So which comes first: narrowing down the niche idea or finding suppliers? It’s like the chicken or the egg question!
This is a question that is coming to my attention more and more as I teach others how to build their own internet businesses.
Narrowing down the niche:
- You want to have high demand (see www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion) – at least 16 searches per day to make the idea even worth your time
- You want to have minimal competition (use google and type in allintitle:”any keyword phrase” to see what the real competition is for Search Engine Placement – my target numbers are 30,000 competitors or less; this usually means that within 2-4 months I may be close to the front page of Google if I’m aggressive with other marketing strategies
- As your narrowing down the niche, you don’t want to get “over excited” because the other speed bump you may run in to is….Finding Suppliers
Keyword Phrase digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion allintitle:”keyword pharse”
target: 16/day+ target: less than 30,000
clogging 137.0/day ——————————37,100
clogging shoes 68.0/day ——————————-730
clogging cue sheets 23.0/day ——————————-285
Finding Suppliers – Why not look for these first?
- There are many ways to find suppliers: contact them directly, talk to competitors, use tools like TheShipper
As I think about it, why not look for suppliers first and then, when suppliers are found, think about keywords and phrases you can optimize with? To me, this seems much easier and a better way to manage time.
As I direct clients to a supplier I want to make sure they look for things that they already know something about; I let them know that they need to be prepared to write information concerning the product or industry they are leaning towards (or at least be willing to put in the time necessary to become a “guru” in that area). Granted, they don’t have to know everything about the products but they have to be willing to share valuable information related to the products in order to optimize most effectively. I plan to have a part 2 to this blog post: I think it’s very debateable and appreciate feedback.
What are your thoughts?