Update: Everything is completely fixed and safe now, and Google has since reindexed the site back to normal status. Thank you for being patient. Enjoy the helpful advice found in this blog!

Even though we completely removed the virus from www.micronichetool.com within minutes of it happening, Google is still reporting www.micronichetool.com as a potentually hazardous site. 

Plus, Google also reported the site to StopBadware.org which maintains a database of potentually hazardous sites.   This database is made available to virus protection software and if you are using a virus protection software that subscribes to this service the domain www.micronichetool.com will be blocked.   It is being blocked not because there is anything hazardous but simply because it is in the database at StopBadware.org 

Because of this additional issue we have set up an alternate site for Micro Niche Finder at www.micronichefinder.com.  All the old links will still work just substitute finder for tool in any url you are trying to access.

James

Early morning on Saturday January 24th an attack was launched against the Micro Niche Finder main index page at
www.micronichetool.com. The perpetrator was able to successfully inject a virus into the index.html page that attempts to download a program onto a visitor’s computer. If successfully installed on the user’s computer, the program could intercept search results from the user’s computer and display popup ads.

The malware was quickly discovered and removed from the page. The entire server was scanned, and no further infection was found. However, Google indexed the site while the malware was still active and is now displaying a warning message about www.micronichetool.com in its search index. The message reads… “This site may harm your computer” and links to this informative page

We have submitted a request to Google to re-evaluate www.micronichetool.com and hope to have the warning message removed on the next re-index.

If you visited the main index page at www.micronichefinder.com on the morning of Saturday January 24th your virus protection software should have protected your computer. However if you feel your computer may have been infected you can scan your computer with any of the following free programs:

http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad-aware_se_personal.php
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
http://macscan.securemac.com/download.html (Macs)

The cause of this problem is still being investigated and when we have more information we will share our findings on this blog. We regret this incident happened. However one good thing that will come out of this is we are planning on publishing a proactive solution that will show other webmasters how to keep this from happening to their websites in the future.

Please note that this was an html injection virus that only affected one page (the index.html page) on the Micro Niche Finder server. The Micro Niche Finder software and other pages on the site were not affected.

Thank you for your understanding and patience.

James J Jones

Update: Everything is completely fixed and safe now, and Google has since reindexed the site back to normal status. Thank you for being patient. Enjoy the helpful advice found in this blog!

Micro Niche Finder has lots of great features, and one of these is called the “Brainstorm” feature. Located at the very top of your Micro Niche Finder screen, you will see the space in which you type your search and buttons that say “search” “hot trends” and “brainstorm”.

If you are at an impasse and can’t think of a niche keyword or phrase to investigate, you can hit the “Brainstorm” button and Micro Niche Finder will automatically generate keywords that are being currently searched!

“Brainstorm” is useful because even if you don’t find a particular keyword that strikes your fancy, you may be inspired by a result and start a new keyword search on your own. If you are still at loss for a niche topic, you can always hit the “Brainstorm” feature repeatedly until you find a suitable niche.

Brainstorm

Upon purchasing Micro Niche Finder, you are entitled to several bonuses. These are not sent in separate files or zip folders, but retrieving them is simple.

On the main page of the Micro Niche Finder software, there is a button called “Downloads”. Click that button and you will be linked to the Micro Niche Finder downloads page were you can access all the bonus items.

Deciding what niche to pursue can be tricky, but the Commercial Intent (also called OCI) feature on Micro Niche Finder is very useful in weeding out the bad markets. Get to know this feature. Love this feature. It’s your new best friend.

When you search a keyword, your screen will show a myriad of details, including search count, exact phrase count, ad cost, commercial intent, and SOC. If you click on the commercial intent for a specific phrase, you will see a percentage appear on your screen. The numbers go from 0% to 100%. These percents indicate what percentages of people searching for this keyword are looking to make a purchase; because of this, you want your Commercial Intent number to be very high. While 100% commercial intent is possible (for not every person looking up a term will be inclined to buy), finding niches in the high 99 percentile is not uncommon.

