest because it is a subject you will need to research and develop content for as you build your website and online business.

Your Niche can be absolutely anything and if you decide later that you would like to change your Niche – No Worries! Most successful online marketers have been in several Niches in their online career!

You will want a Niche that you can see yourself writing about on a regular basis because you will need to continually add fresh information as you build your site’s content on a consistent basis.

You are building a business from the foundation up. Only instead of one brick at a time it is one article at a time. You must never be able to picture yourself coming to – The End – because to continue to build your business you will continue to write content and your website will never be complete!

It is critical for you to understand and connect with your Niche because your content is the critical factor in how well you connect with your audience and thus it is the critical factor in your money earning potential.

Second – We Need To Look At Your Niche Ideas Through Your Audience’s Eyes!

Remember your Niche is your audience, a group of people looking for something.

Therefore, anything with an audience is a Niche!

You want your audience to know you are excited to be working with them!

Your audience should be a specific audience with a specific interest, a group of people looking for information on the same subject or a solution to the same problem.

Remember, when the audience types their search phrase into the search bar they are hungry for information.

Your focus should be to fulfill their need and burning desire for knowledge, to answer their questions and to give them solutions to solve their problem! That is why it is important to understand your Niche in depth.

 

So now as you have considered your interests in unity with your audience’s desire, and as you have learned what is necessary to fulfill your audience’s need or desire, hopefully you have narrowed your list of ideas.

 

One thing you should not be concerned about at this point in time is how it is you will make money. There is always a way to make money in any Niche!

 

Third – We Will Research For Greater Insight Into Your Niche Ideas!

 

Sometimes understanding your Niche (your audience) better will give you the clarity you need in selecting your Niche.

So let’s discuss ways you can achieve greater insight into your audience!

Listen! Listen to people as you go through your day. Listen as they share about problems they are seeking information to resolve!

Go to the bookstore and strike up a conversation!

Look at magazines. Every Niche has a magazine!

Explore DMOZ.org. DMOZ, also known as Open Directory Project (ODP), is one of the best niche resources and is great for research. Here you can easily get help in taking a broad Niche idea and narrowing it down to a targeted Niche audience. It is fast and easy. They cover a wide range of topics worldwide! Just start with a general Niche idea and then click through the suggestions until you target the exact Niche you want to work with!

Let’s take a look! When you first arrive on site this is what you will see:

You can start by just clicking on one of the subjects listed unless you would rather type a specific search in the search bar. Then you will be taken to the next layer.

In this example I clicked on Recreation which took me to this screen:

Next I clicked on Pets and was taken to this screen:

Then I clicked on Horses and was taken to this screen:

From here I clicked on Shopping which took me to this screen:

After this you can continue to several more screens but you get the idea! 🙂

And hopefully you see just how many ideas have been revealed for various Niches!

We started with the very broad subject of Recreation and continued to narrow down our subject.

And this is exactly what you will want to do. Narrow down your subject to the specific audience you desire your Niche to be.

 

Do Keyword Research!

 

What is Keyword Research?

A Keyword simply put is the word or phrase you type in the search bar when searching for information to find relevant web pages

Google says it this way, “A keyword is any word or short pharse that describes a website topic or page. The more a keyword is used by searchers and websites the more attraction power it has”

By researching keywords you will gain an understanding of exactly what your audience is searching for, and the keyword phrases your audience is typing into the search bar of their search engine when they are surfing the internet for information, service or product that can address their need.

This gives you insight into your audience’s thought processes, which will show you the information your audience is seeking and the questions they are asking that will need to be addressed in developing content.

 

Let’s Explore Ways To Do Keyword Research!

 

There are many ways to do keyword research, and I would like to share some of my favorite search tools with you!

 

Google Trends – This is an online search tool of Google Inc. and it is free to the public. It is a public web facility that is based on Google searches.

Let’s take a look at how this tool can help you.

This tool allows you to see information about your Niche (audience) through the use of charts.

When you first arrive on site at www.google.com/trends you will see a series of charts that reflect current trends.

At the top of the screen is this search bar:

Just type into the search bar any keyword or phrase you would like to research!

Then there will be three charts that will reflect Google search information.

In this example I used the keyword – Photography

The first chart will show you how often a specific keyword term, phrase or subject has been searched over a period of time. If you click on the letters you will be taken to the stories of the News Headlines for the designated time.

The second chart reflects the searches in relation to the regions of the world these searches originated from.

The third and final chart gives you information on related topics and terms that were searched.

You can also type in another word or phrase and do a comparison if you like, here is an example:

All of this is valuable information and useful knowledge about the audience you are considering!

 

Google Instant – This is a technique using the Google search bar at www.google.com. When you type a word or phrase into the Google search bar you will observe an instant drop down list of phrases that appear! This list reflects the most common searches that are typed into Google in association to the word or phrase you originally typed in the search bar.

