The Most Important Step Before You Start An Internet Business

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There's a very simple way to almost ensure that your new Internet Business will be successful before you even start it, – and that's by doing your homework. It seems an obvious thing to say, but so many fail at the first hurdle by jumping straight in without a correct plan of action. As the saying goes, – 'Fail to plan, plan to fail'.

The common mistake made by budding online entrepreneurs, is creating (or taking stock of) a product and then trying to sell it via their website. Those Internet Marketers who really know the secrets to online success however do the complete opposite; they find a hungry market first and then simply provide them products tailored to their interests. It's a devastatingly simple concept, but then most of the best and most successful methods are usually!

So what does this homework entail and how do we go about it?

As well as being the largest marketplace ever seen, the Internet is also the best possible research tool to find out about specific markets. It allows us to go through many different processes to determine the overall popularity of 'niche markets', – and the fact that it gives us so many methods in which to market market research, means we should get pretty comprehensive results.

Wordtracker and Google's own keyword search.

Check some of the keywords or phrases that relate to your market – see how many people have been using them to search. Ideally you're looking for upwards of 2000 daily searches for a very popular niche.

Google AdWords Advertisements.

Type in your niche subject into Google and check if there are many people already advertising their products with Google AdWords. These advertisements are listed down the right side of Google's search results. If you see the same adverts repeated continuously then it's safe to assume it's because they work and that the product on offer is selling well.

Google Search Results.

While you're there check the search results themselves for sheer volume of sites. You're not necessarily just looking for commercial sites related to your proposed niche, more just websites in general to get an idea of ​​the level of interest.

YouTube Videos.

How many videos are listed when you type in your particular subject, and how many views have the videos received? YouTube is a massive research tool; more and more people are searching for and publishing video content all the time. The figures that YouTube attach to each video allow us to see exactly how many people have viewed in a specific time frame.

Groups, Forums, Message Boards, Facebook.

These are places where you find groups of people all interested in the same topic, have a look to see if those catering for your market are a hive of activity. Facebook in particular is gaining in popularity at an astonishing rate; you will get a pretty clear idea of ​​the popularity of your niche by checking out the Facebook groups centred on it.

ClickBank Products.

A huge marketplace of digital products, at the last count well over 50,000 covering all manner of subjects and interests, are there many there that relate to your market?

Printed Books and Magazines.

Search around Amazon for books that cater for your niche, are there many and is there a lot of feedback or customer reviews for them? What about printed magazines, a printed magazine has to have many advertisers and tens of thousands of readers to fund its very existence.

This is just a brief overview of the research methods you can use, but in general you are looking for big numbers in your searches and a lot of activity within the forums and such like. A mistake often made is to launch products into quiet markets, believing that there will not be any competition and there before being able to corner that market easily. The reality is that no competition usually means no interest and no buyers, – so the last thing you want to be doing is going into a niche area that appears to be lacking in interest.

Remember, find the hungry market first and then feed it!