Find and Grow a Profitable Niche With Google Trends
Successful internet marketers know that finding a profitable niche and high-traffic keywords are foundations of a moneymaking online business.
Leave it to Google to help with both—and, of course, for free.
The secret, if you haven't used it yet, is Google Trends.
Like the coolest kid at school, it always knows what's hot and what's not.
Identify New Niches
Why develop products and services only to find nobody wants them?
Google Trends lets you find emerging markets by tracking searches. So you can create products and services for under-served customers.
And instantly. Just visit the Google Trends homepage and see what's hot.
For example, right now, "tapeworm" is the number one search on Google:
You probably never thought about creating products to help people fight tapeworms.
But the market, and the profit, might be there.
Validate Potential Niches
Of course, you should probably validate that there's long-term interest in tapeworms.
And here's another astounding use for Google Trends.
Just visit the site, enter keywords and see how interest in them has changed over time.
A search for "tapeworm" reveals that, in fact, there has been steady interest, with occasional spikes like today's:
Target Rising Keywords
Once you validate your niche, you can also use Google Trends to determine what keywords to target.
For example, at Commune we offer web writing services.
People looking for "web writing" might also search for "online writing," "writing for the web" and "website writing."
Using Google Trends, we can see how searches for these different keywords have changed over time.
What we learn is that "online writing" has the greatest sustained traffic:
So if you're growing an online business, or starting a new one, you might want to spend some time analyzing trends. (Did I mention it's addictively fun?)
And if you've already started? Post your examples or tips in the comments below.
Comments
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In your opinion - do you think that trends could be improved by including some of the associated words in the search terms?
From a writing or SEO standpoint, knowing the context of the word usage could be a benefit.
To use your example, searches with the word "tapeworm" could be;
"how do I cure tapeworm"
"tapeworm + Medicine"
"tapeworm infections"
etc
All of which can point a company making tapeworm medication to improve their ability to capture search traffic.
Now tapeworm is a pretty specific word.
But in more generic terms, say "Web Writing" :-)
Knowledge of the other words used in association could enable better data.
Regards,
Elliot
Elliot, good point.
I usually turn to Google Keywords when I want to get more specific. If you use a broad match search, it will find keywords and phrases related to a potential hot niche. From there I learned, for example, that "tapeworm diet" gets about 2,400 searches a month. Yes, apparently people are interested in using tapeworms to lose weight. Whoa. Gross, but probably profitable. Capture 10% of those searches for a $50 e-book on the tapeworm diet, and you're looking at $1,200 per month.
You can use Google Trends to compare more specific keywords, but currently I think Google Keywords is better. So I suggest starting with Trends, then using Keywords to refine your positioning and keyword targeting.
Let me know if you hit on a hot and profitable trend!