Ok if you want my advice....

Don't even bother with keyword tools when you are trying to come up with a niche...

Keyword tools like overture have data that is 6 - 9 months old.

It's much better to use your own brain when you are trying to find a niche.

What this means is this..

Go to magazines.com...

Magazines.com is a great place for research...

The people buying these magazines want something...

They want it so bad that they buy a magazine to learn more about the thing they want.

One of the top selling magazine at magazines.com is called fitness.

Now, the fitness magazine have hundreds of thousands people buying it...

Why?

They may be interseted in losing weight, Dating advice, how to eat healthy, If there is some new supplement that will help them lose some pounds. (Bikini season). Yoga. Pilates.

You name it..

Lets do something here...

Pick 10 magazines and write down which kind of people who would buy that kind of people.

When you have selected 10 magazines from magazines.com....

Try to come up with what these people would call themselves.

Lets say you found a magazine that is about photography.

People buying this magazine would maybe call themselves..

Aspiring photographers or photographers, devoted photographers, camera entusiasts (Sorry bad english).

Then type into Google "What these people would call themselves" +Forum

Lets take the photographers example...

Type in photographers+forum

You will now find places were people interested in photography share their problems with photography.

What they love about photography..

When you browse these forums try to look for posts that indicates some kind of problem.. Also look for posts that have lots of views and replies. These post can be considered as hot topics.

If you spend time at these forums reading the posts you will begin to understand what these people love, hate and have problems with.

You will begin understand these people and what they want a solution to.

Lets take the photography example again. when you browse these forums, many of the people there want a opinion on which camera they would buy.

If you look at the posts and see which camera that seem to be the most popular, you will know which camera that tend to be selling best among photographers.

Now if you would create a page on squidoo or usfreeads with the keyphrase "Buy (popular camera model)". Throw in some benefits with this model. (The benefits are learned through some of the posts at the Photography forum).

You could also talk about some of the difficulties these photography people have. (Learned through browsing posts on the photography forum).

If your ad, lens blog or whatever get indexed by the search engines under the keyphrase "Buy (Popular camera model)"

People actually interested in buy that kind of camera will find you blog, lens, ad.

They will immedietly recoginze you as someone who knows what he/she are talking about because you are "speaking" their language. You seem to know what their problems are, what they love etc.. (All this discovered when reading posts at their forum).

Now, who would you buy from?

Someone who really seem to know what he/she are talking about. Or someone who says...

Hey you, buy this camera!?

Hi Davapava,

You're definitely spot on about the idea of the magazines. They are perhaps one of the best forms of reading entertainment. But to go about finding a niche as you describe makes it hard to determine the niche's market and how viable it is to invest time into building a website around it. What I'm saying is there's no indication of what variables you're going to be dealing with ie searches/competition.

So you say fitness is a good idea? Fitness is HUGE. Now if you want to go for it. But know that you're up against HUGE competition with a good portion being SEO experts. Ever heard of Brad Callen?

People buying this magazine would maybe call themselves..
Aspiring photographers or photographers, devoted photographers, camera entusiasts (Sorry bad english).

For one thing, some of the keyword tools help you with determining related terms. An example, Kwbrowse.com, isn't necessarily a keyword tool but it helps determine your vertical market. Wordtracker has a similar function built into one of its search tools that returns synonymic phrases . In the research phase, I agree you do need to use your noggin to brainstorm these ideas but it wouldn't hurt to use tools to aid you when you hit a road block.

It's a pretty bold statement to say:
Don't even bother with keyword tools when you are trying to come up with a niche...


There's a multi-million dollar industry behind it. I'm not sure what your experience with the keyword world or your dislike for it but you cannot simply just discount it. Also, Overture is far from being the top amongst keyword research tools(maybe most frequently used) so you're going to have to bring a better argument to persuade anyone away from it. Plus it's free, need I say more?

While each tool has their own flaws, keyword research is one of the best ways to learn about people and their search behavior.