Here is a quick example: If my search term is “Arizona Cardinals Logo”, the Commercial Intent is 98%. This means of all the people searching this term, 98% are actively trying to make a purchase. As a marketer, this little piece of information is very valuable. I can focus my energy on this term knowing that 98% of searchers are already inclined to make a purchase anyway!

However, if I choose the term “sea spiders” the Commercial Intent is 4%. This means only 4% of all people searching this term are actively looking to make a purchase. The money making odds from this keyword are dismal, and unless you are really passionate about the term it’s not worth your time.

There isn’t a percentage where terms become “bad” niches – but as stated earlier, you want high Commercial Intent percents. Generally speaking, if all other information on a term looks good (exact phrase count, ad cost, etc.) anything above 60% Commercial Intent is sufficient. If you want to do a phrase but the Commercial Intent isn’t very high you can still proceed – but you will have to work a little bit harder to encourage people to actually make purchases.

One word of caution about Commercial Intents: while you do want a high commercial intent percent, don’t rely on it alone to make decisions as to which niches to pursue. Make sure all the other data (exact matches, ad costs, etc) support your cause. For example, if a keyword has a 99% OCI but the Strength of Competition is 302 and thus has a red light, the keyword is not very good after all. However, if your keyword is supported by good data and has a very high OCI percent, you’ve probably found a great potential niche!

Commercial Intent (OCI)

Micro Niche Finder is a phenomenal tool to help you find targeted niches and earn money. The wealth of information and figures it gives for each search term is extraordinary and immensely helpful. With all of this information at their fingertips, sometimes people unwittingly embark on a wild goose chase for “the perfect niche”. To prevent this from happening to you, it’s important to understand the problem of perfection on the internet. Let’s be crystal clear about something: there is no such thing as a “perfect” niche. Perfection is an unattainable standard in the world of internet marketing (and dare I say, life) and this is true for niches.

It’s easy to get caught up in the numbers and there is no equation to discover a “perfect” niche. Some people become very concerned that, “if SOC is x, even though Ad Cost is y, and Search count is z” the niche will or will not be profitable. If you are chasing absolute perfection, your time is better spent elsewhere.

Agonizing over the “perfect niche” is nothing more than an exercise in futility; what’s worse, it prevents action from taking place. It is far preferable act on a not so good niche than to do nothing and wait for a “perfect” niche (which as we have seen, won’t materialize). However, the best way to have success with niche marketing to is to spring to action on a great niche and continually work on making it better and better. Micro Niche Finder’s great strength is eliminating the bad niches so that you can concentrate on the potentially great niches!

What distinguishes a great niche, you ask? Well there are many factors involved, but a couple guidelines I will detail here act as a foundation that has been proven time and time again to work. And by the way, all of the concepts below will be explained in further details in other posts.

When you search a term, you want to the search count to be high. What is a high search count? It varies based on your topic, but anything < 30 is almost always not worth bothering with. Think of it this way: most classrooms in America have about 30 students in the class…would you focus all your energy on a group of people that could fit into a classroom? Of course not. A better use of your time would be to move on and set your sights higher. While this number is nowhere near set in stone (and it depends a lot on what your topic is), numbers in the 500 or greater range are best.

More importantly, the smaller the Exact Phrase Count the better. Less then 35,000 is preferable. I won’t go into depth about why the Exact Phrase Count is so important, but you can read a detailed post about it here: The Exact Match Paradox .

Next up is the Ad Cost, and this won’t pertain to everybody. If Google Adwords or Adsense appeals to you and is part of your marketing plan, this feature will prove useful. The number given in this category is the cost to be ranked #1 on Google Adwords. Whether or not you want a higher number or not depends on your marketing strategy, your budget, and your phrase. There are advantages and disadvantages, but whether or not Ad Cost is right for you will be discussed in another post under the “Ad Cost” category.

