Top 5 Market Research Tools
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Market Research
After choosing photography as my blog topic for the blog case study, the next step is to do some market research on the niche. That is easier said than done due to all the different techniques and services that are available for market research. Market research is essential for me to learn about my chosen niche and it will help me decide on my blogs structure, it can make or break a blog so it needs to be done properly. It will raise questions about how I want to use my blog. Is the chosen topic saturated with the same information as what I want to use? If it is that means it will be harder to break into and gain an audience and rank highly. Remember I have chosen photography for the love of the topic, not because it is a hot niche!
It should also give me information on what my prospective audience wants, and is searching for. But it is easy to get lost in the choice. Below are the tools, and my top 5 recommendations that I have used in my market research for the photography case study blog. The two results that you will see are to give you an idea on how you can use the information, and they are for photography which is the main keyword for the niche and digital photography being a keyword within the niche or sub niche:
1. SEO book keyword suggestion tool.
It is a free tool that gives you estimated monthly search volumes for a keyword from Google, Yahoo and MSN. It is ran off the Overture keyword suggestion tool which is Yahoo’s search results, although at the moment it is showing results for Jan 2007. It then estimates the results for Google and MSN by estimating that Google receives double Yahoo’s search traffic and Yahoo receives double MSN’s search traffic. So it is not accurate, but it gives a you a good idea of what you could expect and also lists related keywords for your search. The big plus is the tools that come with it, you can link to keyword tools, Google traffic estimator and Google trends. So there is a lot of information in one place. Here are the results for two of the keywords I searched for:
- photography 1,091,426
- digital photography 287,042
2. Technorati blog search engine
This is the blog search engine. You can favourite the blogs you want to follow and it’s great for finding similar blogs in your niche. I have claimed my blogs on my free account and it shows my recent posts when searched for. You can search for blog posts, blogs, videos or photos using keywords. This is what it found under blogs when I searched for these keywords:
- Photography 39,721 blogs found.
- Digital Photography 2,619 blogs found.
3. Search Engines: Google, Yahoo and MSN.
I use the top search engines for investigating (what they feel) is the best match for a term or keyword. Look at the top 5 results in each one for your chosen keyword. Have a look at them and see what they do, because it obviously works for them to be where they are. The top 5 results may not be blogs, but you can still pick up some good information from normal websites that you could use on your blog. Also never copy what anyone else has done (obvious) just take the best bits and do it in your own way.
4. Look at products and advertisers.
I will be looking to monetize the case study blog at some point in the future. So I need to look at the options available for the photography niche, and would they fit my blogs structure. Again what do other blogs in the niche use for advertising? This is the best way to see what works and what doesn’t. Each niche will have different systems that perform better than others, and some just won’t work at all. I want to tackle this now and find solutions that I am happy with, and consider the impact they will have on the blog. I want to have ability to make an income from the blog, but I don’t want advertising in your face or to take away from the blog itself.
5. Look at Blogs in your niche
This is really helpful in cementing your plans for a blog. Find other blogs in your niche. These can become blogs you can comment on, your new blogging friends, future guest bloggers or joint venture partners. So have a look around and get to know them, get a feel for the conversations going on and whether they have the same ideas as you. This is a solid tool for building awareness of your niche and what’s going on in it, also the best way to get yourself known is to interact with other bloggers.
What are your favourite market research tools, let me know in the comments?
Thanks
Mandy
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3 Responses to “Top 5 Market Research Tools”
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Great info! I don’t know much about blogs and this certainly helps.
Thanks, I want to share what I have learned about blogs because I know how hard it can be finding the right information sometimes.