The phrase, “The Long Tail” was first mentioned by Chris Anderson in 2004. Chris was the executive editor of Wired magazine. At that time, he was writing about an important aspect of internet niche marketing, one that Amazon.com used to become the most successful online bookseller.
If you plot a line on the graph to show book sales, from the number one bestseller to titles that have sold just a single volume, what you will have is a very long descending line. It is the long descending line that is referred to as the “long tale”. This kind of line can be plotted for any market, not just books.
Although Amazon dominates a huge number of relatively narrow online niche market sectors all along the long tail of book sales, that does not mean that Amazon has a monopoly or that there is no opportunity for anybody else to build a successful business of their own using long tail keywords that are targeted at just one or two niche markets. Simply by learning to dominate one or two well-chosen niches, you will be able to establish yourself in a very comfortable position for doing business on the Internet.
When someone is new to internet marketing, they should not attempt to compete with the big companies at the top of the tail where the competition is very strong. Instead, focus on an online market niche that is lower down and you will stand a much better chance of dominating it.
So, how exactly should an Internet marketing newbie go about finding a niche and dominating it?
Firstly, find something which you are interested in. Then narrow it down to specifics. A sharp focus is vital for successful niche marketing. You are aiming to find a specific niche that is both small enough for you to stand a good chance of dominating, but large enough for you to be able to make enough money out of as the leading expert in the field.
Let’s suppose that are an avid fisherman. “Fishing” is a huge niche so you need to be more specific. Now “fly fishing” is an improvement but you still need to narrow it down to something more specific such as “fly fishing equipment”. This would be your primary niche. The name of your website will preferably be the same as your keyword phrase i.e., flyfishingequipment.com or fly-fishing-equipment.com.
Using your online niche market site to set yourself up as a fly fishing equipment supplier might be a viable idea if you have time to deal with wholesale buying, packing and shipping and enquiries.
The big drawback with this business model is that there is only a finite amount of goods that you can turnaround in a given time, so you will either have to stay small (which you can do by choosing a tighter niche) or hire staff to meet growing demand.
Another option would be to make your own information product. With this you will have to do a lot of research and writing before you see a return. However, once you have your information product up on your site you can sell it as often as you like without needing to handle stock or take on employees.
You may also want to find some relevant affiliate programs to promote in order to generate extra revenue on the back end. You will need to market your website so that you rank well for the keyword phrase, “fly fishing equipment”. Again, you are not attempting to compete with the big boys or trying to sell to the entire world. Your aim is simply to attract a few hundred people to your online niche market site each week and work on turning them into loyal customers.

Internet marketers are always talking about niche market research as if it’s a guarded magical process that only a few insiders truly understand. Well, we’re going to show you a quick and easy, step-by-step process for doing niche marketing research that you can start using immediately. How does that sound?Pretty cool, huh?So, let’s get started. Step One: Your GoalThe goal of this process is to come to the end of it with a brand new niche market that you know you can go into and start making money almost immediately. It’ll be a hungry market, with hungry buyers, and enough openings for you to slip in without anyone noticing.Step Two: Amazon.comWe’re after a clearly defined niche market that is already populated by a group of hungry buyers. So, we’re going to start at Amazon.com. At the top of the first page, next to the search box, select the book department, and go. In the left hand navigation column, you’ll notice all the different book topics. Pick one that interests you. Let’s say, Parenting & Families. Now, you’ll notice a new set of topics in the left hand column. Pick one. Let’s say, Family Relationships. And from that navigation column, let’s choose Divorce.Step Three: ReviewsOur first glance at the books on divorce will focus on the number of reviews for each book. Reviews indicate a market that’s involved and active, which is what we’re looking for. At the time of this writing, you’ll see review numbers such as 149, 29, 90, 30, 62, 42 and so on. These are wonderful numbers. They demonstrate a clearly-active group. If you were seeing much smaller numbers, let’s say in the 0-10 range, then you’d have to be a little concerned about your market. Though it’s only one consideration in this process.Step Four: TitlesNext, you want to take a look at the titles. Even though this section is about divorce, you’ll find titles such as How to Survive the Loss of a Love, and The Good Bye Book: How To Heal A Broken Heart In 30 Days, and Rebuilding: When Your Relationship Ends. These are all possible sub-niches. Not just about divorce, but how to survive the loss of a relationship. So you might want to note these potential sub-niches for future reference.Step Five: Amazon.com NumbersNext, you want to take a look at the sales ranking of these titles. Helping Your Kids Cope With Divorce is #3,670 in Books. This can be found by clicking on the book cover and moving down the page to the section title Product Details. Amazon.com Sales Rank for this title is 3,670. Since they carry millions of titles, this is an excellent ranking. Make note of it.Step Six: DummiesDoes the topic have an Idiot’s Guide or a Dummies book? In the case of divorce, yes, there’s a Divorce For Dummies title. This is a plus. It demonstrates that research has already been conducted in this niche and the folks behind the Dummies books felt it was a profitable niche to go after. It’s not devastating if there isn’t a Dummies title in your niche, but it’s a definite plus if there is one.Step Seven: Check out the competition. If you enter “divorce” in a Google search, you’ll find that there are over 66 million pages on the Internet with that word in the content. You can’t compete with 66 million pages.  You’ll never be seen.  So you want to find a niche within divorce that you can go after. To do this, go to the Google External Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) and enter the term “divorce.” Then start going down the list and entering the supplied keywords into a Google search inside quotes (for example: “divorce dating”) until you find a group of keywords without tons of competition. Now you’ve done your niche market research and you’ve got yourself a niche market.

