One of the most common problems that people make when starting their online business is creating a website or product that people don't want.

Sounds crazy doesn't it? But it's true. I have heard from several people in the past that have emailed me to say that they have built a site but despite having worked to get top search engine rankings, they are not making any sales.

Here's the thing - it is no good having your website at the number one position on Google for the keyword 'tomato soup' if no one ever searches for 'tomato soup'!

Therefore one of the most important things to do when you are considering starting any new website business is research - see if anyone actually wants what you are going to offer them. Think of it like this, if you wanted to open a restaurant you would do some research to see if the local residents wanted your restaurant and whether they would be likely to use it. If the local residents said 'no', then you wouldn't bother opening would you?

Same process online - make sure there is a market BEFORE you create the product. There are various ways you can do this but one of the best is to use a free piece of software called Good Keywords. In a nutshell, you type a keyword or phrase into the software and it checks to see how many times in the last month people have searched some of the main search engines for that word or phrase. It works very well and I have used it to rule out several website ideas in the past - ideas that would have involved me spending weeks of work building sites or writing ebooks, only to find that no one was interested in the subject matter!

And don't forget the other piece of advice that I keep banging on about - go for a niche market - just because 5 million people searched for 'dvd' last month, doesn't mean that DVD's are a good thing to sell. Search Google for DVD and see how many search results are displayed - that's your competition! Daunted? You should be! With a bit of research you can find a far less competitive market that still has thousands of people searching for it every month.

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