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How To Attack Weak Niche Markets For Easy Profits

by James Jackson

If you want to build multiple income streams through niche marketing then you should seriously consider tapping into some of the more overlooked markets.

Many times you'll discover you that getting a Top 10 position on major search engines for keywords with a good search volume becomes much easier when the top competing websites aren't really competing much at all.

In my own keyword research I have found many keyword phrases that tens of thousands of Internet users are searching for every month by considering the following question...

Did the Top 10 websites purposely optimize their pages for this keyword phrase or did they get there simply because no one else is actively COMPETING for search engine placement?

You can easily discover the answer to this niche marketing question by doing some simple research.

Here's a real world keyword example from my own niche marketing research files...

Example keyword: Bed In A Bag (numbers gathered from WordTracker.com)

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bed in a bag 1,273
bed in a bag sets - 90
discount bed in a bag - 86
clearance bed in a bag - 49
wholesale bed in a bag set - 43
king bed in a bag - 29
chinami bed in a bag - 24
holiday bed in a bag - 21
bed in a bag camoflouge - 20
tropical bed in a bag - 20
california bed in a bag - 19
dan river bed in a bag - 19
palm tree bed in a bag -19
blue and orange queen bed in a bag - 17
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As you can see there is a pretty good amount of search activity for this keyword phrase. So how do you figure out if this is a keyword phrase that you could possibly get a Top 10 ranking for?

First...

Start by visiting Google and doing a searching for your desired keyword phrase.

Now answer the following questions in relation to each of the Top 10 results that are returned...

1.Is the keyword phrase in the title of the listing?

Search engines place a lot of weight on the title of a web page when they consider how well it will rank for a given keyword. Normally the title of the listed results are just exact duplicates of the text that is used in the META Title Tag of a particular web page.

You will rarely find a Top 10 ranking for any keyword phrase that doesn't have the keyword phrase you searched for in the title of the listing. If you do this is a good sign that you may found a niche keyword phrase with weak search engine competition.

2. Is the keyword phrase used in the domain name of the listing?

Having the keyword phrase as a part of your domain also helps your website to rank well much in the same way that having the keyword phrase in your title does.

Usually if the overall theme of a website is based on a particular keyword then the owner of the site will have registered a domain name that contains the phrase.

If the keyword phrase is not in the domain name of many of the Top 10 listings then you can reason that the website owner was not aggressively targeting this keyword phrase.

This becomes even more apparent if it is the only page of the website that has content directly related that keyword phrase.

For example why do Amazon.com and Target.com have the number 1 and 2 spots for the keyword "bed in a bag"?

They probably are there simply because they have a page on their websites about that product and that's it. These 2 websites don't contain tons of content on the topic of "beds in a bag" at all.

3. Is the keyword phrase used anywhere in the URL at all?

Including your keyword as the file name of a page carries importance much like having the keyword phrase as a part of your domain does.

So...

If the keyword isn't present in the URL even in a few of the top listings then take note as this is a may be a good sign that you may found a niche keyword phrase with weak search engine competition.

4. How many backward links are pointing at the URL?

The off-page factors are weighted VERY heavily by Google when it comes to getting a good search engine ranking with them. Off-page factors are things that you don't have total control of.

A very important off-page factor to consider is how many other websites have links pointing back to yours.

Google sees the links to your website as a vote or show of hands that you have a quality website.

If you have the Google toolbar installed all you have to do is right-click on the titles of the top search engine results and then choose "Backward Links" from the context menu.

Then you'll be able to see a rough number of how many links are pointing to a given website from other pages listed in Google's index.

Do this for each of the Top 10 websites.

If they all have a relatively low amount of backward links this is a good sign that you may have weak search engine competitors for this particular niche market.

5. Are the backward links pointing at the page mostly internal links or do the come from other quality websites?

Many times you will discover that a website has many if not hundreds of backward links that are coming from their own internal pages but don't let this fool you.

Quality is more important to Google when looking at you back-links and while the internal links of a website do count they don't carry the same weight as having quality backwards links coming from other quality websites that are also related to your chosen keyword phrase.

So you may be able to get good search engine position with just a few quality links pointing at your site.

6. Is the URL a top level domain or some obscure page buried deep within a larger website?

One way to spot possibly weak search engine competition is to take notice of the entire URL path of the pages that show for the Top 10 spots.

For very competitive phrases most off the websites will be top level domain names. A top level domain is simply the top or main page of an entire website and they end with in .com .net .org or any other top level domain extensions.

Example: www.website.com

But...

If you notice that many of the Top 10 listings are for URL's that are pointing to an off page within a website, for example...

www.website.com/article-topic123.htm

Then this may be a sign that these pages were not designed to rank well intentionally and have gotten a Top 10 spot simply as a result of having a bit of content related to the particular keyword phrase.

If you create an entire website with several pages of quality content devoted to the keyword phrase then this will help you achieve a much better ranking than the sites you see currently listed there.

Conclusion: By answering these simple questions about your search engine competitors you can then decide if it is worth your time and effort to build a website devoted to a particular topic.

If your research reveals that may of the top ranked sites for you keywords have very few links to them, they only have a page or two related to the subject matter, and the domain or URL isn't highly optimize for the keyword then you may have a chance to get a good search engine ranking without having to do an overwhelming amount of work.

I have discovered many keywords that get good traffic and have extremely weak search engine competition doing exactly what you just read in this article.

Go on and try it with some of the keywords you want to target in your own niche marketing efforts. You may be surprised.

James Jackson is a popular Internet Marketer. He hit popularity when he mastered the art of Niche Marketing and made thousands of dollars by creating niche websites.

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