What does it mean to find your niche?
In business, it’s all about understanding and finding your target audience.
Sounds easy enough, but choosing a profitable niche is usually the first obstacle that keeps many bloggers up at night.
What Does it Mean to Find Your Niche?
To find your niche means to identify a target audience. What are they searching for? What questions are they needing to be answered? When you know what they want, you create content that is the answer to those searches.
What is a Niche?
The definition of niche that I want to focus on is the one highlighted in the definition above: “a specialized segment of the market for a particular kind of product or service.”
In other words, a niche is anything with a target audience.
So, for anything you can think of where there is a product or service available and there is a target audience looking to buy it, that can be a profitable niche.
Have you heard of a small little company called Amazon? If it can be sold, you can probably find it there.
And if people are buying it, well then that’s a target audience and a possible niche.
This is the point where a blogger’s brain can hit the wall.
Your entrepreneurial mind might be asking itself, “If a niche is anything with a target audience, and literally everything can have a target audience, how do I know which one to choose?
Why You Should Choose Your Niche Based on Your Passions and Interests
Relevance is key here.
You know when you’re talking to someone and they’re telling you a story that is so completely uninteresting that you wonder if they’re as bored telling it as you are listening to it?
This is what happens when you attempt to communicate information that you don’t have a genuine interest in.
The spark isn’t there, the listener gets bored, and the message goes nowhere fast.
The reality with profitable niches is that any niche can be a profitable niche when done right. So, make life easier on yourself, choose a niche that you have a genuine interest in. This puts you smack dab in the middle of your target audience.
And this is what makes you relevant.
So many bloggers forget that the absolute key to building traffic is relevance.
Without traffic you have no revenue potential. And when you have an audience that doesn’t connect with the author, your niche is doomed to fail.
Maybe you have a passion for vegan diets, or newborn baby clothes, or woodworking.
Don’t listen to the part of our brain that says all those niches are already “saturated”.
Think about new gyms that open up in your city. Or coffee places. Or barber shops.
There are already TONS of them out there, but they’re not really competing with the hundreds of thousands out there in the world, are they?
They’re successful because, even though there are TONS of them out there, they have identified their specific target audience that is living nearby, and that’s what drives their business.
Similarly, when you identify a tight, specific target audience and what they’re searching for, you can create content that is the ANSWER to those searches and that tight, specific audience will come to you!
Related Article at WorkFromYourLaptop.com!
Check out “How to Use Jaaxy” and learn all about the incredibly powerful tool that allows you to know EXACTLY what your target audience is making searches for, word for word. This is the key to driving massive, targeted, FREE traffic to your content!
Why it’s Important to be Specific with Your Niche
The way to get through any “saturation” is through specificity.
For example, if you have a passion for basketball, you would quickly get lost in the abyss of the internet building a website centered around all things basketball.
Basketball is just WAY too general. It’s time to tighten that niche.
How about basketball clothing? How about basketball shoes? How about…
Men’s basketball shoes.
This is a clean, tight niche with the potential for tons of quality content.
Your potential target audience arrives at your website looking for men’s basketball shoes and instantly sees that your entire site is dedicated to the one and only thing they’re looking for.
Laser focus in your niche translates to a much higher conversion percentage.
Check out this great video on how to come up with ideas for your profitable niche. This helped me out a ton when I was getting started.
Show your audience exactly what they’re looking for at just the right time in their customer purchase lifecycle and you have yourself a conversion.
Related Article at WorkFromYourLaptop.com!
Once you choose your niche it’s time to build a website! Check out “How Hard is it to Build a Website?” and use the same platform I build this site on!
Steps to Take After Choosing Your Niche
Even a powerhouse like Amazon didn’t start off by selling ever single item known to man like they do now.
They started with books. That’s it.
Start with laser focus, build your audience, then scale.
I highly recommend this quick read: “Succeeding with Golf Balls, Scaling with Shoes!” for an understanding of how your specific niche can be scaled dramatically once it finds that target audience.
So you may ask, “Ok, but why would anybody buy from me?”
And the truth is that through affiliate marketing, they’re NOT buying from you. They’re buying from the trusted merchants they know and love.
So how do you get paid?
In a nutshell, affiliate marketing is all about connecting people online with the products and services they’re already looking for.
The trusted merchants your target audiences know and love will pay you commission after commission for every time your audience makes a purchase.
