We’ve been getting tickets about SOC problems recently (both captcha and blocks) BUT FEAR NOT we are on the case.

If our determination, desire, and commitment to correct the new SOC problems were manifested into an animal form, it would undoubtedly look like this unstoppable creature:

We are hard at work to find the solution. You all are the best of the best (SERIOUSLY) and we appreciate your patience. Thanks!

Micro Niche Finder’s Strength of Competition feature (SOC) is of tremendous help when hunting for potential niches. However, you can analyze the statistics of SOC further!

It’s incredibly easy. Pick a keyword, click on “SOC”, and a number will appear. Many people do not realize this, but by clicking on the number given for your SOC more information is at your disposal.

Strength of Competition Statistics

The first link is called “inanchor count”. By clicking on this, you will see how many times this exact phrase appeared in anchor text. For those of you unfamiliar with anchor texts, it’s the text that acts as a link (usually its either bolded, underlined, or a different color than the rest of the text). By clicking on the anchor text, the viewer is transported to another page via these backlinks.

The second link is called “intitle count”. This shows how many times this exact phrase has appeared in webpage title tags. Likewise, the “inurl count” shows how many times that exact keyword appears in urls.

Generally speaking, for all of these figures, lower is better. For example, if the SOC light is green but the inanchor count is high and if all of the niches statistics look promising, this niche should not be discarded solely because of high inanchor counts. If all of these counts are low though, it’s should be easy to dominate the niche with a little common sense, action, and work. These tidbits of information are helpful to find out more about your competitors and their websites.

If you want a comprehensive understanding of how Micro Niche Finder works, read through more of the blog postings on this website. However, the following list is a condensed version of the guideline to help you pick a niche!

Market Guidelines:

1.) Exact Search Count:  2000+

2.) Exact Phrase Match <= 30,000

3.) SOC color not red.

4.) If it’s related to a consumer product that can be purchased:
     OCI > 50%

Once again, the best way to use Micro Niche Finder to your advantage is to truly understand how it works and how its features utilize information. This type of information is found throughout this blog, but the list above should definitely help!

One of the most anticipated features of Micro Niche Finder 4.1.0 is the new Background Download Service.

The Micro Niche Finder Background Download Service is installed with Micro Niche Finder 4.1.0 as a Windows service, which means it runs in the background whenever your computer is running.

You must be connected to the internet in order for the Background Download Service to function properly.

The service can download Exact Match Phrase Counts, Ad Cost, OCI and SOC in the background, allowing you to continue working with Micro Niche Finder while the results are being collected.

The service is set to pull information at a slow interval, to minimize the risk of being blocked by Google. It can pull up to 3 separate results each minute.

For this reason, we recommend using the service during “down time” (perhaps before going to bed) — simply perform a few searches in Micro Niche Finder, select which results to download in the background, exit Micro Niche Finder and go to bed. In the morning, you should find your results!

If you add results to the service “queue”, please be aware that performing additional queries (like clicking the Get Exact Match or Get SOC links) within the program will increase your odds of being blocked. the service attempts queries at a “reasonable” rate in order to minimize the odds of a block, and any additional queries will increase the burden on Google’s servers.

We’ll post more about this exciting feature over the next few days. In the meantime, if you have questions about the service, please email Micro Niche Finder Support.

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!

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.