|
|
|
Affiliate Programs – The Fast Track to Wealth
Copyright 2005 Peter Dobler
Remember the day when you made the ultimate decision to change your life? Yes, it was the day when you decided to start your own home business. Gosh, I remember the anxiety when I uploaded my very first web site,...
Auto-Pilot Link Building Strategy for Content-Sites
OK, this is what I consider a very effective method to get people to link to you without you having to ask them to do so. The best part is that, people will link to you for your most targeted keyword. I happen to discover this method after seeing...
Avoid Search Engine Blacklisting
The best way to avoid being blacklisted by the search engines is to avoid using some questionable techniques that were once popular to gain high rankings. Even if your website is not blacklisted by using some of the techniques below, it may be...
How to Create a Lifetime Commissions Affiliate Program
====================================================== How to create a lifetime commissions affiliate program Christopher Pearce, http://LifetimeCommissions.com ====================================================== Affiliate programs are a great...
Link Popularity Explained and How To Build Links
Link popularity is the single most influential factor for determining how well a web site will perform in search engine rankings. A web site's link popularity is computed from the number and more importantly, the quality of links pointing to a...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Market Research Means Money
I recently made a critical mistake in my progression towards business success. I had decided that I was going to make some money with an online store. After a bit of brainstorming, I picked a few things that I thought might be good to sell online. I then started to look for suppliers. This may seem like a reasonable course of action, but it is not. It is missing a key component of any business plan: Market Research.
Competition is involved with any business. Even if you make your own, unique product, similar products will compete against yours. But the existence of competition is not necessarily bad. The fact that online retailers are selling items similar or identical to your own means that people want your product. Competition is only bad for you when the market is becoming saturated.
Check the electronics market for a good example. Electronics go for rock-bottom prices online because there are so many stores that sell them. The difference in prices between stores often comes down to the cost of shipping. Competition in this area is extreme.
Electronics dealers depend on volume, and very good suppliers, to make their money. Small retailers cannot sell at those prices and turn a profit.
In order to be successful it is essential that you know what you’re up against. If you are selecting your products, then you need to know which stores already sell those products. You need to know how many stores there are, how much they are charging and, if you can find out, how well they are doing. Could you sell for less (if only a little)? What are other ways you could differentiate your store?
If you already have your product, then you need to know where and how your competitors are advertising. Are they concentrated in one location? Are there good places that they have overlooked? How much is it going to cost to compete with them for prime ad space?
So where do you begin? The answer is Overture. Owned by Yahoo, Overture is one of the largest pay-per-click advertising services. What you need for research are two tools in the Overture Advertiser Center. The first is the Search Term Suggestion Tool. This tool allows you to look up a keyword, like “digital camera”, and find out how many searches there were for that term last month. The tool will also suggest a list of related terms, like “digital camera review”.
The number of searches per term comes from Overture’s partners like Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista, CNN, etc. This is critical information because it tells you whether or not people are looking for your product online and, at the same time, shows you how they are searching for it. This indicates a certain interest for your product.
You may be able to judge the amount of interest by the number of searches for your terms. For example:
Digital Camera – 1,337,422 (high interest)
Used Car – 890,346
Mountain Bike – 133,553
Blender – 26,648
Bubble Gum Machine – 1,502
Chapstick Raspberry Vanilla – 25 (very low interest)
Tip: Users searching for ‘digital camera’ are not necessarily shopping for one. They may just want information.
Also: If people are searching on Yahoo and MSN, then you can bet that even more people are searching for the same things on Google.
The second tool Overture provides is the View Bids Tool. This allows you to take the keywords that you found and see how many ads there are for each term and how high the bids are (higher bids get top listings). This can help you judge your competition.
For example, at the time of this writing there are 131 ads for the term digital camera. The top bid is 79 cents. Bubble gum machine has 13 ads with a top bid of 49 cents. Chapstick Raspberry Vanilla has no bids on the term which means that the top spot could be purchased for the minimum price of 10 cents per click.
Google is your likely next step. To my knowledge, Google analysis tools are only available to registered advertisers. However, it is easy to find your competition on Google. Simply enter your search term and check the right side of the results screen. Those ads are from the top advertisers. Checking subsequent pages will reveal the entire list of advertisers for that term.
Tip: Sometimes advertisers target your term, but don’t sell your product. Read the ads and visit the sites to get a more accurate idea of your direct competitors.
The natural results (the normal, non-ad results) of your search are important as well. Check those to see the top ranked sites in your market. Users are much more likely to click on the natural results than they are the ads. The stores at the top of the list are likely to be well established and may represent some solid competition.
Visit your competitor’s web sites and see what they are selling. Get names and site locations. This may seem time consuming, but it will help with future research. Check for site quality, organization, and ease of use. If their site is ugly or hard to navigate, that can work to your advantage.
Next, check out Yahoo Shopping. Retailers setup stores with Yahoo’s services and are then included in Yahoo Shopping’s listings. This can be a good way to get fast traffic. For market research, it means easy access to competitor sites. On the Yahoo Shopping main page, do a search for your product (Braun blenders for example). The results show sponsored ads and normal listings. The sponsored ads come from Overture, so you should already be familiar with those.