Related Article at WorkFromYourLaptop.com!
Check out “Is Affiliate Marketing Worth It?” for a more detailed look into how affiliate marketing works and how to get started!
As you’re going to find out, there are thousands of affiliate programs out there, ripe for the taking.
Doing a quick Google search of “your niche + affiliate programs” will pull up page after page of great affiliate programs that are free to join.
Have a passion for photography and DSLR cameras?
The same kinds of results will show up for just about every niche you can think of!
Now you’re starting to understand why that profitable niche based on your real passions and interests can be so profitable!
And with this lucrative industry, when you get trained right, you set yourself up for massive success.
Related Article at WorkFromYourLaptop.com!
Check out my newly updated review of the training platform I owe all my success to! Straightforward, affordable, and FREE to test drive, if you’re looking for consistent monthly revenue online, this is the training that delivered for me!
Final Thoughts
It’s vitally important to choose your niche based on actual passion and interest. Choosing a tight, specific niche allows you to find your target audience at the point in the customer purchase lifecycle where they’re ready to buy.
Are you racking your brain trying to come up with a niche you can be successful with? Need some help finding your niche? Share your story in the comments section below and send any and all questions my way!
Let’s brainstorm and find that specific, tight niche that can work for you! I always respond and I look forward to hearing from you!
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Wow!!!
I am really happy to see your article. But I not so good in choosing the niche. What you think it’s so difficult for me? Is it because I’m not good at choosing just one? I keep thinking my choice will be wrong. Or maybe won’t bring me enough money. Advice?
Thanks for sharing with us.
It’s totally natural to overthink this key step. People think they have to choose the “perfect” niche right out of the gate. The fact is that ANY niche can be profitable when done right. So instead of putting all this pressure on yourself with “is it profitable enough?” or “what if this is the wrong one to choose”, just go with something you have an interest in. There is nothing wrong with changing it up later. 🙂 Thanks for the question and comment!
Eric, thanks for breaking down the process of finding a profitable niche online, I really need this because to this day, I’m still confused with deciding on a niche to specialize in. For the sake of moving forward and launching my online business, I decided to copy someone else’s niche without thinking it over (to avoid analysis paralysis).
You see, I’m stuck with this issue of choosing between what I love doing (passion) and where the money is. The problem with the niches I love, is they seldom have the money in it. Eventually, I forced myself to work on a niche that is proven to make money.
What can you say, do you think I should switch niches considering I’ve already launched a business and are currently working in it? Should I keep pushing my passion if not many people are interested in spending money in it?
That really depends on what your passion is. When you see how many crazy obscure items there are on Amazon and Ebay and how many sales come from them, it reminds you that there is an audience for EVERYTHING. That being said, if your passion was something like morticians and autopsies, maybe you’d struggle. Actually, I take that back. You could probably promote countless books and even tools of the trade to earn commissions in even that morbid niche, lol. What’s your passion? Don’t be afraid to build around it. I’ve seen for myself a case study done on a VERY obscure niche that proved to be extremely profitable.
Hi Eric,
What a great affiliate marketing overview.
Would you say that you need to be an “expert” in any niche you choose? I’m not an “expert” in what I want to jump into, but I do have a genuine passion for it. Thoughts?
Great question! You don’t have to be an expert in your niche by any means. It’s not about telling people what they need because of your expertise. It’s really about sharing an interest with your audience and sharing what has worked for you in your research and why you recommend the products or services you’re reviewing and writing about.
That is where the genuine interest comes into play. For example, let’s say you were in a niche where you wrote about great dog foods to buy and ways to keep your furry pets healthy. You wouldn’t have to be a veterinarian to be successful in this niche, right? You just need to have a love for dogs and share why certain products have been absolute winners (or losers) for you to other dog lovers in your niche.
When you write content to “show” people as opposed to “telling” people, you’re doing your job as a blogger 🙂
Great article. I’m going to check out this training! I think my niche would be in plant based diet and nutrition. What do you think?
I think that’s a great one. It’s really gotten popular lately with so many people focusing on what they’re putting into their bodies. If that’s your passion, that’s a great niche!
$4K per month in your first year as an affiliate marketer? Wow, that’s impressive!
You sure learned well the lessons from your recommended internet marketing platform. Congrats!
Without these tips and strategies you share, finding a profitable niche right from the start could be a difficult task. Everything is new and the desire to build a beautiful website right away may lead someone to pick the wrong niche.
