Niche Research
One of the ideas I’ve been considering is acoustic guitars. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:
1. Ebay search seems pretty good–12,000 results for the term “acoustic guitar” in the guitar category under musical instruments.
2. I Googled “acoustic guitars” + “build a niche store”. Many of the related stores seem to be general guitar stores, not specifically acoustic guitar stores. There is one specifically on acoustic guitars but the page template is not customized at all and they only specifically target one brand of acoustic guitars (with a general “all acoustic guitars” page for the rest). They do seem to have targeted some very specific search terms; i.e. they are literally the only BANS store that targeted “Martin d-16 guitars,” for example. But there are only about 7 main categories, and no subcategories at all. Another acoustic guitar store I found does seem to target some long-tail keywords such as “acoustic guitar buying guide,” but there are no subcategories–the main cats lead to product pages. The site appearance looks customized.
3. General web competition, searched in Google (in quotes):
“acoustic guitars”–6.2 million
“yamaha acoustic guitars”–14,300
“takamine acoustic guitars”–7310
“acoustic electric guitars”–1.65 million
“acoustic cutaway guitars”–5600
“yamaha acoustic cutaway guitars”–no results
Sorry if this sounds like a dumb question, but I’m wondering about the difference between searching the phrases in quotes vs. not in quotes. Is it because by searching in quotes, we can find sites that have that exact phrase, as opposed to “acoustic” and “guitar”? (I assume that would explain the vast differences in number of results when I tried searching in quotes and no quotes). Why exactly does that matter if the average consumer doesn’t use quotes when searching for a phrase? In other words, considering that for many phrases, the number of results is way less when searched for in quotes, why are we using quotes in our analysis; how is this not too favorable an assumption? (Again, I’m sure there’s a good answer that many of you already know, but I’m new at this).
4. Terapeak: over 17000 listings for “acoustic guitar” and about 4000 sold in the past 7 days. Good average sales price of close to $120.
What do you guys think?
Another idea I have is a store for effects pedals (processors that you can plug your guitar into to get different sounds):
1. Ebay: 1321 listed under musical instruments. Not great, but maybe not bad either.
2. “Effects Pedals” + “build a niche store”: so far I’ve only found stores with effects pedals as a type of guitar accessory. One site has an accessories section with several subcategories of effects pedals, but they only have types of effects pedals and it doesn’t appear that they’ve targeted other relevant keywords. It doesn’t seem like there are any optimized BANS stores focused specifically on effects pedals, at least not in the first 4 to 5 pages of results.
3. Long tail phrases/variations and general web competition:
“effects pedals”–848,000 results
“guitar effects pedals”–104,000
“bass effects pedals”–26,200
“bass guitar effects pedals”–4,340
“effects pedals for guitar”–5670
“roland effects pedals”–440
“roland effects pedal”–7
“tc electronic effects pedals”–4
“boss effects pedals”–10,700
“boss gt-8 effects pedal”–320
These don’t look too bad to me. Some look great.
4. Terapeak “effects pedal” results, 7 days: 1136 listings, 696 sold (61% sellthrough), average price close to $70.
I’m thinking this might be a good niche to pursue. I’m hoping to make decisions on both of these ideas in the next few days, as well as some other ideas I have. Based on the above, it seems like effects pedals is a broader and slightly less competitive niche than acoustic guitars. But I’m still thinking an acoustic guitar store might be a good idea as well.
Previously Published Articles You May Like to Read:
- Niche Research Questions
- Build a Niche Store Empire Series in 12 Weeks – Niche Market Research
- Build a Niche Store Empire Series in 12 Weeks – Niche Market Research Continued
Rate This Post
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
I'm Erik from Los Angeles. I spent the past several years in college and law school, and a couple months ago I was admitted to practice law here in California. Right now I've got some free time (as I'm in a process of job-hunting) and I want to take the opportunity to build some BANS stores. I have no prior experience with BANS, web-design, or HTML. My other interests include guitar-playing and creative writing.
I think you can do great with a BANS guitar or pedal store. I have been trying to get a guitar playing friend to start a BANS store on guitars.
