How To Overcome Niche Idea Block?

The foundation of any successful web site is the selection of its primary keywords. Select a keyword theme that is too wide and diverse and you risk the danger of being ranked way too low in the search engines. And, even worse, confusing your visitors with a lack of focus.

In my experience, web sites should be tightly focussed on just one theme. For example there are literally thousands of web sites that offer web site design and hosting services. In my opinion these sites should be split into two domains... a hosting site and a web design site. This would allow the webmasters to create tightly focussed content on 'web site hosting' and on 'web site design' both of which are highly competitive keyword phrases.

If you specialise in developing web sites to take advantage of pay per click traffic or affiliate income streams, you may suffer from "Niche Idea Block". It's a condition very similar to writer's block only it's when you can't think of any new niche markets to research! Believe me it's a common problem, but thankfully there is a cure...

Here are a few strategies that will help you to identify some potentially profitable niche markets to exploit:

Check out the top or unusual news items on the Google or Yahoo! News sites - if it's in the news you can be sure that people will be searching.

Identify the top selling books, music, video, electronic and other products at Amazon.com - pick a theme or category and look for a topic within that theme. For example you might look a gardening in general but then drill down into "growing herbs from seeds".

Take a look at the eBay hot items list - this is one of my favourite niche idea sites - again drill down into a tightly focussed topic.

Browse through a range of magazines and look out for new products being advertised. Take a good look at the pictures associated with news items and see what is coming into fashion.

Sign up to receive the Weekly Wordtracker top keywords report.

Visit Froogle.com and look out for new items being sold. Browse through the Froogle shopping categories and you are almost certain to find a profitable niche.

Just be observant! Read newspapers, watch television, listen to the radio and pay attention to the information that you are bombarded with on a daily basis. I go to the local bookshops or to the library to do a lot of my research... I can look through lots of publications without spending my hard earned cash!

I was in a local Internet cafe today and I noticed that there were more people drinking tea than coffee so I did a little research with one of my keyword finder tools and discovered enough relevant key words and phrases to build a number of mini sites. For example I could build sites based on "Herbal Tea", "Tea Cup Collectors", "Gourmet Teas" and several others... look out for similar themes!

If you are short of time or if you need an easier research method then I can recommend that you get a copy of Frank Mullen's Niche Database software. It is very easy to use and provides you with a comprehensive set of results from which to select profitable niche markets. Niche Database will also provide you with the facility to build keyword lists for your chosen theme. A truly great tool for only $97.00... take a look at Frank's site: http://www.go-click.com/to/nichedb

For the really lazy researcher I have found a great resource: "Top Paying Words" where you get a database containing over 39,000 of the top priced keywords. The database is delivered as an Excel file, it is updated quarterly and it can be yours for only $89.90. The "Top Paying Words" database contains over 17,000 keywords that are currently being bought at over $1.00 per click - so your investment could be returned with less than 100 clicks! http://www.go-click.com/to/topkw

So don't let your creativity or ingenuity be blocked. There are lots and lots of places to find ideas for profitable niche markets; but like all things you either have to put in the time or put your hand in your pocket.

The real key is to ensure that you can create at least one revenue stream from each niche market. My favourite is the Google Adsense programme, but remember there are lots of other ways of generating income including Pay Per Click schemes such as RevenuePilot and SearchFeed; Affiliate schemes such as Clickbank, Amazon, Commission Junction and AllPosters.com.

I recently discovered the Niche Power system which provides you with some great looking ads that are similar in format to the Google Adsense adverts and can include product images. The service currently costs $19.95 per month and it will soon be increasing to $27.00 per month so I recommend that you check it out right now before the price increase takes effect: http://www.go-click.com/to/nichepower

The bottom line is that there are still thousands of untapped niche markets and there are a significant number of opportunities to profit from such markets. If you were to develop just one niche per week you would have 50 sites making you money by the end of the year.

-------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright: John Taylor John is a prolific writer and is the author of several books including "Testing & Tracking" (http://www.Test-and-track.com). John enjoys significant earnings as a top affiliate across a broad section of niche markets -------------------------------------------------------------- John Taylor