In order to become a successful business blogger you need to research a profitable website niche idea before attempting to build a blog. Your goal should be to build up your blog in such a way that you can dominate that niche, or at least grab a large chunk of that niche market. I call this “niche domination”. This article is intended to get you started with finding a profitable website niche by explaining how to get started with your market research.
Selecting a niche idea requires a lot of market research, so if you are doing this for the first time it can be quite time consuming and repetitive. Like all things though, it does get easier the more you do it. There are also some great tools out there that can make your market research much easier, which I write about on my website. For the purpose of this article I use only Google to do my initial market research.
Getting Started
So what interests you? It’s much easier to research things that interest you, so get a pen and paper and write down some of your favourite subjects. Look around you now, and have quick wander around your office or home and make notes of any items that you notice.
To give you a quick example, I’m writing this on my Dell PC. I have 2 LCD monitors connected to my PC via a dual display graphics card. Also connected is my Microsoft trackball mouse, a wireless keyboard, a set of desktop speakers, and a Skype video phone. I’m also connected to the internet via my broadband modem/router. Plugged into the front of my PC is a USB memory stick and a cable connecting my iPod to my iTunes library.
If I extend my search and look around my home, there are hundreds of things I could add to my list. Many of these things are something that I may be interested in, because at some point I’ve bought them. If you check your email you will normally find receipts and information about products and services that you are interested in. You get the idea…there are many items around you that you could write about, so keep an open mind and don’t rule anything out until you’ve performed some market research. It’s also important to remember that you really only need to build this initial list once and just add to it once in a while.
Create a shortlist
Of all the items listed, you will need to make a shortlist of the ones you want to research further. I use a Spreadsheet application like Microsoft Excel to add the items I want to research. I create the spreadsheet with the following columns:
Subject / Google results / Google Ads / All in title / All in anchor
The purpose of this next exercise is to find (and eliminate) a product or topic that you’ve already short-listed. Also, keep in mind that a niche can be anything related to the topic(s) you’ve chosen. In part 2 of this article I will cover the next steps of researching related keywords for your chosen topic(s), but first let’s use a real (and completely random) example:
Earlier I listed a few things around my office that were connected to my computer. From this list I will use “wireless keyboard” for my example. I will add this phrase to the “subject” column of my spreadsheet. Next I will fill in the spreadsheet step-by-step to see if the subject could be something worth considering for my niche domination.
Step 1 – Check Google Results
* Go to www.google.com and search the web for “wireless keyboard” (without the quotes).
* On the top right of the page I get 16,100,000 Google results, which immediately tells me this is a very popular subject.
* Add the results figure to the “Google results” column in the spreadsheet.
Step 2 – Check Google Adwords Ads
On the same Google search results page from the step above you will see “Sponsored Links” by Google on the right of the page. These are pay-per-click (PPC) adverts of your potential competitors. You need to count how many there are. If there are more than one screen’s worth of ads then you will need to click the link to “show all sponsored links” to view all of them.
* If there are no Adwords ads then the market is relatively undiscovered, or more likely is not profitable as there is not much interest in it from advertisers.
* If there are many pages of ads (e.g. 4+) then the market is extremely competitive.
For the search I’ve just completed I have 10 Google Adword results. Add this result to your “Google Ads” column.
Step 3 – Check Google “allinanchor:” Results
If you prefix your search term with “allinanchor:” then Google with show only results where the search term is in a URL. To do this:
* Go to www.google.com and search the web for “allinanchor:wireless keyboard” (without the quotes).
* On the top right of the page I get 165,000 Google results.
* Add the results figure to the “allinanchor” column in the spreadsheet.
The results of 165,000 initially tells me that this is way to high for that search phrase to be a profitable niche. Basically, you would need to beat 165,000 other websites that link to the phrase “Wireless Keyboard”. There’s no need to worry at this point though, we will do our advance keyword research in Part 2 for much better phrases (long tail search phrases). For example, “allinanchor:wireless multimedia keyboard” brings back only 17,800 results. As a general rule, the lower the results the easier it is for you to dominate that niche, providing the traffic is there to be captured.
Step 4 – Check Google “allintitle:” Results
If you prefix your search term with “allintitle:” then Google with show only results where the search term is in the title of a page. To do this:
* Go to www.google.com and search the web for “allinanchor:wireless keyboard” (without the quotes).
* On the top right of the page I get 148,000 Google results.
* Add the results figure to the “allintitle” column in the spreadsheet.
148,000 is again way to high for me to consider that search term as the title of my blog, however “allintitle:wireless multimedia keyboard” brings me back 620 results which is excellent!
Already, I’ve built up a basic picture of the market that I’m considering creating my business blog for, with the idea of making an income from pay-per-click adverts and affiliate links.
Once you’ve completed this initial research for your short-listed topics, you may find that you already have a good idea of the subject that you want pursue for your website niche domination. All you need to do now is perform some advanced keyword research for the topics you want to look at in more detail. I will cover this in the Part 2.

