I had the funniest phone conversation with Nicole Dean yesterday. Nicole is the “mostly sane marketer” — at least that is her claim. I'm seriously not sure about the “mostly sane” part. On days like yesterday, she calls that whole sane thing into question.
You see, our conversation was about owl vomit. Well, not owl vomit, exactly. We were talking about owl pellets.
Nicole does a series on her blog called “Weird Niche Wednesday” — and today her weird niche is owl pellets. In case you don't know, owl pellets are little balls of bones and feathers that owls cannot digest after eating their prey.
I've had two fourth graders, so I knew that kids all over America dissect these little gems each and every year. What I did not know was that there is a niche market for these pellets on the internet.
Don't believe me? Check this out….
People Are Looking For Owl Pellets On The Internet
So, I'm sitting on the phone with Nicole laughing about owl vomit (trying to decide just how sane she really is) and I decided to take a look at the market for “owl pellets”.
I was surprised when I typed “owl pellets” into Google (without the quotes), I saw 11 paid AdWords ads (these are the “sponsored links” on the top and right side of the Google search results.) Whenever I see that many ads and searches, I know that chances are people are making money in this niche.
I also saw that there were shopping listings in the Google search result– a clue that there may be affiliate marketing opportunities in this space.
I know personally how quickly AdWords can suck money out of your bank account, so when there are ads running (particularly if they are running for a long time), it means that people are making a profit.
One measure of the competition is the price of those AdWords ads. If the ads are cheap, it usually means no one is bidding on the phrase. Sometimes that can mean that there is not much money to be made, so people cannot afford to bid much. We already know there are 11 ads – but what are people paying for them.
A quick trip over to SpyFu.com show me a nice little surprise. It turns out that people are paying as much as a couple of dollars per click for ads. So, there 11 ads on Google and some of them are costing $2 per click.
Hmmm. I smell money.
As you know, internet marketing is about matching offers with buyers. To be successful, you need buyers. Lots of them.
So, I decided to look at the search volume. According to the Google Adwords Keyword tool, there are 9900 exact match searches per month for “owl pellets”. On top of that, some keywords are showing a cost per click of over $5.
That got my attention.
Next Stop Micro Niche Finder
At this point I had seen enough to make me want to fire up a keyword tool. I have several tools in my toolbox, but for quick stuff I love to use Micro Niche Finder. I find it easy to use.
I put owl pellets in Micro Niche Finder, and it told me some interesting things. Since it get's data from the AdWords keyword tool also (most tools do), it confirmed my finding of 9900 exact match results for Owl Pellets. It also showed me results for about 100 other owl-pellet-related keywords.
Of the keywords that it found, 28 of them contained the word pellet (or pellets).
I asked Micro Niche Finder to show me all the domain names (.com, .org and .net) that were exact matches for keywords. It turns out that owlpellets.com (and .org and .net) were already taken. However, the second most popular keyword, owl pellet dissection, was available.
Micro Niche Finder also told me that the competition was pretty weak. In fact, there are 1000 searches per month for “owl pellet dissection” and there is only one strong site competing for the term.
So, on a whim, I registered OwlPelletDissection.com (that is why it is shown as unavailable above) and I am in the process of throwing up an owl pellet site at OwlPelletDissection.com for experimental purposes.
Get it? Throwing up an owl pellet site? I crack myself up.
Sorry. I put up the site last night. So, it is a work in progress (kind of like my jokes).
An Interesting Case Study
Anyway, it will be interesting to see if I can rank for “owl pellet dissection” and or “owl pellets” over the next few months. I don't plan to work too hard at it (which makes it even more interesting), since I have lots of other things going on. But I will work at it some.
I'll keep you posted. Maybe this would make a nice case study for us to discuss on the blog. We can talk about the how and why of this project.
I'd love to hear what you think about this — or answer any questions that you might have. Let me know your thoughts.
Weirder than weird.
Why would anyone buy them? Or is that not what the ads are for? I haven’t checked.
I can walk through our woods out in the back 40 and find them any time. Usually they are sitting on top of a stump of a felled tree, or on top of a big boulder that is a few feet up off the ground.
We have an Amish farm a mile away so I’m going to see how the market goes for Road Apples.
Rich,
You have a gold mine in the back 40. Start pluckin’ those nuggets up. I regret to say that, if I ever needed owl pellets, I would have to buy a supply as we are owl-less here.
Great oogley moogley! What a fabulous new blog http://www.owlpelletdissection.com/
Way to go Mark! (Are those little teeth in the pellet on the top graphic?)
I’m testifyin’ right now about Nicole – she is only mostly sane. I’m her Mom so I can say that… with love. 😉
Anyway, good job running with the ball, Mark! Nicole always has nice things to say about you, and now I see just how true they all are.
I think they are little teeth. Cool, eh?
You daughter is really special. I hope my girls (3 of them) are a lot like little Nicki.
Mark
Wow. What an incredible compliment.
Thank you for that.
I gotta ask you one question.
WHERE did you get that graphic for your header? I can’t imagine the stock photo sites carry that kind of thing…. or do they?
Either way, it kinda made me throw up a little. lol!
LOL — great question. They are used in schools. Kids dissect them and find mouse skulls and stuff.
Mark
Love it, Mark. Who would have guessed that you could make money by selling vomit online? Go figure. 🙂
That’s definitely a perfect illustration of the beauty of niche marketing.
I’m looking forward to seeing your progress with the new http://www.owlpelletdissection.com blog. I love the layout and I see you’ve monetized it to the nines. Fun stuff!
Thanks for always enjoying my mostly-sane teachings.
Nicole
PS. YOU ROCK!
Thanks Nicki. Will be interesting to see what happens. Obviously, I don’t intend to devote my life to it. So, it will be cool to see if I can make it profitable on a limited time budget.
Hi,
I’m interested on how it goes, I visited the website and it looks really nice. How are you going to monetize it? Adsense maybe… I bet you can get #1 ranked for those two terms especially since there’s weak competition. Nice story!
Bye
Clark — because of the high CPC and the fact that I don’t plan on investing a lot of time initially, I will start with AdSense, Amazon and eBay. This is because all three of those can be done completely automatically. If I see traffic and poor revenue, I will look at converting to more profitable offers.
For example, I might look at promoting (or write) an eBook for kids that helps hem do their reports or whatever.
Regards,
Mark
You do rock, man! Wow – great job getting that site up! Will definitely be interesting to see where it goes. 🙂
Thanks! I am working on a “system” for sites like this. So this makes a good experiment for me.
Great stuff Mark – I will definitely start tuning in to weird niche Wednesday. Here’s two that blew me away – – Google “Snooki” or “The situation”. You’ll be amazed – truly. One could probably profit nicely with an anti-snooki e-book.
I guess I am getting old — I had never even heard of Snookie. Oh well.
I guess I am getting old Kent. I had never even heard of Snookie before. Oh well…
Haha – you’re more efficient with your part time than I – or my kids are older than your’s. Snooki is on that rancid reality show Jersey Shore – and 32M folks Google her for unknown reasons. She’s so popular she garnered a comment from NJ Governor Christie – who I do like.