The normal listings come from Yahoo Product Submit results and Yahoo’s web-crawler database. What is important in this list is displayed just below the top sponsor listings and just above the normal listings. There should be two numbers: Number of products and the number of stores. ‘Braun blenders’ shows 989 products from 76 stores (at time of writing). Those numbers give you an indication of how many stores you’re up against.
Finally, visit eBay. Find the eBay Stores area (located in the Specialty Sites box on the homepage at time of writing). Enter your search term to see how many eBay stores are selling your product. ‘Braun blenders’ shows ten items in eBay stores. The search may show regular listings below the store results. These results can give you some idea your product’s popularity as well as the feasibility of selling it on eBay.
Remember, some competition is good because it shows that there is an interest in your product. Too much competition is bad because it means low profitability. The spot where you can make good money is somewhere in between. A solid business plan built on thorough market research will certainly boost your chances significantly.
About the Author
Jason Carr is a small business owner, dedicated student of e-commerce strategy, and producer of BeginBiz, an online resource for those looking to start an internet business. Check BeginBiz for more help with your market research, advertising, web hosting, or domain registration.
|
|
|
|
|
| Yahoo! Domains: Secure Domain Name Registration |
| This is a useful feature if you own multiple domain names. Complete Domain (DNS) Control. Advanced users: You can easily edit your name servers and MX, A, ... |
| smallbusiness.yahoo.com |
|
| Register domain names, domain name registration and domain name ... |
| Trust Register.com for domain names, domain name registration, domain name transfers, web hosting, easy-to-build Web sites, personalized email, reliable web ... |
| www.register.com |
|
| Web Hosting, web site design and domains from Network Solutions |
| Web Hosting, web site design, domain names and SSL certificates from Network ... Domain Names | Web Hosting | Web Design | SSL Certificates | Sell Online ... |
| www.networksolutions.com |
|
| WHOIS Search provides domain registration information from Network ... |
| Network Solutions WHOIS searches across multiple registrar databases to give you registration information on millions of domain names with many different ... |
| www.networksolutions.com |
|
| 123 Domain Names UK. Expert UK Domain Name Registration |
| Search and register UK domain names securely online. Low prices on all UK domain names with free support and advice. |
| www.123domainnames.co.uk |
|
| Domain name - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| Letters are ASCII A–Z and a–z; domain names are compared case-insensitively. ... Fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) are sometimes written with a final dot ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
|
| Internet Domain Name Registration, Domain Transfers. Your domain ... |
| GoDaddy.com: Pay less for domain names. Register your .com, .net and .org domains. Bulk pricing and private domain name registration options. |
| www.godaddy.com |
|
| Search, reserve, register domain names from checkdomain.com |
| Search, look up, check, reserve, purchase, register, back-order domain names, internet / Web addresses, URLs for any country in the world from ... |
| www.checkdomain.com |
|
| Nominet UK |
| Official registry for .uk domain names. |
| www.nominet.org.uk |
|
| Domain Names, Web Hosting, Web Design, Search Engine Optimisation ... |
| Melbourne IT is a world leader for domain name registration, offering search engine optimisation, web hosting, email plans, and website design. |
| www.melbourneit.com.au |
|
| Australia Domain Name Registration Services | .com.au Domains |
| Australian Domain Names | Aust Domains, Domain Name Registration and Website Hosting Australia. Aust Domains is an Australian favorite domain name registrar ... |
| www.austdomains.com.au |
|
| Buy Domain Names UK Web Hosting Dedicated Servers Broadband |
| UK based specialists in domain name registration, web hosting, dedicated servers and web design. All domain names come with free web and email forwarding. |
| www.lowcostnames.co.uk |
|
| Domain Name Registration || NetRegistry || .com.au $44.95 ... |
| Great value domain names with domain certificate, 24/7 domain name and service management through Control Panel, plus $1000s savings on leading Australian ... |
| www.domain.netregistry.com.au |
|
| Easily.co.uk - Search domain names, domain name registration ... |
| All US and UK domain names registered. Realtime name checker with full WHOIS. |
| easily.co.uk |
|
| Trademark Registration of Internet Domain Names |
| Home · Index · Search · System Alerts · Business Center · News and Notices · Contact Us. Trademark Registration of Internet Domain Names ... |
| www.uspto.gov |
|
| Netfirms - Web Hosting, Domain Names and E-commerce for Small Business |
| Netfirms provides free Web hosting, domain names, web page design tools and email for small business. |
| www.netfirms.com |
|
| Domain name registration from 123-reg |
| Register family, company & project domain names now, before someone else does! ... 123-reg dedicated servers, high performance hosting for your domain names ... |
| www.123-reg.co.uk |
|
| InterNIC | FAQs on the Domain Names, Registrars, and Registration |
| Information about who is responsible for domain names is publicly available to ... The rules and policies for registering domain names in the ccTLDs vary ... |
| www.internic.net |
|
| What is domain name? - A Word Definition From the Webopedia ... |
| Home page for Network Solutions, currently acting as the exclusive registrar of Internet domain names within the .com, .net, .edu and .org top-level domains ... |
| www.webopedia.com |
|
| Domain Name Registration, Domain Names, Web Hosting from Aplus.Net |
| domain name registration, domain names, domain register, register domain name, web site design, email services, domain name transfer, domains, email address ... |
| domains.aplus.net |
|
|