Whether you’re trying to find an idea for building a niche website or trying to create an effective digital marketing strategy for your existing business; your success will depend on the quality of your decisions.

In this article, I’ll give you an overview of the best niche research tools and some tips on how to use them. This will give you a clear idea of the process behind finding profitable niches and becoming successful online.

Why use Niche Research Tools?

Doing research, collecting information, and studying the data, are at the base of every successful online project. It’s the only way to build an online business or strategy that can compete. Niche research is where everything starts.

What your research is all about, depends on the scenario. Every business is unique and so will the research questions and research activities be. In order to get an idea of what these research goals look like. take a look at the list below.

Doing niche (or market research) can help you:

• Find the most profitable business ideas and opportunities
  • Uncover trends
  • Find niche markets to dominate
  • Find profitable product ideas to create
• Understand your target market
  • How large is your niche/market?
  • How can you enter a specific niche market?
  • Who your competitors are and what their strengths and weaknesses are
• Better understand your target audience
  • What problems they have (what solutions can you offer them?)
  • How to engage with your audience, based on their buyer persona
  • What communication style is appropriate to use in your content and ads
• Build new, or improve your current digital marketing strategies
  • Map and optimize your sales funnel (or customer journey)
  • Find niche keywords that rank and convert
  • Build SEO, content marketing, and PPC campaigns based on research data
• Understand the competition (competitive Intelligence)
  • Reverse engineer competitors strategies
  • Understand the competition’s weaknesses and strengths
  • Understand how to outrank the competition in search engines and outdo them in Google ads

Now that you understand the value of doing niche research, also have a look at some of the best practices below.

These best practices are important to keep in mind:

1. There are plenty of niche finder tools on the market. Some are geared towards keyword research, while others are better for backlink analysis. Others show the latest trends. There isn’t a ‘best niche finder tool’, because the best one simply is the one that offers what you need.
2. Niche research, keyword research, and competitive intelligence tools don’t provide 100% exact data, but some are better than others. Always think of ‘averages’ when it comes to most metrics (such as keyword search volume)
3. Your conclusions are subject to the quality of your own interpretation. Tools are used in order to give you valuable insights. With time, and by using them, you’ll learn how to do get the best insights out of your research.
4. Every scenario is unique. There’s no way of showing you an exact one-to-one mapping for your own situation. Researching means, doing the work, and looking for the answers to the questions that are specific to your own situation.
5. This list is not exhaustive. These are the tools I use myself and recommend to others.

Niche Research (niche finding) Tools I use

• SEMrush – All in one SEO / PPC research suite.
• Google Search – Explore the market manually, check rankings, and assess the competition.
• Google Trends – Learn what’s trending around the world and jump on opportunities.
• Google Keyword Planner – Google’s own keyword research tool.
• Keywords Everywhere – Helps you get more insights, by showing you data in important places.
• Ubersuggest Keyword Tool – Keyword research and competitor intelligence by Neil Patel.
• Answer the public Keyword Tool – Learn what questions and problems your audience has.
• Similarweb – Competitive intelligence tool.
• Facebook Audience Insights – Better understand your audiences by using Facebook data.
• Q & A websites – Manual niche exploration.
• RSS Subscriptions – Monitoring what’s happing in your market
• Trend websites – Learn what products are hot and discover new opportunities.

SEMrush

SEMrush is an all-in-one suite of tools for doing online market research, finding profitable niches, and doing SEO analysis. You can use this platform for everything from keyword research to performing competitive analysis. SEMrush is used by digital marketers as well as entrepreneurs and business owners.

A suite of tools for SEO, content marketing, Market and PPC Research

SEMrush features provide everything you might need in order to compete online. This includes everything ranging from a keyword research tool, keyword ranking (SERP tracking) to link building analysis, and website auditing modules.

All your data in one place

Besides the features, the quality of data, I like SEMrush because of its ease of use. Of course, you can do a lot with free research tools, however interpreting the data from a large number of sources and then consolidating it, can be a lot of work. SEMrush allows me to do niche research quickly and efficiently, without too much hassle.

