Business Idea
Ideas Websites

When looking for an online business idea to develop a website around, you almost always hear the advice to “find a niche” that has people looking for information, but doesn’t have a lot of competition.

And of course your niche should be related to something you are interested in, and would enjoy writing and creating a website and/or online store about.

Well one of the things you can do in this situation is to search with a more generic word that would be part of search term that people would be looking for, and see what your keyword research brings back.

Now I am going to explore some variations on this idea in other internet business ideas articles, but lets take a very obvious word to start with.

That word is “ideas”. Take this website for instance, it’s all about business ideas and this section is about internet business ideas.

I decided to do this research my self with my favorite keyword tool Brainstorm It, which is part of the suite of website building tools from my recommended website building resource (and the one I use myself to build this website), Site Build It (SBI).

After putting the word ideas into Brainstorm It I was given 800 keywords with the number of people searching for the term every month (demand) and the number of “real” websites that supply information for that search term (supply).

*please note that I use the words “search term” and keyword” interchangeably throughout this article, but they mean the same thing.

Now this is one of the great things about the SBI Brainstorm It keyword search tool.

Even though Google may say that there are hundreds of thousands of supplying websites for my chosen search term, SBI weeds through all those sites and tells me only the number that represent “real competition” for the search term I choose.

There is a lot of junk on the internet and it’s helpful to be able to cut through all the clutter and know what the relevant numbers are.

So getting back to our search term of ideas there are lots of great possibilities, and even though I can’t list all 800 of them all here is just a sampling:

And of course there were quite a few searches for terms related to Halloween, Christmas, decorating and gift ideas.

So looking through the keywords above, you would find lots of inspiration for website ideas, and could identify if any of the subjects were of interest to you, or were something you wanted to learn more about as you build a website around it.

Now what makes a good niche as far as the demand and supply numbers go?

Well according to SBI, a good number ratio to have is a main keyword that has at least 2,000 searches a month, and that has about 5 related keyword search terms with demand of at least 1,000 and 10 more keywords with demand of at least 100.

And supply should be under 80,000 competing websites, under 30,000 is optimum.

Now even 30,000 competing websites may seem like a lot, but the internet is incredibly vast. And by most accounts it’s still in its infancy.

Just because there are other websites about the topic you want to choose, doesn’t mean you should forget it. There isn’t just one kind of chocolate candy is there?

Well there isn’t going to be just one option that people will want when searching for information or products about a certain topic on the internet.

If the supply numbers are good there is plenty of room for another unique voice on a topic – yours!

And as you can see above, all our keywords fall under the optimum supply numbers, along with meeting our minimum demand number for a main keyword too.

And with each of these keywords you should be able to find related keywords with the other demand numbers you need.

Take the keyword “graduation gift ideas” above, and you’ll notice that there is also a keyword for “college graduation gifts”.

If you start thinking about the variety of ways someone could be searching for graduation gift ideas, you might find keywords for “high school graduation gift ideas”, “preschool graduation gift ideas, or variances on the terms such as “gift idea for high school graduate.

You can see how this variation works with the search term “bulletin board ideas” above. Right after it you’ll see the keyword “ideas for bulletin boards”.

There is no one set of wording that someone might enter when searching for something, so when you start researching you can find lots of variations on one basic idea.

Now lets look at some observations about what makes some of these keywords above good prospects for a website and some not so good. And also what defines “a niche”.

First of all, there are a number of different wedding and bridal related keywords.

Now if you were interested in building a website having to do with weddings, you certainly wouldn’t want to just target the keyword “wedding ideas”. This would be much too broad and would have way to much competition.

Instead you want to find a niche within the wedding community and target that. And there are a number of ideas above to look at.

One that stands out are the terms “fall wedding ideas”, Christmas wedding ideas”, and “winter wedding ideas”.

Now each of those might be a niche to target in itself, but you could also do a “seasonal wedding ideas” website and target these different keywords along with “spring wedding ideas”, “summer wedding ideas”, etc.

Or take the keyword “window covering ideas”. You see above that right below it is the keyword “window treatment ideas”.

Now you could find other related keywords having to do with window treatments and you could target a specific kind of window treatment such as French Country or window blinds (if there was enough demand), or you could do a website simply with window covering ideas, or window treatment ideas.

Now something you have to take into consideration when deciding on your website idea is how you will make money with the website.

