(1) Entered seed keyword into Market Samurai

structure that consists of a main theme keyword and a list of related category keywords.  The theme keyword will describe the overall theme of your website while the category keywords will describe different categories within your website.

(2) List of Potential Niches Generated by Market Samurai

Day 4 of The Challenge teaches us on how to drill down on a market to identify our theme and category keywords using Market Samurai. Here is the basic process: First, we enter a seed keyword into Market Samurai, which represents the market we want to explore (1). Then Market Samurai’s Keyword Research module will return a list of potential “niches” within that market (2). We can then choose a niche we would like to explore in more detail. Market Samurai can then repeat the process and generate a list of micro niches for the niche we chose (3).  It is at this step that we can identify our theme keyword and category keywords.

(3) Generated List of Micro Niches

In order to identify a suitable theme keyword and category keywords, we have to narrow down our list of micro niches within Market Samurai. We are looking for keywords that have a significant amount of traffic and a reasonable level of competition. By applying some filers to our list of niche ideas, we are able to obtain a smaller list of possible niches (4). Here are the filters we need to apply:

1. SEO Traffic Filter of 80: We are looking for a daily traffic of more than 80 visits
2. Phrase to Brad Match Filter of 15%: We are making sure that the keyword is actually relevant. Anything lower than 15% tells us that people are not actually looking for that keyword.
3. SEO Competition Filter of 30,000: We are looking for keywords with less than 30,000 competing websites.

(4) Applying Filters To Obtain Theme and Category Keywords

At the end of this step, you will have a main theme keyword and a list of related category keywords. Building your site around this site structure will maximize your chances of being ranked higher on search engines, such as Google.

Now, Dr. Fernando explains that there are three different types of estimates that Google can develop:

1. Exact match traffic estimate: This estimate tells us how many people are looking for an exact term without changing the order of the keywords and without adding any other words to the term. An example would be the exact term “marketing books”.
2. Phrase match traffic estimate: This estimate tells us how many people are looking for a phrase that contains our term, without changing the word order of the words in our term. Using our term “marketing books,” two possibilities would be “online marketing books” and “marketing books for beginners.” Again, the order of the words in our term doesn’t change, but other keywords are added either before or after our search term.
3. Broad match traffic estimate: This estimate tells us how many people are looking for a phrase containing the words of our search term in any word order. Using our term “marketing books,” two possibilities under broad match would be “books for marketing online” and “marketing and advertising books.”

When a website is relatively new, Google usually gives it an exact match ranking. This means that the website will have a higher ranking on the searching engine results for the specific term it is targeting. However, as the website keeps developing authority through creating content and obtaining links from authoritative websites, Google will give it a phrase match ranking. This means that the website will rank higher for phrases that contain term it is targeting. Finally, “as your site receives more authority,” Dr. Anthony explains, “you obtain broad match rankings.”

But what does this mean? The most important thing to remember is that the broad match traffic estimate gives us the long term traffic potential for our website. This is the best estimate to see how many people could potentially visit our website in the long run.

This important lesson, however, doesn’t mean that the other two types of estimates are not useful. If we have just started a website and want to measure the competition, we take a look at phrase match estimates instead of broad match estimates. Why? When you are entering a keyword in Google, it will return you all the sites that contain the words in your keyword (broad match). If you add quotation marks around your keyword (“”), then Google will only bring out the results that specifically contain your keyword (phrase match). Phrase match estimates, thus, give us the number of competitors that are relevant to our targeted keyword since those sites specifically mention our targeted term. The broad-match estimates will return a larger number of competitors because it includes sites that simply contain the words in our targeted term, many of which are not really relevant.

Amazon:

According to Hodgson, a great way to start exploring markets and niches is by navigating to the magazine category inside Amazon.com. Why? “If there is a magazine devoted to a topic, then it’s likely that there will be people searching… for information online about that topic.” In other words, the fact that there are one or more magazines about Crafts and Hobbies means that this market has some potential traffic. In addition, Amazon’s magazine section allows us to narrow down to niches inside the larger market we are exploring.

Google’s Search Based Tool

Another great tool to explore niches and markets is Google’s Search Based Tool. This tool has an option to see “top keywords across all categories.” Thus, it allows us to explore different markets and niches that Google knows.

In the first lesson from the Challenge, we learn what a market is. We also learn what a niche is and how it is related to a market. Finally, we learn what keywords are and how they are related to an online market. We will do all of this with the ultimate goal of creating a successful online business.

First, what is a market? According to Dr. Anthony Fernando, from the Market Samurai project, a market is “a community that shares a common interest in a particular activity or subject.” For instance, we have the clothing for women market or the tennis players market.

Secondly, there are smaller segments within each market called niches. Inside a market, then, there can hundreds of these niches, or subsets. For example, within the clothing for women market we can have the clothing for pregnant women niche. Also, within our tennis players market we can have the rackets for tennis players markets. It’s clear then that a niche is a smaller segment within a market.