One of the biggest mistakes a new online marketer can make is to ignore proper keyword research and selection.It matters not if you have the greatest product, or the best ebook, or the most up to date newsletter ever.  If nobody can find these products, what good are they to you?  None.Without selecting and using keywords properly nobody will find your website, and therefore your products.  And your website will die the slow death of little to no traffic.Not everyone thinks like you do.  Just because you may know your product inside and out, doesn’t necessarily mean you know how people will be searching for it.  Not everyone would even describe your product the same way as you.If your product is a solution, they might be searching for the problem.  They may not know of your solution.  They may describe their problem differently than you do.  They may search using just a couple of words, or they may use in entire sentence.You might very well be shocked and the different responses you’d get if you asked your friends how they would search for the same thing.  You really don’t know how people are searching in your product arena until you do some proper keyword research.How effective keywords will help your website.Researching and then selecting the most effective keywords will definitely effect your website’s bottom line.There are some major benefits to proper keyword selection and usage which include:•    Attracting targeted visitors that are already looking for what you have to offer.•    Expanded product line.  Keyword research can find additional product opportunities.•    Better SEO. This is higher listings on the search engine results page.•    Optimizing your website.  Your website is more targeted on its core purpose.•    Providing a common underlying theme to your content•    Long lasting effects.  Proper keyword usage lasts for the life of the web site.What is keyword research?Perhaps the most important aspect of keyword research, is what it is not – guessing.  Guessing is not research.Keyword research is creating a list of potentially good keywords.  Then using proper research tools, adding new potential keywords and subtracting bad keywords form that list.  And doing so until you’ve found the most effective keywords for your niche.Keyword research is determining monthly search volumes, discovering the level of competition for a keyword, looking at trends, learning about searcher intent, determining the quality of the competition for a keyword..  It is not hard, but it does take some effort.Search engine traffic.If you want search engine traffic, you have to use keywords.  Search engines are like giant cyber matchmakers.  They match up searchers, with providers.  The searchers use ‘search terms’.  Providers, (website owners), use keywords.  Search terms and keywords are two different word, from two different perspectives, for the same thing.If you are not targeting keywords on your website that searchers are looking for with their search terms, then there will be no matching performed, and you won’t get any traffic from the search engines.  It is just that simple.The bottom line is this: if you want traffic to your website, you must use effective keywords.  And to find effective keywords you must do proper keyword research.  There is no getting around this.

Keyword research is the process of determining which keyword phrases will describe your website’s products and/or services and are actually used in web searches. It is insight into the needs of your customers or clients. Bottom line it is finding out what Internet surfers are actually searching for.
Choosing keywords or keyword phrases can be very confusing for new site owners. If you don’t have keyword or keyword phrases optimized on your web site, you will not get the traffic you want and individuals will not stay on your site, read your information or buy you service or product.
Keyword research can be broken down into a three step process. The first step is the discovery phase. In this step you want to focus on identifying as many keywords or phrases as possible.
Initially you need to sit down and brainstorm a list of keyword/keyword phrases that address the topic of your web site. Have a dictionary and thesaurus handy. At this point include every word or phrase that you can think of.
There are several keyword tools that are available to help you generate a keyword list. Some of these tools are free such as GoodKeyWords and Google Adwords Tool, while others such as WordTracker are fee based. With these tools you will be able to generate hundreds of keyword phrases.
The second step in the analyzing phase. This step involves analyzing the popularity and competition for the keyword phrases. The quickest way to perform the analysis is to use one of the fee based keyword tools like Wordtracker.
Wordtracker is able to quickly take your list of keyword phases and give you the number of searches in the past 30 days and the number of competitive web sites for each phrase. Wordtracker also supplies a numerical value called a Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) that helps determine the competitiveness of a keyword phrase. A keyword phrase with a high KEI means it is less competitive.
From Wordtracker you are able to export your keyword list along with the KEI, search and competitive site data. This information can then be entered into Excel spreadsheets. This will allow you to make comparisons between various keyword phrases and do away with any unrelated or undesirable keyword phrases.
The third step is the selection of keyword phrases. From your analysis phase, you should be able to identify a number of high quality keyword phases that can accurately describe the qualities of your website.
In your final selection of keyword phases you need to look for phrase that have a high level of search activity, while the level of competitiveness is relatively low. For making your final selection of 15-20 keyword phrases you will want to do a Google search on the keyword phrases and view the top web sites listed for each phrase. Are the sites professionally designed? Can you design a web page that can move up into the top ratings for this keyword phrase?
When starting a new web site it’s highly recommended to target only one unique keyword phrase per page. With your newly researched keyword list you can write your content with a balanced use of unique phrases that will help generate traffic to your web pages.

