Some folks spend days or weeks trying to find a niche they can build their online business around. Others simply dive in right away because they think they have a good idea that will be profitable only to find out later it didn’t work. Instead of wasting a lot of time and money choosing your niche market I’ve put together 7 tips that will get you up and running quickly and avoid many headaches.
Top 7 Tips for Choosing a Niche Market
1. Create a list of possible niches
The best way to create your niche list is to think of any problems people have been asking either offline amongst your friends or relatives or online in discussion forums, blogs and social media sites. This is different to simply thinking up a good idea then running with it. For instance if a person has been unemployed for several months they’ll be experiencing the pain of not having money to pay their bills and will be desperate to find a job.
If you have the experience of knowing how to make money online and have a passion for it you could create products or coaching classes to help solve this problem for them.
Take 30 minutes or one hour to create your niche list. Don’t spend days on it otherwise you’ll never start building your business.
2. Choose the niche you feel most passionate about
Passion is what will continue to drive you forward when the going gets tough. Passion will continue to stimulate new ideas for writing lots of content. After creating your list prioritize it according to the niche you feel most passionate about.
3. Narrow your niche
You may think choosing a large niche means there’ll be more people to target and you’ll be able to write lots of content. The problem with this thinking is that if the niche is too large it will be more difficult to stand out from your competitors.
Example
If you chose a niche such as internet marketing it could be too broad and also very competitive. It may take a long time before you make money, so think of sub-niches or micro-niches to target a specific audience. Sub-niches could include, pay per click marketing, article marketing, search engine marketing, link building, etc.
Choose a wide niche first, then narrow it down several times.
4. Survey people in your niche
Ask specific questions in your survey such as:
- What are your greatest fears?
- What’s your biggest problem?
- What are your largest frustrations?
- If you could have one question answered what would it be?
Asking these types of questions will help you to unearth some of the major problems people are having in your niche and are looking for solutions you can provide. To conduct surveys online use surveymonkey.com or create a free blog at WordPress.com and ask visitors to leave comments.
5. Test your niche
Before investing time and money into your niche do some testing beforehand. This will increase the probability of your niche becoming profitable. Here are some ways to test it:
Keyword research
Use free keyword research tools such as WordTracker or the Google Research Tool to see how many searches your main keyword receives each month. If there are none or only a few it means no one is searching for information on that keyword. Expand your keyword research by including related keyword phrases. If these phrases receive over 1000 searches when combined it means there is a demand for them.
Find online communities
There is a saying “to find traffic online get in front of where people are gathering on the Web.” Use Facebook and Twitter to find communities related to your niche then ask questions or start conversations. Do a blog search to find related blogs and participate in forum discussions. By interacting with online communities you’ll get a better idea what people are thinking and talking about so you can create future products and content that fulfills their needs.
Google AdWords
Creating a Google AdWords campaign is a fast and easy way to test your niche. Create 2 ads (so you can split test them to see which one performs the best) using your top keywords and offer a free report in exchange for their email address. Once you’ve gathered 200 email addresses ask them to do an online survey using the questions outlined in point 4 above.
Alternatively sign up for an affiliate program related to your niche then create ads that funnel visitors to the landing page (or your own) of he affiliate program. If you get a good click through rate or make many sales you know you’ve found a winner.
6. Interact with live people
Conducting online surveys and using social media tools are great for researching and testing your niche but conducting a live teleclass gives better and deeper feedback. To do this ask the people who have answered your surveys if they wish to participate in a free teleclass to discuss there greatest fears and frustrations on your niche topic. If no one shows up it may be a sign there’s not much interest. If you get 20 or more people on the teleclass be sure to ask them lots of questions so you can refine your niche.
7. Create a blog
Before you begin creating products and services for the niche you have chosen, start a blog by writing content for it on a daily basis for 30 days. To generate traffic to your blog re-purpose your content by submitting it to article directories and social media sites. Convert your content into video articles and submit them to video sharing sites.
When you create your niche products and services you can launch them from your blog as you’ll already have traffic coming to it.
Related Articles
How to Find a Niche to Build a Profitable Online Business
How to Choose a Niche: Top 7 Mistakes
What is the Best Niche Market
How to Find Niche Products to Sell Online
How to Find a Service Niche
How Can I Promote My Website For Free
***************************
Learn how to start and build a profitable online business with
“Highly Effective Article Marketing Strategiesâ€
Very interesting indeed, I will take some of this on board
niche marketing has been the backbone of my money making websites:,*
niche marketing is great for selling affiliate products,–
niche marketing will always give you very targetted customers that will likely buy your affiliate product —
Hello There. I found your blog the use of msn. This is a very well written article. I’ll be sure to bookmark it and come back to learn more of your useful information. Thank you for the post. I’ll certainly comeback.