How to do Market Research Online

Today I spent almost whole day browsing Internet, forums, analyzing SERPS, keywords and websites. I thought it would be useful to post my findings and even more important to tell you HOW to do proper research online.

Importance of Research

Yes its time consuming, yes it consists of repetitive tasks, BUT: without market research you are flying blind. You will lose money in your PPC campaigns.

With research you will learn who is your audience, what are they doing online, where are they gathering information, what keywords are they using, what are the industry trends, how your competitors are targeting your audience and so on.

Note: I assume you have already selected an industry and a niche to research. I will use hosting industry > WordPress Hosting as an example.

There are 4 fields you need to Research:

• keywords
• target audience
• competition
• industry trends and environment

Keyword Research

You need to find keywords people are using and evaluate their search popularity, relevance, competition level and likelihood of conversion.

To get the base keywords I use “brainstorm” technique. I jot down all keywords that come to my mind. I also use seasonal variations, misspellings and slang. I produce a list of 10-20 keywords and then put them in Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

Make sure you select “Show all” in Choose columns to display drop down and sort your keywords by search volume.

I now get an overview of potential keywords that need to be further explored. Now this tool is very handy because it shows estimated PPC, advertiser competition, search volume and trends in one place.

The work is not done yet. I check each keyword in google to find out more about it. If I decide keyword is suitable for my target audience I add it to my master keyword list.

Note: These are basics of keyword research. Once I learn more, I will tell you how to do it in-depth.

Audience Research

I use the “walk in their shoes” technique which is basically what it sounds. I go to google.com and pretend I am looking for a hosting provider for my wordpress blog. That is a need.

My goal here is not to gather keywords (yet), but to understand target audience. People usually start with broad keywords such as “web hosting” and narrow keywords as they learn along their search session.

Here is an imaginary search session:

web hosting > shared web hosting > blog hosting > wordpress hosting > wordpress hosting reviews > bluehost review > bluehost coupon

This is an example of a search session. You can see how each keyword narrows the searchers scope a bit. I write down all relevant websites, ideas, interesting keywords, concepts that help me understand my potential customers.

I then go to forums about web hosting (sitepoint.com, webhostingtalk.com) and see what questions are people asking there. Forums are a great place to learn about your customers. Dmoz.org is a great place to find forum directories. I also use Yahoo answers to find problems and solutions. Another place  is ask.com. Enter your keyword and go to Q and A tab.

Purpose of audience research is to find out:

• consumer habits,
• demographics (age, gender, location,…),
• acceptable way to communicate with them,
• WHAT problems they have?,
• WHY they need the product or service (The reason for a need)?
• HOW you can help them.

Competition Research

You are new kid on the block. So how do you think you are gonna become a big player? Figure out what your competition is doing!  Find keywords they are using, where are they advertising, what kind of landing pages they use, what kind of voice are they using and so on.

I evaluate my competitors on keyword level. This means each keyword has competition in SERPS. Not only organic, but also PPC.

What you need to know about your competition?

• what keywords are they using,
• what kind of landing pages are they using,
• check if they are running cross promotions with other sites or products.

I use google.com for competition research, but there are two handy tools I also use. First is called spyfu.com and the other is Semrush toolbar (FF extension).

Industry Trends and Environment

You need to know if your industry or niche is healthy of dying. Google Trends will show you statistical data based on region and city, date and language. Just enter your keyword and you will get a nice graph with your data.

As you can see demand for  “blog hosting” occurred in late 2003 and is steady till 2009. The term “wordpress hosting” first occurred in 2005 and is still growing. Top regions are Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines.

What you need to know about your industry or niche?

• in what stage is currently your niche,
• is there enough demand for your niche,
• what are the seasonal peaks,
• what regions and cities do people perform most searches.

You can use additional sources such as surveys, industry reports and statistical data to get better insight into your industry.

Summary

Your knowledge of customers, keywords, competition and industry will determine if you will succeed with your PPC or SEO campaign. To learn that you need to do proper market research. Use the tools as they will help you save time, but also use your brain to transform data to information. No tool can do that.

If you get stuck let me know. I may be able to help you.

Need to do some more research on this wordpress hosting niche. I plan to start a PPC campaign soon. Will let you know!