Update February 15, 2007 - please see this bookmarklet, which will help you automate large part of the process described in this article.
This is the second post in a series on discovering potentially profitable niches the easy way.
In the first post, I mentioned some websites, which are a good source of inspiration. Well, today we are going to actually use one of them, plus some other tools, freely available online. The ultimate result?
You will discover profitable niches in under 10 minutes, guaranteed. And best of all, at this stage, thinking is not required. Just follow the steps :-).
1. We will rely on Wikipedia, but you don't need to go there right now.
2. We will use a very convenient service, provided by Google, which allows you to automatically extract keywords from almost any web page. Go to Google AdWords:Keyword Tool and click on the "Site Related Keyword".
In the field to enter URL, copy http://en.wikipedia.org and check "Include other pages on my site linked from this URL" (checking this option is very important - otherwise you will not get too many keywords).
From the drop-down list, chose "Cost and ad position estimates". Select your currency (I've selected Euro) and enter a high, maximum cost per click value (I use 50).
Important: from now on, your results will vary, as they come from the frequently changing Wikipedia homepage.
3. Click "Get keywords" and wait for results.
4. When results appear, sort them by the "Estimated Avg. CPC" column and scroll down, looking for any high-paying keyword.
5. Here's what I found. "Accused priests" - average CPC at almost $10! Sounds interesting. Let's investigate it further.
6. Intuition tells me that it will be probably a very, very narrow niche, but it still may be profitable. Let's go to the trusted Wordtracker - one of the best keyword research tools out there.
A quick search brought me the following results:
Wow! It seems that the subject is hot - almost 350 predicted searches per day!
7. All right, let's see how many competing pages there are for our target phrase. Here the Google's count:
Only 13 competing pages, none of them really well optimized for the target phrase.
Ok, here's what I would do in this case. Set up a quick blog at Blogger.com, do some googling on the subject, and write one or two articles, optimizing carefully for the target phrase, plus some supporting keywords. It should not take more than 1 hour for everything.
Add AdSense, obviously :-).
Try to get some links - you don't need much, just enough to get spidered quickly.
Wait for your AdSense income to arrive!
8. Using method described above, it's very possible to find many niches, some of them much deeper than "accused priests".
Let me give you some more examples from the very same research.
Cystic fibrosis - I would have never come up with that niche by means of brainstorming, but it seems attractive.
First of all, results obtained using the above method:
I also used the keyword tool to search specifically for "cystic fibrosis" to see, if there are also other high-paying phrases. Indeed, there are many.
And what does Wordtracker say about this niche? Well, there is definitely huge potential there for traffic.
Tibetan bells - another niche I would never though about. Definitely seems interesting.
Here's AdSense:
And here's Wordtracker
9. Using this technique, I can find many far-from-obvious niches very quickly. Many of them pay really well - see "qui tam lawsuits" - another niche I discovered using this technique, while preparing this article.
The key is to build a list of dynamic websites, such as news.google.com, en.wikipedia.org, which are content-rich and include links to many outside resources. Wikipedia is especially convenient, as it contains many specialized portals, list-pages, news pages, etc. - which you can use instead of the main page, to enhance your research even further.
Let me know in the comments how you like this approach to the niche discovery process.
I have translated your post to Russian
Hi Marcin,
I think it`s amazing post. And I have made a translation of it to Russian on my blog here:
http://web-optimist.blogspot.com/2007/10/10.html
Hope it`s Ok?
I was trying to make correct translation, but some frases I change to have a better reading for visitors.
Also I have already translate the first post about nishes:
Top six sources for niche ideas.
http://web-optimist.blogspot.com/2007/10/6.html
And I`m going to translate some more your post.
I`m placing the link to your original post.
So, hope It`s Ok about copyrights ;)
Wating for new interesting posts from you.
Thanks
Thank a lot for tips. It's very useful.
Here today - Gone Tomorrow.
I did this exact procedure about a week ago using a keyword string that produced only 5 results on google, yet w-tracker showed a predict of over 1300. I quickly did a blogger blog and there it was the next day in G. It lasted only two days and then disappeared. I know this may not be the place to ask what happened (I left a similar message at google blogger help forum). Maybe it got banned or what?
Thanks
This is genius.
I'm gonna get to work immediately. Thanks
WOW!... ... The only thing I
WOW!...
...
The only thing I can say is "WOW!!"
I'm new to internet-ad business, but this post is mind-blowing.
Previously I thought about focusing on one niche - my blog about eBay niches and goods to sell (see link above), but now I definitely will experiment with this technique and will create few small blogs instead a big one!
