The Secret to a Successful Niche Market

By Adam Waxler
Posted Friday, August 20, 2004

Can anyone be successful online?

The answer is "yes," but only if you put your best foot forward.

In order to start a successful home based online business you need 3 legs to stand on: Interest, Credibility, and Existing Need.

Before spending a dime on any online business these are the three things you should focus on: Interest, Credibility, and Existing Need.

STEP 1: Brainstorming about your first 2 legs:
Interest and Credibility.

Tips to get you thinking:
* What do you do for living?
* Do you have an area of expertise within your job?
* What do you do for fun? Hobbies?
* What are people always asking you for advice about?
* What do you do on your time off?

Remember, you are just brainstorming...don’t rule anything out yet, just write it down.

Do not overlook this brainstorming step or take it to lightly, it could be the difference between long-term success or endless frustration, internet burnout, and failure.

Lets take a quick look at these first two legs:
Interest and Credibility.

1. Interest: While "interest" in and of itself is not essential to make money, it is essential for your piece of mind and sanity.

Why start a business on something that you are not interested in?

Where is the fun in that?

More importantly though, starting an online business takes time, a considerable amount of time. In fact, most new comers are shocked at the amount of time running an online business takes, so it better be something you are interested in or you are in big trouble.

An online business is basically no different than an offline business.

Could you imagine starting a tailor shop if you hate to sew?

The bottom line is that you are much more likely to persevere through the frustrations (and there will be some) if you have a genuine interest in the topic.

2. Credibility: This is simple.

Why should I buy a product from you when I can buy that product from someone else who is a known expert in the field. You definitely need to establish credibility in your area if you expect to make sales.

However, for now you are simply brainstorming, you may actually have more credibility in a particular area than you think, so don’t shut anything out just yet.

STEP 2: Find an existing Need

Once you’ve spent a good amount of time brainstorming (I suggest spreading it out over a couple of days) it’s time to start doing a little research.

It is extremely important that a need already exists for your particular area of interest.

You do not want to have an "if you build it, they will come" mentality.

You want to sell product(s) that people are already looking for.

Think about how much more successful you will be if your product is not only being searched for, but there is very little, if any, competition.

The good news is that you can easily find out if people are searching for products in your area of interest. There are programs available that not only tell how many people have searched a particular keyword in the last 24 hours, but how many competing web sites exist for those keywords.

Imagine the advantage you give yourself if you start your business selling a product that others are already searching for AND there is no competition.

Wordtracker (http://www.money-teacher.com/wordtracker.htm) is just such a program.

With wordtracker you can type in any keyword and wordtracker will come up with a list of 500 matching keywords. You can then click on any of those keywords and find more matches. Basically you just keep digging deeper and deeper into a niche market...your key to success.

Here’s the best part though...once you have a list of keywords you can then do a competitive search. A competitive search will not only tell you how many people searched those keywords in the last 24 hours, it will not only predict how many will search them in the next 24 hours, but the competitive search will actually tell you how many competing web sites there are for those keywords.

Wordtracker will also take all the information and come up with a KEI
(keyword effectiveness index) and rank your keywords from best to worst.

Your KEI is based on both the amount of people searching those terms as well as the amount of competition.

Therefore it may actually be better to create a site using keywords that are not searched as much, but have very little competition.

You can buy a one-day subscription, one-week subscription, or a one-year subscription.

Wordtracker even has a trial version, but it's fairly limited. For more information on how wordtracker works log onto:
(http://www.money-teacher.com/wordtracker.htm)

This is the key to success on the internet: Simply find a niche market within your area of interest and credibility and your success is a sure thing!

About the Author
Adam Waxler is a middle school social studies teacher and ebook author. Adam also owns and operates The Money Teacher web site and publishes The Money Teacher’s Weekly Newsletter.
(http://www.money-teacher.com)