SEMrush pricing, trials and coupons

SEMrush is a paid tool, and I’ll be honest – pricing can be steep. However, the tool does indeed make up for the price, because if you know how to use it correctly, it’s definitely worth it. In order to get an impression of the learning curve, try it out for 7 days for free.

My recommendation is first to sign up, play around and find out what you can get out of the tools before you go through the heaps of documentations, free eBooks, case studies, and so on. Why? Because otherwise, you’ll be stuck reading, instead of trying it out. If you ask me the whole point of getting a free trial is to make use of the tool as much as possible.

I will be sharing SEMrush coupons and discounts whenever I get my hands on them with my email list. Feel free to sign up for my exclusive email list in order to receive all my updates, as well as all the deals and coupons that come my way.

SEMrush training Academy

On the website, the company offers case studies, tutorials as well as blog publications. All the content is of course geared towards the user using the tools. SEMrush case study ebooks are practical and easy to follow. They can definitely show you how to get the most out of the service.

If you’re interested to learn more about how to get the most out of SEMrush, then you can sign up for a 7-day free trial and have a look at their extensive free training academy.

Get a 7-day free trial on SEMrush

Google Search 

Everybody knows Google Search, but you’d be surprised at how much it’s used by professional marketers in the strategy-building process.

Though a simple tool, it can provide valuable information. By shifting your perspective and applying some easy techniques, it can become a powerful research tool. 

To use Google search for niche research, understand that:

1. Google provides personalized search results. Location, browser history, and previous searches all affect your search results.  For unbiased results use an incognito, or private window while working.. You can open a new private window by pressing CTRL + SHIFT + N.
2. Location affects the search results, even in a private window. To see results for specific locations, use Google’s ‘?gl=country code’ parameter. For example https://google.com/?gl=us. This will show the search results for the United States. Find your preferred country code here.

Find competing web pages

You can check the number of pages that are best optimized for your topic (or market) by using: allintitle:”your keywords”. This shows the number of pages that have keywords in the page title. Pages with keywords in the title as well as content are the pages best optimized for certain topics.

This is important to know because these are the pages you’d eventually want to outrank in the search engine.  These are the pages you want to compete with because these are the ones that are most probably optimized in the best way.

Checking market profitability

You can roughly determine if your niche can be profitable by looking for paid advertisements in the search results. If Google Ads are present, it means that companies are paying money to show up at the top of the search results. This is a strong indication that the investment is worth the return. There’s most probably profit to be made.

How profitable the market is, can be gauged by investigating click prices of paid advertisements. Higher click prices usually indicate a more profitable niche. Advertisers who are willing to pay a high price per click, usually have a well-thought digital marketing strategy in place that yields positive returns on their advertising investments.

Build out your content strategy

When typing keywords into the search box, Google provides a drop-down list of related terms. These related keywords are closely tied to the primary (or seed) keyword. The same search terms are provided at the bottom of the search results.

Google is clearly telling you what people are searching for within your niche. You can use related search terms to build out your content strategy. Always use these related keywords in your content optimization efforts.

Get a 7-day free trial on SEMrush

Google Trends

A little less known by the general public, yet one of the most powerful free tools you can use to build and improve your digital marketing strategies.

Google trends can show you how your market develops over time. It shows you growth, decline, popularity, and relative search volumes of topics and keyword search terms. You can also compare different topics, which helps you understand the world’s reaction to global trends, as well as trends within your market.

Keep in mind that:

1. Search terms give results about that particular word.
2. Topics give results about that particular word, including related words (so, this is a grouping).
3. Search terms and topics are basically representative of your market (or niche).
4. Traffic volumes are relative and not exact. Search volumes are divided by all
5. searches for all topics in that particular geography. The highest search volume is represented by 100, while other topics will be relative to that highest number.
6. ‘Breakout’ means: there is more than a 5000% increase in popularity of a search term or topic versus the period you’re looking at.

