Using Google Trends To Find Low Competition Niches You Never Knew Existed

I came upon this technique by accident while using Trends for something totally different.

Below is the step by step instruction for using Google Trends to find products in a certain market that are newly popular but with significant volume, making them ripe for promotion as an affiliate.

Here goes…

STEP 1: DO A GOOGLE TRENDS SEARCH FOR THE NAME OF A TYPE OF PRODUCT

So at Google Trends, search not the brand name, but the product type. In this example I used “Stroller”, but it could have been “fridge”, “turntable” or anything else.

STEP 2: CHANGE THE DATE RANGE TO PAST 12 MONTHS

I’ve tested this using different time frames, and this is the one that best ensures you’re going to see real “break out” products, not ones that have only had a bump in the last couple of months due to seasonality or something else.

STEP 3: SELECT UNITED STATES (UNLESS YOU’RE MAINLY PROMOTING PRODUCTS FROM ELSEWHERE)

Self explanatory…

STEP 4: SCROLL DOWN TO THE “RELATED SEARCHES” TAB

It’s at the bottom of the page.

And on it, lies a magical little tab called “Rising”.

It will tell you related searches that have had a significant increase in search volume during the selected period.

… And sometimes, those searches are product names.

STEP 5: LOOK FOR PRODUCT NAMES

Some products you do this with will show no product names/brand name searches.

Others will show legitimate product names. With volume. That you can sell as an affiliate.

Here I found one that sat at the top of the list… as though it had grown it’s search volume more than 2,650% in the last 12 months.

That is interesting.

From here, it’s only a matter of running your typical analysis of the products, and starting some keyword research.

And the first thing I do is search volume

STEP 6: CONFIRM SEARCH VOLUME GROWTH

You can just use the Adwords Keyword Tool for this.

I like to use the “Show Only Searches Containing My Keyword” option, and I like to drag the date back a little bit to confirm how old the search volume really is. In other words, how “newly popular” this product is, and how low my competition is likely to be.

In this case, the results were very exciting…

6 months ago this product had almost no search volume. 6 months ago there were likely close to no affiliates promoting it.

The last 3 months it has had a huge amount of attention.

It means there hasn’t been much time for other affiliates to latch on and build campaigns around this product.

It means the chances of it being lower in competition are good.

All that’s left to do from here is confirm that it has an affiliate program, and start creating content.

DISCLAIMER: I didn’t confirm whether this product had an affiliate program because for the sake of demonstrating the technique, it doesn’t matter. There were a lot of brand name strollers that I found about with the same screenshot above, and more than a few of them are perfectly able to be sold as an affiliate.

BOTTOM LINE

I just found a product with

a) Significant search volume.

b) Upward trending search volume in the past year

c) Very likely very low competition

d) That I would have had no idea about otherwise

If you don’t realize why this is so cool, you should read my blog more 

I hope you get a chance to try this technique for yourself, because the gems to uncover are many.

http://andrewhansen.name/affiliate-marketing/google-trends-low-competition-niches/

How to Find the Right Niche in Affiliate Marketing – 5 Practical Steps Revealed

Identifying the right niche for promoting affiliate products is as tough as it is important. Because it is such a crucial component for success in affiliate marketing, it becomes even more difficult for you to decide on the right niche. You are worried that you might make a mistake by choosing the wrong niche.  It is almost like a continuing vicious cycle.

This article tells you how to find the right niche in 5 simple steps. But before that, let’s quickly answer the ‘why’.

Why is the Right Niche Crucial for Affiliate Marketing Success?

The concept of niche marketing is important not only in online marketing but in offline marketing too. Simply put, if you try to be everything to everybody, you end up being nothing to anybody.

The world wide web is huge place and caters to the entire world. It would be foolish and impractical to target all of them. So what you need to do is specifically target a portion of this huge audience and promote something of high interest to them, something that solves their specific problems. This specifically targeted portion of the population is a niche.

And when you identify the right niche, you have got yourself a successful online business model.

