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!