Google Trends can help you:

Understand the market in a broader sense

Analyzing trend graphs shows progressions, rises, and declines of your topics or search terms. You can get more insight into people’s (audience) intent, as this information generally shows you what potential and existing prospects are really looking for. 

1. Gauche general consumer interest in products, brands, people over time.
2. Compare topics and search terms, in order to make better business decisions.
3. Understand the popularity of your market in different geographies. This will help you decide  which regions and locations to focus on.

Identify opportunities and threats

Trend graphs are ideal for identifying opportunities and threats in your market because they allow you to clearly compare different topics.

1. Identify the effects of seasonal influences on your market, products, and services. For example, think about how holiday seasons bump specific topics or keywords to the top and strategize how you can surf that wave of traffic.
2. Compare different topics in order to identify opportunities and threats. Think about the possible reasons behind sudden rises and declines. This allows you to react accordingly to real-time situations in the market.

Find ideas for creating and better content optimization

Insights from Google trends can help you build stronger content marketing strategies. 

1. Decide which topics or search terms to create content for. If these are trending upwards, it means that traffic could remain steady, or increase over the coming period. It might be worth creating content for that topic.
2. What are the top related topics and search terms? These are also topics or search terms that your audience is interested in. Depending on your goals, creating content for these might be a good idea.
3. What is the top rising and break out topics and search terms? These are popular right now and it can be worth the effort to investigate if you can follow up on these topics.
4. Better optimize your content. By using the topic names and search terms in your page titles and content, Google will better understand your content. Targeted relevance is a major ranking factor and it’s the bare minimum you always are doing.

Get a 7-day free trial on SEMrush

Google Keyword Planner

This is a go-to keyword research tool for many digital professionals, including myself. If you want to use Keyword Planner, you’ll have to sign up for a Google Ads account. The tool will show you keyword search volumes, related keywords as well as Google Ad click prices and competition metrics.

Things to understand about Google Keyword Planner:

1. If you aren’t actively advertising with Google Ads, the keyword research tool won’t show accurate search volume data. Instead, it will show broad ranges.
2. The competition indicator at the right of each keyword, does not hint at how hard it is to rank for that particular keyword. Instead it relates to the number of Google Advertisers that are buying clicks for that keyword.

If you’re not actively buying Google Ads, and thus don’t have access to more precise search volume data, you can still you keyword planner for:

Understanding Market buildup 

Analyzing the primary and related keywords that users are typing into the search engine provides a picture of how a market is built up. The number of searches is an indication of market size, while the topical relationships between keywords give clues about the market buildup. Combining this information with Google Trends information helps you understand sentiment and audiences’ interest even more.

Understanding keyword difficulty

The competitive metric provided by GKP is relevant only to the Google Ads customers. However, combining keyword data with techniques described earlier (finding the number of competing pages with Google Search) can roughly show you how hard ranking for a keyword could actually be.

Gauging Market Profitability

Keyword Planner will show the prices that advertisers are paying when someone clicks on their Google Advertisements. These click prices can be indicative of the advertising spending by market players. Further research (for example, by reverse engineering competitor strategies) can give you a reasonable idea of how potential market profitability.

Note: reverse engineering a competitor’s strategy can, in some cases, be as simple as following their advertisements and reviewing what actions they take to land clients. On the other hand, some aspects can be harder to uncover, as that might involve having to sign up their email list and following their messaging for a period of time.

Get a 7-day free trial on SEMrush

Keywords Everywhere

Shows monthly search volumes by taking data from Keyword Planner and opening it up to non-Google Ads customers. The data includes keywords, related keywords, click prices, and Google Ads competition metrics. Keywords Everywhere integrate the data with sites like Youtube, Google Analytics, and Bing, amongst others.

If you are not using Google Ads and thus, don’t have access to more accurate keyword data, KE’s reasonable pricing is definitely worth it. Not only does it give you access to better data, but it also simplifies the research process offering data integration and some extra management options. This is an incredible time-saver.

Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest can give you insight into the market, competitors and quality of your web site optimization efforts.