This happened to me. And believe me, I wasn’t too happy to start over from scratch after several months.
Had I read this article before, it would’ve probably saved me precious time.
Thank you so much for the insight! A lot of people end up going with a niche they have no interest in because they are trying to chase the money and commissions, but in my experience that never works. You have to be interested in your business and when you are you are that much more willing to work. Affiliate marketing is a spectacular industry to be in when you have the right training. Thanks again for the comment! I really appreciate it.
Hi Eric,
Thanks for sharing a great article that has helped me to understand more about how a niche market works!
I love to do crafts and I’ve been looking to find a way to work from home and make some income from what I do.
The video was great! I’m a visual learner and that’s exactly what I needed 🙂
Thank you!
Very glad to help! I hope you’ll begin your journey and create your own online business in your crafts niche through the training platform I recommend in the article! Go through my links and you’ll have me as your support coach. Hope to see you on the inside!
So much great information in this article. This is very helpful. I have a friend that wants to start a website. This is a perfect place to get herself educated. Thank you for sharing. I will share this to her.
Very glad to help 🙂 I think the training community I link to in the article would be a great start for her. Thanks for the comment!
Hi Eric,
do you know about Amazon Affiliate for Influencers? I heard about it but I don’t understand the real difference with the normal Amazon Affiliate Program. It looks like it is made for those who have an audience on social media, but it is not very clear to me 🙂
Thanks,
Marco
Usually any type of “influencer” status implies it’s for someone with a certain amount of followers. On instagram, for example, you’re an influencer when you reach 10k followers.
Hello Eric, this is such a great post!! I’m currently working within the sneaker niche and I’m so glad I found your tips! It’s given me great ideas for future content. Very straightforward and helpful, thank you! I have many more interests, and I plan to create more niche websites in the near future. Continue to work hard, and never give up!!!
Thanks so much for the comment! I’m really happy you got some good content ideas from this! Keep up the good work!
Hi Eric,
Thanks for laying out the steps of niche marketing so clearly. Excellent video too. I’d like to qualify the point you make about working with a niche you’re interested in or passionate about. That’s great if you have a passion that’s a good fit for niche marketing.
However, I think people can get stuck at that stage if they can’t think of a niche their already “passionate” about. So, after hearing Tom Bilyeu talk about this on his YouTube channel, I think it’s also possible to find a promising niche first and then see if it is something you can **develop** a passion for.
When I say it’s important to have a passion for the niche you choose, what I mean by that is having a genuine interest in it. I’d say most everyone has a genuine interest in atleast a few things. And you clearly need to have an interest in something if you’re going to build a business writing about it.
The problem that can arise when you try to think of something that’s profitable first and make your interest in it secondary, is that you run into the problem that writing content will begin to feel like a chore.
The fact of the matter is, any niche, no matter how specific or obscure, can be profitable when you have the right training. So, in my opinion, the absolute top thing you should be considering when choosing a niche market is making sure you have a genuine interest in the subject matter first because, after all, content is king.
Thanks for the comment!
The video was very educational and helped me to refresh my memory of what I’ve learnt about affiliate marketing. What I love about affiliate marketing is we don’t have to own any of the products that we help to sell. I’m not sure that almost any niche is profitable though. What are your thoughts about a niche on soup and more specifically, Chinese soup?
Every niche, no matter how obscure, can be very profitable when you have a genuine interest in it. It’s just a matter of thinking about the target audience who’s searching for that niche and the things they would be interested in. For example, I’d imagine there are lots of Chinese soup recipes out there to recommend and review, right? Content you’re writing about could feature not only recipes, but the traditional origins and histories of the recipes, write-ups and reviews on traditional place settings, utensils, placemats, dishes, and where to buy them, write-ups and reviews on the best places to get the best ingredients, the best entrees to pair with different soups, etc.
And those are topics off the top of my head as someone who knows nothing about Chinese soup, lol. When you consider the millions of products a merchant like amazon has available, you realize that there is a market for everybody. Connecting your target audience with these products they’re looking for is what affiliate marketing is all about 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
Hi Eric! Great article. How long did it take you to come up with your niche? Is it something you should spent a lot of time on or should it be something that comes more naturally. I have a few interests, but I’m stuck on which direction I should go in.
Any ideas? Thanks!
