How to Measure a Niche

Popularity, Competition, Revenue Possibility

[zulufox]

I currently have a very decent site on a topic I don't really enjoy writing about. (But money is money)

I am about to launch a second site in a subject I am very very passionate about.

While my first site is in a very "traditional" niche (travel related) with evergreen style articles such as:

How to buy blue widgets
How to buy red widgets

The concept for my second site is to take a subject that is full of high level content (Government reports, Whitepapers, Academic Journals) and bring it to the everyday person.

My articles would therefore have to be less EuropeForVisitors' "evergreen" type articles and more Wired Magazine type articles(such as explaining reports, recent developements, and tutorials).

I setup the domain and CMS a few days ago but then I started wondering:

Will people even visit my site?
Is my niche big enough to justify hundreds of hours of work?
Will this type of articles make money?
What happens if I make it and nobody comes?

My question to you is this:

How can I measure my niche for popularity, competition, and revenue possibilites?

[figment88]

use keyword tools to see if people search for phrases your site will be about. Look at what top bids are for your phrases. Type your phrases in the search engines and see what the competition looks like - do they have sponsors, are they serious sites?

On the other hand, some people devote hundreds of hours to hobbies that nobody else ever even know about.