Now you may have read my previous posts What is Internet Marketing and How to make money from my website and would really like to try this Internet Marketing thing. But how to get started? This is the next post in a series of How to get started with Internet Marketing which is now called the Newby Course. I will try and ‘walk’ you through the whole process.

First steps

There are a few different ways to approach this. You can just register the first domain that comes into your head, get a quick free website and off you go. Sometimes I have this tendency to jump right in when I have a great idea. Although this can be good sometimes, it is usually better to do research and plan for your new online marketing business.

Start your research

Find a topic you are passionate about

Start by thinking about what your passions are. What do you know a lot about? Start with just a piece of paper. You can also create a mind map and visualize all your ideas. If you like to get more inspiration for possible subject areas then there are several online research tools that you can use.

Googles Zeitgeist lets you check which topics are HOT at the moment.

Lycos Top 50 also lets you review the latest trends and you may also like to try Yahoo Buzz and Ebay Pulse which is a good place to start looking at sub niches. Just look at what sub categories are very popular here.

One relative newcomer as a research tool is Google Trends.

You can also investigate how many magazines there are on your niche by going to http://www.magazines.com . After that visit a magazine shop and look at the advertisements. Who is advertising and how many advertisers are there in your niche.

There are quite a few other sites that you use and a lot of them are explained in a Free report on finding a niche that I’m giving away.  All you need to is fill in the below form and I will send you the link to this free report.

Which products and services could you sell in that niche?

This is an important step because in some niche people don’t buy products. So find out if people spend money in your niche.

When you have zeroed in on about 5 topics, think about which products or services you could sell in that area or niche as it is called in internet marketing terms. Also think about which companies could possibly advertise on your site. This is an important step because in some niche people don’t buy products. So find out if people spend money in your niche.

As mentioned check the magazines and check how many digital products are being sold in your niche at Clickbank.

What is the competition doing?

Continue your research with a look at the competition. How many people are already operating in that area? One easy way to test that is to type the words into Google that someone would type in if they wanted to find your site. How many results come up? If you use Firefox, another great tool to use is the SEO book toolbar. It gives you lots of information about how many visitors your competition gets and many research tools. It is free to download at SEO Book.

Choose your niche

After your research, weigh up all the pros and cons of each particular niche and start thinking about a business name. Next time we will talk about how to get a domain name and website. Don’t miss a post and subcribe.