Where do most would be marketers go wrong with Internet marketing? By far the majority of niche marketing wannabes don’t do the required niche research and pay dearly it as the results is almost always lack of success.

There are at least 5 step by step niche research tips you can follow in order to have a blog or website that stands a good chance at success. By the way, for me success means I am making money from my blogs.

1. Start With Something You Know

If you plan to be successful at something it’s advisable to go with something you are already knowledgeable about. A good example would for me would be computer training as I have been a computer instructor and techie for more than 20 years.

You would think that it would be common sense to start a blog for profit and focus on what I already know but the truth of the matter is most people don’t do that and neither did I. My first website was about the make money niche which I had absolutely no experience in.

Guess what? I fell flat on my face and never made a cent. What was I thinking?

After spending many months spinning my wheels I decided maybe I should either learn about the make money niche or perhaps try something I knew, maybe something along the lines of computer training. I did and I started to make money, how strange is that.

So, after marketing online for more than a decade now my advice to anyone starting Internet marketing today…

Start With Something You Already Know

2. Study Your Niche Through Quality Research

So we have established that it’s best to start with something you know but it goes beyond that.

• Is There Money In The Niche

You need to know if there is money in the niche you are thinking about. If there are only a few people spending money in a niche it may not be worth your time and effort for a tiny bit of income. Put your efforts into something you can actually make money with, if your goal is to make money online.

• Can You Compete With Your Competition

This is another area that newbies waste time. They will go into a niche that has lots of money without thinking about those who came before. They are likely to have so much competition for keywords that you most likely won’t get any traffic to your website.

• Finding The Keywords For You

I use a niche and keyword tool called Keyword Elite 2 for all my niche research so that I can find the keywords I can use to get traffic today and still make money. Learn this phase of niche research and you are on the right track to profits.

3. Create Compelling Content

You can have all the previous steps done properly but it’s only the beginning. Now it’s time to start writing compelling content for your visitors. You have to take the keywords you’ve researched to find and use them to feed your readers as well as the major search engines.

• Use Your Keywords Wisely

Each and every article or post your write needs to be thought out and focused on your keywords. This is going to involved keyword density and placement.

• Keyword Density

The amount of times you use your keyword phrases in your article or post is important. Too few times and it may not have enough focus for the search engines to figure it out and the result could be less target traffic or even no target traffic.

Too many on the other hand tends to look spammy and that doesn’t go well with search engines today or for that matter your visitors as spammy sites cause people to hit the back button.

Personally I like to keep the keyword density between 3 and 5 percent, maybe a little higher but not much.

• Keyword Placement

Because you keyword density is important you only have so many times you can use them and now placement becomes important.Where you place your keywords. This is how I use my keywords most of the time.

Title – I always use my keyword in my title and as close to the left as possible so the search engines see it as important.

First Paragraph or 150 Words – I like to use my keyword phrase within the first 150 words of my article or post  and if possible within the first paragraph.

Again In The Middle – I like an even distribution of my keyword phrase throughout the entire article so I aim for the middle as my articles are mostly between 300 and 500 words.

As Well As The End – I always end my articles and blog posts with my keyword phrase being in the last paragraph. This way I have spread my keywords throughout my article so it doesn’t look the slightest bit spammy and have never really had an issue with the search engines.

4. Affiliate Marketing Products

When the goal is to make money online it’s going to require you either own a product or you need to find a product you can sell which means other people’s products which is known mostly as affiliate products through affiliate marketing.

What you promote of course will depend on your niche and target group. In order to find products, once you have done your research, is to use your favourite search engine to find affiliate products.

A simple search engine search using your main keywords as well as the phrase affiliate program should produce results with affiliate programs you can join and earn commissions for product sales.

Example Search: I’m looking for vegetable gardening related products so here is my search text:

‘vegetable gardening’ +’affiliate program’

The quotes are used for focused phrases such as vegetable gardening and affiliate program which helps to narrow down the search results to more focused results.

Next you apply for those you are interested in.

I like using the Clickbank Marketplace for finding digital products or ebooks that my readers would like.

You can learn all you need to learn about affiliate marketing with the Super Affiliate Handbook.

5. Grow Page Rank With Backlinking

Once you have compelling content and a way to earn money you need to start building backlinks to your webpages which helps to gain site authority and page rank which in turn helps you to get listed higher in the search engines and you get more target traffic.

My advice, as one who is making money blogging is to find a niche you love and can work for a long time without difficulty. I work from home and mostly focus on my hobbies to make money online.

However, in the same breath I would also add that one should NOT go into a niche just because they like it. That cleared things up, right? Keep reading it gets clearer as you go.

The Thing Is Niches Today Are Competitive

When you think about it competition in most online markets and niches today actually began more than a decade ago. This means huge numbers of marketers have been working their niche focused keywords for a long time making it rather difficult to compete.

If you happen to be new at marketing or stepping into a new niche this means you need to do some good keyword research before you begin. Finding the keywords you can rank for gives you a chance to break into a niche and over time you can even rank for top keywords, like I do.

For Any Success Today Niche Research To Find Keywords Is Vital

Don’t even think about buying a domain until you’re research is complete. The first goal should be to find the right keywords for your new niche focused domain name.

If you were search Google for some helpful gardening information and the three domains listed below appear in the top three positions, which would you be likely to click first and think about why you chose it.

hbb2obm.com or homegardeningtips.com or backyardgardeningtips.com

When I’m viewing search results in Google or any search engine I of course look at the description as well but right now it’s just about the domain names you see in listing. Personally I will always click the domain name that is niche targeted as they appear to be more authoritative.

In today’s competitive niches it’s always best to purchase keyword focused domain names. But don’t go get it just yet, there’s more.

If You Can Get A DOT COM Extension For Your Domain

Today DOT COM is imprinted on most people’s brain. It’s all we’ve heard for years, so when anyone mentions a domain name DOT COM is usually the extension that pops in their head, automatically. Go for the DOT COM unless you have a great reason for not doing that.

Because there are so many keyworded domains that are DOT COM it can be harder to find keywords to use in your domain and still have a DOT COM, so let me give you some ideas to help.

Add a suffix to the end of your keyword phrase.
Adding a suffix didn’t work, then try adding a word to the front as a prefix.
Add a hyphen or two if the other options haven’t worked.
Using your city or town is a great way to get keyworded domains using a suffix.

Finding domains with your best keywords can take some time but research is your best tool and it works for me. Today I need speed in my research and have a few paid tools that speed things up. Keyword Elite 2 is a niche research tool that saves me time I can then spend working my sites. I also use Micro Niche Finder to find profitable niches but this tool helps me find those hard to find domains.