A niche web site is one that is dedicated to a single topic where you promote one or more products or services that are devoted to solving a particular problem or filling a need.

According to the experts, the more you focus on one topic the better your chances of success.

You may think that a niche marketing approach will limit you; in actual fact, however, the reality is that by focussing on a tight niche that has high demand and little competition you will stand out in the search engines, obtain good rankings and attract non-stop traffic with relatively few pages.

Let's say you are interested in the health industry. Health is such a broad term that anyone would go bananas if they tried to capture people interested in just "health". But, what if you were to choose a topic under the general health theme that is of interest to you, has high demand and relatively low or no competition? For example, you could choose to build a site around the topic of hair thinning which is increasingly a concern to both men and women.

The good thing about having a site that is dedicated to educating your visitors and promoting a select product(s) offering is that your potential customers are already interested in what you are offering. If you do your homework and develop good content that pre-sells your visitors will become your customers.

You are marketing to a consumer that is already half-sold. This consumer is looking for a solution to his/her problem and bang! you are there with the goods!

Successful online marketers also agree that more is less when it comes to the number of products you offer. The rationale is that by offering fewer high quality products, you can provide better focus for your visitors. Just pick one or a few that you like, trust and know and offer them on your niche web site, one per page.

Supply and Demand Research

There are plenty of niche markets to choose from. What you have to do is to start with a broad topic and then brainstorm it until you find a segment in that market that is viable. In this process it is important to pay attention to:

1. Demand

2. Competition

You may think you have a great idea but if a lot of people are not searching for what you have in mind your web site will not prosper.

There are a few good tools to help you research your niche web site idea. These are: Overture keyword suggestion tool, Good Keywords, AdWords Keyword Tool, and Wordtracker.

Most of these tools are free and can help you find the perfect niche for your site-to-be. Try finding a niche that has at least a couple of thousand searches and low competition.

Wordtracker is quite comprehensive providing supply and demand data in addition to many low-competition alternatives. Overture, AdWords Keyword Tool and Good Keywords are also useful but provide demand data only. For a quick check you can also go to the search engines and type in your niche word "hair thinning" and see how many results you get. Even though the number you see does not exactly reflect your real competition (there are other factors to consider such as how each page of the site is constructed and optimized) it can give you a good guideline.

Niche marketing is the way to have a successful online business nowadays. Take your time to investigate a few topics, do your homework and in less time than you think you can have a popular web site ranking high in the search engines.

Written by Monica Villarreal, co-owner of http://www.websitedesigngenius.com

The site is dedicated to linking entrepreneurs with no technical expertise to information, tips and valuable free e-books on how to build their own profitable websites.