Niche And Keyword Research For Internet Marketing

In this Hub I am going to talk a little bit about market and keyword research.

Not to put too finer point on it, there are a lot of shiney tools out there you can buy to help you in this area and there is also a whole lot of bull talked about niche and particularly keyword research.

So, I'm going to try and cut through some of the crap and give you an insight into some of, what I consider, to the the important basics of these two areas.

The first thing I would say on this subject is that it is absolutely KEY to your success online.

Go into a market that doesn't spend and you will not make any money, pick the wrong keywords and you will lose a lot on top! So, it's a double edged sword!

And, it can be very difficult to see where you've actually gone wrong if you don't know what you are doing.

So, market research. The good news is that the amount of business done online continues to increase at an amazing pace. When I spent three days with Armand Morin just before Christmas he showed me some figures that suggest 70% of all advertising dollars are now spent online.

I have said many times before, the online world is NOT partaking in this recession that seems to be going on elsewhere.

That figure is all you need to know to suggest that your business MUST be online, that's the first point. I have made this point in previous Hubs, but it is worth making again...if you're not marketing online you are losing out!

There are many places that you can go to assess how much activity there is in a given market.

You can check the

• Amazon Hot List
• Ebay Pulse
• Yahoo Groups
• Wikipedia
• MSN Groups
• YouTube
• Do a Google Search

There are hundreds of places you can look to assess a niche.

But, for my money, the quickest and easiest indicator of commercial viability is looking at how many people are advertising on Google Adwords.

How can you do this?

Simple...go to https://adwords.google.com/select/adtargetingpreviewtool

There you'll be able to see all the ads for a given keyword as well as see how many ads there are.

Are there more than 10 or 15 ads?

Then there is a market.

Now some people see 387 ads and run away because there is too much competition.

Competition is GOOD. It shows there is a vibrant market and if 387 people are spending their advertising dollar on Adwords, then they must be making money...and there is a market!

It's your job to be better than them and usurp their market!

So, it's easy to find a market, you don't need any special tools.

Think how would I search for this product or niche or market, and then see what people are doing in that niche. The deeper down you can split the niche the easier it is to dominate!

Lee and I will be releasing the first two modules of Internet Marketing Strategic in January, the first module covers market / niche research in depth, watch out for the launch - it's free! I will be writing a review here come launch time.

Moving on to keyword research. Now this really is where there are a plethora of shiney, all singing, all dancing tools that you can buy for a shed load of dosh.

I have said in the past that I use Keyword Elite and I do. I do like the KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) marker that shows you how profitable a keyword is likely to be.

But, and I will be honest, I haven't paid out to upgrade to version 2.0.

Why?

Well, version 1.0 does everything that I need and over the last year I have come to realise that I am much better off using Google itself.

Google have over the last 18 months really upgraded the functionality available in the External Keyword Tool and it is as good as anything you can buy.

My tips on keyword research.

Try and get as deep into the breakdown of the niche as you can.

Try using the * query to find keywords you wouldn't have thought of. This little trick can reveal sub niches you would never have thought of and that are ripe for picking.

All you do is enter the * in your search string and Google will fit in missing words for you!

So, if you entered a search string of "Google * my life" Google will fill in the blanks...so you'll get results like "Google changed my life"

The site I picked this up from is http://www.googleguide.com it's well worth a visit.

Imagine what you could find in niche markets using this tool. I tried it in the fat loss market and found some amazing sub niches. I found niches in "how to lose armpit fat" and "how to lose pectoral fat"...would you have ever thought of those?

You should also use the External Tool to dig deeper, so if you see a keyword with lots of hits in your initial results, type that in as well.

Also make sure you check out the alternative keyword suggestions that Google offers you at the bottom of searches. Most people totally ignore therse suggestions. Google puts them there for a reason...that being

that Google thinks they are related!

Also, use the search options. At the top right hand corner of the search results, there is a link to "options".

This allows you to chop and change your search results based on various criteria such a Forum results, Blog results or News Stories. use this to find out what is hot in a market.

And, finally, us the Wonder Wheel. It's in the options side bar under the "Standard View" section.

The wonder wheel is a great way to dig deep into a niche and see graphically, what Google thinks is relevant to a given market.

I did a quick video on the Wonderwheel which you can watch on the YouTube video next to this module.

It's a very cool tool.

Now, this next point is vitally important. You need to make sure you get your modifiers right!

What?

Keyword modifiers, these take you into the BUYING area! You want keywords that people type in to actually BUY products not just research them!

So, modifers such as "buy", "purchase" and "get" are the sorts of things people type in when they are about to actually buy. These are the keywords you want "buy dunlop max 500 tennis racket".

Model numbers are also good. "pentax z653 slr camera". By the way I have no idea if these models actually exist, but you get the idea!

Final tip, look for opportunities within a niche.

What do I mean?

Well, where do images come in the search results? What about video? If images come up in the number one slot, then you know that your marketing needs to include images.

Google does vary this from market to market. You may find that in some markets images are not high in the results. But search on something like "Abs Workout" and you'll see images and videos are very important in that market.

If you search on something like "Credit Repair" you won't find any images (at least not last time I checked).

So, look for small windows of opportunity that can help you dominate the SERPS.

O.K, there is a lot of very useful information here that is designed to help you research and dominate any given niche. I hope this Hub helps you draw more profit from your Internet Marketing activities.