In the last post, we explored the argument of the chicken and the egg with a discussion about which comes first – keywords or market research. As pointed out, the two do go hand in hand. Miss out on either at your peril.

While yesterday’s post (below) talks about finding what people buy first, let’s also give credit to the fact that more often than not, people come to the net to search for information (yes I’ll add it…) first. And, where do they head? Most likely a major search engine if they don’t have a favorite store in mind.

Keyword research is a must – that should go without saying. Obviously with well-researched keywords your website exponentially increases its chances of being ranked higher in the search engines. However, more often than not, we find that many people do not know where to start or even how to start.

The key is to find the right keywords. Our good friend, Vrecc, over at our most favorite Hubpages, has written his unique perspective on keyword research and given you a great tool (free!) to do it right.

Vrecc’s informational article, SEO Optimization and Keyword Research, implements SEOQuake (don’t worry he’s got the download link marked for you). But he doesn’t just leave it at that… you’ll also learn how to use it properly before the end of his article.

Here’s a quick exerpt to wet your appetite though we encourage you to read the entire article (never put the cart before the horse because this is not the “final” part of his article):

“The final step is to actually make a decision on whether or not a keyword or phrase is worth deliberately targeting. The answer depends on your ability to build incoming links into that page. The main way I build links is to write articles and post them to directories. The articles contain a link back to the page I’m targeting. I can get as many links as I can write articles. If I’m willing to write 20 articles then I can get 20 links. It doesn’t really count if someone syndicates my article and puts it on their website with my link in it. Google is likely only to count the link from the article directory. Another great way to get backlinks is social bookmarking. I’ve seen several hubs on this topic. You will find them with a quick search.”

Enjoy!

If you found this post and our “pointers” to great information useful, please take the time to leave your comments below. We appreciate your time and effort!

A recent post on the Nichebot Keyword Research blog makes the assumption that too many people rely strictly on keyword research to begin figuring out what niche they would like to develop to make money online.

We agree with the overall presentation that one should not use keywords as the starting point to building an online business. Instead, your keyword research is conducted to further enhance search-ability for that particular segment or niche after you’ve determined your market. While keyword research is a mainstay for developing tags, metas, titles, and content on your website, as stated, it is a tool used to uncover what people are searching for.

On the other hand, to reveal what people are buying online, you need to use “market research” tools. The article goes on to give you some solid starting points which include:

To Uncover Hot Selling Products

Head to eBay and click on their BUY tab. You’ll know in a flash what people are purchasing. The “Popular Products” is another link resource to ferret out even more information.

Amazon is, of course, another place to go to see who’s buying what. The idea, keep in mind, is you are trying to figure out what niche you could likely corner based on what people are physically buying.

Where to Find Popular Digital Products

A good solid source for information about popular digital products is Clickbank’s Marketplace. You’ll be able to set specific criteria and pull up what’s popular based on criteria you set.

In fact, Clickbank suggests the following:

“How do I identify the most successful products to promote?”

“Some affiliates prefer to promote very popular products that attract lots of affiliates (high affiliate gravity), while others prefer to promote products with less advertising exposure (lower affiliate gravity). The Marketplace can be sorted, within each category and sub-category, by item gravity. Either way, your best bet is to promote products that are well presented and likely to appeal to the people who visit your website, or view your advertisements.”

Competition

The final section of their post discusses the dreaded word “competition!” Many people fear competition and so never make a choice of what to plunge into online. If you read the article, you will discover that:

“There is NO reason to feel that way. In fact, you should get excited when there is a lot of competition. Here’s why…

“If there is no competition whatsoever in a marketplace, there may be no marketplace (or people to market to) at all. You should actually be worried if you don’t find any competitors for a market you wish to enter.

“The more competition there is in a marketplace, the more commerce is being moved. The more commerce that is being moved, you’ll have a chance at grabbing a bigger piece of the pie.”

We give this informational article a thumbs up for clarifying a business builder’s first steps, and again we have only presented an outline of the full post.

You can read it for yourself here:

“Market Research (or finding a profitable niche market) has Nothing to do with Keyword Research”

Enjoy!

More wonders of the internet surface on a daily basis – heck almost by the hour! – and here’s a great resource to share (assuming you’re not ahead of us and already know about it).

Peopleized is a social circle where not only can you share information about who you are, what you do, your website, etc., but it also provides full functions for interviewing people and/or being interviewed.

From past experience, with the right interviewer/interviewee arrangement, we know first hand the far-reaching affects of a great interview posted for others to read.

Our good friend, Mert Erkal (of SearchForBlogging) has a post from the tail end of 2007, that explains the process and more:

How to Make a Peopleized(.com) Interview

Mert states, “Get interviewed by people and let other people know more about you. Interviews show “behind the scenes” of you and your blog/site/project like never seen before. Meanwhile, you will make new friends, gain links to your site and spread your message.”

And, what could be easier than a quick way to link to the exact interview with the click of a button (and a bit of copy/paste). After your interview is done and up on Peopleized, at the top of every interview you’ll find ready-made code to insert wherever you’d like. This code will pull in the entire interview! Use this method for fresh content updates on your website or blog – and of course to spread the word about your own “I’m famous!” interview(s).

So how can you pass up the opportunity for more exposure at the perfect price… free! Just requires your time and a well thought out interview process.

Personal name branding at its finest!

Extra Note: The site looks fairly “new.” This would be an ideal situation to be involved and be in the forefront of a “new” social media.

Today’s post on social bookmarking can be found over at our favorite content sharing website, Hubpages.

Social Bookmarking: A Useless Tool or Clever Marketing Strategy?

After reading it, and we sincerely hope you will, please take a moment and share your thoughts, comments, input at both spots – hubpages and here below in our comment section.

Quick Reminder: One of the greatest benefits to social sharing sites like hubpages and our blog is your ability to voice your thoughts – and give yourself a nice link back to your own website

Knowledge, sharing, and marketing all in one fell swoop… it doesn’t get much better than that!

And as a P.S. of note, we’ve run across numerous excellent resources we’ll be sharing with you throughout the coming week(s). It’s amazing what you discover when you begin your journey around the (best) social communities on the net! In fact, we don’t even know where to begin having found “standalone” topics that do – in the long run – interrelate. Don’t worry though, we’ll figure it out

Again, we hope you enjoy our newest hub, please let us know (by voting and sharing on the hub itself and back here, too, everything counts as a marketing link for yourself!)