List Building - How to Choose the Right Topic

So, you need a great list building idea. Here's a way to get list building ideas, and how to know whether other people are looking for this idea online. If they aren't, there's no point building a list around the idea and you should find another. If people aren't interested, it just won't work.

Still, to get your first list started, don't spend too much time on this. You just want to get your first one going, so you understand the process.

But let's say you want to do something on dogs, and you want it to be more specific. I mean, you could be list building around dog breeds, dog toys, dog training, and so on. But which one of those would you enjoy working with the most and which one are people most curious about?

A free tool that you can use to help you is at Overture.com, which is now Yahoo! Search Products. Go to the Resource Center, and use their "Keyword Selector Tool. This will allow you to brainstorm with some keywords as a list building theme.

Feed "dogs" into the search box and wait for your results. Today, we have dog, Snoop Dogg, dog pile, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Nate Dog, and finally get to something dog-related that you can build a list around... dog breed. Of course, these words may change next month, so remember this is just an example.

So, maybe you click on "breed dog ," which last month, had 125,160 searches on Yahoo. Then, if on that page, you click on "dog breed," you'll get even further into the topic: small dog breed, best dog breed, and toy dog breed in the results. You can dig into any of these, and get even further into the term to find what you want to use as a topic for list building. Be sure to choose something with at least 3,000 searches for the month. If you find that there are no great categories in one word or that there weren't enough searches for something you like, then go back to your main list of words and find another.

If you really want to crank things up, another resource you can use is a paid resource, but it is the best paid resource that will help you get the most up-to-date keywords. That's important if you want something that's current or for a seasonal event. Go to MyFirstKeyword.com. I use that service in order to look up my keywords and really make sure everything rocks.

Some keyword research will really help you to get your list building efforts going in the right direction. Maybe take a little time to think this through, use the tools available for coming up with an idea for list building, but don't wait too long.

You know what I say, right? Just go do it!

Tellman Knudson is CEO of OvercomeEverything, Inc. Learn how to build a powerful and responsive list quickly through his premiere list-building course, MyFirstList.com.