He has been knocked down so many times he is having a hard time getting back up this time. So you better get that site going before he does. :)
I am just starting with BANS even though I have had it for a while. I tend to get too much on my plate and have to put something on hold until I get my head back on straight.
I am having fun with my BANS fishing site right. Learning to set it up correctly. Then I want to implement BANS into a few of my blogs.
I am looking forward to your BANS series. Perhaps this will help to motivate my friends.
@ Erik -
Great start and a Great way to focus on a Niche versus a Broad category like Guitars!
In regard to the quotes around a search phrase, you are telling the search engine to deliver results that include that very specific phrase.
ie: “Acoustic Guitars” returns results with the exact phrase between the quotes.
“Acoustic” + “Guitars” returns results with the word acoustic AND the word Guitar on a page… not nessasarily grouped together like above.
Mark
Now that is good research. You should do well with that niche going by all the research you have done. With the sell through and the different keywords you may be able to build 2-3 niche stores and really get focused on the niches and then link them together. Again good RESEARCH .
What is terapeak?
Great research example. thank for shareing.
Was this one of the sites you mentioned above
http://acoustic.essentialguitarlinks.com
It’s mine.
I’ve literally just stumbled upon your site and it makes interesting reading.
I look forward to more from you.
Regards
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
Yes that’s one of them I found. I am curious–did you use Wordtracker to help come up with the phrases such as “acoustic guitar buying guide” and “acoustic guitar body types”? Or did you do some brainstorming yourself and decide those links might make the site more interesting? What type of search engine optimization techniques have you tried?
How has the site been doing (if you don’t mind telling us)?
Erik
Fred @ Newest on the Net
this is the link to terapeak you can do a basic search and history for items selling and sold on Ebay. try it , alot of good info>>
http://www.terapeak.com/
Fred asked what is terapeak ( http://www.terapeak.com/ )
It can be used for research of Ebay item that have been sold, the sell thru rate, some keywords and other info. You can try the free version and discover yourself.
Hi all,
Today I learned about Terapeak, thanks to these postings, so now I’m wondering what is considered a good sell-through rate?
Anything over 50%, 60%, 70%? I used this tool today for my sites and 3 of them had very high rates, I think? One 75.78%, on 82.05%, and 68.4%. I’m just curious what is considered bad.
Thanks,
Tambra
Hi Tambra,
Those are excellent CTRs! Are they for seasonal niches or ones that will hold out throughout the year?
I’ll wait to hear what Mark says about what we should be targeting but it looks like you’ve got some good ones there! I rarely come across any that are that high.
Cindy
Hi there Cindy,
I don’t believe them to be seasonal. They are items that my husband has bought himself on eBay and uses daily. He has bought them at all different times of the year all in seperate purchases.
Tambra
Eric
I did write a fuller reply but the browser went haywire and lost the lot; so in a nutshell
I use Nichebot which uses Wordtracker and this dictated most of the longer tail phrases on the site.
Some stats
Date, Visits, Pages, Hits, Bandwidth
01 Feb 2008 17 25 37 722.38 KB
02 Feb 2008 12 12 12 54.54 KB
03 Feb 2008 11 15 23 345.54 KB
04 Feb 2008 19 28 40 703.33 KB
05 Feb 2008 17 26 38 705.11 KB
06 Feb 2008 18 28 38 682.36 KB
07 Feb 2008 18 52 76 1.48 MB
08 Feb 2008 35 140 225 4.64 MB
09 Feb 2008 18 45 64 1.13 MB
For Jan 2008
Unique visits, Visits, Pages, Hits, Bandwidth.
76 441 621 906 13.12 MB
Hope someone can use this to their advantage.
Cheers
Jeff
http://acoustic.essentialguitarlinks.com
Mark,
I’m in my niche research. The funny thing is, the more you research the more ideas you get, and my list of ideas is getting longer.
Nevertheless, I have 6-8 ideas but can’t decide. Although I’d like to do BANS for all, but I need to concentrate on 1-2 for now.
I’m not using all the paid sites, only the free ones.
