How to Find Profitable Niche Ideas for Websites, Blogs and Articles

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By David Sarokin
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Find Your Niche

A "niche" topic is internet shorthand for: "find something that people are searching for, but not too many people are writing about". The idea is that, with the right niche topic, a writer can quickly rise to the top of search engine results, get plenty of traffic for their webpage or blog, and earn good money from advertising revenue. A niche can be the focus of a website, or you can write a niche article, here at eHow, or at many other user-contributed-content sites on the internet. You can also practice niche blogging. But how to find an available and profitable niche? Here are some steps you can take.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Step 1

**Combine the Old With the New**

Be on the alert for new twists to old, familiar topics. This can be an excellent tool for search engine optimization, and put you right to the top of Google search results.

The best way to do this is to pay attention to the news. For instance, there are tons of articles on the topic of forec1osure -- How to avoid it, how to delay it, how to negotiate, etc.

But the other day, I saw a news item on a new strategy for challenging them called "produce the n0te" (pardon the strange typing...I'm trying to avoid off-topic keywords). I knew nothing about the topic, but a quick search told me what I needed to know to write an article. It also showed me there was not much on the topic here at eHow, so I had the niche all to myself (at least, at eHow). There also wasn't much overall niche blogging or web content on the topic, so I could 'occupy' the niche topic on the overall internet as well.

That article has quickly become a high-earning article for me, and places quite nicely in search results.
Step 2

**Get With It**

New catch phrases, personalities, catastrophes, movies, notable events and all sorts of other things are coming into being all the time. They quickly become part of the culture and change our vocabulary.

Think of all the words and phrases we use today that hardly had any mention a year or two ago: stimulus package, President Obama, Biggest Loser, vampire slayer.

If you can be among the first to create a website or blog on one of these new topics, or create a quick, high-quality article here at eHow, you make a fast claim to owning the webspace. With luck, the niche is now yours.

Newspapers, magazines, and TV and internet news are some of your best sources of inspiration. News writers love breaking the scoop on the latest trends. Look through the sections of the newspaper -- even the ones you don't usually read -- with niche topics in mind, and you'll be surprised how many possibilities jump out at you.
Step 3

**Use Google Suggest**

I find Google Suggest to be a terrific tool for exploring what people are searching for, and finding a good niche topic to write about. It's not the simplest of tools, but I've had good success in getting several of my niche articles in Top Ten Google results with Google Suggest. Take a look at Resources, below, for a write-up on how to put it to use.
Step 4

**Avoid the Flash in the Pan**

In addition to Google Suggest, there are plenty of other places to find hot searches, and the latest trends. In fact, there's also a Google Trends site that does exactly that.

However, be careful not to jump on too many short-term bandwagons. You want your articles to have long-term staying power. Picking 'Springsteen at the Superbowl' as a topic might get your website or article some good, quick traffic, but ask yourself if people will still be searching on that topic three or four years from now?

Comments

rachelsuecmpbl said

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on 8/11/2009 Thanks for the advice in this article! I recently subscribed to my city newspaper in effort to be more top of trends and events that might spark a niche. 5*s