InternetBusinessManual.com - Step 2: How To Figure Out What's Hot To Sell & What's Not

Because Overture’s search reaches over 80% of active Internet users according to a 2004 Nielson NetRatings, Overture search result figures will give you a good idea overall about how hot a product is overall.

In the past Overture would frequently change the url of their search tool; however, it seems they have realized keeping the url is an asset as a resource, and the url has remained constant for some time.

Here is the current url for the Overture Keyword Selector Tool:

So, continuing on the example of the term car accessories, after visiting Yahoo.com and studying the web sites listed in the automotive accessories subcategory, you can get a good idea for a winning product you could develop that had all the 4 components:

Completely yours
Available nowhere else
Easily-targeted, large audience
Large profit margin

There are 4 types of exclusive products you could build your web business on:

1. An information product

2. A handcrafted item

3. Unique merchandise

4. Provide a service

Which one you settle on should be determined by whatever talents or passions you may have in that area.

Coming back to the car accessories example:

The reason why car accessories seems like a natural web business to develop, say over an automotive dealer web site, is that as an individual working from your home, you could probably create an automotive accessory, or locate a source for unique, in-demand products not already selling on the Internet. But you wouldn’t be able to run a dealership from your home.

If you had an interest in cars, and had the talent to create an accessory, like some Yahoo sites that offer unusual antenna balls, your next move on narrowing down a hot product, should be to find out the sort of items the sites listed in that category are selling. Then you should return to the search tools and see which of those items had the highest demand and eliminate those with very little demand.

From the example search given on car accessories, you can see that selling a product that fits into the category of car accessories, would be more lucrative than the smaller Internet-based market for the term pepper spray, which draws less than a quarter the amount of traffic.

So, going along with this example, how can you tell what type of car products fit into the search term car accessories?

Easy.

Visit Yahoo.com, Aol.com, Looksmart.com and type in the term in their search tool found on their home pages. Then look over the listings that come up. Whatever you find is the type of listing each of those companies finds appropriate for that particular term.

Yahoo also contains paid directories, which have many subdirectories. To find the directory for the search term you are seeking you have to actually click the "Directory" link in Yahoo above their regular search box. After you click on the Directory link, related Directory categories will appear in the upper lefthand side.

It is a mistake to assume that a listing in the Yahoo Directory alone guarantees a hot seller, because there are many listed sites that are duds, selling almost nothing per year. It is imperative that you take the next step, ferreting out what type of products selling online that interest you, then doing a search on them to determine if a sufficient number of people search for that item online to support good sales. That is the formula for finding hot products:

Check to see the actual number of searches, zooming in on an item with a healthy number of searches, that you have the ability to create something original for.

For car accessories, car seat is the highest. After looking over some websites that sell slip-on car seats, you will find that the prices the companies charge would allow you a good profit margin, if you had the talent to make your own.

So you now have satisfied 2 of the 4 components of an ideal money-make web product:

Easily-targeted, large audience
A good margin for large profit.

You now need to focus on developing a slip-on car seat that is completely yours and available nowhere else. If you could sew at a professional level, you might offer slip-on car seats with customizable themes, something unique, but popular, like sports themes, fun themes, children themes. Each slip-on cover you would make to order.

While you can’t compete with the big businesses selling standard slip-on covers, you can do what they can’t—–offer a personal touch. And that’s how you too, could build a successful web business in a very competitive category like automotive accessories. As you can see, though, you need to focus on selecting a product you have the talent to produce, or could readily master creating. You are not going to stay in business very long selling shoddy creations.