Website Research

Researching Your Topic - Website Research

Before you even consider registering a domain name for your site you must do some website research first. There are a few reasons why this is essential when you are going to make a website. The worst thing you could possibly do is start a website on a topic you love only to find out that it is not a very popular topic and that no one is searching for information on it.

Without proper website market research you could choose a topic that is either extremely competitive or too obscure. A website needs traffic (visitors) to be sucessful and if no one is searching for your topic or there are too many well established authority sites on your subject that you site is unlikely to be found then you are wasting your time and energy.

How to Choose a Topic for a Website

To start a website the right way and give yourself a better chance of being sucessful you need to do the following types of research:

Website Market Research
Website Traffic Research
Website Design Research

The first two, market research and traffic research are the most important, you can think about the design of your site after you are set up.

Follow the tips below to find the right topic for your site.

Website Brainstorming

Im not a fan of the term brainstorming but it best describes the first step of your website research. The first thing to do is take a sheet of paper and write down ten things you are interested in, your hobbies etc. Next think of a product that related to each item on your list and write that down next to it and finally write down a brief description of who you think would be interested in that topic. You list should resemble this one:

Topic	Product	People
Golf	golf clubs	golfers, men, women
Reading Fantasy Fiction	novels	young adults
Art and Painting	Paint brushes	artists
Cars	car magazine subscriptions	men, mechanics,
Rock Music	rock clothing	teen, adult, musicians
Piano	sheet music	musicians
Cooking	recipe books	homemakers
Gardening	gardening books	homemakers
Party Planning	decorations	parents
Shoes	womens shoes	women

Now obviously this is very broad and your list should be broad two but try and add as much as you can think of to add. This list is only to give you an idea of what you could make your website about. The next step is to see what corner of the market you can work on in each topic. Shoes is way too broad to make a site about and will be very hard to compete in, you need to find a niche topic. Add another column to you list and write down one small part of each topic that you think you could focus on. For example with party planning you can choose any of the following, kids parties, 21st birthday parties, retirement parties or party cakes, decorations and party venues and so on. Narrow down your topic.

Website Traffic Research

The next part is of your website research is to narrow down your choices and do a little website traffic research. Choose three of your list of ten to work with, pick the three that you are most inclined to. This method is often called keyword research and we will be looking at this in greater datail later on.

There are hundreds of different website research tools available online and they are for the most part all very similar but their results can vary greatly depending on the methods they use to gather their results. Most keyword research tools reference the Google keyword tool and that is fine but all we really want to know at this stage is if any of our topics are being searched for online. The simplest way to do this is with a free tool that I personally use (there is a paid version but you do not need it) Its called Traffic Travis and the free keyword tool will work perfectly for your needs. You can download it here Click Here!

It only takes a couple of minutes to download and its completely free. There are many other ways to research traffic but this is the easiest for our needs and it won't cost anything. Once you have downloaded it follow this link to find out how to do your website traffic research

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