Popular and Profitable Niche Engines

You've probably used, or at least heard of, niche search engines... even if you didn't know it.

In many ways, Amazon.com is a niche engine devoted to books. Newegg.com is a niche engine devoted to computer supplies and technology products and reviews. BestRatedTravel.com is a niche engine (and ratings service) devoted to travel websites.

BestRatedTravel was one of the first niche engines with a "paid-inclusion" program, where companies can pay to have their websites included in the search engine database. Today, hundreds of search engines, including Yahoo! and Overture, offer these programs.

EquiSearch.com is a profitable niche engine developed by a group of entrepreneurs in Kentucky. It serves the thoroughbred horse racing and breeding industry. Most of EquiSearch's users and prospects are horse buyers, stables, trainers, brokers, and racing speculators. Its revenues come from multiple sources, including online and print advertising, Google AdSense, directory listings, affiliate partnerships, and classified ads.

Choosing Your Niche

When it comes time to create your own niche engine, the first thing you have to do is choose your niche. Countless opportunities are out there just waiting for you. But don't forget, your aim is to make a profit, so you want to choose a niche that will help you do so. You don't want to develop a niche engine on an area that is so tight almost no one will ever search for it. Instead of going with something like Naso Tang tropical fish, a better choice would be tropical fish in general (buy/sell, products, accessories, information, etc.).

Here are a few of the hottest niche engine markets:

Travel
Stock trading
Real estate
Matchmaking (dating)
Online education (courses, seminars, e-books, tutorials)
Images (non-adult)
Vacation rentals
Precious metals
Online gaming (cheats, strategies, tools)
Live Web cams
Specialty automobiles and parts
Business research
Restaurants (reviews, forums, images, live video)
Retirement communities
Resorts
Apartment rentals
Programming code
Pets
Global positioning systems (GPS)
Not interested in any of those? There are lots more niches out there. Do your research. Find out what's popular. Figure out how you can cater to the latest trends with your niche engine.