ting messages. Unless you are a huge multi-billioncorporation with a huge multi-million dollar advertising budgetthen you do not have the resources to rise above the rest. Yousimply cannot afford to market to the masses and you will wastea great deal of money, time, and energy in the process of yourfailure.But there is a way that the small business can rise to the topof the marketplace and beat the big monoliths at the game --niche marketing. That is why you need a niche. You can't simplydecide to push cooking as your niche, for example, and hope torise to the top of the search engine results any time soon andforget even attempting for something as competitive as diet. Butyou can carve out a profitable niche if you focus.For example, I did a bit of research on cooking at one searchengine. They reported 224,772 requests for the keyword cookingin one month. At first gla...

...nce that sounds encouraging becausenow you know there is a big market out there for your market butbefore you get too carried away with the idea I should point outwhat else I learned. This one search engine also reportedadvertisers are paying between $1.91-.33 just for placement inthe top 10. They had 64 total bidders for that single keyword.Are you ready to compete in that market? If I can locate 64paying advertisers with one pay-per-click resource then how manyother entrepreneurs are out there with their web pages and theirproducts competing for you for search engine ranking and webbrowser attention. It is depressing to even think about how fardown you'll be in a key word search -- no matter which searchengine your would-be audience uses.However if you begin working on narrowing your niche just a bityou can find some openings for you to make your own mark, andyour own profit, on the internet. For example, I found threehopeful niches during my investigation: ~ cooking country healthy had 2295 requests in one month buthas no bids by advertsers at this time ~ cooking with child had1825 requests in one month and bids ranged from $0.25-.08 withonly 10 advertisers bidding ~ cooking for two had 1781 requestsin one month and bids ranged from $0.32-.1 with only fouradvertisers bidding All three look like healthy markets to mebut the competition level looks a lot easier to break into.So how do you find your niche?Hopefully you have already arrived at a general idea for yourebusiness (such as my cooking example) but if not then youshould make a quick review of your own interests, knowledge andskills. Sure you can start from scratch but since you arealready going to be learning a lot of new things while startingyour business I would recommend you choose a niche where youalready have a strong interest and a good knowledge base to drawfrom so you don't have to learn about your subject as well asabout ecommerce.Some questions to ask yourself: ~ What do you do in your spare time? ~ What is your favoritehobby? ~ What areas of expertise do you have? ~ Whatjobs/careers have you held? ~ What areas do your friends andfamily members go to you for advice and help?Answering these questions can help you identify your generalsubject but to find your niche then you must start thinkingabout what others are interested in within this area. ~ Followmy example above and do a keyword search for your general termthen study the other related searches ~ What topics interestpotential customers in this area? Check out the web sites of thetop companies in this field. Look at their FAQ and customerservice areas. Check out their product reviews (either on theirsite or on various review sites). Do you see an opening? ~ Checkout some forums where people interested in your topic visit andpost questions: What are some common questions and topics thatare addressed. Look at novice users and expert users alike. Canyou see a potential market?You really can create an ebusiness centered around anyconceivable idea and you can create an ebusiness dedicated toselling a hodge podge of unrelated items, but in order to crafta workable marketing plan and to create an effective businessplan then you should focus, focus, focus....