Discovering your Perfect Niche Market starts with YOU.  It comes from your passions, skills and abilities.  It comes from who you are and what you can bring to the marketplace.  

Finding a Perfect Niche Market does not start by searching for what’s hot on eBay or reading the newspaper to see what consumers are currently shopping for.  I challenge you to think differently.  

Discovering your Perfect Niche Market starts with YOU.  It comes from your passions, skills and abilities.  It comes from who you are and what you can bring to the marketplace 

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My clients and students are surprised and delighted to discover that a refined niche
marketing strategy not only attracts significantly more business but also provides richer opportunities for self expression. To help you discern your own market niche, try using “where” and “who” questions like the following:

“Where” Questions
Where do you consistently find kindred spirits?
Where are you most credible?
Where is there the greatest need coupled with the greatest appreciation for your work?
Where do the people who need your work most often have breakdowns that would cause them to hire you?

“Who” Questions
Who is naturally drawn to you and to your work?
To whom are the things that seem obvious to you a revelation?
Who is traveling a path that you have successfully walked yourself?
Whose language do you speak?
Whose concerns can you reliably anticipate and address?
Whom is it easy for you to serve?

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One of the keys to Internet Marketing success is finding and exploiting underused niche markets.
Once you find these niche markets, here is what you must do:
1. Collect e-mail addresses.
This will be the key to your online niche business. When you are collecting e-mail addresses, you not only sell to your niche prospects immediately, but you can sell them other products in this particular niche market over and over again.
You must collect e-mail addresses!
2. Provide your subscribers with great free articles.
If you have chosen a niche market that you are not familiar with, you can still provide great articles. There are hundreds of article directories that provide free articles that you can use.
You can also go to any of the freelancer sites and have articles written in any niche market.
3. Provide your subscribers with free niche reports.
By now, you have loyal e-mail subscribers within your niche, and it’s time to provide them a report.
The easiest way to do this is to assemble a series of articles in your particular niche market and put them together into a niche report.
Within this niche report, make sure to add many affiliate links to products within your niche, along with links to your website. Also, be sure to allow subscribers who download your report to be able to give it away to others for free. This will create a very powerful viral marketing effect, and will drive a lot of traffic to your niche website and to your affiliate websites.
4. Offer a product for sale within your niche market.
Now it’s time to take your niche site to the next level. By now you should have a great deal of knowledge of your niche market.
Either write an ebook yourself, or go to one of the many freelancer sites and have one created. There are also some easy niche product creation solutions available on the net.
That’s enough to get you started.
The key is to create a lot of articles, a lot of reports, and a lot of products to sell in any niche market you choose. Don’t worry, It’s not as hard as it seems.
You don’t have to be an expert, you just need to find an easy product creation solution.

Every niche marketer out there would be keen to master the techniques of succeeding in niche marketing. It could be for the purpose of building niche websites or simply to market some products in that niche. Frankly niche marketing when done correctly can be rewarding. Here are some of the interesting points you can pick up on succeeding in a niche market that could prove profitable to you.

1. Start off with your interest

It is not surprising that many successful niche marketing experts first started with their interest or hobbies. Perhaps it is the passion that drives them to work a little harder and become an expert in the field. So start listing your hobbies now.

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