You may have found a great idea that targets a perfect niche, but if it doesn’t have good monetization potential than you will be wasting your time building a website around it.

Let’s take the keyword “science fair project ideas” as an example.

Who would be looking for science fair project ideas? Well kids and parents of course.

And most likely they are simply looking for an project idea to build cheaply at home for the school science fair.

They really are not going to buy anything from your online store, or visit some of your partner sites and buy something through your affiliate link.

So this is a good example of an idea that even though the supply and demand numbers are good, and would be fun to research and write about for some people, would not be a good idea for a website that would make money.

Another example of this is the keyword “free tattoo ideas”. Now lots of people are looking for tattoo ideas, and you could find a way to make money with this if you could upsell these “free stuff” seekers into a buyer.

But I generally advise steering away from anything with the word free.

If people are looking for free than they really don’t want to spend anything.

Now the exception to this would be if you could provide lots of great content and have other ways to monetize your website such as Google Adsense where you put ads on your pages and if your visitors click on the ads you get paid.

This way your visitor doesn’t have to buy anything, but you still make some money.

And in actuality most content websites really do use this model as the main money making model. But it’s good if you know that you have a few other options to make money too, such as being able to have some affiliate partners, or perhaps be able to send some traffic to eBay where you can make commissions too.

A very good way to determine whether or not the idea you are thinking about building a website about has good monetization potential is to do a Google search for competing websites and see what kind of money making models they have on their sites.

This is also a good way to find money making ideas and resources for your website once you have started building it.

Now using eBay as an example, let’s take the search term “picnic ideas” above. There are many different ways you could make money from a site like this, but one of the possibilities would be to add listings from eBay for vintage picnic baskets to your website like this:

Another example to make money with a website would be selling an ebook. Clickbank is an ebook and digital media provider with over 10,000 different ebooks for sale. You can become an affiliate partner with clickbank and promote an ebook related to your website topic.

Take the search term “romantic date ideas” above. Well I happen to know that there are a number of dating and romance related ebooks available to promote from Clickbank, including 300 Creative Dates, which is written by Oprah dating and relationship expert Michael Webb.

And there are other ebook and digital media providers you can affiliate with as well.

Let’s take the keyword “kitchen backsplash ideas” as another example.

First of all I want to mention that this is an example of a "true niche".

Instead of a website with a more broader topic related to kitchen remodeling or redecorating tips, focusing on a narrower topic such as "kitchen backsplash ideas" would be easier to get traffic for and to focus your research efforts on.

And you could add in kitchen countertops as part of this niche, as this would be entirely related and you would be able to find enough keywords and material to build a site around.

Now if you were building a website around this idea, you would be targeting people who were remodeling and updating their kitchens.

If they are putting in a new backsplash, perhaps they are also putting in new cabinets.

Well there is an ebook at Clickbank about How To Install IKEA Kitchen Cabinets.

The sales letter for the ebook tells all about how much money you can save by buying your kitchen cabinets at IKEA, and how this ebook will help you install them.

You could feel good promoting this ebook on your website because you would be providing a helpful resource for your visitor, saving them time and money, and you would receive a percentage of the sale of the ebook as your affiliate commission every time someone purchased the ebook.

You can also write your own ebook and promote it through Clickbank Publisher Services, and other website owners will sell it for you just like you would be doing with the IKEA kitchen cabinet book.

Now there are so many different ways to make money with an ideas website, we haven’t even explored partnering with hardgood sellers through affiliate networks like Commission Junction, and even booksellers like Amazon, but I hope you get the idea of what’s possible for making money by building a website.

And the most wonderful thing of all is that with a website you receive recurring income.

This means that you build a page of your website once, and you get paid over and over every time someone visits that page and clicks on your ad, or makes a purchase through one of your affiliate links or through your store.

Recurring income is one of the best reasons to build a website, if you really are willing to put in the time and effort it takes.

And if you use SBI to build your website, your hard work, time and effort will really pay off in a website that gets traffic and makes you an income.

Be sure to read my article The Best Way To Build A Website to learn more about what your website building options are, and why I recommend SBI so highly.

And I hope you are inspired by the possibilities for “ideas websites”.

As I already mentioned, the search terms I explored in this article are just the tip of the iceberg, but they should be enough to get some ideas and inspiration started for you.

And I will be exploring more of these keywords in some of the other internet business ideas I write about in this section.

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