What you need to know about Ubersuggest:

1. When you enter a search term(s) this will put you into the keyword research tool mode.
2. When you enter a domain name, it will put you into a competitor analysis mode.
3. Ubersuggest gets its data from Google
4. The tool is divided into Ubersuggest keyword research, Traffic analyser and an SEO analyzer.

Understanding the market

Typing a keyword (search term) into Ubersuggest can help you understand your market in several ways.

1. Search term suggestions and volumes –  Search volume is a great indicator of market size. 
2. SEO difficulty – will give you an indication of how hard it will be to rank your content for these search terms.
3. CPC (cost per click) – tells you what the click prices for Google ads are for the topic / or search term. The prices that advertisers are willing to pay in Google, combined with the size of the market (search volume) is a good indication as to how profitable a market is. 
4. Related search terms, questions, prepositions –  can give you a better view of how your market is built up. These search terms are also great for finding ideas for new content.

Competitor Analysis

Entering a domain name into the search box will give you useful information about your competitor’s website(s). You can of course use this on your own website in order to check how you’re doing.

1. Domain overview – give you an idea of the strength of a website. This includes the number of keywords the website is ranking for, estimated monthly traffic it receives, the number of links, and a proprietary domain score.  Comparing this information with your own website gives you a quick indication of how direct of a competitor you’re dealing with. 
2. Top SEO pages (by country) –  shows you which pages on the website are receiving the most traffic. This will tell you which topics are working best for this competitor. You can use this information in order to build better content on the same topic and try to (eventually) outrank them.
3. SEO keywords – show you the search terms that are driving the most traffic to the pages on a specific website. This will give you an overview of the topical organization of the competitor’s website. If you are directly competing with this website it can also give you an indication of which keywords to put more optimization effort in. 

Site Optimization (SEO Analyzer)

The SEO analyzer section, provides you with a quality overview of a website, in terms of optimization. This information is useful in many ways.

1. Site audit – provides you with specific health scores for several things. This can show you where you need to improve your own or competitors’ strengths and weaknesses in terms of optimization. This section will also show you some important data that is relevant for better rankings, such as site speeds, site errors, and some recommendations to implement.
2. Backlinks – will give you insight into the number of backlinks that a website has and where these come from. If you’re competing with a website, this information can reveal potential link exchange partners.

Note: Ubersuggest has since some time become a paid tool. I recommend using it only for its free features because there are paid services available, which I find to be much better for both SEO and market(ing) research.

Answer the public

One of the most important things to understand about building effective digital marketing strategies is to cater to the needs of the audience. This includes solving their problems and answering their questions.

Answer the public is a keyword tool that can help you understand how to better serve your audience. It turns Google and Bing’s auto-suggest search terms, into relevant questions your audience could be asking. The data is shown in easy to view visual graphs data tables.

Understanding your Audience

1. Identify who your audience really is. If you find questions that you are able to answer, they are most probably your target audience.
2. Uncover problems your audience might have and create specific content that solves those problems. This can increase engagement.
3. Get a feel for how your audience might be discussing the topics that are relevant for your business. This can help you understand consumer intent.

Building out your content strategy

1. Better optimize your content by crafting more relevant and attractive page titles for your content. The more specific and relevant you target your audience, the better you should be able to rank

Get a 7-day free trial on SEMrush

Similarweb

Competitive intelligence is a huge part of building a strong digital marketing strategy. Understanding your own strengths and weaknesses and of your competitors can make or break your strategy.

Similarweb allows you to uncover competitor strategies, discover new opportunities and understand your customer’s intent. You can instantly get insights about your competitors by entering the domain name in the search box.

