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Researching a Profitable Niche
| Great - so now we are getting to the meat of this Course. First things first - what is a niche? A niche is an area or a field around which we are going to be focussing our website building efforts. Simple so far? I am sure you would have heard of how useless those high paying Adsense Keyword lists are - which are found on some "wannabe" sites. That is not true. Let me tell you that if used well - those lists are potential goldmines when it comes to niche identification. Here's an example of such a list: 1 donate car to charity California $130.25 2 donate car for tax credit $126.65 3 donate cars in ma $125 58 4 donate your car sacramento $118 20 5 how to donate a car in California $111.21 6 donate your car for kids $106.01 7 car insurance quotes Colorado $100.93 8 nunavut culture $99.52 9 dayton freight lines $99.39 10 harddrive data recovery services $98.59 11 donate a car in maryland $98 51 12 motor replacements $98 43 13 cheap domain registration hosting $98.39 14donating a car in maryland $98 20 15 donate cars illinois $98 13 16 criminal defense attorneys florida $98.07 17 best criminal lawyer in arizona $97 93 18 car insurance quotes Utah $97.92 19 life insurance co lincoln $97.07 20 holland michigan college $95.74 21 online motor insurance quotes $95.73 22 online colledges $95.65 23 paperport promotional code $95.13 24 onlineclasses $95.06 25 world trade center footage $95.02 26 massage school dallas texas $94.90 27 psychic for free $94 61 28 donate old cars to charity $94.55 29 low credit line credit cards $94 49 My Oh My - Look at what keywords like this pay! Though we are still not at the stage of keyword research, this is just a sneak peak of what revenues you can make. However, this list refers to what people are willing to pay on Google, not on the kind of sites we are creating. Our job as marketers is to drill deep down into these keywords which we will do soon. My insights into the above list are just as yours - the clear dominance of words like insurance, attorneys etc. cannot be ignored. This is obvious though! Here's another relatively old list: http://www.webdesignhot.com/uncateg....st-2010 Remember that we are using these lists for niche research and not keyword research. So basically, what I like to do is look at several lists and keep an eye out for something which is distinct and not conventionally known to be popular. Say I stumbled upon a phrase which I feel is distinct enough to research on. I will then head over to the Google Keyword tool at http://adwords.google.com/select/keywordtoolexternal and then enter the phrase there (obviously you need to be logged into your adwords account in order to be able to view the CPC section). Next thing to do when the results show up, you sort the results in descending order of CPC & voila - you will be shocked to see results which you didn't expect by any means. Certain keywords in the niches I research show up as pleasant surprises in the highest CPCs. A Detailed Example In the second list I have mentioned above, the keyword "data recovery Denver" was something which caught my eye.  I headed over to the Google Keyword tool in order to conduct some more research. I sorted the result of this keyword by CPC and this is the snapshot of the same.  Now I am from India which is why the CPCs show up in my home currency, but if you do your math (1$=Rs. 54+), you will realize that this is a high paying keyword, amounting to $28 odd! You will also notice that the competition is high which is not something strange, particularly because people will obviously be targeting it. We have, as I said earlier, I researched in detail not to target the keyword but to identify an underlying potential niche in any. The surprising part is the number of linked keywords which revolve around data recovery which show up below. Each of them is not something which would strike you on a regular basis as it is kind of away from the "usual" high paying niches like insurance, attorney etc. So what your agenda should be is to look at such unusual keywords in these lists which you would not expect to appear, research them using the Google keyword tool and then uncover the golden nuggets i.e. keywords similar to these in the search results which are relatively low competition and worthy of targeting from the CPC perspective. In this example, I now have "Data Recovery Denver" as a focal keyword. You need to assess whether this focal keyword can be used as a niche or are there keywords associated with it which can. So make a list of such focal keywords is what I am saying and assess the viability using the keyword tool of each of these as a niche or their associated keywords as a niche using the keyword tool as explained above. Some More Useful Information for Niche Research Below is an excerpt from an article published on http://www.wordstream.com/ in 2011: The 20 most expensive keywords categories with the highest search volume (i.e. the most used keywords) and highest costs per click, thereby netting Google the most money, are: 1. Insurance (example keywords in this category include "buy car insurance online” and "auto insurance price quotes") 2. Loans (example keywords include "consolidate graduate student loans" and "cheapest homeowner loans") 3. Mortgage (example keywords include "refinanced second mortgages" and "remortgage with bad credit") 4. Attorney (example keywords include "personal injury attorney" and "dui defense attorney") 5. Credit (example keywords include "home equity line of credit" and "bad credit home buyer") 6. Lawyer ("personal injury lawyer," "criminal defense lawyer) 7. Donate ("car donation centers," "donating a used car") 8. Degree ("criminaljustice degrees online," "psychology bachelors degree online") 9. Hosting ("hosting ms exchange," "managed web hosting solution") 10. Claim ("personal injury claim," "accident claims no win no fee") 11. Conference Call ("best conference call service," "conference calls toll free") 12. Trading ("cheap online trading," "stock trades online") 13. Software ("crm software programs," "help desk software cheap") 14. Recovery ("raidserver data recovery," "hard drive recovery laptop") 15. Transfer ("zero apr balance transfer," "credit card balance transfer zero interest") 16. Gas/Electricity ("business electricity price comparison," "switch gas and electricity suppliers") 17. Classes ("criminaljustice online classes," "online classes business administration") 18. Rehab ("alcohol rehab centers," "crack rehab centers") 19. Treatment ("mesothelioma treatment options," "drug treatment centers") 20. Cord Blood ("cordblood bank," "store umbilical cord blood") So basically - what Wordstream has done is, it has simplified the niche research process for you as much as anything can! So to begin with - you can keep your eye on these keywords so that you know by default that you are on the right track. However as time progresses and you get more accustomed to doing niche research, you can focus here and there on phrases of your choice. Your Homework So Far.. So essentially, thus far, you work should be to try and figure out some keyword phrases from the high paying keyword lists (you can search for several of those on Google) and key them into the adwords tool so that these become the root keywords for you to drill down into associated niches. You can search for these lists in Google by typing stuff like "High Paying Keywords 2012" or "High Paying Adsense Keywords 2012" and some awesome lists will show up. Here's a snapshot of the Google Search Results for High Paying Keywords 2012...  So what I am saying is - you have many lists like these to refer to  Alternatively, The list given by Wordstream (which I have shared earlier) has several keywords which are niches by themselves. For example, we now know that "personal injury claims" is a good niche to go after. In fact - "claims" is a huge niche in itself. However, I do not suggest this method because you are narrowing yourself down to the already well known top niches and are missing the opportunity to uncover some hidden gems which you can come across either using the keyword lists I spoke about earlier or by simply snooping around a little more. There is no hurry - remember that niche research is an extremely important step. If you do your best here, there is very little effort that needs to be put into the forthcoming steps -since you are going for maximum profitability right from the research stages. So try and be as diligent and particular as you can whilst researching niches. Note: 2 Small Tips to identify whether you have a profitable niche Just plug-in your niche to see if it fits the following criteria in addition to everything I mentioned above. If it does, you have a winner.
(I AM PROVIDING ACTION SHEETS FOR NICHE RESEARCH AS WELL AS THE OTHER MODULES JUST TO MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT MOVE FURTHER WITHOUT COMPLETING THIS MODULE - MAKE SURE YOU GET THE JOB DONE AND FILL OUT THE ACTION SHEET BEFORE PROCEEDING) Source: The Adsense Dragon | |
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