It comes from Katerina, who writes:

I have read all the ebooks and have the programs to find niches and still I come up empty handed because when you follow the directions you discover that most of the niches I like have a high demand but also high supply.

I have not found yet a niche that has a good demand but a low supply.

Are niches all dried up now?

Well, Katerina, if I said the Internet isn’t becoming more competitive, I would be lying. If I told you that finding a niche market on the Internet is as easy today as it was five years ago, I would be lying.

The Internet is a competitive hunting ground, and it’s only going to get more competitive — but does that mean all the good opportunities are gone?

NO!!!

You are talking about a business medium that allows you to reach every wired corner of the world from your computer at home. According the Internet World Stats, as of June 10, 2007 there were 1.133 BILLION people online — and it’s still growing at a phenomenal rate.

With those kinds of numbers, I’d be willing to guess there are still a few great opportunities waiting to be discovered!

However, the fact is: If your hobby or interest happens to be something like “golf” or “health products,” the chances of finding a niche are slim to none. These are saturated markets, and it’s time to expand beyond them.

If you are serious about making money online and you have explored your interests and have found them to be too competitive, then it’s time to broaden the scope of your search.

What would you enjoy learning more about? Don’t let your lack of knowledge stop you from exploring a topic you’re interested in. I know if I set aside an hour a day for the next month and immersed myself in an unfamiliar niche, I would have enough knowledge to start an online business based on that topic.

The point I am trying to make here, is don’t limit yourself to what you know today. Broaden the scope of your search and explore new niches where you aren’t already an expert — and all of sudden different potential businesses will start to appear.

My final comment is this: Don’t always write a business opportunity off simply because there’s some competition in the market. Rather, you should determine the viability of an opportunity by analyzing the quality of the competition.

If you look at the competition and believe you could do a better job meeting the needs of the market — if you can come up with a unique selling proposition that offers more value and truly differentiates you from all the other sellers out there — then you can be massively successful in an already competitive market.

Remember: Perseverance is key! Like Albert Einstein said:

It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.

To your success…

Derek Gehl

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Derek Gehl specializes in teaching real people how to start profitable Internet businesses that make $100,000 to $2.5 Million (or more) per year. To get instant access to all his most profitable marketing campaigns, strategies, tools, and resources that he’s used to grow $25 into over $60 Million in online sales, visit Internet Marketing Center

Every month, Derek’s private team of Internet marketing experts spend literally 1,000s of hours testing and researching all the latest marketing strategies, tools, and resources in every area of Internet marketing imaginable…

… They look for strategies that can quickly add $7,500 to $10,000 to your monthly income in less than 30 days in areas like search engine optimization, copywriting, email marketing, web design, product development, pay-per-click advertising, traffic generation, affiliate programs, and tons more!

They throw out all the ‘duds’ (anything not worth at least $1,000 in “extra profits” per week!) — and they pile up only the most cutting-edge strategies they’ve tested and proven to wildly profitable… right now!

And now, by popular demand, Derek has decided to give away unlimited access to all the most profitable test results from his laboratories.

So if you’ve been frustrated by how difficult it is to keep up with the lightning fast changes in Internet marketing, and you suspect that you’re making less money than you could be as a result, visit his new Internet Entrepreneur Club:

And you’ll discover how you can get instant password access! By the way… Derek’s also going to give the first 250 people to contact him UNLIMITED access to his team of Internet marketing specialists, so you can contact them 24/7 with as many moneymaking questions as you like!

His main topic for this month’s issue is Content Creation, and here’s a quick list of topics he covers:

• How to quickly and easily create your own infoproducts without doing any work yourself.
• How to get all the content you want created for your VRE empire without writing a single word.
• ‘Secret’ resources you can use to create killer products.
• The best web sites to use for finding content creation specialists.
• Little-known sources to find people who will happily create infoproducts or other content for you for pennies on the dollar.

John Reese has announced that the November 2006 RR will be The *BIG* Web 2.0 Issue! Here’s what’s coming in:

• What is Web 2.0 And Why Should You Care?
• Discover the Web 2.0 Sites That Can Bring You A Flood Of Free Traffic!
• How To Get Tons Of Opt-in Subscribers From Web 2.0 Sites!
• How To Create Your Own Web 2.0 Sites To Increase Your AdSense Earnings!
• A Complete List Of Web 2.0 Sites To Keep An Eye On!
• How To Tap Into Web 2.0 To Sell More Of Your Products And Services From Other People’s Referrals & Reviews!
• And Much, Much More!

