The Pew Research Center study revealed that regular net users were more connected with their friends and family than those who didn't use Internet on a regular basis.

Almost two-thirds of 3,500 respondents said they felt that email brought them closer to family and friends -- significant when combined with fact that 91% of them used email on a regular basis. That's 91%. It took VCRs 25 years to achieve such market penetration.

What did people in this study seem to be doing online when they weren't doing email? Half were going online regularly to purchase products and services, and nearly 75 percent were going online to search for information about their hobbies or purchases they were planning to make. Sixty-four percent of respondents visited travel sites, and 62 percent visited weather-related sites. Over half did educational research, and 54 percent were hunting for data about health and medicine.

A surprising 47 percent regularly visited government web sites, and 38 percent researched job opportunities. Instant messaging was used by 45 percent of these users, and a third of them played games online. Even with all hype in media, only 12 percent said they traded stocks online.

What does this mean to e-marketers? It means that if you're constructing a site for goal-oriented consumers, you'd better make sure you can help facilitate their seeking. Rather than focus on entertainment, flash, and useless splash screens, most effective sites are those that help people get information they want when they need it. Straightforward data, information that invites comparison, and straight talk are going to win day.

A client buddy of mine showed me his website which heralds his retail location and attempts to sell nothing online. He said it has been biggest moneymaker in history of his 35-year-old company. Then he apologized for its lack of glitter and special effects. He asked how his site could be so successful even though it lacked anything to add razzmatazz and dipsydazzle.

Now, you know answer.

Although all of keywords I expected to find were there (and well serviced by my competitors I may add), right there, at top of list for each search engine, were some keywords I would NEVER have thought to target and neither, it appeared, had my competitors.

Here's stats (I'm not revealing keywords themselves for reasons which will become obvious if they're not already):

Keyword Number* Competing* #1 238 1 #2 268 14 #3 2,399 184 #4 556 21

* The Number column represents number of times this particular keyword has been searched for within past 30 days. The Competing column shows number of competing sites targeting that keyword.

Now, this information is fine and dandy for doorway page creation. Just target keywords that are highly sought after with relatively low competition (there is a Keyword Effectiveness Index number also provided which "compares 24 hour result with number of competing web pages to pinpoint exactly which keywords are most effective for your campaign". The higher KEI, more popular keywords are and less competition they have), create doorway pages that target these keywords, submit them to search engines and, assuming your pages are structured to rank well with particular search engine involved (which is where Web Position Gold comes in), you should be able to get a reasonable ranking.

But for me, true revelation was discovering a subject matter sought by a significant segment of my market but which was largely being ignored by me and my competition. In other words, I had discovered an all-important niche market. The subject matter involved is very specific and narrow. It is a simple matter for me to research this subject and create an information product to meet this demand. Which, of course, I intend to do. And which, of course, is why I'm not telling you what it is!

And, once I've created my information product, how do I reach my market? Simple. I use very same keywords that I know people are entering to find my product, create doorway pages for those keywords and voila! ... a targeted information product to a targeted niche market. My market may not number in thousands every month, only hundreds. But of those hundreds, a significant proportion are highly motivated to purchase my product because, as above analysis shows, they have a need that is currently not being met. What would you rather have, 500 prospective customers, 20% of whom actually buy from you (100 sales) or 5,000 prospective customers, 1% (if that) of whom actually buy from you (50 sales)?

Targeting your niche means narrowing your focus, devoting your energies towards a smaller but more highly targeted market. What you lack in terms of sheer numbers of prospects you will more than make up for on your bottom line.

So, bringing it all together, start with a broad subject matter that you know something about or that interests you enough that you can acquire requisite knowledge within a relatively short period of time. Follow steps that I went through with keyword generator and see if, like me, you can identify a niche market that is underserviced. If so, create an information product that satisfies that unmet need and promote it by targeting very same keywords that you used to identify niche in first place.

Do this and, unlike millions who have devoted their life's work to writing information products about Internet Marketing, you can actually stand a chance of making a valuable and original contribution to body of work available on Internet today and get paid real money for your efforts.