Thirdly, each niche can contain even smaller segments called micro-niches (or niches within niches). For instance, within our rackets for tennis players market we have the micro-niche rackets for beginning tennis players, and within our clothing for pregnant women niche we can have our intimate clothing for pregnant women.

Why is it important to drill inside a market and discover some micro-niches? “The main reason,” Dr. Fernando explains, “is that there is generally less competition in micro-niches.” This, in turn, helps to have a better position in search engines (like Google) and obtain a greater number of visitors to your online store.

Now, how are keywords related with all of this? Keywords are “words or phrases that members of a market introduce into a search engine to explore a particular niche.” In other words, keywords are like keys that open one of the many doors that lead to a niche. For instance, let’s say that a person is looking for clothing for pregnant women and uses the phrase “pregnant women apparel” while another person uses the phrase “pregnant women clothing.” These two phrases are two different “keys” for the same niche. Our job, then, is to find the keywords that will generate more traffic and capitalize by using those keywords. If 200 persons search using the first phrase per day and only 12 people search using the second phrase, it is clear what phrase we will focus on to receive more traffic.

Now we can finally see why many people who start their online business fail. The two main reasons:

1)      They simply do not take the necessary time to find out more about their market (niches and micro-niches).

2)      They do not investigate or focus on the keywords that will generate higher traffic for their business.

It’s here where the Magnificent Symphony of Four Parts comes in to play. Using this process, anyone who is interested in starting his or her own business can see which markets and niches will result in a loss of time. Of course, identifying which markets and niches will have great success is tricky. But, at least, it will possible to identify and eliminate those that are NOT “winners.” OK, so here we go. Let’s take a look at the four main parts of the Symphony, from the most to the least important one.

1)      Market Research: This is the part that most of people miss or mess up when they want to start their own business. However, with the tools that we now have available, today it’s possible to conduct market research in an easy, fast, and economic way. This allows the business entrepreneur to know exactly how many clients will come to his or her store, what products they will buy, how much they are willing to pay, etc. In other words, if the market research is done correctly, it is possible to vastly reduce, or even eliminate, the risk of guessing if a business will be successful or if it will not. We remember the statistic that Dale told us before: 95% of the problems of starting a business can be eliminated when this first step is conducted correctly.

Before, most of the information in a market research had to be collected manually (for instance, through surveys). Today, however, we have powerful tools that allow us to analyze a market in a more efficient way. One of these tools is Market Samurai, which allows us to do market research with great speed and accuracy.

2)      Traffic: Right after market research, traffic is the second most important part of the Symphony. Why? Because even if we have the best product in the whole wide world, this is of little value if there is no one that knows the product exists. That is why it is important to build enough traffic so that our business is successful. As Dale explains, having and building good traffic in the Internet is not as easy today as it was four or five years ago. There is more competition and established companies. But even though it requires work and effort, obtaining and maintaining a healthy amount of traffic has a great value for a small business.

3)      Conversion: In other words, how many people take action (buying your product or subscribing to your newsletter, etc.) we wish them to take when they visit our web site. According to Dale, motivating people to take the desired action is a hard thing to do. In his personal experience, for instance, he believes that out of 200 visitors, 1 or 2 will take the action he wants to push, which means that it is very important to build constant traffic and knowing how to measure how many people take the next step after they have visited the website.

4)      Product: The last part, and the one with the least importance, is the development of the product. Ironically, this is the part that most people focus all their energy at the beginning of building a business, resulting in a great loss of time and effort, not to mention money! It is then much better to let the market dictate the product than if we “guess” what the market wants.

The Magnificent Symphony of Four Parts is a tool that helps us during any stage in the creation of our business. And thanks to the Challenge, we can learn much more about each of its parts, for free!

I didn’t have the opportunity to participate in the prior challenges since it has only been a couple of months that I found out about this event. However, I have to tell you that the material covered during the event is just terrific. During each day of the event, informative videos teach the participant, step by step, on how to begin an online business. In addition, new and innovative online marketing tools will be presented, such as Market Samurai, a piece of software that allows us to analyze the market online and the keywords to promote an online business…all of this in just a matter of seconds! Without a doubt, I will be talking more about Market Samurai and how to use it in other blogs for I believe it can really save you a lot time.

Here are some of the things the participant will learn during the event:

• How to discover if a Market niche has enough commerciality
• How to use web browser and other tools to find out useful information to optimize a website
• How to write high quality articles to promote your site
• How to find and choose the right keywords to attract clients to your site
• How to use social media such as FaceBook and Twitter to promote your site

Since the participants (people like you and I) are usually very busy, the 30 Day Challenge has a new and easier format for this year. In fact, the name of the event has been changed to simply “The Challenge.” “The Challenge” is, then, divided into seven sessions of seven days per session. Each day’s lesson will require only 30 minutes from the participants. Also, after each session is over, the participants will have seven days to rest or catch up. Without a doubt, the creators of the challenge learned a lot in the last five years and have put all their effort to create a better “Challenge.” And the best of all: there is no charge for this great event! Yeah!

The first pre-training videos are already coming out, so please check them out!