Thanks a lot for sharing!! :)
Bookmarklet down? Is it me? August 5th.
It was working for me yesterday very nicely! Thank you for your generous site and video.
Today I tried the bookmarklet on several sites and got a series of error messages:
Is the bookmarklet down? Is it me?
Thanks.
Emily
Simply try it again a bit
Simply try it again a bit later. It sometimes happens and is beyond my control (there's one intermediary server that the script has to access and when the server is down, the script is down as well).
Mystery of the Estimated CPC
Using the technique above I Got the result from Google "great wall of china map $5.67 1 - 3". When you do a google search for great wall of china map, you will not find a single advertiser. So how did the 5.67 bid come in to google adwords keywords list.
There are two things that
There are two things that you need to take into account. First of all, it is important where you are located physically - if you're in the US, it is not much of a problem, but if you're outside of the US, then you will have to use some tricks to see majority of ads targeted to English keywords/phrases. That's also what I need to do, as I am living outside of the US.
Secondly, and maybe more importantly, to judge keyword strength and potential, you simply need to take both factors into account (CPC and number of advertisers). There are many "false" high-paying keywords and you can use your judgement or some software to eliminate them during your research.
It's good for anyone into affiliate marketing...
Thanks for sharing the step by step niche research.
It's definitely something I've never seen before!
Cheers!
Eric Tan
The old tool 'Overture bid
The old tool 'Overture bid tool' can also help you find profitable keywords and niches.
Gosh.....This is another
Gosh.....This is another niche finding tip that I've ever known so far...Thanks a lot for sharing!
Wow!!! Dang.. didn't even
Wow!!!
Dang.. didn't even thought of this!! Thanks a bunch!!
so what are YOUR results like?
Everybody loves the concept - how many have followed through and what have been YOUR results?
I don't know how many people
I don't know how many people have followed this idea - I just know that it's the most popular article here. Personally, it's just another concept (now automated - see the update in the beginning of the post) that accelerates my online efforts. But I use a myriad of tools and strategies to get the job done, so you can't really analyze results in isolation.
Estimated Avg. CPC
I can't for the life of me get any results under the Estimated Avg. CPC column on the Adwords tool. Did Google disable this functionality or something?
Help Me Please!
Hello; Marcin, I just wanted to say that I really love this site and one of your newsletter subscribers also :) I need a little help if possibe; when I tried to use this method I don't get any Estimated Avg. CPC results why? All the areas where the bids are suppost to be is blank I've tried different keywords and everything, followed your Example to the tee, 3-4 times whats wrong here? Please help as soon as possible. I am having a hard time trying to find a good niche to build a website on, heck! I would settle for a low paying one at this point I've got nothing going for me yet :(
Thanks! any help would be greatly appreacited
William
Ok so I haven't slept in two
Ok so I haven't slept in two days, smoked a million cigs and drank a gallon cofee and powerread through this. Great info and many thanks for sharing, I am sure this will be very useful. However, The finding used for this example seem totally off to me lol. I just searched google for "vatican hiding accused priests" and it brought up 276.000 results.. not 13 but the thing that throws me off is... not a single sponsored ad... meaning nobody is bidding on the term? Where does the $9 per click come from? Yahoo brings similar results, bid on the keywords and you'll be the only one bidding. The term "tibetan bells" brings up 4 (four) ads on google, so how come they pay $16 for the 1st position when nobody is bidding on the word?
you are absolutely correct
Google adwords tool shows me "great wall of china map $5.67 1 - 3" But when I do the search in Google, I do not see ant ads. Totally confusing. Whos bidding 5.67 when there is no ad.
Well...
Sometimes ads are only shown in certain countries/regions. So someone might be bidding that much for an ad, but they might only target , let's say, new york residents for example. We don't all see the same ads when we search from the google search bar.
Please take into account
Please take into account that the original article was written about 6 months ago - what was true at that time (I mean, advertisers), not necessarily is true also today. Niches and opportunities change all the time.
I was actually thinking about updating this article - it's definitely the most popular article here, so a little update could be useful to many people.
A New Slant on the Holy Grail
This brings an interesting new slant on the Holy Grail of internet marketing, the niche with little competition.
It finds some of those wierd but valuable topics no amount of head scratching will turn up.
Maybe you ought to keep it secret now ... ;>)
Tool not gone...
Hehe, Google just changed so that the site related keyword tool only could be seen if you had english google cookies. now that it is taken care of I will use this method...
Rocks
Hi,
i am very happy to find this cool method.I prefer this over some payed tools.
you are newton in keyword digging.
Site related keywords is gone...
