I've spent lots of time and money over the last year trying to develop a web business. I've finally written an ebook, publish a newsletter, and have a site that now has an Alexa ranking of 198,996 in only a month and a half...but isn't making money yet.

I just joined as a member and have a question that hopefully someone can help me with. In everything I've read about making money with ebay they say to find a niche, don't sell the popular products everyone else is selling, etc. which makes complete sense.

The problem I am having is finding a niche. Everything about that is vague. Now, I don't expect someone to say, "hey, this sells well, go make money" but I could use a little direction. For example, is there someplace on Ebay to see what is selling and what isn't, etc? I know they have a top 10, but is there anything else? Any tricks as to how to go about finding a niche?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Hi

I am afraid that there really isn't any secret to finding niche markets and it can be hard work and time-consuming (but that is part of the reason why they are so valuable when you find one).

There are lots of different methods of trying to find a niche - you could spend time trawling through eBay to find products that are selling well but don't have that many sellers or alternatively, you could try and find a niche product outside of eBay and then see if it is something you can sell on eBay.

The important thing to remember is that you must think 'outside of the box'. Don't be put off by thinking that a particular product is too small to attract a big enough market to make it worthwhile. The Internet is huge and whilst you might not open a traditional store selling your particular product (as you just wouldn't get enough customers through the door), this is not a concern online.

An example of this is an auction that I saw on eBay the other day. It was for a website business that someone had set up as a kind of experiment to see if they could get a high search engine ranking. The site sold fish-finders (electronic devices for fishermen to help them locate fish) - thats it, thats all they sold. The owner had set the site up about 4 months ago and had managed to achieve some 1st and 2nd place rankings on Google. From memory he had made sales to date of about $16k and a net profit of $2200, which in just a few months is good going. Coupled with that, all of his sales were drop-shipped so he had very little actual work to do in order to fulfil the orders.

As you can see, the above business targets a highly niche market and I am sure with a bit more work could become very profitable.

It's all about thinking outside of the box and not giving up until you find something - as I said at the beginning of this post, it is hard work and anyone that tells you different is not being honest. The upside is that when you find your niche, you have a fantastic opportunity at building a superb business.

Don't give up!

Best regards

Richard
TheTrader

Hi guys,

The Devil is always in the details and unless you use some dedicated software like 'Nichefinder' which will help, it's really down to doing your homework on the market you want to reach.

I know that's a 'same old story' fluffy statement so he's more of what I mean.

Decide on the area which you want to work on (This should definately be one that excites you and you are interested in)

Research (Using the Overture search tool, wordtracker or goodkeywords etc) what terms people are searching for in this area.

Find out what the fulfillment in that area is like (i.e. how many sites are already trying to reach those customers - Ignore, at least for now any that have a PR of below 4 - this can easily be achieved (btw - you can find the PR by using the Google Toolbar). and see how strong the competition is.

Pick an area with a large target audience and relatively low competition (like I said - it doesn't matter if there are 3,000,000 crap sites - you can beat them with decent on page optimisation and good content).

Write a good content site that is optimised on a page by page basis for the most profitable keywords which you found in your research.

Submit this to the search engines and directories, then when you're in and getting traffic - ad some affiliate links or adsense content to up your income.

The main point is to add content in a way which is keyword optimised for popular words in an area you love and which you can keep updated.

The actual subject is almost irrelevant.

Most people don't take this sensible approach and by doing your research you can easily better them on the engines.

As always getting JV's and good inbound links will improve things.

I'm using a piece of software currently which has great tools for all this stuff called Site Build It.

Check it out at:-

http://www.sitesell.com/lennysite.html

Plus a super affiliate finder:-

http://www.superaffiliatetracker.com/sat.p...echtrader&pid=1

As with all of these great tools it's pretty expensive, but I truly believe that this one's well worth the money as the brainstorming tools are great and give you a profitability value and show you the top websites for all the terms you choose (it's easy to find ideas for content and affiliate sites to link to) and the process is excellent.

Let me know if you want me to expand on/clarify anything I've said as I really believe you can make it given the right attitude and information.

Regards,

LennyT

Richard, Lenny,

Thank you both for taking the time to give such detailed replies to my post. It's greatly appreciated. I will look into your suggestions.

Lenny, it's funny you mention that. My brand new site is through Site Build It and I agree with you completely about it. My site has only been indexed in the engines for a about a month and a half and already has an Alexa ranking of 198,996 and climbing. Yet, no sales. I guess I need to go back to the action guide drawing board and see what I'm doing wrong. I have lots of content with affiliate links mixed in and my own ebook as well.

I also enjoy ebay as well. I've been selling some of my own stuff and am currently researching what I can buy and resell, and that's the tough part. Hopefully, Richard's member site will help with that. :wink:

Thanks again,

Gregg

Gregg

Just one more thing to mention, if you are finding that you are getting traffic but no sales, then you need to make adjustments to your site....

I don't mean huge, sweeping changes, but small ones. It is amazing how much difference even just changing a headline or a few sentences can make.

Keep making changes until you see positive results and then continue testing and testing....

Getting the traffic is half the battle, converting the traffic is the other half (ok, there might be a few other parts as well, but those are the main two )

Don't make too many changes at once as otherwise you won't know which change caused the increase (or decrease) in business.

Again, it takes time, but once you have cracked it, you have yourself your very own money machine!

Have a good weekend folks.

Regards

Richard
TheTrader

PS. Lenny - Nichefinder - I thought it was a joke, but a quick search on Google reveals that it really exists! Amazing, you can even buy software to find your own niche!

Thanks Richard,

I did make a few changes about a week ago and I am seeing more page views per unique visitor, which I guess is an improvement. The interesting thing is, I am getting click throughs to my affiliate programs but no sales.

Btw, I found your site through Corey Rudl's Secrets To Their Success private site. Maybe I'll get lucky and win his web site review. ;-)


Lenny - Considering I have Site Build It, do you think Nichefinder software has any benefits above and beyond Site Build It's on supply/demand tool?

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I did make a few changes about a week ago and I am seeing more page views per unique visitor, which I guess is an improvement.[/b]

Yup, that is a step in the right direction - remember many websites dont manage to retain visitors for more than a few seconds, so to get them looking at more than one page is an achievement.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>

The interesting thing is, I am getting click throughs to my affiliate programs but no sales.[/b]

Again, try changing the affiliate links that you display and don't fall into the trap of having loads and loads - this just gives people too much choice and this often leads to them not buying anything. Try and find 2 or 3 really good products (with really good sales pages) and stick to promoting them. As before, it is a lot of testing etc but once you find something that sells......

Cheers

Richard
TheTrader

Hi again guys,

I think the Nichefinder software is pretty good and it does give you infomation very quickly and in a format that's very easy to use.

However, like most things - it can be replaced by time and effort so it really depends which resources you have to play with.

If you're lacking time and money - then it's gonna be an uphill struggle.

Generally, if you have time on your hands - everything else can be done virtually free.

This muscle business does seem quite a good way to go as I have just started looking into body building.

Try looking around some body building forums as there are a few good ones with some very nice women! hehe