This website is all about helping crafters, makers, woodworkers and small business owners get more sales for their products.

I cover offline marketing and a lot of online marketing.

The biggest thing I do is focus on keyword research – and I do this all the time – If you know where your buyers are lining up to find you and your product, your business will be successful. You will just need to follow a few easy-to-do steps to get it all linked up for buyers to buy from you.

So, while I chat a lot here below, I offer done-for-you keyword packages for sale. See the list at the bottom of this page, and know that I will be adding more all the time.

Step By Step Research Method For Your Product Ideas

You are welcome to watch it all explained in this video if you prefer to consume content this way.

WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW

Overview and Introduction

This is a thing I normally only do for client research.

What I cover here is a general look at the actual idea or product I am going to research, and even throw in a few thoughts before I get started with real details.

Core demand (keyword) research

This is where I go directly to the search for how big the demand is for the product.

I will start with the most basic version of the keyword or product I am researching and let the results guide me from there.

This is the most important portion of the research as this will tell you very quickly if there is a demand for the product at all, and if so how powerful.

In this section, I can sometimes download thousands of keywords, and at other times only get a few dozen

Closely related keyword research

This section might not be a factor at all. However you will find that a lot of the time people around the world use different words for products when they talk about them and when they search for them.

For example “mud room” is really only ever used in “snow” countries and seldom known at all in many other places internationally.

My job here is to use the research methods to see if other terms are getting picked up by the search engines or not, and if there are some, I then add an extra layer to the whole research package.

Question keyword research

This part of the research is often very eye-opening as it uncovers quite a few different things that we do need to know if we are planning to start producing an item.

For example, if people are asking a lot of questions about a product then that interest is a great sign.

However, if 80% of those questions relate to “how to make X” then that might be telling you that a large chunk of your core keyword search numbers might be coming from DIYers and not buyers.

Finally, I download all the keywords because this Question-Stuff is a powerful way to get visitor traffic to your website via social media and by ranking long-tailed question keywords for floods of visitor traffic all willing to soak up the info that you can provide.

Long-tailed keyword research.

I should start this section by telling you that new long-tailed keywords are created by the thousands every day. As more and more people come online to search for an item, so they think of many different ways to find what they are looking for.

I love this side of the research as it tells me so much more about the intent of search traffic online. You can get a strong view of buyer intent when looking into long-tailed keywords in detail.

KGR keyword research.

Yup, I should tell you that I am like a child when I find great KGR keywords. Let me try to tell you what these are.

KGR keywords are when there are (for example) 200 searches for a keyword a month but there are only (for example) 12 or 10 website pages in the whole world that are actually targeting that exact keyword.

It is probably better for you to watch me do this in a video. Go to the blog page – sooner or later I will have done a video explaining it all there.

Summary here – If you can find 30 to 50 really great KGR keywords and then create some lovely content on those keywords and publish them, share them and more – you start a chance of boosting your traffic a lot, not just the traffic from those keywords, but Google will recognise then you are a specialist on the subject (especially if your whole website is related to that product only)

Cha ching!

Keyword difficulty comment

Exact numbers – as far as keyword difficulty goes – are only included in the personal research packages that you are able to order from me, but I do cover it here in the done-for-you packages as an overview chat to see if I should warn you when I see obviously difficulty levels when they show up as an issue.

Shopping button research

This is not an exact science here, but because I am experienced in doing this research so many times, I can go over some aspects of what is happening on the “shopping” button.

I go there first when I want to buy anything – even if it is just another Gorilla Glue bottle. I will check every time I plan to buy something.

In the packages for each product, I will explain my thinking for each item in the shopping section.

Product image search

This image research is never a big part of the research, but there are aspects of it that will tell you very quickly if the product is massive, if there are many variations available and a whole lot more.

I summarise it each time I do research for you.

Local search research.

Local search research is in fact something that sometimes should get its own entirely separate package.

You see, large popular products – mostly household furniture is often in big demand right in your own city.

That demand becomes a powerful part of your decisions to manufacture a product or a range of products if your local city has enough demand and better still – if you are one of the only manufacturers of that item locally.

Shipping – This entire section will be heavily affected by the size and weight of a product, because local is just a short delivery away, with no crazy shipping costs.

Local demand for small items is cool too because this will tell you that your marketing side can easily target local marketing methods. (shows, markets, Facebook and more)

Google trends keyword research

When you use the Google Trends tool correctly, you could uncover some interesting facts.

Trending up or down is a factor, and I leave it up to you to decide if it is a big thing or not.

I will cover the thoughts I have in a video for you to look at.

Etsy research.

This is a powerful look into how many people are in your manufacturing space and what they are doing and for what selling price.

You get to see a lot of research things here.

Sadly, this is less helpful for large furniture items.

I make swing benches and Etsy doesn’t really help me there, but I also make a lot of small items and some of them should never have crossed my workshop floor if I had done better research when I got that clever idea.

I cover a LOT in this section of the research as it is a powerful window into your opposition right at your fingertips.

Amazon research.

Amazon is a bit like Etsy but generally not as strong for some woodworking products.

However, I will always go there as Amazon is so powerful that not looking at who is doing what with it is silly.

Some products will make you burst into tears because they might be silly cheap there (mass-produced knock-offs) but it is better for you to know about those if they might be a problem.

I know that for some niches and product ideas this section will be a big help.

Pinterest research.

Pinterest is a massive traffic-driving machine and if you neglect it you do so at your own peril.

I research here for a number of very good reasons – mostly to see the demand visually and for seeing how easily you could start to drive buyer traffic to your website.

A couple of years ago, I saw the back end of a yoga website “visitors on site right now” button and they had 18000 people on their site at that exact moment and 80% of that traffic was coming from Pinterest.

Facebook research

As of October 2022, Facebook does not give a lot of research results, but they are changing how they operate and this side will grow.

I also do uncover some details that might impact how you do your marketing and show you those details in my results.

Summary – Is the product worth it or not?

I finally get to the end of it all and will offer up a video and section where I cover the whole viability of the item in some detail.