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Having trouble selecting a niche
bobdobbs
Posts: 9
Joined: 12 Mar 10
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02 Dec 10 10:37 pm

Having trouble selecting a niche

Hi all.

When it comes to selecting a niche, I'm stumped. How do you guys find profitable niches?

If I understand correctly, then it's good to find a niche where competition already exists, because that means that people are making money. Mark advises to "follow the long tail": use related search terms to attract traffic.

However, I just can't seem to find niches that aren't already saturated.

This is my process:
I start by looking at products on clickbank. Where there is a product with good gravity, I use the google keyword tool to look for search phrases. I look for phrases that address a desired solution.

Then I switch over to traffic travis and use the SEO analysis tool to see how how difficult it is to rate in google for the phrases I've selected.
If I understand correctly, then the "difficulty rating" in TT reflects the difficulty of getting on the first page of google.
Because I haven't launched a promotion campaign before, I want to target phrases that are not difficult.

However, I just can't seem to find matches between products, keywords and easy ratings in TT.

What's going on here?
Is the long tail for every product on clickbank with reasonable gravity already occupied?
Or am I doing something wrong?
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digiblue
Posts: 239
Joined: 29 Apr 09
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03 Dec 10 6:08 am

 To be honest, I think people over analyze before choosing a niche. There are so many proven markets that are profitable year after year. If you are building a blog around a market that you have some interest in and you have time to invest then just jump into one of the big proven markets that you are interested in and you can very quickly tap into social media marketing and conversation marketing to get traffic and conversions without paying too much attention to any SEO. But the catch is you have to be creating top notch content and knowing the social marketing channels to use to get eye balls on it. This is a whole topic in itself.

But if you are building tightly focused AffiloBlueprint mini-sites, you will need to pay more attention to your keywords because you will be driving either payed traffic or natural traffic from the search engines. Long tail keywords are best for AffiloBlueprint sites when they are brand new and on a freshly bought domain. Quite often I choose keywords that only get an estimated of 10 - 20 visitors a day, then I will write a long article and sprinkle in lots of related and relevant keywords.

By going after keywords with very little traffic (and competition), I can be up and ranking within a matter of days in the top 5 results and quite often in the top spot. And because I have sprinkled in different related keywords I will be getting traffic from these "secondary" keywords as well.

Install Google Analytics and getclicky.com and see how all the traffic you will receive from keywords you may have thought you didn't even optimize for. Once your Website becomes more established you can then go after keywords with more traffic and more competition. But at first keep the numbers down and the competition low, at least by doing this you will get immediate traffic rather than waiting around to get ranked for keywords which could take many months.

Here is a short list of proven markets that there is plenty of room for affiliates to make money in:

Golf
Dog Training
How to Get Your Ex Back
Wedding Planning
Stock Trading
Pregnancy
Travel
Babies
Real Estate Investing
Registry Cleaner
Bodybuilding
Sports Betting
Forex Trading
Weight Loss
Quit Smoking
Green Home / Energy
Investing
Dating Advice
Forex Trading

Ideally you want to choose a niche that you have a bit of interest in or willing to learn about (if you are going the social marketing route). But if you are building an AffiloBlueprint Website, choose one of these niches based on your market research, current trends, and your keyword research.

Just one more thing, some of the best ways I have found to do your initial keyword research is to spend some time on the forums in your niche and looking at the top threads with the most views. Write down the common keywords people are using to describe their pain, frustrations, or solutions in the thread (sum it up) and then use this information to do your keyword research on (using the keyword tool).

I hope this helps,

Alex
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bobdobbs
Posts: 9
Joined: 12 Mar 10
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06 Dec 10 10:39 pm

 Hi Alex.

Thanks for your encouraging reply.

Just to give you a little more information, I'm not using affilioBlueprint sites. I'm starting on my own with a budget of nearly $0. My only resources at the moment are a hosting account, some technical and design skills, and time.

As such, I'll be doing everything manually, using just the free information on this site.

I don't know anything about blog marketting or social marketting yet. Most of the free information on the site regarding starting from scratch seems to focus on using articles to promote sites with more articles. So thats the route that I'm taking.

I hadn't thought to check out forums for the problems that people want to solve. That's sounds like great advice. I'll do that.
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bobdobbs
Posts: 9
Joined: 12 Mar 10
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07 Dec 10 2:53 am

 Alex - just another quick question about your system...

Using your system, when you are selecting a niche, how small is too small?

