There are MILLIONS of businesses active on the Web today. But the number of businesses that are aiming directly at a market is FAR fewer. And of those, how many have done research to ensure that the market they’re targeting actually EXISTS?

Well, the number just got MUCH smaller!

The true secret to creating a successful business is to find a market to target BEFORE you build a business. That way, you know from the beginning that you have a potential customer base out there looking for exactly what you have to offer.

So how would we define a niche market? A niche market is a group of people looking for the solution to a specific problem… ideally, a problem that YOU can solve with a product or service!

It’s quite simple: if no one is looking for what you’re offering, you’re going to have a hard time selling it!

If you ARE targeting a niche market and haven’t seen too much success, you may be targeting a market that is too broad — which leads to an overload of competition. On the other hand, you could be targeting a niche that is far too narrow — which leads to a lack of customers!

The key is to find the “sweet spot” where your ideal audience lies.

For example, if you type “garden plants” into Google, you get 20,900,000 results. The odds of standing out in that search are extremely low, especially since you’re up against big gardening companies or wholesalers who can offer more products at a lower price than any small business can.

However, “rock garden plants for warm climates” cuts that number down to a mere 98,500 results — which represents a dramatic reduction in potential competition… with a large potential target group still remaining!

By addressing more specific concerns or needs on your site — without narrowing your focus so sharply that you only have two potential customers! — you create a connection with your visitors that encourages them to buy from you… instead of looking elsewhere.

Your first step to finding an active, targetable niche is to use a keyword research tool like Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery , or the point-and-click ebusiness-building software, BeBiz.

These tools show you what words people are actually using as they search the Web. You’ll see that the words they use reveal the kinds of problems they’re trying to solve, and once you know that, you can zero in on particular niches with particular needs for a product or service.

We’d say that at least 60% of the issues we see with new businesses are tied directly to either too-broad or too-narrow niches. And people often give up before they realize that their niche needs a crucial tune-up, or that they need a new focus altogether.

Fortunately, there are still MILLIONS of niches left to target, and new, successful businesses being launched to reach them every single day.

Maybe it’s time one of them was yours…

(Check out the second post in this series here.)

A friend of mine recently asked me to review the search optimization work he’d just done on his business website.

I clicked on "View Page Source" in Firefox to see the keywords he’d included in his HTML code…

… And I almost had a heart attack!

Turns out he’d included more than 60 different keywords in his keyword metatags… and most of them had no connection to what his site was actually selling.

You probably know that one thing we here at IMC preach is, "Don’t turn your site into a flea market!"

In other words, don’t try and sell a whole bunch of totally different products — such as pet supplies, jewelry, and sporting goods — on the same site, because you’ll find it absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to target your marketing efforts to the right people.

(Why? Because the people who go online to buy jewelry are NOT the same people who are searching for pet supplies or sporting goods on the Internet — and if you try to appeal to all of them at the same time, you’ll have such a mixed marketing message you won’t be able to speak to ANY of them properly.)

Well, the same principle applies to your keywords.

Whatever you do, don’t use the "flea market" approach to your search engine optimization efforts.

You have to keep your keywords as focused as possible!

When you use a keyword research tool like Keyword Discovery or Wordtracker, go for the specific keyword phrases. Don’t get sucked in by big traffic numbers, thinking the more people you get to your site the better.

After all, why brag about traffic when it doesn’t turn into a sale? Say, for example, your site sells an "all natural" solution for acid stomach problems…

… You start to do your keyword research and you discover that the keyword phrase "natural remedies" has 288 daily searches — but over 2,000,000 sites competing for it.

… While the phrase, "acid reflux natural remedies" has 67 daily searches — with just over 11,000 competing sites.

Do you want to spend all your time and effort trying to optimize for the first phrase, which gets more searches — but is so general, you’ll never know how many of those searchers want to buy your stomach acid remedy?

(Not to mention the HUGE number of competitors it has!)

Or would you go for the second term, which only has 67 people searching for it — knowing those 67 people are looking for EXACTLY what you offer? (With a MUCH lower competition number to boot!)

Obviously, the second term is the one to choose!

