Niche marketing is marketing that is focused specifically on the needs of a very targeted group of users. Such a market is typically not large, so that the competition is manageable for the less established players.

There are many ways you can go about running a niche marketing campaign. But online, where the target is usually keywords with low competition in the search engines, you would probably take the following steps:

* Research keywords that a surfer will use to find what they want. Pay attention to those particular keywords which has a good potential for profit and not a lot of competition in the search engine rankings.

* Build a website or blog for Adsense revenue or revenue from other ad networks. You can also aim to sell your own or affiliate products.

* Optimize the content in your blog posts or website pages for the search engines, keeping in mind the keywords targeted.

* Get inbound links to your site or blog by submitting articles to the article directories. In addition, you can also network with other webmasters and get links between your sites or blogs.

* Keep building inbound links until your website ranks at the position you want in Google for your targeted keywords.

I have outlined the basic steps above but you will probably have to mix and match as necessary. Niche marketing is definitely not an exact science and you have to adjust accordingly.

Cost

In my opinion, you must pay for your domain name and web hosting. They will cost you less than $11 per month. The advantages of paying for those far weighs the small cost incurred.

There are other services you might want to consider spending money on as they will increase your productivity, and in the long run, give you a better return on the time you spent:

* You can choose to write all the content yourself but it is time consuming. If you have the budget, you can consider getting a writer or writers for at least some of your content.

* Submitting your articles to all the various article directories, websites and blogs is time-consuming and probably one of the most boring activities known to man. If you can afford it, you really must get a service that automates the submission.

* Services that reduces the time it takes to get good anchored backlinks to your site.

Skills Required

A relatively good command of English would definitely be recommended, especially if you intend to write the content and articles yourself. You don’t have to be a writer, but you must at least be able to write grammatically correct sentences and be disciplined enough to spell check your work.

You will need to tinker with name servers and web hosting accounts to get your website or blog up and running. Some changes in the web templates supplied might also be needed, or you might even want to design your own. Instructions will be provided or can be googled, but you do have to be computer literate enough to understand and carry them out.

Niche marketing is not a job but a business. And in any business, a spirit of entrepreneurship would be needed. While I have broken down the marketing process into a few simple steps, the details of how to implement each step varies for different people, different websites, different keywords, etc. Each niche also presents unique challenges that you, as the entrepreneur, must meet.