I'm considering marketting a clickbank information product (with reasonably high gravity) against a keyword with low competition and about 700 global searches on google a month.

Would that be too small a niche to consider?
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PremiumMember
jmpruitt
Posts: 3918
Joined: 19 Jun 09
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08 Dec 10 6:42 pm

 when thinking about keywords, you want a variety of them, not just one or two.

For me, I usually look for am Authority keyword, (50k monthly searches ) which is more competetive and will take longer to rank for, but also tends to get a lot ,more traffic. this will take months to rank for, but it is worth it in the long run.

Then. as I write articles for my sites, I start small and gradually increase. Starting out, I will start with 100-300 monthly search keywords. I can usually get ranking for those within a couple of weeks (if not days) and keep building one or two pages at a time.

Normally, i start a new site with 4-5 pages of content, build links to those pages and then add my articles 1-2 at a time. add the articles build links, do more articles, build links.


Dont think of a niche as finding a single product to promote. you want to make sales over time.

focus on finding a problem that you can help people solve, and products that help solve that problem.

For example, I am currently working on a site about improving self esteem. I have several products that I know will help people with that problem because I have used them myself.

What I like to do is make a list of problems that I have been able to overcome myself, and problems that I know I still need to improve on.

For example, with my self esteem site. I have batttled low self esteem my whole life. Thanks to Mark and some of the things I have learned through several of his various products, (both inside the IM niche and outside) I have made a lot of improvement in that area over the last year. But, one thing I have already realised is that the more i learn, the more I realise i need to learn.

One great bit of advise I got a long time ago is that the best way to learn something yourself is to teach others how to do it. The process of teaching will help you to understand things on a whole new level. So, if you have a particular problem that you want to learn more about, start a site on that topic. Then, as you go along, check out products to help yourself and share your recommendations with your readers.
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f5mtadas
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Joined: 15 Dec 10
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15 Dec 10 10:08 pm

 I would recommend start using micro niches and adsense and you will earn great cash
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luckylook3
Posts: 28
Joined: 07 Mar 11
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07 Mar 11 7:13 am

 product names will be hard and even useless to rank.

you need to find keywords about the topic of your product, for example instead of ranking for "acne" you can try "skin care" and etc, in this way you will be able to use bigger pile of products and not confine yourself only for ace product.
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danielabeier
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Joined: 29 Jul 10
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19 Mar 11 1:31 pm

 I think the best way to create a niche is simply something you are interested in or currently buying.

For example if I went and brought a new computer I would research it on the web, and from there see if its profitable niche / and if it is I start the KW research to find good ranking Traffic travis keywords. The KW research is the hardest part normally takes a few days.

I have used this method for my last 2 sites and found that because I am interested its more fun and I pay much more attention to it. This can be done with anything, new couch, new car, what ever it may be there is affiliate programs for almost every product out there.
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aditd
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Joined: 27 Feb 11
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12 Apr 11 9:29 pm

 Well you can go on suggested niches ... like the other said in this topic OR you can do what I did: just went to promote any affiliate program that approved me.
Sure you would need a good script so that you can incorporate a lot of programs in one site.
From there you go with the programs that make sales for you.
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brokenblade
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Joined: 19 Apr 11
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20 Apr 11 2:48 am

 Okay, Long tail, Traffic Travis, Clickbank, Niche, Strawberries, Rasberries, all those good things.

What is it that you are passionate about?

Take me for example, my passion is self improvement. I've published articles on this subject and the traffic has soared through the roof compared to my articles covering any other niche. It wasn't until recently when I found out that Self Improvement was highly saturated.

My suggestion, find your passion and create content based on that passion, find products to promote in that passion, then find out where the customers for that product are hanging out and build up some relationships. Business and marketing is a social activity.

As a matter of fact, the product you are selling is you.
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yulia
Posts: 29
Joined: 29 Mar 12
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02 Apr 12 12:29 pm

 Hey,

How ti pick a niche?
Well lets start with- it should be something you are at least somehow interested about.
Why? well you are going to spend a lot of time working around it , and writing about it.
for newbies i don't suggest starting off with the big boys right away. There is enough competition out there, you shouldn't get your hands dirty right away.
I believe in new niches, you can start off right away with low competition and working on getting to the top.
Another important thing to mention- this should be something that people actually need and use.
Think as a costumer yourself- and you will be able to get your ducks in a row.

Good luck!
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