Warning Spoiler Alert – Exposing My Best Niche

[cholly926]

This is one of the best threads I've seen!

[scottymck]

I made the same mistake on my original blog, I think. Actually I had a ton of traffic. I missed one crucial aspect of market research, however, that I did not pick up until I finally got around to reading the 30DC "Blackbook."

There is one very basic thing you need to do in your market research phase before deciding to waste your time on a project. That is, look at the paid ads for a given keyword combination. If you see a lot of people listed, that means it is more than likely a profitable niche. If not, move on.

In the case of "encouraging quotes," there is exactly one person buying AdWords for the keyword combo in phrase match and zero people bidding on the phrase in broad match. This would indicate to me that it is most definitely NOT a profitable niche.

The mistakes that I made in this regard on my selection of a political blog (which, incidentally was ranked only behind FoxNews) the first go-around will not be repeated again.

[IMStrong]

You could market quotes.
They could be embroidered, or color printed and framed.
Or the above could be given free as a prelude to buying an inspirational book.
The bottom line, though, I firmly believe, is that you can only be as successful as you think you can be.

[Mykl]

IMStrong, it's been too long

I think the real issue is to not let "beneficial Samurai numbers" be enough to hook your wagon to. The Samurai's Little Black Book talks about this some. Lots of people come looking for quotes - to buy anything? No, to look for a quick quote on - blah.

I could color and print quotes and I could sell dog food. Neither of these are why searchers follow these links from Google.

My opinion (which is not to be confused with an authoritative one...) is that this all boils down to the better you hone your market research (and now leadership - ) skills, the more likely you are to see conversions.

Really this business isn't about visits... it's about conversions and sales (that is if I want my kids to eat). So keeping your eyes on the prize is what we need to learn to do.

That being said, I do appreciate your ability to turn lemons into lemon aid. And to try to turn a losing proposition into something that could make something. That takes some creative chops.

MyklK

[artyou]

Hi all. I just saw this interesting topic and thought maybe to share my thoughts on it and get some feedback.

Lots of people come looking for quotes - to buy anything? No, to look for a quick quote on - blah.

I could color and print quotes and I could sell dog food. Neither of these are why searchers follow these links from Google.

Well, that may be true... So probably it would be important for us to understand why searchers follow these links from Google then? I'm still only on Day 9 of the TDC, but this is just what I think...

Finding a micro-niche with a lot of traffic and demand and little competition is the beginning part of our market research. So at the same time, if I'm not mistaken, we have to understand our market as well, as how Ed said that it was a parallel process that goes on together.

So, let's say that people are searching for encouraging quotes. Why are they searching for these quotes and how can we assist them in fulfilling their needs while earning some money? Well there are a lot of reason why people are searching for quotes, and some the the few I can think of are:

1. They need encouragement
2. They want to use the quotes to encourage others
3. They want to use it on a greeting card or some other gift for encouraging someone.

So based on that, and a bit of brainstorming, we can basically understand how our market works and what they need. Take for example, the group of people that are looking for a quick quote for the purpose of encouraging themselves. So probably, you can help them to find an encouraging book or other encouraging material that they may be interested in buying. Something that can help them to get the encouragement they need. Which may be a bit of cross-selling...

Take for example, the group of people who want to use the quotes to encourage others. They probably have a dear one or loved one who is in trying times. They want to encourage them by giving them a quick quote. But is this the best way to encourage someone? Probably not. Maybe you can think of better ways. So write an article about how-to-use quotes to encourage people effectively. Educate your market about making a good decision, and at the same time, point them in the directions they can go, in ways they never thought of, and that you can earn a bit from at the same time.

I think that as long as there is some demand, and enough traffic, there will definitely be some way to make it profitable.

[trinivet]

I know I'm a bit late on this thread, I admire your resolve Mykl. If that's waht you like then go for it, but you've got great advice in this thread. As Ed said, Don't get the 'Stockholm syndrome'.

I'm not saying drop the niche altogether, I'm saying use Market Samurai to tweak it. There may be longer keywords to your niche that are highly profitable. Filter your search for ulra high OCI (maybe 80% and up), then do your other filters for SEOT and SEOC etc.

At least that way you know beforehand, your keyword results have sales potential, then structure your efforts around those.

I haven't checked but "Love quotes" may have a high OCI compared to "Relationship quotes" as a gift (Valentines, Anniversary, Plain Love gift).
My fiancee had bought me a book on 'Shakespeare on Love' giftbook with quotes. It was a gesture of love, which is easier to sell than relationship quotes.

Just my late two cents.

NB. If you don't have Market Samurai, you can use the following link to check online commercial intention
Detecting Online Commercial Intention: Audience Intelligence: adCenter Labs

[animatedmarketing]

Wow, this thread started on one foot and ended on another.

Back to the initial question - "Exposing my best niche"

I always refer to Google adsense, because it pays each time someone clicks, not each time someone buys something. Affiliate advertising has many more complex factors.

Anyway, so if we take Google adsense and base it on your keywords, I would say these are not good converting keywords.

Let me give you an example of a friend's site from awhile back. A buddy of mine had a Corvette Classifieds website. The site charged a fee to list your car for a given period of time.

It generated about 45k uniques monthly. I know this is much more than our 30dc sites, but I am just using this as an example.

It had a clever adsense code built into the side panel that blended with the other links, etc. (160x600).

This site made between $700-800/mo. in adsense. Not bad. I personally saw the adsense reports.

How'd he do it?

Simple, he got ranked for keywords relating to Used Corvettes, Corvettes for Sale, etc. He was top 3 in Google for the main keywords.

Now, his ads just so happened to pull up sites that offered Corvette Tires, Corvette Parts, Corvette Accessories, etc. So his was a high converting adsense campaign which paid pretty well.

So for keywords like Quotes on Family, what type of adsense will this pull? Will it actually pull any high converting ads? If not, then the keyword will not be profitable.

If your Google adsense CTR (click through ratio) is less than 1% at 50 uniques a day, it will likely be less than 1% at 1000 uniques a day. Though your incoming adsense revenue will increase as traffic increases, it will not be profitable enough to warrant all the time you are having to spend on the site. Period.

When finding a niche, make sure that you can do one thing and one thing only - CONVERT. You must be able to convert your traffic into revenue. Otherwise all the other market research you have gathered is useless.

BR