It was not too long ago that everyone thought the big, all inclusive website was the end all the be all of internet marketing. These are called authority sites, and if you can build one and get it ranked anywhere near the top of the search engine rankings, then you've got a small gold mine on your hands.
For the budding internet marketer, there are a couple of problems with this. You would have to literally write a few hundred pages of web copy. Also, there would need to be a big niche that's not already filled. Writing the copy would not be the largest obstacle, if you know how to write copy. Even if you do not you could learn how to write SEO optimized copy for the internet. The big hurdle would be to find a niche that's not already occupied by at least four or five big players.
Without your authority site's pages turn up in slots one, two, or three of the search engine results, your work will not worth the effort. As an example, I just Googled "diabetes". The top slots were taken by diabetes.org, diabetes.com, US News and World Report, and Wikipedia. There's no way someone like you or I could compete with diabetes.com without a huge budget and a tremendous amount of work and know-how.
So, for the lone internet entrepreneur, building authority sites is not the way to go. Actually the way to go is to look at the other end of the search spectrum continuum. Instead of targeting keywords that get thousands of searches per day, you need to be looking at keywords that get 100 searches a day.
Niches with this characteristic are called micro-niches, and there are literally a ton of them out there just waiting to be exploited! … If you know how!
For the single entrepreneur, or the budding internet marketer, micro-niches are the place you want to put your attention. There are several reasons for this. One, you can beat out the big boys and girls with tightly focused websites optimized specifically for your keyword phrase. Two, when someone searches a micro-niche size phrase, they're usually much closer to buying than someone who's searching on more general terms.
To help you understand this, let's look at the proverbial dog training niche. Who's going to be closer to pulling out his or her credit card, the person who Googles "dog training" or the person who Googles "housebreaking Wheaton Terriers"? The person who Googles "housebreaking Wheaton Terriers" might still be just looking for information, but if they ran across your e-book entitled (guess what?) "Housebreaking Wheaton Terriers", they would be much more likely to buy it.
