How to Choose a Niche to Target
The first step to creating your business online is to choose what kind of online enterprise you want to create.
No matter what type it starts by choosing a niche – what is the subject matter that will be your focus?
In this post, I will show you how to do this, and you will see how this initial action goes on to influence all the other steps.
What is a Niche, and Why Does it Matter?
Online businesses should focus on a specific niche that describes what you will be writing about and the people you are talking too.
Your site could be a ‘general’ site or a personal blog that doesn’t focus on any particular topic; even then, there should be a ‘theme’ or a feel tying it together. You might write about books, coffee, and where you live, that’s still a niche, and it’s one that will attract a particular type of visitors.
Knowing and understanding your niche is imperative if you hope to make a success of your online business.
Unfortunately, too many online entrepreneurs do not fully understand their niche, and their businesses struggle.
Essentially you should be clear what your niche is. For most online entrepreneurs or bloggers, this will be an incredibly easy question to answer: the site will probably be about ‘football’ or ‘technology.’
And that's relatively easy to define.
If your site focus is a more general topic, make a list of all the subjects you write about and then consider a) what links them together, and b) who is your ideal customer or reader c) what are their problems and d) how your site provides information and solutions to these problems.
You’ve probably niched down and created a site for a very specific subgroup of visitors, but as long as your ongoing content meets there needs, you will be on the money.
Your interests should primarily determine the niche you pick. To help you live and breathe your blog and be consistent in providing value and content, this NEEDS to be something you’re passionate about learning and writing about.
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What’s more, you won’t be able to deliver value to your audience through unique content if you not passionate about the topic! Hiring professional writers does not guarantee that you’ll find someone who has a real passion and interest in your niche.
While that’s true, you also need to think about how viable your niche is. How much competition is there? How do you stand out from the most prominent sites? How profitable and monetizable is it?
Make money online is an excellent example because there is a lot of money-making opportunities in this niche. But likewise, you’ll find that money-making opportunities are writing about relationships, weight loss, or other niches that speak to the audience’s problems or interests.
Get More Specific When Choosing Your Niche!
But to succeed – and stand out from your competition – you need to niche down. Sure, your site might be a fitness website, but what kind of fitness do you write about? Who is your ideal audience? And what is the purpose of your website or blog?
For instance, you might write about all kinds of fitness but find that you seem to stick more to Yoga because that’s one of the activities you do. Perhaps you write lots of reviews of Yoga programs online. And maybe you write in an excellent way that is aimed at people who are just starting out?
This is a very different niche from a site that reviews advanced yoga practices in a style that appeals to the experienced practitioner.
Again then, you will have created your own sub-niche that will be unique. You might make a soccer site full of valuable information, but is it a dry site that deals with a detailed overview of soccer for real fanatics? Or is it a more gossip-filled site that’s aimed at the typical ‘guy’? These are slightly different niches, and it’s essential to recognize the difference.
If you can be consistent with your chosen niche, you will find that your site offers something unique. You will have a ‘tribe’ who particularly likes the way you approach your subject. Stick to your guns; you can make your online business very profitable as a result.
The Power of Creating Your Own Niche
That said, though, there are niches out there left with a hungry crowd, but that nevertheless doesn’t have an overcrowded marketplace. This can be difficult when you consider how important it is that you actually be passionate about the niche that you’re going to be focusing on with so you will be constant in providing content, value, and support to your customers.
So how do you stand out without limiting your appeal or writing about something dull? One approach is to develop your own sub-niche and create an online business that will be unique. Let’s look at how you can make this a reality.
Sites That Don't Fit Nicely Into Boxes
When you search the web for inspiration on niches for your website, you will often find lists of categories such as ‘fitness,’ ‘making money,’ ‘soccer,’ ‘movies,’ etc. Not every site has to fit nicely into a niche like this – it is possible to come up with a unique approach and create a sub-niche that is underserved online.
Take http://www.lifehacker.com, for instance,and http://www.lifehack.org. These sites live side by side but go back a decade; you will find that niche did not exist.
They link together lots of themes using a ‘way of life’ or ‘attitude’ to pull it all together. In this example, the attitude is the ‘hacker’ attitude – where DIY applies to everything from self-improvement to making money. You could just as quickly build an online business around any other niche or sub-niche like this.
Bringing Various Concepts Together
If you struggle to find a new theme to link the items on your site, then another option is to combine multiple existing niches that you think will go well together. This way, you have, you’re built-in audience – because you’ll get visitors from both of those current niches – but at the same time, you will have your own unique selling point (USP) and be able to offer something that makes you stand out from everything else.
Examples might include ‘bodybuilding and self-improvement,’ ‘making money online and city living,’ ‘travel and art’ or ‘cafes, coffee, and books.’ Alternatively, just taking a more extensive approach with your stories can give your site more meat and put your niche in context with other topics.
This strategy is also practical because it creates several simple marketing alternatives that you can use to reach a hungry crowd. For instance, if you have a blog based on muscle building and self-improvement, you will be able to market your blog on self-improvement forums without being directly in competition with those forums.
Going Deeper Creating A Sub Niche
Another option is to get even more focused by finding a niche within a niche. Again, this will allow you to market your online business on sites that would otherwise see you as competition and help make Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) simpler by focusing your aim. For example, you might target a particular kind of films such
as ’80s action films’, a specific era of music, or perhaps a specific type of exercise, such as bodyweight training alone.
Trailblazing
Finally, if you have the resources, you can even consider
creating a niche before designing your website. For example, then, if you run a software company and you release new software or a new computer game, you will likely find that this generates a buzz online and fans.
By creating a website focusing on this software, you can then provide an official website for that subject and create an almost symbiotic relationship between your software and your website. They feed each other driving each other. This works for every niche that will catch the public’s attention. Though not every business owner will have a product to promote, businesses and entrepreneurs mustn’t miss this opportunity when it does present itself.
Take Action
What stops most people who want to start making money online is an overload of information, which leads to being overwhelmed, confusion, and eventually frustration, which makes them give up on their dreams.
How do I know?
That was me just a few short years ago until my mentor showed me why I was struggling and what to do about it.
Because I don’t want you to suffer as I did, I have worked with my mentor to bring you a FREE video training where he shows you what he told me so you can stop feeling frustrated and overwhelmed.
To get instant access to this training, click here.
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To your success
Lee