If you’re not a subscriber, and you want to benefit from all the latest craze around Web 2.0 web sites like digg, del.icio.us, YouTube and others, it’s time to subscribe to The Reese Report. You have to invest in this information to be able to upgrade your income to version 2.0.

John starts this issue with the first two of Reese Rules, his set of rules for every serious Internet marketer to live by in order to establish and sustain a highly profitable business.

Reese Rule #1 –

…ahhh, I can’t publish this because of the non-disclosure agreement, sorry. This rule is crucial for your Internet business. Not following it can cost you many thousand of dollars in the next few years. But you can subscribe to The Reese Report right now and download the digital edition in five minutes.

Also in that issue…

• How to use eBay in your Internet marketing, even if you don’t sell on eBay
• eBay tools
• Other great tools and resources
• Marketing Makeovers, where John reviews websites submitted by The Reese Report subscribers, offering suggestions for improving. In this issue’s Makeover #1 John actually presents a website as an example of how a VRE site is supposed to look. This example alone can totally change the way you build your niche websites, that will result in earnings much higher than the subscription cost.
• Profitable niche markets
• Infoproduct opportunities

John Reese has announced what’s coming in the next issue:

• How to quickly & easily create your own infoproducts without doing any work yourself!
• How to get all the content you want created for your VRE empire without writing a single word!
• ‘Secret’ resources you can use to create killer products!
• The best web sites to use for finding content creation specialists!
• Little-known sources to find people who will happily create infoproducts or other content for you for pennies on the dollar!
• And much, much more!

John is offering a free copy, so that you’d test the waters before subscribing. He is very smart and you will learn a lot from reading his stuff.

Today I’m going to tell you how to increase the kind of web site traffic your business really needs…

AND build your crediblity…
AND improve your ranking in the search engines…
AND get your customers talking to others about you…

… all with a simple four-step process that won’t cost you a single dime.

Sound too good to be true? It’s not!

Let me give you a quick rundown of the plan before we dive in:

1. You’re going to find a handful of keywords that the ideal visitor to your site would use to search for your product.

2. You’re going to plug those keywords into your web site.

3. Then you’re going to write a SHORT article that contains those same keywords.

4. And finally, you’ll distribute your content all over the web and get people passing your information on to other people who will be interested in what you have to offer.

You’ll be surprised how quickly and easily you can get this strategy going — AND how fast you’ll see an impact on your traffic numbers when you put yourself on the radar of people who are looking for what you provide.

Let’s check out the first step in a little more detail…

STEP ONE: Set up your web site for maximum “searchability”!

If you haven’t taken the time to…

• figure out the keywords your potential customers might be using to search for your product AND
• place them throughout the copy on your site…

your traffic is going to be sluggish right off the bat.

How are the people who really want your information supposed to find you?

When I tell people that they’ve missed an important step in their traffic-building strategy, they always ask me: how are you supposed to figure out the right keywords for your web site?

Here are the two tools I recommend to help them with the job:

• Yahoo Search Marketing’s Keyword Selector Tool is a good place to start your investigation. You just type in a word or term you think people in your market might search for, and the Keyword Selector Tool will tell you how many people searched for that particular term in Yahoo Search Marketing over the last month.It will also show you a list of related words and phrases, and tell you how many times people typed those terms into the free search engines over the last month.This is a great way to find out how many people may be searching for information to solve a particular problem, and give you a picture of the demand for your product on the Web. But best of all, it gives you tons of ideas for keywords that you might never have thought of.

Once you’ve generated a list of useful keyword ideas, you’re ready to dig in and do some serious research with Wordtracker.

• Wordtracker goes into more depth to show you not only what people are searching for online, but also how many other web sites are competing for the same audience.Basically, it keeps a record of how many times a particular keyword or phrase was searched during the past 90 days across the Web.When you enter the keyword phrases your market is searching for, you search the Wordtracker database of over 330 million searches (or “queries”).

  You’re looking for search terms that are popular, but don’t have too many sites competing for them. You can also pop all of this detailed information into useful reports that help you determine which keywords and phrases will bring you the most traffic.

  To check out Wordtracker and get a step-by-step guide to the process, just head to: http://www.marketingtips.com/wordtracker and click “Tour” on the navigation bar.

  Wordtracker is a paid service, but you can sign up for a day for under $8.00 and a week for under $27.00. It’s a great investment.

STEP TWO: Plug your keywords into your site

Now that you have some great keywords for your market, find as many places as you can to plug them into your web site! Use them in your title tags, in your source code, in the copy on your pages, and in your opt-in offers.

