Once you have an idea for a good market, it's time to see if they're easily reached on the Internet. After all, if your market isn't easily reached, you'll have a difficult time getting them to your web site and getting them to buy from you.

Fortunately, you can find all this out in a matter of minutes. I would suggest Overture.com. Overture.com has a fantastic tool called "The Search Engine Suggestion Tool." This tool allows you to type a word in and see how many people searched for it in Overture's network of search engine partners.

For example, let us say that you're thinking that parrot owners might be a good market to sell to. You would go to Overture, click on "Advertiser Center," and then click on "Tools" at the top of the page. from the "Tools" menu you would select "Term Suggestion Tool." When the Term Suggestion Tool Opens, you would type in "parrots." About two seconds later you would see that 61,260 people searched for the word parrots last month. (This number changes on a monthly basis.)

So now you know that people who love parrots are looking for parrot-related information on the Internet. If only a few hundred people were searching for the word parrots every month, then you should change your market. But 61,260 people is a decent target audience.

Now that we have discovered that parrot lovers are on the Internet, it's time to find out what they want. One way to do this is by reading their magazines from your local bookstore. Another way to do this is by visiting parrot-related web sites and see what they're about. Subscribe to their e-zines and see what the articles cover.

Yet another way is to find parrot-related newsgroups and read what they're talking about. You can do this by going to Google.com, clicking on "groups" and then doing a search for "parrots."

Read the posts and ask yourself the ever important question: "What do these people want more than anything?" Once you find the answer, you can then begin contemplating product creation and marketing it.

Key Point: There is no sense in guessing what people want. Do your due diligence and research exactly what it is they want. Then give it to them. It is very easy to sell a person something they already want. How hard is it to convince a kid to eat ice cream? Exactly! You want the same passion with your market.