Sure, you might get less traffic (though with over 2,000,000 competing sites, I doubt you’ll get much traffic from the first term) — but the visitors you DO get will be MUCH more likely to buy your product.

So make sure you focus your efforts on the specific keywords that describe EXACTLY what your site offers. Don’t be tempted by more general keywords with higher traffic numbers — because they’ll never send you the traffic you want.

Finally, remember to optimize each page of your site for only 2-3 keywords MAXIMUM. It’s literally impossible to optimize a web page for more than that.

That’s why it’s so important for you to do the research and find the keywords that will pull the BEST visitors to your site — not just the MOST — so you can focus all your optimization efforts on them!

In a recent survey, we asked blog readers to answer the question, "Where do you most need help with your Internet business?"

And the number one answer was, "Finding my niche."

Surprise, surprise.

Finding a profitable niche is the most important step you’ll take in your entire online business career. And it’s one a lot of our readers have problems with.

So over the next couple weeks, we’re going to do a series of blog posts focusing on finding a niche, so we can help you through this fundamental stage of building your business.

But before we get into it, we have just one piece of advice to pass on…

If you’ve been searching and searching for a profitable niche, but can’t seem to find one no matter how hard you look — and you’re panicking because you’ve invested so much time and energy with nothing to show for it — here’s what you need to do right now:

Take a deep breath and relax.

Finding a niche can be a time-consuming process… but if you know the proven 3-step formula that allows you to take a logical, systematic approach to your "niche hunt," then you will dramatically reduce the time you spend chasing after lost causes — and fast-track your way to a hot business idea that’s guaranteed to be successful!

And what is that proven 3-step formula? Glad you asked!

Here are the three critical "niche finder" steps we teach all our students, as we work with them to help build their online businesses:

Step #1: Reveal a potential market (Find a problem!)

You should start your search using a keyword research tool such as Keyword Discovery (www.keyworddiscovery.com). This useful tools shows you exactly what words and phrases people are typing into Google and other search engines, so you can discover what they’re looking for online.

What you should be looking for is problem statements. In other words, look for phrases that would be used by searchers who are actively trying to solve a problem.

For example, "bike riding" is NOT a problem statement… "How to teach a child to ride a bike" IS. See the difference?

Once you identify a problem statement that lots of people are searching for information about, you’re well on your way to discovering a profitable market!

Step #2: Validate market demand (Make sure they’re willing to pay for a solution!)

Okay, so you’ve done your keyword research and discovered a problem statement that shows a lot of promise.

But how do you know for sure people are willing to pay for a solution to this problem?

Simple: you ask them!

Find out where people with this problem hang out online, and see what they’re saying about it. Check to see if people are actively discussing this problem in online forums, groups, and blogs. Then join in the conversation and find out how big this problem is for them.

Are they finding solutions for it? What do they think of the solutions? Where do they fall short of the mark? What do they *wish* they could find in a solution? And would they be willing to pay for it?

These questions will give you a good idea of how strong the demand is for a solution to the problem you’re researching. If people are willing to pay for a solution, and aren’t finding what they want, then you know you’re on the right path.

Step #3: Assess your competition (Make sure there aren’t already 1000s of solutions available!)

So you’ve identified a problem and you know a lot of people are willing to pay for a solution to it. Think you’re done?

Nope! There’s still one more essential step you need to take — and that’s analyzing your competition.

Your competition is the sites that appear in the search results when you type your problem statement into a search engine like Google. How many of these sites are actually offering a solution to this problem? Can you compete with them in terms of price, features etc.?

If you can’t see any way of improving on the solutions that are already out there, then it’s probably time for you to go back to the drawing board and start exploring a new idea. (But don’t be upset — you’ve just saved yourself a lot of wasted time and money!)

However, if you take a look at your competition and *know* you can offer something better, then congratulations! Looks like you’ve just identified a profitable online niche.

We’ll be exploring these three steps in much greater detail in upcoming blog posts. Make sure you sign up for our RSS feed so you don’t miss a single post!

Remember, finding your niche is THE most important step you’ll ever take with your online business. You want to make sure you do it right, so you don’t end up investing a whole lot of time and money in a business that’s doomed to failure.

Stay tuned for our next post on keyword research…

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