If you find your domain name isn’t telling people what your web site is about or showing up in the right search results, consider purchasing a new one. A keyword-rich domain name is a small investment that really pays off by making your site easy for your potential customers to find and remember. (One quick note: remember to use only keywords relevant to your product — search engines will penalize you if they find keywords sprinkled through your code that have nothing to do with the content of your site.)

Now to move on to the next step — your foolproof way to snag people searching for your product on the Web and bring them back to your site!

STEP THREE: Create a keyword-rich article to distribute on the Web

When you’re ready, get your keywords, sit down, and write a keyword-rich article that relates to what you sell. Then give it away to other sites — for FREE!

Believe it or not, this is one of the best ways you can drive a steady stream of eager customers to your site.

Why does it work? Well, people basically come online for one of two reasons: To check their email or to look for information. Sure, some of them end up making purchases, but this is not generally the reason they log on. They want…

• the answer to a question
• the solution to a problem

That’s why it’s your job to give them that information, as it relates to your product. You already do that with the copy on your web site, but why stop there?

Writing a short, informative article to distribute on the Web is a great way to gain recognition as a valuable resource in your industry.

Of course, you’ll want to write about something that relates to your products or services, since the ultimate goal of the article is to drive visitors to your site who are interested in what you’re selling. But the article should be informative, not “sales-y”.

Make sure that each article you write contains rare, valuable, or hard-to-find information. Not only will this increase the chances that other site owners or managers will post your article, it will also increase the number of visitors who click through to your site after reading it.

For example, if you have a web site that sells used golf equipment, you could write an article about three things to look for in a good, pre-owned putter.

Or if you sell an eBook about setting up your own home computer network, why not write an article about common problems people have in setting up a wireless router?

Look for article ideas in the questions that people ask you all the time, or in the things you often see people doing wrong. Share hot new tips on how to use the products you sell, or talk about trends that you’ve spotted in your industry.

I’m not talking about a major essay here, though.

Did I just hear a big sigh of relief?

Nope — you don’t need to be a professional writer to turn out a solid, traffic-boosting article! Your quick piece should…

• be no longer than 400 words (not even a whole page!)
• contain a keyword related to your product in first 90 characters
• contain the keyword in the first and last paragraphs
• have a short, credibility-building “bio” with link to your site at the end. Here’s an example: “ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joe Smith is a recognized authority on the subject of widgets. His web site, www. JoesWidgets .com, provides a wealth of informative articles and resources on everything you’ll ever need to know about widgets.”

Now for the fourth step in this traffic-driving strategy.

STEP FOUR: Get your content headed EVERYWHERE on the Web

Once you’ve taken a few hours to write one or two quick articles, head to one of these top online content distribution sites. Upload your keyword-rich content to:

• http://www.contentdesk.com
• http://www.ezinearticles.com
• http://www.freesticky.com
• http://www.goarticles.com
• http://www.ideamarketers.com
• http://www.findsticky.com

It only takes a couple of minutes, but the rewards for your site will be huge.

These sites carry hundred or thousands of articles on a range of topics. If someone is looking for content for their web site, they can download or copy an article from the distribution site without paying a dime to use it!

They can’t change the text of the article, and they must publish it with the author’s name and information intact.

Now people who are plugging your keywords into search engines will be directed to your content at these highly-ranked sites, and web site owners who are looking for fresh, search engine- attracting content will download your article — along with your bio and link! — and put it up on their pages.

And once visitors see that you know what you’re talking about, they’ll click on the link in your bio, and head straight to your web site!

The best thing about this strategy is that these visitors are QUALITY, TARGETED traffic — they actually WANT what you’re selling, because you are meeting a need or giving them help with the problem they came online to solve!

Some content distribution sites also offer “send to a friend” links next to articles posted on their sites — so make sure you’re uploading your articles to sites with this kind of capability!

Every time someone enjoys your article enough to pass it on, your audience grows. And since people don’t forward BAD content on to their friends, they are basically recommending you as a credible source just by passing it on.

You can also create a “send to a friend” link on your own web pages with the help of a simple script added to your code. Here are some examples of what this kind of link might say:

• “Did you enjoy this article? To recommend it to a friend, click here…”
• “To pass this important info along to a friend or family member, click here…”
• “Share this with a friend — just click here…”
• “Can’t wait to tell a friend about this? Here’s how…”

To find scripts to make links like these ones fully functional, check out the resources at:

• http://www.freewebtemplates.com
• http://www.javascript.com
• http://www.scriptsearch.com
• http://www.hotscripts.com

The visitors who come to your site through articles or forwarded material are highly targeted… and likely to take action when they actually arrive at your web site seeking your specific information.