I guess your brilliant way of finding high paying KWs becam to much for Googles KW tool. Thay have removed the option to find site related KWs.
To bad...
Good Luck all!
Great article
Already picked out my niche, just need a few spare hours to get it built!
I LOVE IT
After hearing you on shoemoney's show I immediately came to this site and look at the page I came to. Simply amazing. FInally this page puts all the pieces together to properly gives us noobs a good starting point we can run with. Thanks Linda you rock ;)
good
Thanks for the tip. This is a nice one!
wordtrack
-Taken from all Dogpile & Metacrawler queries over the last 90 days. Keyword (?) Count (?) Predict (?) -
To me it seems like wordtrack results are for the last 90 days, not every day.
Thanks!
Thanks for taking the time out to write up a great tip!
But I think it is quite time consuming to check each keyword in Google to get the results. Instead, I copy the page of keywords, put in to excel, and copy just the keyword column.
Open up the Brainstorm Generator and it tells me the search results for each keywords at once. Saves me a heap of time!
Check it out for free! Can't hurt to save couple hours of work and increase your productivity.
This is fantastic...
except for the distraction factor (hehe). I was busily organizing files when I came across this technique in an Affilorama post, looks like I stay cluttered for a while longer. Thanks.
Cheers,
J Andrew Morrison
This is the best article on the world
Excellent article!
Brillant idea!
thanks a lot
Awesome lil' trick !
I consider myself to be a 'better than average' niche researcher, and yet I was blown away by this idea ! Hatz off to you mate ! Loved this one .... !
Cheerz,
Saumil
This is probably one of the
This is probably one of the best niche techniques that I have ever found.
Matter of fact, it is so good, that I really don't think that I will share it with anyone. I can't wait to put it to the test.
Thanks for this post, and this website..
Warmest Regards
Robert..
How Could You Share This For Free?
How could you share this for free? Most people would at least have to pay US$49 & above for such simple common sense strategies!
It's good to see people like you sharing with others on how to use wordtracker. I used to hate wordtracker, until I learnt a few tricks, one of which is very similar to yours.
Anyway keep up the great work & your generousity in sharing!
Thanks!
Hey, thanks a lot. This article is very useful. :)
Awesome!
Excellent Tip! I'm off to play with a few :) It'll work incredibly great if your niche is a little broad, so you can add these little ones and won't have to worry too much about authority sites. For example, if you already have a travel or cultural blog you could easily make a new category for Tibetan Bells, Chimes and do quite well. Not really finding a new niche but finding something to add to an already existing site in that case.
A unique method
This is a very unique method and refreshing as compared to using the overture keyword tool. Thanks for sharing ;)
excellent!
whooa...sweet trick man. this trick also works on foreign language keywords. non english content publisher like me could also benefit from this trick. thx again!
But wait...
Marcin,
Very excellent info, thanks.
Before anyone gets too excited go to Google and search this:
HIGHEST PAYING NICHE KEYWORDS
Read the first 5 or so hits, then decide how to proceed...
Especially read this one:
http://marketingtips2cash.wordpress.com/2006/06/20/is-your-adsense-income-stable/
Custom high CPC
You can also get specific high CPC for niches, like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_trick
Great solution!
Takes a sharp mind to come up with such simple solutions.
Great!
It takes a sharp mind to come up with such a simple solution
Fantastic!
This is great, I shall try it as soon as possible.
Thanks.
Devon.
1 Stop Home Business
Q.: What are good min/max values for AvCPC and WTcount?
For a systematic approach it would be good to know what are good min/max values for Google Average CPC and Wordtracker Count or Prediction?
Awesome approach, though ...
rento's remarks should be addressed carefully.
Thanks a lot for this well of ideas ...
Google search results for: vatican hiding accused priests
Great idea and thank you for doing this!
But how come when you did a search for vatican hiding accused priests, you got only 13 pages, but when I just did a search on Google for vatican hiding accused priests, I got "1 of 10 of about 288,000"?! Why would there be such a huge discrepancy between what you typed into Google and what I got?
Yowee!
Brillant idea! Keep up the great work!
Just fooling around
Great Idea
Thanks
www.zbikenut.comwww.compare-prepaid-cell-phones.comLBFM learn by fooling around Rick
Sounds good
I like this idea. Yes, the problem with authority sites and sandbox affect niche sites more than ever. Yahoo is too slow changing it's results, MSN had a little traffic and can move your sites to the bottom without any normal reason.
Authority site will obtain top10 at Google with just a one time occuerence of the phrase in the body text. With other words we will have a slow death ...
Can you comment this? Thanks!
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