So I have a list(8×10) which looks like this:
Columns from left to right:
1) #pages googled with BANS
2) WordPot – exact search / total search
3) NicheBot: wordTracker daily search prediction / KeyWord Discovery prediction
4) AdWords Traffic estimator: search volume / CPC / clicks/day / $$$/day
5) eBay: Total auctions / completed auctions(1 month)
My questions:
1. What would be the minimal amount of auctions to consider the item ?….200…500…
2. out of the columns that i have, which one is more important: google AdWords traffic estimator, NicheBot, wordPot, or number of googled BANS pages ?
3. Which one is more accurate: WordPot’s “Exact Search Daily on Google” OR NicheBot’s “WT prediction search/day” ?
the difference of results is very big usually.
4. in Google AdWords Traffic estimator – how good are indications of CPC and ClicksDay ?
Some items have $3 CPC with only 20 clicks/day, others have $3 CPC with 300 click/day
Is higher CPC means the item is very competitive and therefore is a better choice ?
5. Is Clicks/Day for AdWords the best indicator ?
I’m getting confused with the amount of information I have on my list. I know I have too many items.
What is your opinion Mark ?
Appreciate your input!
@ Zal -
Good point about getting lost in information overload!! Makes my head hurt sometimes… :-)
#1 – If there is ONLY 10 items, with a sell rate of 100%, I would target it! The sell through rate is the important number. Even if there was only 1 item to sell, if there are 25 ways to FIND that product, you instantly have 25 product pages on your site! (Think of a car… it is also referred to as: auto,ride,vehicle,transportation etc…)
#2 – Since you are using the free tools to search, I would say that the MOST important one is the sell rate at eBay. Even if Google shows only 100 searches a month for an item, but that item is selling at 15,000 time a month on eBay, it just means people are finding it with different terms.
#3 – I have never used WordPot… I do have NicheBot, but honestly, I find it too confusing to use! All in all, almost EVERY keyword tool out there delivers somewhat skewed search results. Just imagine, every time you searched for your niche today, those results are now a part of that same search data you are using! :-) I think the best answer to this question is to find a balance and look for trends in the data. If WordPot shows high volume for a term and Nichebot shows similar high volume, but a completely different number, just use the fact that both are high as a measure.
#4 High CPC means it is in more demand AND it is likely more profitable! The more money people are willing to pay to be listed on top generally leads to higher paying markets.
#5 – Clicks/day is a good indicator… but it also means the market is likely flooded. Again, since we are promoting eBay listings, I prefer to use TeraPeak sales data as a truer measure of the sell rate possibilities of a niche or product.
I know this likely added to the confusion… but in the end, good common sense is really the best choice. If you see it selling very well through TeraPeak, then there is demand. Once you determine the search strings used to find it… it means sales!
Mark
This is really interesting. I am considering a very specific product that has good stats on Terapeak. On a 30 day search there were:-
2,220 listings
60% sell through rate
$25 av. price.
However, when I searched Wordtracker (subscription) the daily predicted search is only 4!
Is this worth looking into further? The item has a very specific name and I was therefore surprised that the searches were so low. Any thoughts?
Denise
Denise, Mark has a very good point, which I also started noticing while doing my research.
I find myself spending more time on ebay, than on any of these research tools. Because what can be more accurate prediction than ebay’s statistics ?
And Google’s Adwords CPC is truly good indication of item’s popularity.
THANK YOU MARK!
Hi Mark,
This is all so exciting and I was very motivated to get started on my first BANS. However I think my brain is on overload now! I started researching for a niche. Now I am confused with all the numbers. When I did my Ebay search, there were about 8000 listings, with good selling price, so I considered this a good number. Then I searched in on Google Keyword Tool. What is a good range of numbers should I be looking for? So is a higher number mean that the competion would be too high and that’s a bad choice? And as for my domain name, I’m thinking its a good idea to include one of those keywords. Am I on the right track? Thanks in advance!
[...] Niche Research by Erik [...]
Are You Too Set In Your Ways?
Site Categories
Monthly Archive
My Favorite Places
Blogging Sites
Blogroll
Places I Write
Technology Sites
Site Credits
Niche Store Builder is powered by WordPress, using a modified theme originally inspired by Arthemia.
Home | About | Terms & Privacy