Strange Internet Businesses Make Money

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Tuesday, 7 October 2008

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Strange Internet Businesses Make Money

By:Halstatt Pires

Coming up with a profitable site that will make money can be a bit of a challenge. If you get a little strange, you can make money hand over foot. Don’t laugh!

Strange Internet Businesses Make Money

Okay, let us be clear about one thing. We are not talking about porn sites or anything else of that nature. When we talk about strange Internet businesses, we are really talking about a very particular niche market.

A niche is simply a segment of a business area or subject that isn’t discussed much, but has a lot of consumer interest. The classic example of a niche market is Star Trek. The show has spawned a legion of fans. Those fans go to conventions, buy every kind of Star Trek product imaginable and generally are very loyal to the brand. Although some people consider Star Trek fans to be a bit weird, they are a representative market.

One approach to making money on the Internet is to focus on a very particular niche. Adult web sites are the biggest revenue producers on the web. Regardless of your view of those sites, they offer an important lesson. Every single adult site is a niche site. Revenue studies show the adult sites that are very niche defined absolutely rake in the cash. This is a lesson you should take to heart.

Focusing on a niche market has some serious advantages. The level of competition in the niche is almost always going to be lower than in a more general market. Since there are fewer competitors, you will be able to become a leading figure in the niche should you so desire. This leads to publicity and so on. This is good. Very good!

Going with a niche market is a great idea, but finding a strange niche is even better. Strange niches tend to have a smaller population of interested people [i.e. potential customers], but they are also ready to buy if you can provide them with something they have been looking for but can’t find. Just as important, they will come back to buy more and tell there friends. This is also very good.

A classic example of a strange Internet business is gourds. It took me some time to figure it out, but gourds are melon-like bulbs. Apparently, people like to dry them out and then paint on them. A lot of people like to do this – maybe 50,000 searches a month are undertaken for gourd keywords. A few years back, there was almost no competition for rankings. You can guess what happened. Gourd sites started popping up everywhere. I apologize for saying this if you are a gourd fan, but painting gourds is just strange. This makes it a perfect Internet business!

So, where do you find strange internet business ideas? You have to hunt. Ah, you knew it wouldn’t be that easy, eh? A good place to start looking is your own life. What odd little things do you like that you don’t tell anyone about. Do some keyword research to see if there are others out there sharing your quirk. If so, you have the perfect Internet business because you know something about it and have some passion for the quirk.

I’m off to paint a gourd.

Article Source: http://www.dailynewarticles.com

Halstatt Pires is an internet marketing consultant with Marketing Titan. Visit us to read more Internet marketing articles.