Choosing a niche was the harder thing I ever did when I started my first business online. I didn’t know what to pick. A narrow niche, a broad niche or a micro niche. And to be honest, back then, I wasn’t even sure what was a niche market:).
Anyway, there are a plethora of them out there, and before you start your business, you need to know how to find a profitable niche for your website so you can make money from it!
What is a Niche?
A niche is an audience, in other words, it is a section of a market.
To be more precise, it is a group of people that are interested in something specific. If you think about it, almost everything around you can be a niche. Cars, plants, food, books, clothes to name a few.
If your niche is too broad, you’ll have a hard time to communicate with your audience. That is something you want to avoid when starting out your business.
Now let me show you what a broad niche is and how you can narrow it down so you can become an authority and help a specific group of people find a solution to their problem.
For instance, the niche sport is way too broad! There are many types of sports activities. You will have to narrow it down if you want to make it profitable. The categories you see below are called sub-niches, and each of them targets a specific audience.
You can even go broader and target a smaller group of people. Meaning – you can find other sub-niches under those sub-niches.
Here are a few examples:
- Running: Sub – Niche = Running for weight loss
- Swimming: Sub-Niche = Swimming classes
- Horse riding: Sub – Niche = Horse riding clothes
- Bodybuilding: Sub-niche = Bodybuilding for beginners
- Aerobic: Sub-niche = Aerobic for pregnancy
- Yoga: Sub niche = Yoga for men
The more you target a specific niche, the faster you’ll get results because Google will understand what your website is all about. People look for experts to help them solve their problems. Just to give you an example.
If someone goes to a Doctor generalist for a skin issue, the Doctor will send him/her to a skin specialist (dermatologist). The same If he/she has a heart problem, he’ll send the person to a cardiologist. Right?
So when building an online business, you need to adopt the same approach. You have to be an expert in your niche.
Do You Have to Be Passionate About Your Niche to Succeed?
There are a lot of debates about this subject and to be honest I don’t think you have to be passionate! It would be best, Of course. Who wouldn’t want to enjoy while working?
But the problem is that not everyone has a passion for something. In fact, many people don’t really know what they like. And even though they do have a hobby, it’s not necessarily something that will make money.
The worst thing you can do though is choosing a niche only because it is profitable. It will be tough for you to write content if you hate it unless you outsource your work.
Anyway, As long as you pick a niche, you are interested in, or curious about; then you have all the chances to succeed. But you surely don’t have to be passionate about it!
My final words in this paragraph are, don’t pick a broad niche so you don’t get lost and neither a too specific niche so you won’t be limited finding content for your website.
Can You Make Money in Any Niche?
Any niche can be profitable, but the question is, how much money can you make from it? For example, if you have a website that sells low-cost products such as books, Kindles, etc.. It will be difficult for you to make it profitable.
How much is a kindle on Amazon? $2.99. What about books? $25 the most. You will have to sell a lot of them to make a high amount of money.
Whereas if you sell higher ticket products. let’s say from $50 and up, you’ll earn much more from the same work. I don’t want to discourage anyone, but that’s the reality!
So before you start with a niche, you should definitely consider those things I mentioned above. However, there are other vital details you need to check before getting into any niche such as
- Possibilities to extend the niche
- The number of people searching for the niche
- The number of products to sell per month to reach the financial goal?
Find Your Niche
Now that you know what a niche is and why it’s important to choose the right one for your business, it’s time for you to do some research. Here is your step by step guide.
1) I always recommend to write down on a piece of paper at least 20 niches you are interested in.
It can be anything. For instance,
What stores do you like to stroll around when you go shopping? For me, camping and kitchen stores are my favorite spots to hang out. I just love it:) What’s yours?
What are your favorite magazines? Health? Sport? Music? Food?
Look around your house and see what you have bought lately. It could be a book about health, a video game or software for your computer. Anything! Do you practice an activity? If so, which one?
2) Once you have made your list, pick the five first niches. Remember! The more you like your niche, the more you will love to write about it. And the easier it will be for you to make it profitable!
3) Now that you have chosen your five favorite niches, you need to examine each of them and determine whether they are profitable or not. Don’t worry about narrowing down your niche. We’ll get there in a moment.
Brainstorm Your Niche Ideas
Let’s do some research together with a niche I’ve picked, and For the sake of this example, I’ve chosen recreation. But it’s way too broad, so I am going to narrow it down and find a sub-niche. This way you’ll understand better the process, and you’ll be able to do it by yourself.
1) Go to Dmoztool and click on recreation.
It will redirect you to a subcategory page where you’ll find many sub-niches. Then Click on fishing, and it will bring you to another subcategory page.
There you’ll find several good niches suggestions ideas. I took Bass fishing as an example.
2) Now that we found our niche, Bass Fishing. Go to Amazon. Yes, it is one of the best affiliate networks to find a profitable niche. And search for fishing, it will generate a plethora of related products. There are plenty of items to sell for bass fishing such as tackle, rods, lures, sunglasses and sooo many more!
3) Now we know this niche has good potential, we have to make sure people are looking for bass fishing. Right?
To do this, we need to type Bass fishing on a keyword tool. I use Jaaxy because in my opinion, it is more precise and it has plenty of great features.
But you can do your research on Google AdWords Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest.
These are free tools, and they provide excellent results, too. So for Bass fishing, there are 4414 fellow fishermen that are searching for this niche every single month.
It’s definitely a great niche! I would go for it if I were interested in bass fishing. But I am not:)
4) It’s not over yet! Before you go any further, type in Google your (keyword + affiliate program), to make sure there are other affiliate networks apart from Amazon so you can sign up and start promoting products on your website. You don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket unless your goal is to build an Amazon website.
My Final Words
That’s it! We are done!
Choosing a profitable niche can take time, but it is definitely worth the investment as you are going to put a lot of work and time into your business. And if you don’t see any results, you might get discouraged and give up. The first niche is often the wrong one as beginners tend to pick a niche without doing any research. And that’s a big mistake! You want your business to be successful. Right? So make sure to do your homework!
What about you? How do you find a profitable niche for your business? Let me know by leaving a comment below.
This is good advice, thanks for sharing!
This was, by far, the hardest part of affiliate marketing for me. I have plenty of passions, but they’re all fairly general, and it can be difficult finding enough to write about when you really narrow down a sub-niche.
Even now, I suspect that my niche is not small enough. But I will just have to hustle and get a foot up.
Do you find that it’s sometimes difficult to stay motivated writing for a sub-niche that is a limited subject?
I will make sure I apply these principles you’ve shared. Thanks!
Hi Jordan,
Yes, some people have many hobbies, which is great, but as you said, it is overwhelming and makes it difficult to choose a niche. Not finding content for your website plays a big role in your motivation. Anyway, there will always be strategies to extend a niche even the smaller ones, but it is just a bit more difficult than to narrow a broad niche.
Thank you for passing by!
Really helpful steps. Thanks.
Cool place to go that dmoztools site to target specific niches. You have to try different categories and subcategories before finding something that can be good for you, but it’s a cool searching tool.
I like the few examples you gave on how to find smaller group of people in any niches.
Once you find one, the next job is finding an affiliate program to have products related to your niche.
It doesn’t seem that hard at all following your process. Thanks for sharing it.
Hi Guy,
You are welcome!
Indeed, Dmoztools is a great place to narrow down niches. You can do the same on Amazon or on Google too.
It is effectively simple when you know how to do it the right way. Many people get confused with niches, they either pick too broad or too narrow. If your niche is too broad, you have the possibility to narrow it down and focus on one category, but if your niche is too specific, it will be difficult to extend it.