The First Step, If You Want to Make Money Online

The first step, if you want to make money online, is figuring out what you want to sell. The group of people you will be selling to is called your niche market. This article will give you a simple formula to help you find your niche quickly.
When I began learning how to make money online, it took me months to get past the first step. That is finding a profitable niche market.
The truth is, you can make money online selling just about anything, if you learn how to market.
A lot of the internet marketing "gurus" talk about the most profitable niches, but those “profitable” niches are extremely competitive. It is also hard to compete with the gurus who are already making money and have tons of credibility, if you are an internet marketing newbie.
It is easier for a beginner to make money online in a niche market that he or she is already passionate about.
People over complicate the process of choosing a niche market. I like to keep things simple.
Just make a list of 5 things that you are interested in.
When you are making your list, use general terms, like dog training, wrestling, network marketing, basket weaving, gambling, hair, video games, baseball cards, golf, basketball, swimming, spirituality, Christianity, cooking, etc.
These are broad terms that describe markets where people are spending money, both online and offline.
These are called keywords. Keywords, or keyword phrases, are words or phrases that people type into a search engine when they are searching for something on the internet.
Avoid using vague terms like “helping people”, when making your list of interests. That is not a clearly defined market.
If you need help brainstorming, go to Wal-mart and look at all of the different categories of things that they are selling.
These are niche markets.
Obviously they are profitable niches. Otherwise Wal-mart would not be selling that stuff in their stores.
Once you get your keyword list of five areas of interest, the next step is to research those niche markets online.
This is called keyword research.
When you do keyword research there are two things you should look at.
1. Demand
2. Competition
Demand – You want to look at the demand for your keywords to make sure that there are enough people who want what you are trying to sell.
To look at the demand, use the free Google Adwords Keyword Research Tool.
Put your keywords, and keyword phrases into the search box one at a time.
When you search your broad keyword terms with this tool, it will generate a list of at least of at least 100 related keywords that people are searching for in the search engine.
Look for keywords that are more related to your interest, than the broad keyword that you initiated the search with.
Add the keywords to your list that are most relevant, and that have a global monthly search volume of anywhere between 2,000 and 100,000.
This process is called “narrowing down your niche market”. The more targeted your niche market, the easier it will be to make money.
Competition- To look at competition, we can use the Google search engine. Search your keywords one at a time. Put the code “allintitle: “before each keyword when you search.
This code will pull up all of the websites with that keyword in the title section of the website. This is your “real competition” because they intentionally put that keyword in the title.
This means that whoever is maintaining the website knows enough about search engine optimization to put the keyword in the title.
Look for an “allinititle:” search volume of less than 100,000.