Final thoughts

See how much you can do with one little article? It’s amazing how effective a small piece of content can be when you…

• know your keywords, and…
• know all the places to position that content so it’s viewed again and again

Once you’ve done your keyword research, you might feel a bit intimidated by the idea of writing something yourself for the ‘Net. Or maybe you don’t feel like you have the time to do it justice.

Remember — any free content you create shouldn’t be too long, and it definitely shouldn’t be too complicated, since the people reading it won’t know your product or your subject as well as you do.

If you’re still concerned, you can always hire a writer from a freelance web site like Elance ( http://www.elance.com ) to do a couple of short articles or an eBook (with a bit of basic information from you, of course.) Expect to pay anywhere from $25 to $35 an hour for their time.

But I recommend that you try to write something yourself first. You definitely don’t need to be a professional writer to create something readable and interesting… (I sure don’t have a degree in creative writing myself!)

Just try to think like your audience — what do they want to know, and how much do they know already? Then tell them simply and clearly. We’re not talking Shakespeare here.

Here’s one more quick peek at my easy four-step plan to increase web traffic:

1. Find the keywords people are using to search for your product.

2. Make sure all the content on your web site contains these keywords!

3. Write short, keyword-rich articles with links directing people back to your site — nothing too long or complicated; just enough content to establish you as someone “in the know” about your industry.

4. And finally, send your article to content distribution sites and — with just a simple suggestion or a script-based link — encourage people to pass your material on to their friends (and direct them back to your site!)

These simple steps are things that practically anyone can do to drive traffic. They’ll help you get the kind of targeted, quality traffic that can make all the difference to the success of a business, especially when you’re just starting out!

In other words, these are the types of visitors who are most likely to take action on your site, whether they make a purchase, or simply opt in with their personal information.

And I don’t know about you, but I’ll take more of those visitors any day of the week!

Privacy note: The VRE Toolbar collects anonymous statistical usage data but it DOES NOT spy on your browsing habits. It does not track webpages you visit or keywords you use in the search box. Please see our Privacy policy.

1. Keywords Suggestions & Research
   Grabs the Overture search counts for different geographic markets. Offers suggested monthly regional search volumes by market for Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Provides links to price estimate tools from Overture and Google AdWords.
2. Niche Generator
   Randomly suggests niche topics. Provides links to keyword research and domain lookup.
3. 43 Things
   Lists other people’s goals related to a keyword. Helps discover people’s interests, that can give you great ideas to create websites around.
4. Adwords Traffic Estimator
   Gives you keyword traffic and cost estimates at a glance. For any keywords you select, you’ll see the following information: minimum bid, maximum cost-per-click (CPC), search volume, estimated avg. CPC, estimated ad positions, traffic estimates based on an unlimited budget.
5. ColorImpact
   This software allows to create beautiful color schemes for your website with a single click.
6. DomainsBot Ideas, Suggestions
   Helps find great domain names.
7. DigitalPoint (Wordtracker)
   Shows the results of your query from both Wordtracker and Overture for determining which phrases are searched most often. Gives suggestions for alternate (but similar) keywords.
8. Rapid Niche Websites
   Quickly create cash-pulling web sites by following this easy step-by-step system.
9. Google Sets
   Automatically create sets of items from a few examples. For example, when you enter ‘armani, versace’ subset, it returns Gucci, Chanel, Prada, Calvin Klein, Fendi, Dolce Gabbana etc. Fun and very addictive!
10. The Reese Report
    A highly regarded monthly publication (a printed newsletter & companion CD-ROM) that demonstrates and teaches tons of little-known online moneymaking strategies, provides techniques and methods you can use today to start building an online empire made up of tons of tiny content sites.

What’s your favorite tool?

To get started with the ColorBlender, select Design > ColorBlender from the toolbar to navigate to the ColorBlender website. On the website, choose a preferred color using the color picker, and a 6-color matching palette (a “blend”) will be automatically calculated.

Using the radio buttons you may switch to Direct Edit mode to tweak or edit individual colors of your blend.

Blends can be saved for future use, and will be available whenever you return to this site from the same computer, given that your browser accepts cookies.

