May 16th, 2007
How To Find A Profitable Niche
Profitable and popular niches are easy to find as long as you know where to look. If you want to develop a site that you can enjoy writing for and make good money at the same time, then you should look at the sites mentioned below. I use many of these free resources when doing research. Keep in mind that making money from your web site takes research but these tools help save you a lot of time.
Ebay Pulse
Ebay is the worlds largest marketplace so why wouldn’t you go there to find what people are searching for? Here is a link that you must bookmark:
I checked ebay pulse a couple of months ago and saw a new children’s toy called Webkinz in the top 10 searches. I had no idea what Webkinz were so I did a little more research. I still have no idea why they are so popular right now, but they really are. Some things just catch on and others don’t :) Anyways, I checked ebay pulse again today and Webkinz is the #1 searched for item on all of ebay. This could be a ground floor opportunity for someone to start a kids toy site or a toy review site and feature Webkinz. Find an affiliate to sell Webkinz so you can profit from your writing, and if you SEO your site properly you might even start popping up in search engines over time. You can also go the pay per click route and use adwords to drive traffic.
Google News - Fresh Off The Press
The day a big news story hits, there are hundreds of thousands of Google searches for that story. If your blog is geared toward bringing current events to people, be sure to write about the event right away. You can get a lot of targeted traffic from searchers this way. To get news as soon as it hits - you can sign up for Google Alerts and they’ll email you the top stories as soon as they hit.
Technorati
Every blogger should be aware of Technorati so I’ll keep it short. On Technorati’s home page (top, left sidebar) you can see the top 10 most popular searches at any given time. Paris Hilton and Myspace always tend to be on this list. Alexa has a similar what’s hot feature.
Top 100s
This is a great area for affiliate sales. Find the most popular or top 100 items in different categories.
Billboard.com - Top 100 / most popular current songs. Great for ringtone offers, surveys, online dating.
IMDB - Top 100 movies of all time. Great for movie review sites, Amazon affiliate sales, eBay affiliates, DVD rental sites.
Alexa - Top 100 web sites.
Amazon - Top selling books.
IGN - Top 100 video games of all time.
With some creativity, you can easily incorporate top 100 lists into your web site or the keywords you target.
Monetizing Popular Items
There is usually only a certain amount of time you have to monetize what is popular today; nothing stays popular forever. The good news is once you build a template for your site (or learn to use wordpress), you can reproduce your prior successes over and over by using the same template. You’ll need a host company that will allow you to host multiple domains on the same host account for one monthly fee. Host Monster is a great option for unlimited domain hosting and a low monthly fee ($5.95/month).
- Be sure to sign up for my free newsletter on the sidebar for more valuable info on making money with your web site.
Great post. I can’t believe I didn’t know about the ebay one and google alerts. They should be very helpful.
Webkinz is like Pokemon, another pet to take care and carry around
Plus, they make aggressive marketing, and kids fall for it…
Jane, awesome ideas you give in this articles - great job! And thanks for the ideas
very cool….i do use technorati, google alerts and alexa but never thought about using the other resources you provided..i shall from now on !!
Very good idea, thank you so much. Sometimes the simple stuff is too close to see.
Interesting ideas and links of course…
If you are relatively new to this blog, where should you start…the oldest post and work your way forward?
I am trying to follow this in a logical step-by-step process and use it as a model.
For instance, should I start with Learn to Blog and Earn Money Week 1?
You can look on the sidebar and find the categories you are interested in, click them and read each story in each category. That is how I would do it - category by category. Hope that helps!
Great resources. I really appreciate and am very impressed with the information you are sharing.
#1!
Thanks a lot Stephen! I’m glad I can help.
I like the eBay Pulse idea. Thanks.
Webkinz is sold out everywhere! They are a toy with an online component.
I prefer to target things that I know are profitable: Nintendo Wii and Pokemon.
I wrote a post and just mentioned “Twitter”.
I wasn’t even even talking about it really, but I got a bunch of traffic from Technorati because it was a popular search that day
Ebay Pulse is a great idea. I’ll have to keep an eye out over there.
Host Monster rocks, too.
As always great advice Jane, stop giving away the secrets of online marketing! j/k
[…] How To Find A Profitable Niche got me thinking again about how I can demonstrate to you in a real world example of what will make […]
[…] Jane May Blogs » Blog Archive » How To Find A Profitable Niche Profitable and popular niches are easy to find as long as you know where to look. If you want to develop a site that you can enjoy writing for and make good money at the same time, then you should look at the sites mentioned below. (tags: niche money) […]
I had never heard of Webkinz before, and although I knew the ebay top list, never thought about using it in this way…
Now I now about them both…
Joking aside, this is a great post with valuable info. You just gained another reader.
Thanks Jane for the great tips.
Cheers!!
Jason
I Blog at http://jsbi.blogspot.com
Thanks Jane for the cool tips.
Much appreciated.
Cheers!!
Jason
I Blog at http://jsbi.blogspot.com
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