If you’ve been researching keyword terms and keyword phrases, you’ve likely found that many popular potential target markets are quite broad. When you brainstorm and research to come up with ideas for your new web business, it’s likely that the first ideas you identify are likely to be broad markets.

It’s generally better to try to identify market niches (or submarkets of the broader market) on which to build our business. Trying to compete with other business at a broad market level would likely require a substantial amount of time and effort, and probably financial resources as well.

Instead, you can increase our chances of success by identifying a target market or a niche. Using a weight loss market example, you might focus on keyword terms such as “fat burning foods” or “low carb diets”? By targeting a market niche, there would likely be much less competition from other businesses, so you’ll have a greater chance of bringing targeted visitors to your site. And this, of course, is your first step if you want to make money online.

If you don’t already have a niche market in mind, one of the best ways to find one is to consider the things you’re already interested in – your own hobbies and activities. Think about the hobbies and interests of your friends and family, too – are there any niche markets on which you can build a web-based business?

By identifying market niches in this way, you can cut down on the amount of time that it takes you to learn about the market itself. If you already know a lot (or at least more than the average person), then you’ll be able to get your business up and running much more quickly than if you had to start from scratch and take the time to get up to speed on the subject.

If nothing comes to mind right away, there are a couple of brainstorming tools that you can use to help. First, you can try the ever-popular Google Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) to help you generate ideas, based either on words and phrases, or by the content of existing web pages.

Another great way to get ideas is to see what shoppers are actually searching for when they’re already on a shopping website. If you go to the Search Compare page (http://www.mysimon.com/compare-top-searches) and click one of the categories listed.

You’ll then be taken to a page that lists the terms that people have searched for within the category you clicked. This can be a great way to see the plethora (I LOVE using that word!) of different concepts that exist (and that people are searching for) within a particular product category.

Don’t be afraid to surf around the web exploring different possible market niches. This kind of exploration can help confirm that people are actually looking for these types of products (and are willing to spend money on them). This is a critical consideration when you’re determining in which market niche to launch your online business.