It’s said you can buy anything on eBay, from cars and computers to clothing formerly worn by celebrities.
This massive online consumer marketplace and auction house is a haven for buyers and sellers looking for great deals from the comfort of their own homes.
Searching for products related to your topic on eBay can help you home in on your market. It will also help you determine how much buyers are willing to pay for products related to your subject.
Follow these steps to exploit eBay for information:
1. Sign up for a free eBay account. This personalizes your experience and allows eBay to provide you with relevant information every time you visit.
2. Go to the eBay home page and log in.
3. Choose one of the categories on the left-hand side of the page that’s relevant to your topic and browse through the listings, or search for a specific item or topic using the search bar at the top of the page.
4. Make note of the price ranges people are willing to pay for items or products related to your topic. This will give you a general idea of what to charge for yours. Also, note how many products are available related to your topic in comparison to other topics. This is not limited to books: you might find CDs, audio programs, or one of many forms your product can take.
Internet searches are extremely effective in finding not only how popular your topic is, but how to set up your autoresponder for maximum results.
A vast majority of internet users find what they’re looking for by searching, whether they use a general web search engine like Google or a site-specific engine to wade through consumer mega-sites like e-Bay and Amazon.
A quick search on your topic will reveal how many people are interested, and what convinces them to check products out.
Google
Without a doubt, Google is the most popular internet search engine—so much so, its name has become a synonym for the act of running a web search (i.e., “I couldn’t find that site that posts the winning lottery numbers, so I just Googled it.”)
Many internet marketers make increasing their site ranking—the “place in line” the site appears in Google results using their keywords—one of the key components of their advertising campaigns.
Obtaining a top 10 Google rank (appearing on the first page of search results) is akin to winning an Olympic gold medal in the marketing world.
How can this help you with your market research?
By studying the top search results for pages you find through keywords relating to your topic, you can find out what these sites are doing to achieve search engine success.
The following steps will help you run an effective and informative Google search.
1. List keywords and keyword phrases relating to your topic. For example, if your topic is “working from home”, your list of keywords might be: work from home, working from home, work at home, telecommute, telecommuting, at home jobs.
2. Go to the Google home page and type in your first keyword or phrase, then click on “Google Search”.
NOTE: If you are not familiar with Google, clicking on “I’m Feeling Lucky” will not produce a list of web sites; it will take you directly to what Google has determined the most relevant site for your keyword. But if you’re in the mood for a laugh, you might try “I’m Feeling Lucky” just for kicks.
When you receive the search results, check out the pages that are relevant to your topic (search engines are by no means exact, and sometimes you will find results that don’t relate to your topic—or at least, not in the way you had in mind).
The best way to do this is to right-click on the links you want to visit and choose “Open in new window.” This will keep the Google search results page open so you don’t have to backtrack through your browser to find it again.
3. Note the way the sites are laid out (is it appealing and easy to read, or does it make your eyes bleed?), what kind of text is on the front page (does it seem informative, or is it all hype? Are there a lot of spelling and grammar errors?), and whether there is an obvious available product. If there is a site counter, note how many visitors the site has received.
4. Repeat this process with the rest of your keywords. You will often find the same sites showing up in the top 10 for different, related searches. Pay special attention to these; they are the ones you may want to emulate when you create the web site for your autoresponder.
NOTE: If you run a Google search on your topic and find only two or three related web sites before the results turn up unrelated material, it may indicate there is a limited market for your topic. In this case you should either rewrite your keywords and try again, or consider choosing a different topic altogether.
In order to save a lot of wasted time , effort and money, you should know what looking for when determining the possible profits in your market.
There are two factors you need to research.
How many customers are there in the market (Traffic levels) and what is each of these customers worth.
You will need quantity as well as quality details to determine if a market might be profitable or not.
Traffic: half of the truth
Traffic levels are simply the number of people searching in a specific market.
There more people search for your market related keywords the bigger the market is and the more potential customers are there.
Unfortunately, this is only half of the truth.
People browsing within this markets are not necessarily the “starving crowd” eager to buy products from you. Browsers are not essentially buyers.
That’s why it is not enough to just look at the traffic levels. That’s the reason you also need to look at the quality side of the coin.
You need to find markets with good traffic levels and good visitor values.
Traffic data
To get the traffic data we will use the Google’s free
1. Keyword tool
2. Edit the “Results are tailored to” [select language], [select countries]
3. Type in single keyword
4. Tick “Use synonyms” box, and tick “filter my results”
5. Tick “Don’t show ideas for new keywords. I only want to see data about the keywords I entered.”
6. “Approx Avg Search Volume” box indicates how many people are searching in this market each month
The next step is to calculate the Market Value by looking what each visitor is worth.
Actually, it is not difficult as google will help you to get an estimate. The riddle’s answer is the Cost per Click figures out of Google Adwords.
Things you need to know when it comes to calculate the customer’s value is:
The more an advertiser is willing to bid for a customer, the more the visitor is worth. In plain language: if advertisers is paying 1$ per click to get the #1 position in Google, he’s making at least $1 per visitor on average.
The next steps will show you how to work out the cost-per-click figure for #1 position and then estimate the maximum value of visitors in a market.
After determining the traffic details in your specific market you should see
Visitor’s value
7. Drop-down box “Show/hide columns“
8. Select “Show Estimated Avg. CPC“
9. “Show Estimated Ad Position“
10. Select in “Calculate estimates using a different maximum CPC bid:” your currency
11. Type your estimate and “Re-calculate”
12. Check the figure “Estimate Ad Position” says “1-3″
13. Use the figure “Estimate Avg. CPC”
The Formula
Approx Avg Search Volume (Step 6)
(x multiplied by) Estimate Avg. CPC (Step 13)
= Total Market Value
If you need to compare different markets this formula gives you the foundation to determine which market is more profitable.
Related Blogs
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