The OCI (Commercial Intent) tool will tell you what percentage of people who looked up this term are lookng to make a purchase. You want a HIGH percentage in this category (but remember, 100% does not exist). A percentage in the high 90’s are basically screaming for your marketing attention, but generally anything above 60% will do. Anything lower than that can work, but it really depends on what your specific phrase and topic is and how you plan on utilizing it. If you take nothing else away from this post, remember that for Commercial Intent HIGHER is BETTER!

Finally we get to the Strength of Competition (SOC). For the nuances and full explanations of SOC, read other posts in the SOC category. In short, you want to see a green light with a checkmark in it appear. As I say, “Green to Go”! This means the competition is very little, and having fewer competitors is always better for you. If you see a yellow light with an exclamation point, it means there is a decent amount of competition out there, and if the niche isn’t particularly compelling to you, you may want to consider moving on. On the other hand, you may want to press on if all the other information looks great, but be prepared to put in extra time to conquer your competition. A yellow sign is your call. Look at your information, consider your plans for this niche, and trust your gut.

If a red sign comes up, don’t bother. There is simply too much competition and the odds of you making even a small dent are extremely small. Yes, the other information might look great and enticing, but you’ll put in time and effort and get little to no returns. It will only frustrate you. Save your sanity and move on.

These are the main components of Micro Niche Finder, in a nutshell. As I said before, for more information, look in each category for more detailed posts.

To illustrate all of the ideas discussed above, take my quick example.

I searched : Snowboards

One phrase that caught my eye was: Airwalk Snowboards
It’s search count: 14,800 . That’s a good number for this category.
It’s Exact Phrase Count: 1,400,000 . My interest is piqued; this is an extremely high number.
It’s Ad Cost: .57 . Not bad. Depends on your ad scheme though.
It’s Commercial Intent: 97% . Very nice. Higher is Better and this is way up there.
It’s Strength of Competition : 21,400! RED LIGHT! There is NO way I’m going to invest my time on this topic. Even though everything else looked pretty magnificent, I must abandon this.

So I tried this other phrase that caught my eye: lib tech snowboards
It’s search count: 2,900 . It’s lower than the Airwalk ones, but it’s still a pretty high number compared to the rest of the category.
It’s Exact Phrase Count: 19,900. That’s a decent number compared to the other Airwalk search, but I feel optimistic. The relationship between almost 20,000 (exact phrase) to 3,000 (search count) is promising.
It’s Ad Cost: .66 . This is significantly higher than the Airwalk phrase! If I go the Ad route, I will pay more to put this term on Adwords, but the potential profit is higher. It’s a reasonable amount.
It’s Commercial Intent: 96% Nice. I love high 90’s. Not as high as Airwalk, but close.
It’s Strength of Competition: 32! GREEN LIGHT! What a difference compared to the Airwalk phrase!

I would pick the second one – it’s a targeted keyword, a good amount of people are looking for that specific term monthly, the Commercial Intent is nice and high, and the Strength of Competition is low. If I want to incorporate Ads, the Ad Cost is satisfactory. This term is far from perfect, but as I stated earlier, perfection does not exist. Rather than agonize and recalculate over and over, I will take action on this. I’ll have to work on it, but this term provides a great start.

Moral of the story? Don’t agonize over perfection, for the perfect niche doesn’t exist. Look at the data and find a good niche to build on, and above all, perform the one step many people fail to do – take action!

Manage Searches Feature

The Manage Searches feature on Micro Niche Finder is a very convenient way to store and retrieve your previous searches. Here’s a scenario that may seem familiar:

During brainstorming sessions, your searches may progress in different directions – you might start investigating the phrase “vacation homes in Spain” for example, only to realize that “how to learn Spanish” is a far more profitable phrase. While the vacations route can indeed work wonderfully, your focus has now completely shifted to “learning Spanish” and developing this phrase into your articles, blogs, websites, squidoo lenses, affiliate products, etc.

After some time goes by, the “learn Spanish” phrase is working and encouraged by the results you want to incorporate more Spanish-orientated things into your arsenal…but you can’t remember what the great phrase you originally searched was!

