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"How
to Find a Really Good Topic For
One of the best places to go looking for ideas is Internet message boards/forums. If you don't already know what a message board is, it's basically a meeting place for people interested in the same subject. People looking for advice and help, post questions and opinions on the forum. Other members will express their opinions and answers to the questions posted. It doesn't matter what the topic is, there are usually some differing opinions between the forum members, which can often lead to interesting and lively debates. You can easily find forums relating to your niche of interest by doing a quick search on www.google.com. Just type in a word or words that describe the niche you're interested in, followed by the words: 'forum' or 'message board'. If you put your search phrase in inverted commas " " you should get a more accurate result with your search. For example, if you wanted to find a forum related to 'gardening' you would type in the phrase: "gardening marketing forum" Or "gardening message board" If you also do the same searches as a plural, i.e. 'forums', you might come across a website or two that have a list of relevant forums which cover your niche topic of interest. This could be very useful and save you a bit of time with your research. Before you create an information product, it's always a good idea to see if there is an existing demand for the information you are going to provide. Look for the most popular threads Once you enter a forum, you should have a good look around to try and spot the most popular 'posts'. You will often see a number next to each post/thread to see how many times it has been viewed and or replied to. You should be able to quickly identify which topics are of high interest to the members of the forum. This will give you a very good indication as to what subjects your target customers are likely to be interested in. Check out the message archives Most forums will usually have a search facility. Once you've identified one or two topics of seemingly high interest, you should perform a search to try and find older posts discussing the same topic. You should look out
for patterns of high interest in the previous posts as well. Sometimes
you might discover a 'one-off' post on a topic that has gotten
a lot of views/interest. This can be due to an 'off-topic' debate
within the thread. If you can find a number of popular posts on
a particular subject this will go some way to proving the high
demand for that information. What problems are they having? Often, the best information products will solve a problem for people. By researching the most popular posts, you should be able to easily identify the most common problems and questions that people are asking. As you carry out your research, it's a good idea to write down the questions being asked on paper. You should hopefully begin to start seeing a pattern emerge. Once you have a list of the most common problems/questions being asked, you should then make a note of the replies/answers to those questions. You are looking to see if there is already a solution in the marketplace for the problems people are having. If there is a solution available, why is it that so many members of the forum don't know about it? You could create:
Let your imagination run wild! Very useful software that will help you to research many forums at the same time... Researching forums is a great way to find information. On the downside, if you are monitoring and studying the posts in a number of forums, it can be quite time consuming. However, I recently
came across a handy bit of software that will help to scan multiple
Internet forums for information at a 'touch-of-a-button'. The good news is, it's free! I have thrown up a quick download page for you to get hold of it. I hope you find this useful,
Jason Lewis |
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