Google added a new set of tools on it’s search pages last month that will help you find new untapped niches!

So go and check out the enhanced Search Options capabilities – including the ‘Wonder Wheel’!

First, go to Google and do a search – say for “lose weight”. On the results page, look just below the Google logo (in the light blue bar below the line), and click on ‘Show Options’.

Down the left side, you’ll see a menu of options. Click on ‘Wonder Wheel’ and you get a map of your search term and related search terms – the spokes.

Click on any of the spokes and you begin to dig into sub-niches – just keep repeating to find sub-sub-niches.

You can also get a list of similar results (spokes of the wheel) by clicking on the ‘Related Searches’ link in the menu on the left side.

At each step, check the number of results for the search (in the upper right hand corner) until you get to a ‘manageable niche’ (say <200k websites) where you’ll be able to compete effectively for the keyword… You can also use the phrase-match option by putting your search term in “inverted commas”.

And don’t forget to check the organic and paid search results being displayed on the right side of the page (your competitors).

Also, click on ‘Review Sites’ and ‘Forums’ to check out the opposition or find topics or material for your own pages!

Pretty useful and quick way of checking out niches – huh?

Oh, and the spokes of the Wonder Wheel should give you ideas for associated products and further pages for your website…

And don’t forget to check out the other Search Options – you can filter by time period and the Timeline gives a useful indication of interest in a topic (and is a bit faster to use than Google Trends for a ‘quick-and-dirty’ appraisal).

When you use the Search Options in conjunction with Google’s Keyword Tool (just type the niche term into the tool to check the number of searches for that and related terms) and Google Trends tool, you’ve got some of the fastest and most powerful free research tools available to internet marketers!

Click on the screen below to see Google’s summary of Search Options and the Wonder Wheel!

Happy niche-spotting!

What a reminder that the Internet world is constantly changing!

Google announced it’s new on-line communication and collaboration platform – Google Wave – on the same day as Microsoft unveiled it’s new search engine ‘Bing’ (it’s replacement for ‘Live Search’).

And just preceding this was Wolfram Alpha, the new search engine that’s reputed to actually answer your queries with useful results!

While many see Bing as being an attempt by Microsoft to catch up with Google and Yahoo, and they’ll be spending a reputed $100M on advertising in the coming year, it is unlikely to do more than dent Google’s lead.

Microsoft Search continues to struggle to gain market share from Google, who last month secured 64.2 per cent of all search queries in the US, compared to Live Search’s paltry 8.2 per cent.

And Google continues to enhance it’s own search engine with capabilities that include the ‘Wonder Wheel’! It’s a great tool to help you with your niche research – see my blog post Find Untapped Niches With Google’s New “Wonder Wheel”!

As well as looking rather like Google Search, some of the results options in Bing are similar to Googles’ new Search Options - although in Microsoft’s overview of Bing, they say that it’s supposed to provide much more fulfilling search responses.

But what does this all mean for you?

Well, in addition to using these new tools to help you find new niches, pull in more prospects and communicate better with your customers, just stop a moment and imagine how on-line search, interaction and meetings are likely to evolve – and the host of extensions and applications that will be available very shortly – with these enhancements and platforms!

I’ll be posting further articles on these developments, and how you can use each to enhance your own marketing, on the Internet-Tycoons Blog and Forum.

Spin the Wheel, cry ‘Bing’ and join the Wave!