If you're reading this, you may know something about Internet marketing, or you may be completely new. People at all levels of experience read our materials, and we asked them what they needed to start list building. What we found was that a majority of the people has no idea where to start. They want a step-by-step tutorial on how list building works. Even if they'd been into Internet marketing for a while, they were still unclear on list building. If that's you, we'd like to help you, and plan to do a series of articles on the process. In this first article, we want to discuss your first step, and it might surprise you.

Many people think that BAM! you get an idea, you buy a domain name, set up a web site, and you're Internet marketing. Not true. You need to plan your business and you need to make some important choices in the beginning. The first thing you need to do is to choose your niche. My best advice to you would be to stay away from Internet marketing because the competition is just too stiff and there are lots of people with much more experience doing the same thing. Your chances of success in that niche are very, very slim. I was extremely lucky, but what you need to do is decide what your passion is. What do you like to do on your day off? What did you study in school? Do you enjoy your job? How can you help people with that information? Make a list of the possibilities and realize that whatever these areas are, you'll need to love them because you'll want to be working in them a long time.

The next step is for you to take that list to http://inventory.overture.com and to type in your niches, one at a time. See how many people actually searched for those terms. If you see less than about 10,000 searches, then you should probably move on to another term. But if you're still interested in that niche, brainstorm some other possible terms that might be connected to that niche and try to see if you can come up with a term that more people are looking for.

Try not to use very broad terms, though. If you look at the term "golf," you'll see that it had 625,160 searches in January 2007. That's not surprising, but what happens when you have so many searches is that the niche is very, very competitive and probably not one to be Internet marketing and list building around. But you don't have to abandon the niche! Look down the page at some of the terms that are less searched for, and you'll see "golf tips," "golf swing," and "golf game." If you can build your business around any of those, you'll probably do well.

Maybe you'll want to choose "golf swing," which had 12,582 searches, which is a respectable number. If you use this term, instead of "golf," you'll do better because there is much less competition. Give it a shot. Be Internet marketing and list building around the term "golf swing," and be helping people with their golf swing problems. To build your list there, for instance, you could do a classical Internet marketing joint venture with a golf pro who has a product and a list. You'd both benefit because you'd be list building and making money and so would your partner.

But here's the thing... The niche you choose has to be interesting to you and at the same time, something that other people are interested in and searching for. That's how Internet marketing works best, when you find the people who want what you have to offer and then, you sell it to them. But that's just the first step. Now, you'll need to brainstorm some domain names, and in our next article, we'll help you to buy one of the domain names on your list.