Which Came First Keyword or Market Research?
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!
From what I have been reading, don’t they both go hand in hand… in any event, enjoyed the article..
Hi Linda! Great to see you
At first when I read the article I wondered what all the fuss was about until I realized that at times we’ve been slightly guilty of the hunt the keywords first and figure it out later (not in recent memory but back along the way). So if this keeps someone on the right track, right up front, they will save themselves a lot of headache
Thanks for the comment, much appreciated! BTW, every time I visit your site I keep wondering why I’m not using solar…!
Diane
When I first started marketing online, I did do a lot of keyword research, but now I mainly focus on what people are searching for and optimize my efforts to compete for hard to get keywords and phrases. In other words, my keyword research now is minimal, and marketing maximal. (I hope) LOL
There were some things here I haven’t thought of before like going to eBay to see what people are buying. Though I don’t market physical products, this can give me some insight for my own marketing campaigns. I won’t go into detail because I don’t want to give up my secrets
Another great post, Diane
Hey Daymon! I think we’re all guilty of the cart before the horse at some point…
Good point about not needing to be in the physical goods department – just great ideas can be uncovered at eBay, Amazon and the like.
And thanks for the visit, and comment – you definitely know how to market your website!
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