The basic suggestion to finding a profitable niche is to find a group of hungry fish, find out what they like to eat, and feed it to them.  Translation: Find a group of people who have a problem/passion/issue, find a solution/product for it, and give it to them.

The suggestion of using adwords campaigns to try to see which of your triggers works I think is a great idea.  So I dug around and found my $100 adwords voucher I got from Google and signed up for adwords.  The thing had an expiration date on it of Jun 4th, but it looks like it gave me the credit anyway. Thanks Google!

I created an ad for fighting back against debt collectors and pointed it to a content page on an existing site that I own.  I guess we’ll see what happens. My next step is to create a few more ads and test them out.  I made my daily spending limit only $3.00 so I won’t use up my $100 voucher too quickly.

I was a little surprised that Justin didn’t mention anything about keyword research.  Most gurus will tell you to look for demand using Google’s Keyword Tool or Wordtracker or something, but his suggestion was simple: look for what is being talked about, what advertisers are spending money on, and combine that with something you love. Something you’d do for without getting paid for it.

Honestly I’m not sure what I would do for free.  Travel maybe? play with Android phones all day?   But I can’t think of a problem that needs to be solved in either of those niches.

Liane over at yourwebprosperity.com has a cool little pdf that looks like it will definitely help to lay out niche ideas in a very logical manner, as Justin has suggested.

Justin’s been one of the people that I trust in the internet marketing world, along with a handful of others.  He’s open with his knowledge, very helpful and personable (he replies personally to emails).

So in theory, this 90 day challenge is for everyone from newbie to experienced people to go from $0 to $10K in 90 days, basically by following what he tells you to do.

And it’s free.  Of course Justin’s getting good exposure so that helps him,  but not too many IM gurus will give away this level of knowledge for free.

So I figured I will give it a shot.  I’ll try to give an almost daily update on how this goes, but no promises here.  I like to get things done, not so much tell people about how I got things done.  Hehe.

• Rosalind Gardner – I started out Reading her Super Affiliate Handbook.  It inspired me to believe that you could actually make a living off the Internet (and by hard work)
• Lynn Terry – Lynn is one of the most sincere and transparent people I know in the Internet Marketing world.
• Justin Brooke – A go-getter who is very open with his knowledge and inspires me to keep going
• David Risley – Successful in the PC niche, he’s a strait-shooter on what works and what doesn’t.

Why I Trust Them

I base this list off a few things:

• They are successful - they’ve made it clear that they earn a successful living off what they do.  So that gives me some degree of confidence that what they are telling me actually works for them.
• They have niches other than in the Make Money Online (MMO) niche. There’s tons of money being made by IM gurus in the MMO niche.
• They are easily accessible. None of these people are stuck up, greedy people, unlike some others in the industry.  You can email them and they will reply to you.  They do several free webinars and podcasts every week to try to help people.

Are They Making a Living Off Me?

I’m not naive to the fact that every one of these people is in the Make Money Online (MMO) niche.  And they are making money off people like me.  However, for each of them, it’s an extension of what they’ve learned in non-IM niches.

I won’t follow people who are solely in the MMO niche.  Like John Chow says “I Make Money Online By Telling People How I Make Money Online”

To me that’s totally worthless.

Like a cat chasing it’s tail.

There’s no real net value produced.

It’s hype.

Snakeoil.

Empty.

It’s selling a dream.

I (and most internet entrepreneurs) want real concrete information on how to make money online based on what I’m passionate about.  Whether it’s fly fishing, digital photography, radio controlled airplanes, getting out of debt, delicious desserts, or whatever.

And these people I’ve listed show you how to do that.  That’s why I trust them.

1. A .com. Try your best not to get anything else. A .net is an acceptable alternative, but a .com shows you are serious and it’s what people remember.  There’s lot of differing opinions on this matter, but conventional wisdom is that a .com is best.

2. Short. The shorter the better.  It will be easier to remember, generally easier to spell, easier to say, and is better in the long run for branding. A two word phrase works great for a domain name.

3. No dashes. Avoid dashes if you can, because they are difficult to say,  and shows that you had to settle.  Years ago, it was thought that dashes in a domain name help with SEO because it separated out your keywords, making your domain name rank better for your keywords in the search engines, but this theory has since been proven wrong.

If course lots of successful websites violate these 3 rules and are wildly popular, so don’t let this hinder your progress.  Use the following tools to find that domain that’s perfect for your idea, register it with godaddy or netfirms and get the ball rolling on your website construction.

I’ve gone through this process recently and found a few tools to help make it faster:

Instant Domain Search http://instantdomainsearch.com/

I think this is the main tool to start with. It allows you to QUICKLY type in any domain name idea you have and see if it’s taken. Oh and there’s an iphone version (free) that you can use if you have a great domain name idea and you’re not at home.

Bust a Name http://www.bustaname.com/

Bust a Name allows you to enter keywords you want, and it finds combinations that are available. Lots of options like 2 or 3 word combinations/prefixes/suffixes.

NameTumbler http://www.nametumbler.com

You enter a keyword and it lets you add some common terms to the front or back of the keyword and checks for availability.

Psychic Whois http://www.psychicwhois.com/

Similar to InstantDomainSearch, Psychic Whois lets you choose between registered and available and it also gives you suggestions, which is helpful.

A Few Final Tips

I usually gather a list of about 10 available domain names that I like, that fit my criteria, then I ask my wife which one she likes, then go with it.  Spend a good amount of time picking a domain name.  It’s probably the most important beginning step in your process.  It will be your “brand”, and you have to be comfortable with it, and actually be kinda proud of it.

So picture yourself trying to tell your family, friends or business partners about the website.  Would you be shy about it? A little concerned about their reaction?  If so, pick a different name.   After all you are more likely to get excited and work on a project with a cool and comfortable domain name that you’re proud of.