Identify a Market

So how do you find market niches that are profitable? There is no fool proof formula to finding the perfect niche. It’s a mix of research, research and research – with a dash of instinct and passion thrown in.

Passion - because it doesn’t matter what niche you pick, if you are not passionate about the topic, the site is doomed to failure. After you learn the game, your passion can be the GAME – then it doesn’t matter what the topic is. Your passion will become being successful at what ever topic you pick. While you learn the process, you really should pick a topic you know something about.

Instinct – is what your gut is telling you. Whats your immediate reaction to the niche? Did you find the topic or product and say yuck or did you have a wow moment where you said to yourself “I didn’t know you could…….” (get these, buy these, etc -you fill in the blanks).

Research

You want to pick markets that fill a need, are in demand, appeal to a persons pride (items to make them look good – clothing, cars, jewelry) or greed (money).

These are the tools used by TME staff and TME members

1. Niche Bot – This is a super tool and its getting better all the time. Searches are current. It will soon be (if not already) the #1 keyword research tool available.
2. Niche Inspector – this tool resides on your desktop and is a great tool for finding profitable niches. It works with “the big 3″ search engines and will return PPC rates – a must have if you want to earn Adsense dollars
3. KeyWord Spy – this handy tool lets you spy on your competition and tell you what keywords they are using. There is a paid and free version of this tool available. Keyword Spy is a keyword research tool which tells you exactly which keywords work and which do not by gaining access to your competitors’ keywords. Keyword Spy system helps you pin point easily the keywords that are driving traffic to a particular website.
   With just a few clicks, Keyword Spy can show you your competitors PPC, Organic and Affiliate advertising campaigns for you to stay on top of your rivals. You really need to add this to your arsenal of hot tools.

Lets look at some other resources to help you find a suitable niche

1. Google Trends – Start comparing your chosen niche topics using this tool. See how it compares with what the rest of the world is looking for. The number one place to go to assess the popularity of a keyword, in terms of search engine traffic
2. eBay Pulse - Let’s face it – people searching on eBay are looking to BUY! Look at what the popular searches are – thats where people are spending money.
3. A9 – At the beginning of each week, A9.com lists the top product searches for the preceding week, identifying the goods most in demand on Amazon.com
4. Yahoo Buzz – See what the world is buzzing about at Yahoo
5. Google Keywords – Use Google’s external keyword search tool
6. Overture – will show searches in January. I believe they have phased this search tool out
7. Wordtracker – this is paid service but it does have a free section -give it a try.
8. Everything2.com – they describe it better than I could “A Place to Discuss and Socialize
   E2 lets you interact with the highly diverse community of people who write the Everything2 content.
   This is an unusual and vibrant community where you might be exposed to ideas, styles, viewpoints, personalities, suggestions about music, movies and other art forms, and other kinds of inspiration that you may not find in one place anywhere else.“
9. See what popular at the social network sites like Squidoo – check out their top 100 to see what others are interested in.
10. StumbleUpon – once again check out what others are interested in.
11. Yahoo Buzz log – I like Buzzlog because unlike Google Zeitgeist or AOL Hot Searches, Yahoo Buzzlog aims at spotting niche trends.

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After you find a Niche to use, you need to do keyword research. Here are some resources to help you.

The first one is http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/ – This is a great free tool