You have developed an idea and come up with a product. How can you tell if you are marketing to the right niche? Here are some steps to research your niche market.

You may want to begin with some informal research. Check out on-line forums and other websites that feature similar products or information. How well promoted are they? How is their copy? Is their information appealing and easy to find? Are sites on your topic abundant, or hard to find?

Next, use the Overture search area at http://uv.bidtool.overture.com/d/search/tools/bidtool
to see if others are paying for your keywords. Enter the keyword and sit back. You will be taken to a page with some of the top advertisers links. Click on “View Advertisers Max Bid” and review the results. This page shows what the advertisers are paying for a person to access their page. These vendors would only pay if the niche market were active enough to get them traffic, so a decent per click rate (say about $1) is a good sign.

Next, examine how many searches were done on your keyword for the previous month. You can do this at http://www.inventory.overture.com. Type in your keyword and note the results. Sum up all the searches for all the keyword phrases and combinations.

Next, take a look at how many listings there are for your keywords on Google. Do a google search by keywords searches and note the number of sites listed for each keyword phrase. Add up all the sites for all the relevant keyword phrases.

The ratio of the searches divided by the number of sites is an indicator of the competition. The lower the ratio, the less competition on that keyword phrase.

After comparing several different keyword phrases, you should be able to choose the phrase that will get you into a good niche market. Optimize those keywords and good luck!

Evelyn Lim is a publisher of the popular newsletter "Mapping You to Success" aimed at the aspiring home based internet business owner. She also hopes to educate her readers on acquiring multiple sources of online income. Please visit her site at http://www.e-BizMap.com for more information.

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