David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

I was reading an ebook I had heard about and it explained some important principles about building websites and marketing those.
 
My standard methodology would be as follows

1. Identify a personal favourite topic
2. Identify the niche within that
3. Build the site
4. Monetise the site
5. Market the site

All good and well but the chances are I will be going after a market I'm sure that exists but I'm not sure of the earning potential.

Yes I could do a search and work out the predicted popularity of the site but essentially, I'm creating a site with a generic aim - to make as much money as possible.

But there is an alternative.

The alternative is to build sites aimed towards viral marketing that target the 18-25 age group with no credit cards.

Why?

Because they represent a large proportion of Internet users. I tried finding internet demographics statistics but I couldn't find anything of relevance or value so instead I have found a couple of links that depict what was hot in March 2007 on the web:

• http://www.google.com/press/intl-zeitgeist.html#uk
• http://buzz.yahoo.com/overall/

At the moment, the top searched for items are:

• PSP Games (sales, downloads, information)
• Johnny Depp (information, pictures, gossip)
• PC World (sales, information)
• Audi A3 (information, test drive)
• British Telecom (information, services)
• Red Nose Day (donations, information)
• Barcelona FC (information)
• Shrek 3 (information, sales, downloads)
• Hobby Craft (sales, information)
• Nursery Rhymes (information)
• Virgin Credit Card (applications, information)
• UCAS (information, applications)
• Bear Grylls (information, pictures)
• Take That (information, pictures, gossip)
• Lil Kim (information, pictures, gossip)

It may be a bit of a surprise (or perhaps not) that most of the top searches are not for sales items. They are not by people who want to spend money. Therefore, if you are looking to develop a site that can generate buzz and enormous amounts of traffic, you need to be aiming around the topics listed above.

Remember that generating lots of traffic in itself is not that great. You need to utilise that traffic well - build a mailing list or monetise it.

Video: The True Cost of Advertising