Keywords are really important in a business website. Why, you ask? Keywords are actually the words that are being used by user of the internet who search for information in Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL, among other popular search engines. By instinct, users will naturally click on the first website that comes out first in the search engine results. For example, if you were searching for “safe pet food” on google, wouldn’t you click on the first search result that came up? Now imagine your website being that first website. Wouldn’t you be thrilled if people started buying products from your website? That is the power of keywords.
If you want to ensure that you can let your targeted customers know of the existence of your website, then you have to make sure that your website shows up in results pages of major search engines. Most of all, if you like to build massive traffic and a higher sales conversion rate for your business, you must rank at number 1 in those search results. The most important aspect to get listed as number one are your keywords.
But how do you exactly do a keyword research? Here are a number of techniques you can use to find keywords that are relevant to your website.
1. Evaluate your business. You can’t simply make use of any keyword that comes into your mind. What you’re looking for is a high-ranking targeted keyword. By this we mean that the keyphrase or word that you’re going to pick is related to your business and what you can offer to your intended customers and is being utilized frequently by them. You will never know what keyword to utilize if you aren’t really sure what your business is all about. So make sure that you analyze your business well.
If you are having difficulty with this one, you can always opt to look for a keyword research professional who can help you out. Surely, with many of them all over the World Wide Web, you can find one that’s very affordable and can do a very good job. Look at forums and local message boards for freelancers who could be hired for cheap as well.
2. Use keyword suggestion tools. When you already have some keywords at hand or perhaps in your mind, you can make use of keyword suggestion tools. These come in the form of downloadable programs or web-based applications that will help you in determining which of them will be ideal for your website. There are others that can be used for free, such as those from Google Adwords and Yahoo! and Overture. If you want to know more of these types of programs, you can simply search for them in search engines by typing in “free keyword research tools.”
The more reputable and effective these programs get you have to pay in order to use their services.
This is how you can easily do keyword research to find and uncover keywords that are relevant to your website so that they will help you rank better in search engines.

Learning how to find a perfect niche to start a website with, is easy. Of course it will take a little bit of homework. The biggest part of finding a niche to work with, is deciding on one that you are familiar with. There is no reason to get a website and start marketing it, if you do not know anything about your niche.

First write down 3-5 different things that you think you could write about, something that you could write at least one to three short articles about every week. You do not need to be a guru or a master on the topic, because you can always read others articles if you need to, then rewrite the information in your own words.

Now you will want to go to some of the sites below to help you find some ideas on what is hot and what is not. You can use these tools to help see what people are currently doing online and doing this can be a very profitable method to finding a good niche market to work with.

About.com Sitemap

Having trouble getting started, check our the about.com sitemap for a huge list of categories that might just be what you are looking for.

eBay Pulse

I wish we had a way to find out what the most searched for and most sold items on eBay were, man that would be a great resource for niche marketing. Wait a minute, we do, it is called eBay Pulse. Use this site to find the hottest selling items on eBay, maybe you know of a niche that can help you sell these products?

Google Product Search

This is what used to be called “froogle” but now you can get to it by clicking “shopping” at the top of the Google page. This section of Google is great for finding a niche market and locating products people are actively searching for. You can see the most recent searches right at the bottom of the page.

Google Zeitgeist

This is a great tool that is provided by Google. This tool is great for niche research because it will show you the most popular searches and you can even look at past months of results to see trends as they happen.

Magazines.com

Trust me if they make a magazine about it, it is a niche, sometime a big wide open one, but there is definitely a market there! You can use this site to see a list of the top ten subscribed magazines and even search by category to see the top publications. Great for brainstorming!

Yahoo Buzz

This is one of many social bookmarking sites out there, you can also view digg.com, reddit.com, twitter.com and the list goes on. Just search Google for social bookmarking websites and you will find many. These sites are a great way to find out what the internet community is doing. You may find a lot of topics on the niche you were thinking about using or you may find a new idea for a great niche with these sites.

We hope this article helps you get on the right path to locating the right niche for you. Please read more on our site Webmaster Business Plan to see how to find out if your niche is getting enough searches to make it worth your time in our next article.