Finding Your Niche on the Internet
Those who are new to the Internet business world -- heck, eventhose who have been successfully operating online businesses forsome time -- can attest to the difficulty in deciding what tosell."Newbies" in particular may be led to believe that the more"stuff" they sell on their websites, the more money they'llmake. They place dozens of banners and ads on their sites foreverything from dating services to internet marketing manuals,from pet toys to self-improvement tapes. It's pretty hard topersuade a visitor to purchase anything from a site like this;chances are -- if they even managed to find your site in thefirst place! -- they'll simply go back to the search engines andfind a site that's offering them exactly what they want. Oneclick-of-the-mouse and they're gone, probably for good.You can't be everything to everyone. Choosing a tightly focusedniche market gives you the ability to home in on a specificgroup of like-minded individuals: it's easier to find out whatthey want, and thus easier to come up with and develop newproducts and services. It's also easier to make your site "standout"! You'll have a better chance of success if you take thetime to defin...
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...e a niche.However, the strain of trying to figure out what to build abusiness around often leads people to do what they perceive asthe "easiest": copy what other people are doing.For instance, many people decide to build websites aroundteaching others how to market on the internet. But if you useOverture's popular Search Suggestion Tool, you'll see that"internet marketing" received 102085 searches (at the time ofwriting), compared to: * recipe - over 1 million searches * pet supply - 109975 *jewelry - 449044 * gardening - 787621 * golf club - 548398 *exercise - 129368As you can see, there's a market for a wide variety of productsand services. Your "job" is to figure out what people arelooking for -- whether it's a new product or an "improved"version of an existing product -- and ask yourself how you canfill that need.As you do your research, try to assess the demand (ie. how manypeople are looking for that type of product) in relation to thesupply (ie. how many businesses provide the product and how wellthey do at meeting the demand). Ideally, a great niche marketwould be one for which there is high demand but not (yet) enoughsupply.There is always the po...
...ossibility that there's no real demand forthe product, which is why no one has bothered to create it. Mostpeople would prefer to find this out before they invested agreat deal of time, effort and money into creating a product noone wants!Even if you don't create your own product but instead decide topromote affiliate programs, a great deal of work still goes intothe promotion of your affiliate link.One way to research a new idea is to run the key phrases thatrepresent your business through the NicheFinder software (http://onlinebusinessbasics.com/findniche.html ). This softwarewill automatically produce several informative and eye-openingreports and charts to help you assess the potential of your idea.Some people start businesses related to their current line ofwork because they already have many of the skills and theexperience they need. Others build their business aroundspecific interests or hobbies. Regardless of what you do, besure it's something you *want* to do -- don't choose a nichesolely because "other people are doing it" or because you think"you can make lots of money". Do what you love, and *enjoy* thejourney to building a profitable business.
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