That’s where the Manage Searches Feature comes in handy: simply click on the “Manage Searches” tab on the top right corner of your screen (next to the “home” and “Back” tabs) and every term you have ever searched will display on your screen in alphabetic order.

Viola! That great term you wanted to dust off and use will be listed and you can start your newest enterprise.

While the SOC feature does give a number when clicked on, there is a color coding system to help make it even easier for you to see the strength of competition level.

There are three colors:

Green – There is a checkmark in the Green Icon. If your phrase has a Green SOC, that means the strength of competition is very low. This is the best color you can get because it means you won’t have to divert too much of your time beating the competition.

Yellow – There is an exclamation point in the Yellow Icon. This means there is a fair amount of competition. If the phrase is not particularly compelling to you or if the data supporting it is weak, you may want to consider forgoing this phrase. If you like the phrase and the other data looks good, you may want to continue with this phrase. It’s a personal choice. There is no right or wrong here, but trusting your instincts is a good idea.

Red – There is an “x” in the Red Icon. If your phrase has a Red SOC, stop. It’s highly recommended that you abandon the phrase and try something else. Red signifies the highest strength of competition. If you pursue the phrase, you will put in lots of creativity, time, and energy for scraps (if that). Even if all the other data looks enticing, if the SOC reveals itself to be red, it’s best to let the phrase go no matter how painful it may be. There are other terms that are friendlier – find them.

Micro Niche Finder’s internal program distinguishes which tier to put them by looking at the numeric value given with the color.

If your SOC is Green, that means the strength of competition is 50 or less. It’s very low and it’s the ideal place you want to be.

If your SOC is Yellow, that means the strength of competition is 51 – 299.Yellow is completely your call. If it’s on the low end of the spectrum, say, at 55, you may want to press on. If it’s on the high end, such as 295, you may want to reconsider.

If your SOC is Red, that means the strength of competition is 300+. It is highly advised that you find another term.

Sometimes when you run the “Get Checked Exact Phrase Counts” or “SOC” query you may see some of the following alerts:

-”Google has blocked search result. This may be phrase specific. Please try again later.”

-”Google has blocked this search quest,and did not provide a CAPTCHA image. This may be phrase-specific. Please try a different phrase.”

-”We’re sorry, but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus of spyware application. To protect our users we cannot process you request right now.”

Why would Google block specific search queries, you say? Well, the third response offers some insight.

When you try too many exact count or SOC searches at one time, warning flags arise on Google’s end. Google does not like viruses, spam, spyware, malware, etc. (but then, who does?). If you search too many exact count or SOC searches, Google will think that YOU are one of those malicious entities and will temporarily halt your search capabilites. It usually does not last more than a couple hours.

There is no way to go around this as it is an intrinsic part of Google’s security in an effort to keep things “fair”. Setting your search engine courtesy to maximum when you run an SOC or exact match search may help; however, the best way to prevent this is to just be very selective as to which keywords you run an exact match search or SOC. Don’t run wild with the exact match/SOC clicks – use them when everything else across the board looks promising.

Here are the most common solutions to activation problems:

1) Micro Niche Finder is Licensed to one computer. If you’re trying to use the same receipt number on a second computer it won’t work. If you’d like to switch your receipt to a different computer see this post Switch Micro Niche Finder to a Different Computer

2) You’re entering the receipt wrong. Some receipts have “zeros” that look like “ohs” for example: 7806HGVB — the third character is a 0 (zero) not an O (oh). Best thing to do is copy and paste the receipt number into the activation box.

3) Firewall issue. If you have a firewall it may be blocking the activation. Try turning off the firewall temporaily then trying to activate again. When you turn the firewall back on be sure to allow Micro Niche Finder access.

4) Try reseting your receipt. You can do this by clicking the “Click here to reset your receipt number and activation status” link on the main screen.

5) If you still have problems email support. Be sure to include your receipt number when you email support.