Niche - The MOST important thing you need to know before starting an internet marketing business

The golden word in internet marketing is this-NICHE.

Just like a traditional brick and mortar business, an online business provides VALUE to its clients (I prefer the term 'clients' because of the long term connotation), it provides a solution to some of their problems, which is how businesses make profits.

Before you run off to write an e-book or sell a great product that you think everyone would want, you need to do a few things:

Firstly, you need to understand what people want to buy. It's a lot easier to sell them what they want, than to sell something and hoping the market wants it.

Secondly, you need to understand who's supplying those things (that people want to buy) in the market. In other words, you need to know how competitive is the market for the product that you want to sell.

Now, with a traditional business, you would do a feasibility study and you can do the same with the internet. First, write down a list of things you think might sell on the internet. Use specific words that average people would use. Then, with this list of words, we are going to use the internet to see if there are enough people out there doing searches on these words. A handy tool to research what people are looking for on the internet is a website by Overture:

http://pixelfast.com/overture

What this little tool does, is that it is able to tell you, for a particular key word that you've used, how many searches have been done on that key word in the previous month. That gives you an estimate of the mass that is finding information on what you're planning to offer. The general rule of thumb is that if you've got hundreds of thousands of people looking for your SPECIFIC keyword, it's an area worth pursuing.

Now you have to research your competition in the market place. So go to Google, and type in the same keyword and see how many returns you get. If there are more than two pages of sponsor links (the links on the right hand panel of the page), and if the search returns hundreds and thousands of sites, then, either one of two things have happened:

1. Your keyword is too general, it's not specific enough; or
2. There is too much competition in the market place

The key is to research the market properly for the areas that you're thinking of pursuing, and keep exploring product ideas until you find a good niche. Finding a good niche is like laying a good foundation for your business. The main reason a lot of internet marketing businesses don't make money is either the niche is too competitive or you haven't done enough to get traffic to your site (more on that later). So, before you start creating an ebook or finding a product to sell, do your research on what the market wants, because that is the most fundamental step in starting and internet business.

Till next time, to your success!

Why do business on the internet?

The world of online business, or internet marketing as it is commonly known, is really no different from your traditional brick and mortar business. It all starts with a light bulb moment-an idea in a would-be entrepreneur's head. But unlike traditional brick and mortar business, anyone, and I emphasise, ANYONE, can start an internet marketing business. Why? Here are just a few key reasons:

1. It's easy to get educated about the internet - there are massive amounts of information on the internet just waiting for you to tap in. Free sites like forums and blogs such as this one provide information to help you get educated on the do's and don'ts on how to start an internet business. And for a small investment, you can buy information from experts on the subject to help catapult you to a higher level. Often, these experts write weekly or monthly newsletters with tips and new information to keep their subscribers up to date. Even if you're unsure about this whole internet thing, it doesn't hurt to get educated so that when you are ready to start an internet marketing business, you've laid a solid foundation to get it going.

For those of you who are thinking, 'I don't know how to set up a website'. There are two ways you can do this:

a. learn how to do it (like I said, use the internet to learn about these things); or

b. pay someone else to do it!

2. Low overhead - All you need is access to a computer with internet connection. It costs as little as a few dollars to register a domain name for a year, and a little bit more for web hosting (we're talking double digits here, tiny investment, relatively speaking). With a traditional business, you need to find an office space, furbish and fit it out, get the stock in, get the phones hooked up etc etc etc before you even make a dime!

3. Run and maintain your business for a few hours a day - this is great for those who wants to earn some extra cash on the side. Keep your day job while you start building an extra stream of income. It doesn't hurt to have extra money coming in, and you don't have to be worried about starving your family while you do this.

4. Access to the global market - yes, some of you may say a traditional brick and mortar business can also tap into the global market. If you think about an example of a small retail shop selling clothes to your locality, what does it take for them to sell to the world wide market (let's ignore the internet for a second)? The truth is, there are many mini sites on the internet that are making money. So you don't need to be a multi-million dollar business to have access to the consumer markets worldwide.

So, these are just a few key reasons why anyone can start an internet marketing business. Whether you are a 16 year old still in high school or a retiree, you can start a profitable business by following some simple steps:

1. Get educated; and
2. Take action!

Keep a look out for my next post, I'll talk about one word that is fundamental to the success of any internet marketing businesses.

To your success!