5 Practical Steps to Identify the Right Niche

1.  Don’t Look for Products, Look for People

Several newbie affiliates spend time identifying products to promote. This is not the right approach. Instead focus on the people you want to target. Is it men, women, teens, or senior citizens? Then go even deeper. The more specific you get, the better it is for business. For example, you may identify your niche as male entrepreneurs below the age of 30.

The advantage of identifying people based niches, rather than product based ones is obvious. People will remain forever, but products may be replaced, discontinued or the company producing the product may shut down. The risks are high. On the other hand, male entrepreneurs below the age of 30 are coming into existence every single day. This is a growing niche and unlikely to dry up.

A Useful Tip:

One way to pick a niche is to focus on people like you or people you like to hang out with.

2. Identify the Pain Points of Your Niche

 Once you have identified your niche, it is now time to get to know them better. An even smarter option is to start with a niche that you already know well or you are a part of. For instance, if you are a mom, it is easier for you to think about what potential problems other moms could be facing and come up with solutions that address those problems. Obviously, these solutions are the products (or services) that you will promote.

However, ensure that you identify the right problems. Are there ‘right problemsand ‘wrong problems’? You bet there are. The fact is not all problems are created equal. There are some problems, you niche might be OK living with creating a business that provides solutions for such problems is obviously NOT profitable.

Identify the real, urgent issues of your niche and focus on those. One way to identify such problems is to hang out where you niche is. Visit social media, forums, blogs etc to get a feel of the most discussed issues and therein lies your profitable niche.

3. Conduct Keyword Research

Keyword research gives you hard numbers and lends a quantitative approach to your niche selection process.

First and foremost, keywords statistics such as monthly and daily search data help you identify the most popular terms used by your audience for searching. Unless you are aware of these terms there is no point spending money on building a website because no one will ever find it.

Keyword research also helps you identify potential affiliate programs you can promote, possible joint venture partners and of course gives you an insight into competition.

4. Check Out the Competition in the Niche

Once you have identified specific keywords, use them in search to find out the top ranking sites in the niche and study those sites. They are your competition. What are the top 10 sites in the niche? Are they big corporate sites that can pump in loads of money on SEO, ads etc? What is their inbound linking data? Tools such as Yahoo Site Explorer or SEO for Firefox will be able to give you this data.

The idea of all this exercise is to figure out what you are up against? Will you able to outrank the competition with fair efforts or would it drain you out financially? You know the smart decision to make here. Here is a simple analogy to drive home the point. If you are playing tennis against Rafael Nadal, you might as well not play and withdraw from the game, but when you play against the kid next door, with the right strategies and some smart techniques, you will actually win.

While low competition is a good thing, beware of ‘zero competition’. For instance, if there is no PPC advertising for the keyword, chances are, the niche is not that profitable.

5.  Go Full Out..And Own the Niche

 Experts recommend choosing a niche that you are passionate about. If you find a niche that meets all the other criteria and is incidentally a subject you love that’s great. But often you have to work around profitable niches which may or may not be your favorites personally. In either case, the idea is to own the niche completely. Become the unequivocal expert in the niche. This can be achieved by going deeper into the niche.

For instance, don’t think women, think working women, further get down to fitness for working women, maybe focus on their ‘time crunch’ problem. How do they make time for fitness when they have so less time? So the answer could be an effective 10 minute ab cruncher product or a Yoga DVD or some such product. Thus when you dig deeper you will get the answers that will lead you to the right niche and the right products for the niche.

And once you have identified a niche, use high quality content to build your website reputation. Focus on attaining top SEO rankings and also offer valuable content to your audience. In fact, with the recent Google algorithm changes, these two activities are NOT mutually exclusive.

Aim to become the GO TO resource when that particular topic is discussed. Build a loyal audience who will trust you and therefore trust your recommendations. It is now easier to sell not only affiliate products, but you can come up with products of your own to sell.

That is the power of selecting the right niche.

Your turn now. What strategies do you use to identify your niche?http://www.cpatrainingvault.com/how-to-find-the-right-niche-in-affiliate-marketing-5-practical-steps-revealed/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-to-find-the-right-niche-in-affiliate-marketing-5-practical-steps-revealed