If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’re in one of two boats. Either you think you already know what you want to blog about, or you have no idea but know you want to make a living from it. Either way, I encourage you to read on to help you come up with an idea or refine the one you already have
TL;DR: Passion is great, but it’s not the only thing. Money is a great motivator, and your profit potential is better with a smaller niche. There two exercises to do to find the right niche for you.
First the obligatory “What is a niche” discussion…
In online marketing, a niche is a bunch of people who are interested in the same thing. That’s it. You don’t have to overcomplicate it.
Now if you want to get people in your niche to give you money, you have to focus on those people. That’s called targeting. Also a simple concept.
Niching down is the concept of selecting a smaller portion of your niche. More on that later.
And by the way, it’s correctly pronounced like it rhymes with leash, or like it rhymes with itch. Both are correct, but most marketers use the first pronunciation.
Okay. That’s it for the definitions.
Where to start:
Why finding the right niche is important
I’m about to say some stuff and then immediately contradict myself. I have my reasons. You’ll see.
When it comes to goal setting, finding the right niche is important. This is because your niche will help to determine your audience and market.
If you have a specific goal in mind, then finding the right niche will be essential in helping you to achieve that goal. For example, if your goal is to become an authority in a certain field, then you will need to find a niche that allows you to focus on that area…
…kind of.
On the other hand, if your goal is simply to make some extra money, then you may have more flexibility in terms of choosing a niche. However, it is still important to choose a niche that has a large enough audience to make it worth your while…
…kind of.
Here’s the part where I contradict myself.
If your goal is to be an authority on something, you do need to choose a sort of narrow focus, but don’t think you have to be an expert to be an authority. In fact you don’t need to know anything at all about it when you start. You just need to learn enough to know more about it than the people you’re teaching.
So in that regard, the size of the niche doesn’t dictate whether you can know more than your audience. But it is easier to be seen as an autjoority on a more focused subject than a large one.
Take crafting for example. You are not going to be the authority on crafting. But you could be an authority on making stained glass crafts. What about 3D stained glass sculptures? Now there’s a niche which you could be seen as an authority in.
What about that “bigger niche more money” thing?
Which brings us to the other half-truth I said before. You do want to chose a niche that’s big enough to make it worth your while. But if you want to make money, you don’t want it too big.
I don’t know for sure, but I’m betting the number of people looking for information on how to make 3D stained glass sculptures is large enough to support you. Because those people will be more likely to buy from you that a general-knowledge stained glass person.
After all, you specialize in that niche. You know more than the others. Your tutorial will be better than theirs because you have more specific knowledge. All this may or may not be true, but in the eyes of your customer it is. They will be more likely to buy from you, and they will be willing to pay more based on their belief that you have a better solution to their problem.
Smaller niche. More money. Go figure.
You can go too small, but it’s more likely that you’d go too big. Big fish in a small pond and all that.
Consider your goals
If you’re starting a blog because you’re bored and just want have something to do with your time, that’s fine. In that case it really doesn’t matter what you choose to blog about.
But that’s not why you’re here. You’re here because you want to make money, right?
There are many other reasons that you would want to blog, but that’s the main one. And frankly all the others either rely on that one or can be greatly aided by it.
- You can still help other people
- You can still build a legacy
- You can still build a community
- You can still save the world
Argue with me if you like, but no one ever said ” I could reach my goals easier if I just didn’t have so much money.”
Can that other stuff be done on the cheap. Maybe. But money will make it easier.
So in choosing a niche, here’s a list of the goals you should focus on:
- Make money
That’s it. I think I’ve beaten that point to death now.
So now a little nuance.
What makes a good niche good
The conventional wisdom is that the most important thing in choosing a niche is passion. “When you’re passionate about something, it shows and people are more likely to be interested in what you have to say.”
Okay. Yeah. Sure. That’s true to a point. I’m not denying that.
But I think it gets too much emphasis. No matter how passionately you like drumming, there are going to be times that you have to do the hard work of running an online business that isn’t drumming.
Bookkeeping, video editing, getting various systems set up, and so on. Your love of drumming isn’t going to get you through that. But you know what might?
Money.
Which is why THE most important thing when choosing a niche with the goal of making money is profitability. It’s not the only thing, but it’s the biggest thing.
So what makes a good niche for profitability?