Are you in a hurry? Need a palette right now? Don’t have time to be creative? Click on the Browse blends link �at the top �to get thousands of color blends created by the users of ColorBlender.

Go ahead, steal one! – just click you preferred blend to make it “your own”!

43 Things is one of the most popular resources among the Virtual Real Estate Toolbar users.  It helps to find out what people want related to your keywords. It allows you  to search for goals documented by their users.

For instance, let’s go to the Niche Generator and pick a random niche theme (select Ideas > Niche Generator from the toolbar). I just did that, and  got Jacuzzi Hot Tubs.

Let’s look what people want related to jacuzzi hot tubs. I’m selecting the words Jacuzzi Hot Tubs, then  dragging and dropping them into the toolbar’s search box. Now I’m selecting Ideas> 43 Things (Goals).

If you used the 43 Things  tool from the toolbar before, you’ll notice that it works slightly differently  now. It doesn’t redirect you to the 43 Things website.  It now  gets the  goals list  from the source and displays  it on our  website instead. This allowed us to link each goal  right to the Keyword Research Tool, so that we could analize the goal phrase with one click.

Here are some examples of what I got for ‘jacuzzi hot tubs’:

buy a hot tub
own a hot tub
get a hot tub
build a hot tub
soak in a hot tub
get my hot tub working
get a hot tub for the basement
put a hot tub in my apartment
buy a hot tub/spa/jacuzzi
have a hot tub
relax in a hot tub, and even…
make love in a hot tub

This tool tells you what goals  people set. Now it’s your turn. Help them to achieve what they want with your network of niche websites.

• Dedicated Hosting category added with first 4 websites in it, ranging from $79 to $99 per month.
• More Content options:
  • Two Private Label Rights sources added (Article Underground and PLR Pro)
  • 4 places to search for Audio content for your site, such as podcasts
  • 5 places to search for Video content
• Digg added to the  News section

In the upcoming posts we will be discussing these tools.

It is widely accepted that Google and other major search engines now place a very high importance on inbound links from authority websites.

If you have a new niche website, the fastest way for it to get in all the major search engine indexes is to acquire links from ‘expert’ websites. A few links from relevant websites will get your site in the major search engine indexes literally overnight.

Note, that asking those sites for links is almost pointless, but you can provide an article or participate in the site’s forum and embed a link to your website into your article byline or forum signature, that is a common practice. Be unique, have something worth saying. If it’s not worth saying, it’s certainly not worth a link.

How to find authority websites for your niche?

Myriad Search Authority Finder is a relatively new meta search engine by Aaron Wall (SEO Book) designed primarily to help find authoritative websites for your keywords. Want to know which websites rank well for your niche key phrase? Myriad Search will show you, presenting search results with their relative rankings from Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com.

The output of Authority Finder is in %. For a site to have 100% authority it would need to rank #1 in all four engines. You can then use these results to locate sites consistently rated as authorative across search engines, based on the keyword string being searched for.

Let’s jump right in and find out the most valuable websites for key phrase ‘dog training’ as an example of using the Myriad Search and VRE Toolbar.

Enter dog training into the search area of your VRE Toolbar.

Select Promote > Link Building > Myriad Authority Finder.

If you don’t have the toolbar installed, just go to the Myriad website, enter the phrase into the search box and press Search.

Wait a moment while it scans the search engines, and now you have a list of “expert” websites to work with. You can save the search results in a CSV (comma separated values) file.

Here is what we got for ‘dog training’.

#1 is www.uwsp.edu/psych/dog/dog.htm – #1 in Google, #6 in Yahoo! and #3 in Ask.com – A valuable .edu website, that has links to commercial products. You can try to acquire a link from them, if you have a quality relevant product.

#2 is www.dogpatch.org/obed – #7 in Google, #10 in Yahoo! and #1 in Ask.com – has forums; links to websites with dog training related articles.

#3 is www.dogtrainingbasics.com – #2 in Yahoo! and #2 in MSN – you can submit your article in their Articles section.

#4 is www.dogproblems.com – #3 in Google and #2 in Ask.com – has a forum; links to other dog training products and websites.

#5 is www.apdt.com – #8 in Google, #18 in Yahoo! and #6 in Ask.com – has an e-mail discussion list and news bulletins for members.

and so on…

As you can see, there is an opportunity to get one-way links from authority websites for your niche. And the Myriad Search Authority Finder is a great tool to identify those expert websites. Just enter your key phrase into the VRE Toolbar and select Promote > Link Building > Myriad Authority Finder.

Good luck and have fun with the VRE Toolbar.