There are many ways to make a living online. But no matter which route you choose, it all begins with market research. You have to find a group of buyers who have a common problem or need. Then all you need to do is sell them things that solve the problem or meet the need.

Market research can be divided into two parts – finding a profitable niche and finding long tail keywords within that niche. The good news is that there are many free tools available to do this. Some of the best tools are provided by Google itself. So the first thing to do is sign up for an account with Google. Once you have done that, go to Google’s keyword tool . Type in the words ‘buy, purchase, order, get’ (without quotation marks) into the search field. The sktool will list out 800 words or terms that contain these buying keywords together with other useful data like level of competition, searches per month etc. All you have to do is choose the term that you feel is most suitable for yourself, preferably one that has at least 2,500 searches per month.

You’ll see categories on the left of your screen for niche ideas. Pick your niche or category and then it will automatically search the term that you have chosen and produce the relevant data . Scroll down to the bottom part of the page and you will see other related search terms. Take note of all the related search terms that you find.

Now you would have about 10 buying keyword terms in a particular niche. This basically indicates that there are people searching for information to solve a problem or meet a need in this niche. Next, you should investigate further into how big a market this niche is and get more keyword ideas.

Go to amazon.com, ebay.com, magazines.com and clickbank.com. Put the main keyword of the niche into the search field and see if there are products that are listed in these websites within this niche. Chances are you will find products in all these websites pertaining to your niche. Briefly review some of the products for ideas – both keyword ideas and product ideas. The next step is to find long tail keywords.

To do this, go to Google’s external keyword tool . Type in your 10 keywords and it will generate a list of related keywords. Take note of the keyword phrases with at least 3 words in them (long tail keywords) and that produce at least 2,500 searches per month.

Now go to the Google search engine at www.google.com and type in the main keyword in quotation marks. As you are typing, Google will give you related search terms. Take note of the long tail keywords. Once you hit the search button, Google will list out all the websites related to your keyword (this is called the SERP or Search Engine Results Page). Take note of the number of websites listed (it is listed at the top right hand corner of the page). You are aiming for keywords with a maximum of 1,000,000 websites. If it is significantly higher than 1 million, then the keyword is too competitive. Do the same thing with each of the keywords that you have and choose those which have less than 1 million competing websites.

For each of the keywords you type into Google, look at the bottom of the SERP and you will find more suggested related keywords. Click on them and you will find even more keywords. Drill down into the keywords as deeply as you can until you find long tail keywords with less than 1 million competing websites.

If you have done your market research well enough, you will now have identified a niche with ready buyers and the long tail keywords (about 10 will do) they use to search in the search engine for information on a product to buy. The next step would be Product Research and Creation which will be covered in the next article.