Things people will pay money for make good niches because there’s an audience willing to invest in what you have to offer. That’s kind of vague. Sorry. Let me try that again.
The niches that people are most willing to spend money on are:
- Things that make them money
- Things that save them money
- Health, fitness and weight loss
- Dating, Relationships
- Self-help
- Beauty/Image/Status
- Pets
- Hobbies and passions.
That list is already too big, but you’ll notice it doesn’t include lifestyle, travel, technology and home décor. It is possible to make money in those too, but they are not the low-hanging fruits.
In fact, I’m going to simplify the list to these three:
- Money
- Fitness
- Relationships
I happen to think that pets are also a big one, as are hobbies. But they are just a half step removed from the others when it comes to earning potential. Both good choices, but the devil is in the details.
The three on the list are golden. People are ALWAYS trying to make/save money, get into better shape and feel love.
I mean, it seems like the how-to-make-money niche online has more search results than there are people on Earth. And that’s good. If there are that many people producing content, it’s because people are still buying content.
Which brings us to this…
Consider what things people search for online.
If you can tap into trends and offer information or products related to popular searches, your niche has the potential to be quite successful. Trends is the wrong word. That implies it’s short lived.
Desires. Yearnings. Needs. Those are better words. Those feelings don’t go away until they are satisfied. Be the person to satisfy those emotions and you can profit while also helping those people.
Do These Three Things
Here’s an assignment for you: To start the process of finding your niche that is both of interest to you and potentially profitable, do these three things.
1) Brainstorm – sit down with pen and paper or at the computer and write down all the the things you can think of that interest you no matter how minor or insignificant. Include things you think might interest you. This is brainstorming – not judgement at all at this point. Don’t overthink it
2) Look at the list and see it you spot a trend or pattern and use that insight to add other ideas if they pop up
3) Take a break and come back later. Cross off any that don’t really resonate with you. Then look at what remains. Which ones really stand out for you? This is your short-list.
Your Next Assignment:
Now that you have your short list, evaluate what’s on it for profitability
1) Search the topic on Google, Pinterest, YouTube to see if there is a lot of interest. If there are many results, that’s a good sign. If you click on the results and it leads to site that specialize in the niche, that’s a good sign, which brings us to part 2
2) Are there a significant number or products for sale? Ideally informational products like courses, tutorials, workshops, and books? What about on Amazon?
3) look at the results of the previous 2 steps. Does it seem like you may be able to focus a little more? Niche-down as it were, and still have a decent sized audience who already have products to buy from others?
How to know if you have chosen a good niche
If you have done the two exercises above and have a niche (or niches) from the first assignment that passes the test of the second, then you have a good niche.
But what about all the other products that all the other people are already selling? Doesn’t that mean you have too much competition?
No. not at all. Just the opposite in fact. A saturated market is a rare thing in reality.
I used to work for a giant home improvement company. in the late nineties they where for a time the biggest sellers of carpeting in the USA. They sold about 10% of the carpet in the country. That means the “little guys” in that industry had to share the other 90%. That’s a lot of carpet.
Same thing goes for restaurants. There are only so many mouths to feed, yet most cities have stretches of roads where it seems to be restaurant after restaurant. ANd when one is busy they usually all are. Some in fact benefit by being close to the others.
Same goes for cars. Car dealers tend to be next door to other car dealers. It benefits them all.
Guess what? The same is true online. The competition benefits everyone. and there is no such thing as a saturated market. There are close to 8 billion people on the planet, and we’re making more every minute of every day.
How to choose the perfect niche from your list
First off, there is no such thing as perfect – for anything. It’s an inherently flawed concept.
But as far as taking the finalists on your list and deciding on the winner, you might think I’ll explain some object way of measuring key variables.
The old me would have done that in fact.
But I know enough now to know that you’ve already made up your mind. It’s part of being human. Our subconscious mind makes decisions before our conscious mind is aware of it. Pretty fascinating really if you’re into that stuff.
At this point your inner mind knows what you’re going to choose. Any analysis from this point on would just be a way for your conscious mind to justify it.
So don’t sweat it. Ask yourself, “which one do you want to do?” Then go with it. With the thought you’ve put into it so far, it’s not going to be a terrible choice. And if you later decide you should have done a different one, then fine. Adapt and overcome. Don’t give up. You got this