by Elena Fawkner, 5/7/2007
People go online for many reasons. Some "surf", just to see what's out there, but most are much more specific in their objectives. They want to know about something and they turn to the Internet to find what they're looking for. At its most basic level, what is the ONE thing that 99% of all website visitors are looking for? You got it ... information.
That's why "information is king" is such a constant refrain, it's why e-books have become such a popular medium for both author and reader (instant sales, instant access) and it's why everyone, ANY one, has the opportunity to make money with their computers.
This is not yet another article rehashing the benefits of creating an information product (you know that already, already) and it's not YET another article regurgitating the same old marketing principles (you know you need to get the word out about your information product and there are no end of useful resources out there to tell you exactly how). What this article is about is what your information product should be about.
Although it's true that the Internet audience is so vast that virtually any subject matter will have a market, actually finding that market may not be so easy. Or, let's say that you know you can put words together, you have a broad base of experience to draw from or you know you can find out what you need to know about a particular subject in order to write an information product about it.
Well, here's something to consider. Instead of following the traditional path of deciding what you're going to write about, writing it and then going about finding people who are interested in reading what you've written, how about researching the market and finding out what people want to read about BEFORE writing an information product to meet that need? The advantage of this approach is that you know your market exists before you start writing, you can find out about your market and what it is they really want to know, meaning you can write a highly relevant information product responsive to that demand and, just as important, as you will see, you know exactly where your market is and how to reach it.