In this post we're going to go over the list that you made in Making Money Online Where to Start??? If you haven't made your list yet, go back to that post and make it. I'll wait…
All done?
Okay, so now you've got your list. The question is, “What do I do with it?”
In order to answer the question, let's take a look at my list, since I can't possibly know what's on yours. Don't worry, the same principals apply.
My list:
1. Writing
2. Music
3. Computers
4, Games
5. Health
6. Sex (okay, this will probably be on EVERYONE'S list)
Now, in my case, I have an extra problem that some people may not have. I really do enjoy ALL of these things a lot. If somebody told me I could only do one of these six things the rest of my life, I would have a hard time deciding which one. Music has been part of my life since I was a child, writing the same and computers and games are just way too much fun to give up. Health has been a big issue for me since I became ill and now I am really into alternative treatments for diseases.
But you can't do everything at one time. That's one of the biggest mistakes that new marketers make. They jump from program to program and never give anything a real chance. Nothing is going to make you a gazillion dollars overnight so get over it. You need a game plan and that game plan MUST focus on dealing with ONE THING AT A TIME. If that isn't clear enough, I will say it again.
You need a game plan and that game plan MUST focus on dealing with ONE THING AT A TIME.
Okay, so let's take my list and see how we narrow down what we're going to do.
I know this is painful, but the first thing you have to do is look at your list and pick out ONE item. It doesn't even have to be your favorite item on the list, though that will probably help as you want to do something that you really enjoy. Why? Because you're going to be spending countless hours doing it so you better at least enjoy it to start or you don't have a prayer. Building a business based on something that you have no knowledge or interest in is looking for disaster. You will lose interest quickly and never get your business off the ground.
Okay, I've made my choice. I'm going to pick Health.
Now, health is a very broad topic, kind of like medicine or doctors. There are many types of medicines and many types of doctors. A proctologist is sure as hell not going to perform brain surgery on me, though most people would say that in my case it's pretty much the same thing.
The point is, we want to narrow health down at least a bit. Health is what we call, in the marketing world, a keyword. A keyword is something that people type into a search engine when they look for something on the Internet.
For example, let's say you're searching for info about the new Ipod. You'd probably go to Google and type in “Ipod” and get a ton of results. But what it you're just looking for articles or reviews on the Ipod so you can get a decent idea if it's something you want to buy? In that case you might type in “Ipod articles” or “Ipod reviews.” See what we've done? We've narrowed down our keyword search. Now, when we do our search, we don't get as many results. This is why we want to break “health” down a bit so we can narrow in on a very specific niche. You may not even use the word health in your final choice but it will be related to it in some way. In my case, I narrowed health down to “Alternative Medicine.”
Now, that alone is still pretty broad. But from it, we can come up with a number of subsets, such as “Alternative Treatments” or “Alternative Cures For” and so on.
Then, we can get REALLY specific, like…
“Alternative Treatments For Acne” or “Alternative Cures For Cancer” and so on.
The list of things we can focus and narrow in on, just from that one keyword, can literally be endless.
Take music. Good heavens. Off the top of my head, I can come up with “Music of the 60s”, “Music of the Beatles”, “Music Notation Software” and on and on and on.
Do you see where I am going with this? Take your main interest, whatever it is, and break it down as much as you can. Get it to the point where you are focusing on one VERY specific thing.
In the next post we're going to take your narrowed down “keyword phrase” and run with it. Is Your Niche Market Competitive