Understanding Competitors

1. Traffic overview, including metrics such as total visits, visit duration and pages per visit, traffic by country, and traffic sources (where the traffic is from). When comparing different competitors this way, it’s possible to determine their relative market share.
2. Referral traffic will tell you which websites are sending traffic to your competitor’s website and where your competitors are sending traffic to. This can reveal valuable information about your competitors, such as their business and marketing strategies, as well as partnership opportunities for getting similar traffic to your own site. 
3. Search terms that visitors are using in order to find your competitor’s website. Uncovering their top search terms for bringing in traffic, gives you the opportunity to.
4. Amount of traffic received from social media. This shows which social media channel they’re putting the most effort into. It’s also an indication that their audience, which might be your audience, spends time on that particular channel. Lastly, it can also indicate which types of content work best for your audience (if Youtube drives the most traffic, then the audience clearly engages with video content).
5. Similar websites show you, possible other competitors. Comparing different competitors’ sites with each other can reveal differences in their approaches. This can show you how to approach your market from different perspectives.

Get a 7-day free trial on SEMrush

Facebook Audience Insights

Facebook collects a wealth of information about its users and because their base is so large, it’s representative data. This means that researching your audience on FB Audience insights can give you a good idea of the characteristics the individuals inside your audience have. This, in turn, will help you build better digital marketing strategies (not only for Facebook but in general as well).

Audience insights will give you insight into, for example :

1. Demographics of certain audiences, such as age, gender, relationship status, and job title.
2. Interests, page likes, and activity of the audience you are researching.

You can access FB audience insights as part of a FB business manager account. Signing up is free and centralizes all FB advertising accounts as well as the tools in one account. It’s very similar to opening a Google Ads account. 

Q & A Sites 

Question and answer sites such as quora and Reddit are a gold mine for finding out what questions, issues, or problems your audience has. You can do this by simply going to these sites, searching for specific topics, and reading all the questions and answers. This can help you build more effective digital marketing strategies – since it’s all about catering to the needs of your audience.

Some popular Q & A sites to check out are: 

1. Quora.com
2. Yahoo answers
3. Reddit.com
4. Buzzfeed.com

Understanding the market and audience

• What problems does the audience have?
• What type of content is best to create? 
• Use the information to better serve the search engines and your audience.
• Build better optimized content marketing campaigns/strategies.

Feedly RSS subscriptions

Blog posts, comments, and forum discussions can reveal things about your audience and what’s happening within your market. Think about issues your target audience is facing, trending topics, and so on. Keeping up to date with a large number of informational sources is made easy by using a service like Feedly.

1. Sign up for Feedly
2. Install the Feedly Chrome Extension
3. Surf all the forums, blogs, and sites that are relevant for your market.
4. Subscribe to their RSS (if they have one)
5. Check your updates periodically in order to find out what content is being created

Understanding your audience

Following what’s happening in your niche will allow you to:

1. Understand what content is being created by your competitors. They’ve usually done their research too and they’re not creating content blindly. You can use the most popular content in your niche as an indicator of what’s working and what’s not.
2. Using a tool such as SEMrush or SEOpowersuite, you can dissect your competitor’s strategies quickly and easily. Then you can devise a digital marketing strategy that suits your audience’s needs.

Analyzing Trend sites

Though technically these are not niche finder tools, you can still use trend-related sites and information sources for doing research. Besides Google Trends (described earlier), you can check trending topics and stories on several trend sites.  This allows you to get a feel for what’s hot, what’s not, and what’s going to be.  They’re also a good way to look for new business ideas and opportunities.

Popular sites to watch for trends are:

1. Trendhunter
2. Trend Deploy
3. Product Hunt
4. Steemit Trending 
5. Reddit Trending

Note: you can generally use Feedly (see above) to subscribe to these sites.

Better understand your niche

Tracking trends and hot topics can be very valuable because it helps you:

1. Find new opportunities
2. Start optimizing parts of your digital marketing strategy, such as SEO and content before your competitors do.

Wrapping it up

The list in this article is not exhaustive. There are many more tools and services for researching and finding profitable niches. In the future, I will be dedicating free training to the most important tools and creating tutorials for them. These tutorials will be in-depth and unlike any other content that is found on youtube or anywhere else.

If you’re interested to be notified when I publish my free training, tips, strategies, and tactics, feel free to sign up for my exclusive newsletter.