If you are looking to start an internet business, the first thing that has to be done is choosing a niche market. We know there is plenty of competition out there for every niche. But not everybody offers the same as you do.

The first thing that has to be done is to get a good idea on whether to pursue a niche market or not. This entails keyword research, which includes coming up with keywords that people are searching for and finding out how much competition there is for that particular keyword.

Initially, it is no good going for generic keywords that have a lot of competition. For example, if you type “Golf,” it is a generic term with millions of sites. If you target your keywords better, such as “Golf balls” or “Travel Golf,” you will find less number of searches but you are aiming at a particular audience in the niche. Remember! It is always better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond.

After you have chosen your niche, choose a few more keywords specific to your niche. Now time to check on your competition. What are the keywords and phrases they are using? Right click on “view source” and look at the META description tag (you will find it at the top.) Are these keyphrases helpful to you? Narrow down your list. Search on Google with the keyphrases you are planning on using and see if any similar sites are coming up. If they are, you are on the right track. Some of these keyphrases will be used on your site in the content and some will be used as links.

To do well with your website, it is important to be high up in the search engine rankings. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong. How many times have you gone to the 3rd page of Google search results when looking for something? Most people click on the first few results only.

The question you should be asking is, “What have the other sites done to reach the top?”

Start at the very beginning and take a look at the design of their sites, including colors that have been used and the template. The idea is to see how the site layout is and do one better than them.

But that’s where the importance of looks end. You would find that many an ugly site is at the very top. There could be several reasons for this, such as great information or good back links. Look at the content the other sites are providing and ensure you do better.

Now that we have our keywords ready and we have created the design of our site, the next step is to bring traffic to the site. A great looking site without traffic is no use?

This can be achieved through on-page optimization and off-page optimization. On-page optimization includes incorporating keywords in the text, title, meta tags and headings. If you notice in the source, some of the top sites do not do this and you can rest assured, your site will fare better.

Off-page optimization makes a world of difference between a top page rank and a low ranking page.

One method is getting other websites in your niche to link to your site. The more links there are, the better the ranking. It is not just the number of links, but the page rank of those sites linking to you is very important.

Take a look at the top ten sites in the same niche. Try and find out the techniques they used. Make a list of these sites.

Now take one of those top sites and type link:http://www.sitename.com/. Instead of ‘sitename,’ you should type the actual name of the site. With that, you will be able to see the sites that are linking to your competitor’s site.

You will have to find out the page ranks of all these sites. You can download the Google tool bar for this. If the page ranks of the sites linking back to your competitor’s site are not too high, you have a chance of being up there.

I know it all sounds complicated. But when did anyone say that being the top site is easy? Going through the whole thing a few times will register better.

In simple words, a complete website can be built along with great back links, just by observing what the competition is doing.