Review Frank Mullen's Niche Database
Who was voted the
Best Web Host by my
newsletter subscribers?
Find Out in the
Top 9 Web Hosting services review.
One of the biggest problems facing webmasters looking to make money with affiliate programs is finding a niche that is not over-populated. Frank Mullen created Niche Database to help webmasters quickly find a lot of niches both for free search engine traffic and Pay Per Click search engines..
Let's have a look at this package.
The Niche Database package includes:
1. The Niche Database and the software to view & manipulate the data as well as some Pay Per Click (PPC) tools. We will look at this in the main review.
2. Google Adwords Teleseminars by Jonathan Mizel & Perry Marshall "How To Make Money With Google Adwords". Certainly useful insider knowledge on how to use Google Adwords.
3. Website Conversion Report by Paul Hancox. Useful report on how to test your web pages to increase conversion rates.
4. Video Tutorials - Overview of Niche database plus a great tutorial on how Frank himself uses Wordtracker for his own research.
Niche Database itself is a collection of thousands of "profitable" keyword phrases that Frank has found. The great thing about this list is that Frank keeps them updated on a monthly basis so you know that the data you get is relatively accurate. The other great thing about this software for me is that it uses data from Wordtracker. Those of you who have read my newsletter long enough will know that I don't rate Overture at all as a keyword research tool. Be warned that many other keyword research tools use Overtures data and end up giving you a false impression of what will be profitable. It is refreshing to find a tool that uses the bible of keyword research - Wordtracker
In Niche Database, the ability to filter the keywords in any manner you like allows you to quickly and easily find profitable Niche ideas. For example, you can find just those keywords with the word boat in them. Filter by competition, KEI, number of searches etc. The filtering capabilities in Niche Database are as comprehensive as I have seen anywhere.
Filtering out keywords with the word boat in them, for example, could be a great starting point for a site on boats. However, I do think that this tool needs to be used in conjunction with Wordtracker to conduct more detailed research. Niche Database is a great ideas tool and companion to Wordtracker, but for finding themes for sites that I want listed only in the free search engine (i.e. not PPC), I could not rely solely on Niche Database, the numbers of phrases is just too restrictive for my way of building sites.
Feature of Niche Database - Researching Keywords
This feature uses Overture data to generate keyword lists, and then find the KEI of those phrases, number of Google Ads and number of Overture ads. This feature really is only for the PPCers because the only really useful data in this section (in my opinion) is the number of ads in the PPC engines. For PPC users, this data is vital for spotting profitable niches. This feature of Niche database is comparable to Adwords Analyzer and with all the extra features of Niche Database, I feel this is a better way to spend your money if you are going to target Pay Per Click engines.
Feature of Niche Database - Ad Counters
This feature allows you to import a list of keywords which will then be analyzed for the number of Google ads and Overture ads. This tool is much better in my opinion than the Research feature. The great thing about it is that you can use other tools like Wordtracker to get your keywords, copy the keywords you have found and paste them into Niche Database to find the ad counts. For PPC users, this feature is very powerful when combined with the power and reliability of the Wordtracker data.
e.g. Do your research on Wordtracker, filter out only those keywords with good numbers of searches (this is the step that fails miserably when using Overture), paste those words into Niche Database and finally get the number of ads in google and Overture.
Niche Database Summary
Frank is one of those rare software authors who keeps his software up to date, listens to user feedback and adds new features regularly. Niche Database has grown since I first downloaded a demo a few weeks ago and is almost unrecognisable - in a good way.
Will I use it?
Certainly to help find some new niches but I will always go back to Wordtracker and take the ideas given to me in Niche Database to run a full Wordtracker analysis on the niches myself. At the end of the day, Wordtracker will have far more keywords in any given niche than Niche database and also be 100% up-to-date.
The real value of Niche database is for those who find it difficult to find niches for themselves, or those involved in PPC advertising.
Be aware though that the keywords in the Niche Database with very low competition and high counts are likely to be hit hard by other Niche database users.
For example, in the latest niche database update, one search term had only 3 competing pages in Google yet over 200 people searching for it. When I checked on Google today, that same search term has over 300 competing pages.
The main value of Niche Database in my opinion, other than being a companion to Wordtracker or an ideas tool for those having trouble finding niches, is for those who are into Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. Niche database has some great PPC features that rival Adwords Analyzer (by Jeff Alderson) and Keyword Analyzer (by Goran Nagy).
If yo want more info on this tool, I highly recommend that you sign up for Frank's e-mail course. Valuable information that is also free is not something to ignore ;o)
One final thing about Frank. He cares about his affiliates.
Remember the discussion last week about merchants who just want free traffic from affiliates and don't care if their affiliates get their rightful commission as long as they themselves get the sale? Well Frank only opens his affiliate program to customers. Bravo Frank!
