One of the hiccups I encountered while researching is the overwhelming amount of information. I spent quite some time getting off track. So I had to organize myself.
(I started taking notes in Notepad, but that's wasn't very useful when it came to reading my notes. I started keeping it in Microsoft Excel, but I didn't like the idea of having multiple files between my home and work computer.) So I use Google Docs Spreadsheet. I love it! I can easily access it from home and work without having to worry about whether or not I have the latest version open. My way of oranzing is constantly evolving. Right now it's in this format.
Sheet 1: Random notes: other possible niches I may want to pursuse in the future, article titles I would like to write, various ways to categorize my niche product, specific keywords to look into
(I'm sure I will have to find a way to organize this sheet, but everytime a cool thought goes into my head I write it so I don't forget it)
Sheet 2: Competitors
Each competitor takes 10-20 rows & 4 columns:
- website address
- pros of the site
- cons of the site
- notes (how i found the site, # of visits as reported by http://www.compete.com/ [thanks, Brad!])
Sheet 3: Merchants has 9 columns:
- website
- name 3rd party affiliate program/private
- commission
- payment frequency
- number of days to store cookie
- affiliate tracking software
- reports?
- price 1
- price 2
- notes
(price 1 and price 2 are the prices of 2 different items found on all the websites so that I can get a better idea of how their prices stack up)
Sheet 4: Products has at least three columns:
- Category
- Price range
- a column for each of the merchants and how much it goes for at that site
