Internet Marketing Research Basics
What is research? Why do I have to do it? How do I get started? Where do I start?
All good questions!
Whether you know it or not, every time you look up a subject using your favorite search engine - http://www.google.com - you are doing research.
Sheesh - simple! OK, let’s get serious.
In order to succeed in this business, you need to be doing research on almost everything you are going to try…from keywords to niches to market wants and needs…
I am going to keep this rather general because there are many different ways people do their research, and there are many different resources you can use to help you in that process. I will be posting more about that later on….stay tuned!
So, below I have an outline of how to go about your research.
1 – Explore Your Own Interests
2 – Research Market Needs, Wants, and Problems
3a – Research Solutions for Your Own Product
3b – Research Solutions for Affiliate Products
4a – Create Solution (your own product / service)
4b – Gather Affiliate Products
5 – Market Your Product or Affiliate Product
6 – Go To The Bank
7 – Wash, Rinse, and Repeat!
I would HIGHLY suggest that you open a blank document / notepad so that you can use that as your raw research notes…you will be using that to store URLs, articles, ideas, etc.
1 – Explore Your Own Interests
You may want to start by asking yourself: what am I interested in? What are my hobbies? What am I good at?
Finding enough material to write about starts with your own interests. It is much easier to create a solution if it is something that you have knowledge about! That’s not to say that other areas would not be profitable, they certainly can be very profitable – even if you know absolutely nothing about that subject. All I am saying is that researching a subject (niche) is a lot easier if are at least a little bit familiar with the niche!
Regardless, you need to find a market need, want, or problem.
2 – Research Market Needs, Wants, and Problems
You can use a variety of resources to help you with that!
- Forums (niche-specific)
- Groups (niche-specific)
- “Answer” sites
- Social Networks
- Dummies.Com (hello? Lots of ideas there!)
- and lots more …. But that is another post!
When you are going through these sources, take notes. For example, in the groups, are there recurring problems people are having? Are people asking for help in a specific area? If so, you may have a great opportunity to help them and make some money for yourself.
Now, let’s say you have found a “hot” problem. Now what?
Check to see how many searches are being made on that niche (and at the same time, you can get a list of alternative keywords to perhaps target.)
You can use:
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com
http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html
(NOTE: the results you see for each search are for searches done PER DAY on your search term(s)!!)
I would have suggested also using Overture’s Suggestion Tool, but it is all but dead and VERY slow!
When you enter your keyword/niche, the results you get will also show variations of your keyword/niche.
Look and see how many times your exact keyword phrase has been searched. For example, Wordtracker’s Free search results show you a number; that number tells you how many times your term has been searched, on average, per day.
There are MANY different opinions about how many searches are considered a “good” number to bother exploring. My Opinion: I would try and stay away from over-saturated markets – niches that have say 50,000+ searches a day is going to be MUCH harder to break into than smaller ones – smaller, more targeted niches should be easier to get into and dominate 
3a – Research Solutions for Your Own Product
Again, using the groups, forums, answer sites, etc…you can see who all has posted some solutions, which will serve as your “base” information … and will give you some search terms to use in Google or your favorite search engine. Using Google, then start searching for articles and other information about your target problem…gathering, cutting/pasting that information into your research document.
3b – Research Solutions for Affiliate Products
Researching products that will solve your market’s problems is much easier!
Here are some main resources:
http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace.htm - One of the largest market places for affiliate products…searchable by keywords, topics, etc.
http://www.paydotcom.com – similar to Clickbank, but smaller.
http://www.associateprograms.com – Here is a directory of affiliate programs you can search.
The following are other affiliate resources you should check out:
http://www.cj.com
http://www.linkshare.com
http://www.shareasale.com
One more way to find an affiliate product is to just use Google and search:
YOUR NICHE + “affiliate program”
You should be able to find quite a few products that you can try and sell to your target market.
4a – Create Solution (your own product / service)
One word of warning: NEVER, EVER take someone else’s work and try passing it off as your own!!! That is plagiarism. You will be caught!
Having said that, I am sure you are questioning why I said to “cut/paste” articles, etc. into your research document….that is called, umm…raw research. What you now need to do is take that Raw Research and turn it into your own creation, in your own words with your own ideas!
4b – Gather Affiliate Products
Once you have your list of affiliate products you are going to try and promote, you will want to create a landing page for your product. You “may” be able to just send your visitor directly to your affiliate product’s home page, but many places do not allow you to direct link….so your best bet is to just create a landing page.
This gives you the ability to either talk directly about the product and why it’s so great and then send them to the affiliate sales page … OR you can use this page to give the visitor a choice – say of three different choices…all in the same niche…comparing them all to each other, ranking them 1, 2, 3. That gives your visitor the “perception” that you have done your homework on the best three options to solve their problem.
5 – Market Your Product or Affiliate Product
So, now you have either your own product or an affiliate product that you are going to market…how do you do that?!
But that too is in another post 
Doing market research is a vital part of your success in this business, but it does not have to be all that painful…depending on how big of a project you are taking on.
If you plan on creating the next 7 Figure Code, you will be doing a TON of research. But otherwise, if you stick with smaller projects, you can do your research rather quick.
Oh .. yeah Steps 6 and 7…
I think you can figure out those on your own
Dave
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