A niche should be something you have a genuine interest in, so in that regard it should come somewhat naturally to you. It’s ok to spend a few days deciding which of your interests you’ll go with, but I wouldn’t spend a week on it.
Consider which of your interests you feel more comfortable writing content for. Sometimes it’s good to think of 3 categories of topics you could write about for that niche. Next, try to think of 10 topics for each category. It’s just a matter of thinking of questions your target audience would have, and then writing topics that are the answer to those questions. Thanks for the comment!
Hi Eric,
Great article and you are 100% correct about choosing a narrow niche. So many people are afraid of being too narrow in their chosen niche, but I think the opposite can end up being more detrimental to their success. A narrow niche is going to appeal to people looking for a specific issue / problem they are trying to solve and this is a great place to start when building out your new website. Thanks so much for sharing, Cheers, Karen
Well said, Karen! I appreciate the insight. Thank you!
Thanks for your thorough guide. I’m looking to get into the internet marketing game and am struggling to find a niche. I’m not sure to go with one that I enjoy or chase the money, as you bluntly put it, “profitable”. There is so much mixed feedback on the world wide web and I don’t know which route to take. Cheers for all your feedback.
It looks to me like you have a pretty clear cut choice. Go with the niche you have a genuine interest in. Content is king and the only way you’ll be able to create consistent content for a niche so that it doesn’t feel like a chore is by choosing one you actually care about. With the training you get it the platform I recommend over all others, you can turn just about any niche into a profitable one. I recommend creating your free account and getting started as soon as you can. I hope to see you on the inside!
So I’ve been taught. Thanks.
I’m hoping you’re saying that this agrees with what you’ve been taught in the past, lol. If so, thank you!
Hi Eric, your first comment really struck a chord with me about working for someone else for 40 years. This is what we’ve all been taught as the course you need to take in life in order to achieve success. Like you said, those that are successful work for themselves. I’ve taken the plunge into Wealthy Affiliate. I wasn’t sure at first and thought it may be another get rich quick scheme. It is the real deal though and was awakening for me. Thank you!
That’s awesome, Tony! I’m really glad I could help!
Hi Eric,
What a wonderful article. Thanks and keep up the good work.
I appreciate that. Thank you!
Great content Eric. I’m a WA member myself and I can highly recommend it for starting your own business. Not only do you get the training needed to do so, but you have access to the very large and very skilled community to help you out.
Agreed. I use that help on a daily basis, lol. I appreciate the comment, Ethan. Thank you!
I get this question a lot. “How do I pick a niche”? I usually answer with well, pick something that excites you and that you can write about. Having said that, it doesn’t mean you’re going to make money from it. You also have to be able to monetize it, through affiliate marketing like you suggested earlier.
It’s the making money that’s the hard part about choosing a niche.
Thanks for this great step by step and video. This will help a lot of people narrow it down. Keep up the great work!
I didn’t understand the system that was involved at all before I got involved with Wealthy Affiliate. I guess I just thought that all these people making money online just had an audience and were able to convince merchants to partner up with them. Once your eyes are open to the system it’s like it all makes sense.
Like you said, the niche itself isn’t what will make you money. Just about any niche will work when you do the rest right. So pick one you love and will love to write about, understand what that target audience is looking for, write posts around those things they’re searching for, and now you can turn that traffic into potential revenue.
It’s actually a very straightforward system. That’s the reason I recommend WA so highly over all the other schemes out there. Thanks so much for the comment, Peter. I appreciate it.
What really stuck out to me was the part about niches. When I first started, I realized that I was being to vague with what I wanted to address. At first my website was about passive income and promoting books and talking about real estate and stocks and affiliate marketing that I was starting to spread myself thin. For anyone reading this, as stated in this article, don’t be to vague. I had to learn it the hard way.
Jessie
I appreciate the comment and completely agree. With all the millions of searches done in countless niches, even very specific niches are profitable. The key is picking something your passionate about. Makes all the difference in the world.
Nice article. Very informative and detailed. I am a starting this online business and I need more knowledge. Thanks for giving me more idea. It helps a lot.
I’m glad I could help. The best advice I can give is to click one of the links above and read my Wealthy Sffiliate review and then start your free account. For anyone serious about building an online business it’s the best thing you’ll do. Thanks for the comment!
Eric,
Awesome information man. Your posts never disappoint. It was a great read and I really liked the discussion on overcomplicating your content and your niche. I often find myself doing this.
