In it’s most naked form, niche marketing is nothing more than targeting specific keywords and phrases and optimizing your website with these search terms.  When done successfully, a potential buyer will type any one of your researched keywords into a search engine, like Google, and see your website – or a link to your website – within the first 3 positions of the search results.  They will click the link and be directed towards the indexed page of content on your website and (hopefully) follow through to purchase your product or click your recommendation.

Now this may seem easy enough in theory, but make no mistake, optimizing for the wrong set of keywords can do you a great deal of harm.  For example, the name of a product your promoting is also the name of a popular library in New York City – and instead of receiving targeted traffic who are looking for information on the product, you are receiving hundreds of hits every week with people looking for the architectural history of this library!

So how do you find the right keywords to target?

Well the most common tool used for uncovering profitable keywords is Wordtracker.  Their keyword research tool allows webmasters to dig deep within the databases of several popular search engines and reveal the exact phrases that people type into the search engines when they’re looking for something.  Take a look at the screen shot below:

I’ve typed the word “tattoo” into Wordtracker’s Keyword Research Tool, and I am shown the results taken from the databases of Google, MSN and Yahoo.  Having this power gives you the ability to not only see how many times a certain phrase is “searched for” but also how many existing websites are competing online for the same keyword.

With relation to niche marketing, you want to optimize your website and marketing efforts towards keywords which have a good demand (searches per day) with reasonably low supply (competing websites).  Targeting these phrases which have high demand and low supply will ensure that you rank on the first page of search engines when these specific terms are typed into the search query.  And with all that free targeted traffic coming to your website, the money will soon follow!

Once you’ve mastered the process of building keyword lists and knowing which keywords to target, you will notice immediately that your niche marketing efforts will begin to translate into clicks and dollars.  With a little bit of trial and error you can be on your way to dominating any niche regardless of its size!