Google is one of the best tools to conduct market research on your ebook topic. It’s the most popular search engine people use to find information. Using the list of the web sites below will help determine if your ebook idea will be a profitable one.
google.com/trends – provides trends of what people are searching for.
www.google.com/alerts – subscribe to google alerts to receive up to date news based on your topic. This content can also be used to update your blog.
Google.com – use quotes around your keyword to display the number of sites in google. Not using quotes will give you a larger number because it includes other words mixed in with your primary keyword.
allintitle:keyword – enter allintitle:keyword in the google search box to find sites that display your keyword in the title of their web site.
allinanchor:keyword – enter allintitle:keyword in the google search box to find sites that display your keyword in the anchor text.
link:www.competitorssite.com – enter link:www.competitorssite.com in the yahoo.com search box to display the number of backlinks for a competing site.
Forums and Blogs
To find a list of forums or blogs in your niche enter keyword+forum or keyword+blog in the Google search box. Participate in conversations related to your niche by interacting in the forums and commenting on blogs.
Survey your niche
Use http://www.surveymonkey.com/ to survey potential customers in your niche.
Per Per Click
Create a pay per click campaign to determine if people are interested in your niche. Write different ads to see which one pulls the best then use this content in your ebook and on your web site.
Read
“The Definitive Guide to Google AdWords”
and
“Find your best keywords using PPC”
Note: Use an excel spreadsheet to display the results of your research. This makes it much easier to view the whole process
and decide what topic you will write your ebook about.
Working through this market research phase will help determine if your ebook will be profitable. You will know where your audience resides on the Net, what the latest trends are, how much advertisers are willing to pay how popular your topic is and if you can make money with it.
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Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Site Design, Web Hosting, Search Engine Optimization