I definitely encourage anyone else reading this to jump into the Wealth Affiliate community, you won’t be disappointed.
Thanks Dalton! I speak purely from experience lol. Thanks for taking the time to comment, man. I appreciate it.
For someone who’s a total beginner to web-based businesses, you do a great job of laying out the initial steps to getting free from the grind. It is really sad to think about people selling so much time to crappy jobs, unthankful bosses, or just situations that are ok but not *enough*. We’re very fortunate to be living in the age of the internet, and able to take the power of self-made income back in our own hands.
amen to that. well put! Thank you penny! And to think that NONE of this was available just a few short years ago. I wish I had been smart enough to realize the potential instead of just playing in chat rooms so many years ago lol.
Building an online business is the best way to achieve financial independence and everything I’ve read confirms it. Choosing a niche you know a lot about and enjoy as well does go a long way in ensuring your success. I love the niche my website promotes and because of that I will continue to produce content for it. I’m sure the same goes for you. Great article and great writing.
Man I really appreciate that, Brain. Thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to comment. Hope you’ll come back again.
I am with Hillard. The first paragraph hit close to home. I guess you had me at “Hello!” The fact of the matter is that there are not many places where a person can work for a place for 40 years. It seems like you get started saving some money and you get laid off. Without a second or backup source of income, all that money goes into living expenses. Your plan seems reasonable and anything is better than some get rich quick scheme. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Thanks for the comment, Tony. I had you at hello, huh. Haha. Well I know it first hand. I work as a firefighter and there are countless guys who have spent the bulk of their life risking it for others and it’s painful to see some of them unable to retire because the raw deal just doesn’t add up. I don’t want that for myself. I actually found Wealthy Affiliate while I was researching one of those get rich quick schemes. I never looked back 🙂 Thanks again Tony!
Picking a niche for me was the most complicated part of the process…of course it was just me overthinking everything. I really wish I read your post before I put myself through that headache because I have since realized that picking a niche is easy–if you only think of something that you are passionate about…very simple. Thanks
Sometimes what sounds simple isn’t so simple, right? lol. But you can’t go wrong with going with your passion. When there’s a fire inside you, and you build your life around it, with hard work you’re destined to succeed. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway. Thanks for the comment!
Hi Eric,
You cover everything here to get a website started. A niche you’re passionate about is so important as you build your website. It keeps you very interested and you have so much to share because you know what you are talking about. Wealthy Affiliate sounds like the place to do it. Great article. Is that where you got your training and built this site?
Hey Sharon, thank you for your comment. Yes, I know first hand just how powerful the training is because this entire site is a result of that training. I wish I could take more credit for it but I can’t lol. I do all the writing, and I’ll say I pride myself in the quality of the articles, but without the training all these articles would be lost in the abyss of the internet lol. Where you build your site matters. Thanks for chiming in. I appreciate it!
I wish I could have read your post sooner! When I first started I overcomplicated things trying to select the perfect niche and ended going back and forth between about four ideas and couldn’t settle on one.
I think that’s human nature. We all over analyze. I kept myself purposefully away from my site’s analytics in the beginning because it would just make me second guess myself too much. With regards to niches, there are so many ways to make even the most remote ones profitable. It’s all about trusting the system and WA’s definitely got a good one. Thanks Imani!
This is really tempting to do. But, I don’t think I have the kind of money it would take to start a business. Wouldn’t starting an online business eventually cost me thousands of dollars?
I feel like you’re leading me with this question just a little bit because I see that you’re an entrepreneur yourself lol. But I’ll bite. While every business is going to have overhead, an online business has tons of perks that a brick and mortar doesn’t have and the main one is cost. Anyone interested should definitely follow the links above to my Wealthy Affiliate review. WA delivers! Thanks for the comment, Kurtis!
I almost didn’t get past your first comment about working for 40 years being a raw deal. I worked 30 years for a company only to find that I was never going to make ends meet when I retired. Fortunately, I found Wealthy Affiliate. The idea of making money for myself instead of someone else puts my mind at ease. This is exactly the way to go for people wanting to start their own business.
Amen to that. Everyone seems to just accept the status quo. I’ve even seen financial advisors simply advising people to work longer into their early 70s. How is that a plan? That’s what I thought would happen to people who had NO plan. The ultra successful all work for themselves. That’s a trend. It’s time we all realize it and jump on board. Thanks for the comment, Hillard! I appreciate it!