1. Choose a topic that you like, have experience or are interested in.

2. Take the main keyword from this topic and plug it into a keyword research tool.

3. Look at the search count. If it is about 30,000 per month, it’s a good niche. If it is below 30,000 searches, there is very little market and therefore it is not a good niche. If it is way above 30,000 searches, there is probably too much competition and therefore it is risky to enter this niche market.

That’s it. Based on those three steps, you are supposed to find a niche. What’s wrong with such a teaching?

Firstly, there is no research into the competition. No step is taken to discover how strong a competition you face in that niche.

Secondly, there is no research into long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are defined as keyword phrases of at least 4 words (the more words, the better). Every marketer knows the importance of long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords can lead you to lucrative sub-niches.

Thirdly, there is no research into the tendency of the searchers to buy. It’s not only a matter of whether the searchers have money or not. Some people in a particular niche market may have money but are not intending to buy anything.

So here’s how the gurus really do their niche and keyword research:

1. Examine your own interests, abilities, knowledge, experiences. Anything from these may be a potentially good niche to market to.

2. Identify what’s hot in the market i.e. what is currently the most talked-about thing, what’s buzzing or new in town. Is this a potential niche?

3. From the above two steps, identify potential niches. Then run these potential niches through these ‘filters’:

a. Are people in this niche ready to buy and not merely information seekers or looking for freebies? For example, ‘how to score an ‘A’ in your SAT examination’ would probably not be a very lucrative niche because it would interest only students who may not have the money to buy anything much.

b. Is there a problem that the people in this niche cannot solve themselves? Any niche involving technical expertise would nicely fit into this criteria. For example, ‘how to solve Windows Vista registry problems’ would likely be a good niche because very few people are technologically competent enough to deal with these problems.

c. Do the people in this niche have an urgent crisis that needs to be overcome? The more urgent the better. For example, ‘how to stop your teenager’s drug habit’ is an extremely urgent crisis that begs for answers.

d. Is there an ‘evergreen’ need in this niche that is not a just a fad? ‘How to improve your golf swing’ is an evergreen need compared to ’strategies for World of Warcraft’ (World of Warcraft is a PC game). Once the fad for World of Warcraft is over, the market in this niche disappears.

Obviously, the more ‘yes’ answers you get to the above questions the more potentially profitable a niche is.

4. Once you have identified a potentially profitable niche based on the steps above, it is time to look for some long-tail keywords. These long-tail keywords will reveal some sub-niches which you can further profit from. For example, if you type in ‘golf swing’ into Wordtracker, you would get a whole list of related searches. Look for keyword phrases with four words or more. Some of them are ’stack and tilt golf swing’, ‘biomechanics of golf swing’, ‘what is the proper weight distribution during the golf swing’ etc.

5. To find out how much competition there is in this niche, simply type in all the keywords you have into Google’s free keyword analysis tool. This tool will give you the estimated advertiser competition (which is the same as marketer competition), average search volume for the previous month and average monthly search volume. The great thing is that this tool also gives you synonyms for the keywords which means you get more keyword suggestions. You identify keywords with as little competition but as many searches as possible.

The steps above represent a much more complete way of niche discovery. You will not only find profitable niches but also the relevant keywords that go with these niches. By doing this you make a solid start in your niche marketing.

You may have already considered this question for your own life. If given enough thought, just about any business owner who utilizes the Internet for any purpose, will likely find that whether or not they intentionally organized an Internet marketing campaign, they may already be marketing their products or services on the Internet. Let’s take a look at some of the more clever ways business owners can be already marketing their services or products on the Internet.

Does your business have a website? Business owners who answer, ’yes’, to this question, are already marketing their products or services online just by virtue of the fact that they have a website online. When a business has an active website, then it has the potential for getting site visitors. You may not be actively promoting your website but you may still find that it generates interest in your products despite the lack of promotional endeavors; this is a form of passive marketing.

Do you participate in message boards and include a link to your website in your signature? Again business owners who answer ’yes’, to this question, are already marketing their website online. Savvy business owners realize the importance of participation in industry related message boards to create an interest in their products and services, while they work to establish themselves as knowledgeable about the industry, they will also offer a link to their own website, that can be found usually along the bottom of the page. Some business owners do not even realize this, and can be reaping the benefits from this type of internet marketing by way of use of the people that participate in their message board.

Do you include keywords which are relevant to your business in the content of your website? If you answered “yes” to this question, then you are already in the process of making the website highly effective and functional through the use of keywords and keyword phrases. Essentially this type of search engine optimization (SEO), will effect the density of the result pages and search engine ranking and this can happen whether a business owner is aware of the keyword concept or not. Business owners will likely use certain words, based on the type of products and services they offer, just because it is natural and logical to do so. This can result in search engines boosting your website rankings for these particular keywords. Still, the idea behind SEO is more complex and engaging than only the frequent use of keywords, yet having those keywords or keyword phrases on your website will help to increase your business success.

Do you solicit feedback from your customers online? Again, this would be another way business owners are sometimes marketing on the internet without realizing it. Most business owners realize the importance of soliciting feedback from customers for business purposes and business owners who offer products online might solicit feedback in the form of surveys. Although the business owners may be doing this simply for a business purpose, the fact that it is done online makes it fall into the category of Internet marketing.

We have discussed several ways in which business owners may already be marketing online ; let’s discuss what business owners need to do to have an increased online presence. Even if a business owner was marketing online unintentionally, they may now want to begin increasing their marketing potential via the internet. The best way to do this is to hire a consultant with experience in Internet marketing, who can assist you in creating a campaign which is effective for your target audience.

Online marketing is full of persons or businesses that offer their help or products, however, some of these are not worth the money and you would do best to research them thoroughly.

Do you have a website for your business? Business owners who answer yes to this question are already marketing their products or services online just by virtue of the fact that they have a website online. Having a live website means there is the potential for curious Internet users to access your website. You may not be actively promoting your website but you may still find that your website generates interest in your products despite the lack of promotional endeavors; this is a form of passive marketing.

Do you participate in message boards and include a link to your website in your signature? Again business owners who answer yes to this question are already marketing their website online. Savvy business owners realize the importance of participation in industry related message boards to create an interest in their products and services, establish themselves as knowledgeable about the industry and offer a link to their own website even if it is in the signature line of their posts. However, even business owners who do not realize this may already be inadvertently enjoying the benefits of Internet marketing which result from message board participation just by doing something they enjoy and may be doing as a form of leisure activity. 

Do you include keywords which are relevant to your business in the content of your website? Business owners who answer yes to this question are also already marketing on the Internet by optimizing their website for these keywords. These search engine optimization (SEO) affects the websites whether or not they were even aware of the concept of keyword density and how it can help to SEO a website. Business owners will likely use certain words often depending on the type of products and services they offer just because it is natural and logical to do so. This tendency, however, can result in search engines boosting your website rankings for these particular keywords. The concept of SEO is much more involved and complex than simply using keywords frequently but business owners can gain some benefit just by naturally applying relevant keywords to their website. 

Do you solicit feedback from your customers online? This is yet another example of how business owners may be accidentally marketing their business on the Internet. Most business owners realize the importance of soliciting feedback from customers for business purposes and business owners who offer products online might solicit feedback in the form of online surveys. Although the business owners may be doing this simply for a business purpose the fact that it is done online makes it fall into the category of Internet marketing.

We have already discussed several ways in which business owners may already be marketing online but what about business owners who want to have an increased online presence? Business owners who may already be marketing online accidentally may wish to launch a full scale Internet marketing campaign. The best way to do this is to hire a consultant with experience in Internet marketing to assist you in creating a campaign which is effective for your target audience.