Here is an example:

These search results give you a greater understanding of how your audience is thinking, the information they are seeking and how they are going about their searches.

 

Alphabet Soup – This is a technique used in association with the Google Instant search, and is a way to dig even deeper for more ideas on how your audience is thinking and going about their search.

After you type your word or phrase in the Google search bar. you place a space between your word or phrase and the letter of the alphabet as you begin going through the alphabet one letter at a time.

Like this:

You can also go through the alphabet by entering each letter before the word or phrase and then once again placing a space between the letter and the word or phrase.

Like this:

With each letter you will see a plethora of more words and phrases in the instant drop down list of the popular searches that are occurring on Google for your Niche!

Once again you are gaining insight into your Niche and your audience’s thought processes and discovering from what direction they are pursuing their searches for the information they are seeking.

You are also gaining greater clarity to find the specific audience you would like to have as your Niche!

 

Ubersuggest – Is another wonderful free web based tool to use to research your Niche ideas!

To quote Ubersuggest they are “the free keyword suggestion tool that makes good use of different suggest services.”

Thus their motto “Suggest On Steroids”!

This tool gives you different phrases and combinations using your word or phrase. Remember the drop down list with the Google Instant? Well Ubersuggest collects the top 10 most searched phrases and then it checks for additional suggested phrases by adding each letter of the alphabet individually to your phrase. It also adds the numbers 0 through 9 to your phrase for even more additional searches.

It is a combination of the idea types of Google Instant and Alphabet soup.

In a matter of seconds it conducts a massive amount of searches digging deep into your Niche’s (audience’s) queries providing you with hundreds of results!

Let’s take a look!

When you arrive at ubersuggest.org you will be greeted with this screen:

Just type your word or phrase into the search bar, for this example I typed in laptops. Then choose a language and your desired search, it can be the web in general or a more narrowed search. Then just click on suggest and this is what you will see in a matter of seconds:

And as I have already shared with you the list will include phrases for the entire alphabet and the numbers 0 through 9.

If you click on a phrase that interest you then Ubbersuggest will dig deeper giving you an additional 10 phrases, as seen here:

And if you click on one of the additional phrases sometimes you will discover even more suggestions.

If you click on the + icon to the left of the phrase, this phrase choice will be placed on a list to the right. Then if you want to save the list just click on the get button, and a popup will have your list ready for you to copy and paste.

 

The Wealthy Affiliate Keyword Tool – On this site I have shared with you my story, and how I was led to Wealthy Affiliate.

At Wealthy Affiliate as a free member you have access to 30 free searches with the Wealthy Affiliate keyword tool. As a premium member you have unlimited access to this tool.

This tool takes the information from a combination of search engine sources and gives you a list of search possibilities for your audience with an even greater amount of information then the previous tools discussed.

If you visit Wealthy Affiliate the keyword tool is found it the left sidebar under tools.

After clicking on the keyword tool you will see the keyword search bar.

To begin your search you simply type your keyword or keyword phrase into the search bar and then click on search.

After the tool has gathered the information from various search sources you will see a list such as this appear:

(this is a partial list)

Let’s look at the information that has been compiled.

Searches: This is an estimate of the monthly searches for your keyword of keyword phrase

Traffic: If you were to achieve ranking on page one for your keyword this is an estimation of how many people would visit your site

Competition: Once you click on “View Result” a window will open and you will see the number of other sites that you would be competing with.

Article Power: This is showing you the potential your pages have to rank considering the strength and quantity of the other sites.

PPC Power: This is again a type of article power, but it is in reference to paid advertisements.

Dig: If one of the words or phrases in your list has results that has drawn your interest, you can then click on “Dig” and you will be given even more related keywords, and you can continue to repeat this as many times as you like.

Ideally you are looking for a keyword that has less then 300 competing pages/sites, and the closer to 0 the better it is, and preferably you want a minimum of 50 searches.

It is also preferable for you that your article power be no lower then 8.

You also want your keywords or keyword phrases to be grammatically correct.

The traffic figure is not one for you to be concerned with.

 

Some Final Thoughts! 

 

So now you have looked at your Niche ideas through your eyes, you have gotten a better understanding of your Niche ideas through your audience’s eyes, and you have gleaned information from your Niche keyword research.

Hopefully now you have a better idea as to which Niche is going to hold your interest and which Niche you are going to be excited to work with.

 

With your Niche selected your next step is to decide on a Domain Name and a Website Name. We will discuss this in the next article!

 

I would like to invite you to drop in for a visit, this is my profile at Wealthy Affiliate!

 

And if you are ready to consider investigating in greater depth this wonderful world of Affiliate Marketing, I encourage you to sign up for the free membership and discover for yourself the incredible opportunity of Wealthy Affiliate, the Virtual Online Academy! Just click the button and

 

 

 If you have any questions or thoughts you would like to share please feel free to leave them below! 🙂

 

Share The Knowledge