Hi Davapava,

You're definitely spot on about the idea of the magazines. They are perhaps one of the best forms of reading entertainment. But to go about finding a niche as you describe makes it hard to determine the niche's market and how viable it is to invest time into building a website around it. What I'm saying is there's no indication of what variables you're going to be dealing with ie searches/competition.

So you say fitness is a good idea? Fitness is HUGE. Now if you want to go for it. But know that you're up against HUGE competition with a good portion being SEO experts. Ever heard of Brad Callen?

People buying this magazine would maybe call themselves..
Aspiring photographers or photographers, devoted photographers, camera entusiasts (Sorry bad english).

For one thing, some of the keyword tools help you with determining related terms. An example, Kwbrowse.com, isn't necessarily a keyword tool but it helps determine your vertical market. Wordtracker has a similar function built into one of its search tools that returns synonymic phrases . In the research phase, I agree you do need to use your noggin to brainstorm these ideas but it wouldn't hurt to use tools to aid you when you hit a road block.

It's a pretty bold statement to say:
Don't even bother with keyword tools when you are trying to come up with a niche...


There's a multi-million dollar industry behind it. I'm not sure what your experience with the keyword world or your dislike for it but you cannot simply just discount it. Also, Overture is far from being the top amongst keyword research tools(maybe most frequently used) so you're going to have to bring a better argument to persuade anyone away from it. Plus it's free, need I say more?

While each tool has their own flaws, keyword research is one of the best ways to learn about people and their search behavior.

This post was a reply to one of the posts here but somehow it became a new topic..


Ok maybe i was to little broad when I tried to explain.

Sure i use keyword tools when i research but i do not start with them. I was being unclear there.

I want to find the people first and try to determine if they are desperate for something.

I use the keyword tool when i want to discover which "hot buttons" they have.

The thing is when you are new you tend to rely on keyword tools too much.

Why?

Because when you are new you tend to think:
If the keyword doesn't appear in the keyword tool = There isin't anybody searching for that keyword.

I think that is bad, I think beginners shouldn't use a keyword tool before they have found a starving niche.

Then they can use it to "Read between the lines" and find out what the niche wants.

So you say fitness is a good idea? Fitness is HUGE. Now if you want to go for it. But know that you're up against HUGE competition with a good portion being SEO experts. Ever heard of Brad Callen?

Ofcourse you need to dig down this broad niche. Me being unclear there.

The big niche is fitness but its to broad. I need to find sub niches or even sub-sub niches.

I dont know how you do this but here's how I do..

I take the broad niche keyword and type that into technorati.com and run a search in the tags.

The results will come up with related tags. I can then use these to "dig" down.

Here's what i came up with: Typed in fitness in tag search. Found another tag saying nutrition. typed that one in and looked what was related to nutrition.

I digged down from Fitness->Nutrition->Supplements->Nutritional Supplements->Liquid Vitamins->Xango

Voila there is my niche. Xango juice. Havent researched so much about it but it seem to be a diet drink made from the fruit mangosteen. It cost like $32 per bottle.

I made a search for xango at google. loads of advertisements = Good sign (people are making money on xango).

I now use keyword tools to find out what people searching for xango wants.

I use wordtrackers free search tool.

The xango people want:

Info about xango
where to buy xango
xango juice benefits
xango home business (hmm maybe people are looking for ways to distribute it).
xango for pregnant womans (maybe a little sub niche).
Reasons to drink xango
xango scam
xango review
making money with xango

Now if you would write a review of xango and cover some of the topics that people search for... Maybe you could earn some money?

But, but, but, but, but The most important question i have yet to discover is WHY?

Why do these people drink xango?

If i find that out and write a review about xango i could really make some money.

While each tool has their own flaws, keyword research is one of the best ways to learn about people and their search behavior.

I totally agree but don't start with it.

Post edited by: Davapava, at: 2007/05/20 23:20

Hi Davapava,

I'm currently trying to find my own niche now and what you have posted here have been very informative. Thanks so much...

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