Niche! Do you find this word confusing, intimidating, or just plain scary? If you are, you’re overthinking it.
Let me help by giving you the definition of a niche market, and how to find your perfect niche.
I don’t want you to go through what I did in the past, to the point of it paralyzing me. I got so wrapped up with finding the “perfect” niche that it took me months to start my first business. I wondered if that niche would be profitable or if I would have a large enough (or too broad) audience.
I would follow the advice of these internet “gurus”, only to end up not starting a new online business, or starting the wrong one.
Then I found two solutions that helped me get to where I am today. And I would like to share my steps with you to help you along as well. It’s not as scary as you may think. In fact, it’s quite easy!
Would you like to know where I learned how to choose my niche? Read This!
Contents
The Definition Of A Niche
The Business Dictionary defines a niche as:
“Concentrating all marketing efforts on a small but specific and well-defined segment of the population…”
The definition of a niche is simply a small segment of the population or a group of people – your audience. That’s it in a nutshell.
Just a specific group of people looking for information or a solution to a unique problem, and willing to spend money on products and services to fix that problem.
Simpler yet, it’s a group of people looking for stuff!
The trend is moving towards smaller niches. Smaller means more highly focused.
You don’t want to fall into the trap of being “all over the map”. You can’t be all things to all people and be good at everything. You’ll end up being mediocre in all instead of being great in one.
Just like the expression… “Jack of all trades, master of none!”. If you specialize, you can be extremely successful.
Being successful in your niche means being highly focused!
This is great for you because many businesses don’t, or won’t, address certain specific needs. These people are often overlooked. This is where you can succeed in an area that’s lacking.
When your audience finds you, they say “hey, this is for me”, and you’ve earned a loyal follower.
Many business owners fear that narrowing their focus means narrowing their sales or profit margin. And actually, it’s quite the opposite.
When you can figure out that targeted audience, it’s much easier to concentrate your time and efforts on them only, which in turn brings you more targeted traffic to your business. And more targeted traffic means those who are ready to purchase.
Remember the saying “Build it and they will come?” Well… not in this case, LOL
Every market can be refined down to a smaller one. Here are some common ways to narrow down your niche:
- By the level of quality (are you promoting Walmart or Tiffany’s)
- By interest (shoes for nurses or shoes for construction)
- By geography (your local area or a winter environment)
- By demographics (gender, age, or income level)
- By price (high end or discounts)
There are many ways to narrow down a niche. Trust me, you want to be as specific as possible, and I’ll show you why further down, OK?
So, What’s A Niche Market?
A niche market can be absolutely anything. Think of the things you love. Look at your surroundings. Everything you see and love can be a niche that you can market.
Your niche market is something you create by identifying a specific need or want that isn’t widely found on the internet.
But first, take a look at how many people are online each year…
According to ITU, there are over 4 billion people online, by 2019, looking for products, services, and information.
And according to Statista, they estimate that global spending will reach over 6.5 trillion US dollars by 2023.
It’s becoming the largest marketplace in the world.
So can you see the potential for an ever-increasing amount of niche markets? The more people that access the internet to do their research and shopping, the more opportunities you have to come up with a niche market to meet unmet needs.
And as I’ve already said, the more focused your niche (sub-niche) the easier it is to market to that specific, smaller, group of people.
This is also a great way to stand out from your competitors and helps to establish your own brand.
For instance, fitness is a very broad niche market example. But is there much information for those restricted to a wheelchair? Or how about for seniors with brittle bones?
You have a much greater chance of gaining customers when your promoting products and services to help a specific need.
A good niche market strategy is to always drill down into your niche market and get as narrow as you can.
When you’ve built up your business and become an authority or an influencer in your niche, then you can start to broaden out to other relevant topics.
Here’s an infographic article called “How To Find Your Online Niche” that may help as well…
3 Steps To Finding A Niche
#1. Discover your WHY
People want to know why you are talking about or selling something. It’s how our brains are wired.
You want to get your audience to believe what you believe. People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
If you could take 5 minutes to listen to “Simon Sinek: Start With Why”, you’ll see where I got my “why” inspiration from.
Simon showed you how to approach your audience to encourage them to buy your products or services.
You can have the best product in the world, but if people don’t believe in you, they won’t buy. Tell them why you’re helping them, show them what you believe in, and they’ll buy!
From here, you need to find your passion or interest.
Finding Your Passion
You have to love what you do, or else you’ll never have a reason to put in those extra hours to get things done. This is why your passion should be your starting point.
Think about all the things you like or would like to do, your talents, skills, and experience. Grab a piece of paper and focus on some questions:
- What do you excel at that other’s find difficult?
- What can you spend hours doing?
- What would you do even if you didn’t get paid for it?
- What do people ask you for advice about?
Don’t think about the end product. Just write down your interests, like the things you want to talk about, or something you want to become an expert at.
I say “want” here because you may have an interest in something but you’re not an expert yet.
When I started my business, I wasn’t an expert in online marketing. But as my business grew and with tons of research and experience, I soon had enough knowledge to start teaching others.
And in my opinion, no one ever becomes an expert to the point of never advancing. There will always be those who know less, and those who know more!
OK, now out of everything you’ve written down, which one stands out to you? Which one do you enjoy the most?
One of these things will become your core niche, something that people will actually spend money on. If you are passionate about your niche, you’ll enjoy working on it.
The more you enjoy it, the more productive you will be. The more productive you are, the more profitable it will be.
Passion + Why = Formula for Success.
Can you think of anything off the top of your head? Maybe you’ve learned an important life lesson that you want to share with people? A consulting business is a niche as well.
Your unique style, or approach, to solving a specific problem could create some successful niche market ideas for you.
What If It’s Not A Passion?
This is another point I’d like to make here…
Some entrepreneurs are more interested in just making money online vs. being passionate about it. And that’s ok too.
If you found a niche that made you money, you’d probably become very interested wouldn’t you?
There are certain niches that will always be successful because they concern the “human condition”. What I mean is that there are always things that people will search for answers.
- Health – This niche includes fitness and weight loss, natural remedies, alternative medicines, medical marijuana and CBD oils, etc.
- Wealth – This would include anything regarding saving, investing, spending or making money.
- Relationships – People will always be searching for love, dating and relationships. And then there’s those who are struggling or going through a divorce.
- Self Improvement – This is another huge niche ranging from self-esteem to self-help.
- Pets – People love their pets. With over 180 million dogs & cats in the US alone, let alone every other kind of pet, people spend billions on pets each year.
- Beauty – From skin to hair care, and anti-ageing… the sky’s the limit.
- Technology – Who doesn’t have something in this category!
So if you are looking for a potential money-maker, sticking to one of these niches is key. There are endless products you can sell from physical to digital.
Some entrepreneurs simply provide great information on their sites and make money from advertising.
Just remember that you still have to show people “why” you’re doing what you’re doing.
They want to know that you’re totally invested in helping them or they’ll just move on to the next person selling the same thing.
#2. Discover Your HOW
Now you need to connect your “why” with what people need. In other words, how are you going to help people in the area you choose to market.
Let’s look at some ways you can narrow down your niche and find some sub-niches that people are interested in…
Sub-Niches
A little research goes a long way towards starting a successful business. These are some of the things you can do to help:
- Put yourself in your audience’s shoes. Getting your customer’s perspective on their wants and needs is very useful.
- Ask the people around you what they’d ask about a particular need.
- Go to Google and search your niche keywords to see what comes up.
- Visit forums such as Quora. Ask your question and you will be able to see many related questions and answers you can use.
- Redditlist is another great way to find popular sub-niches. Type in chosen niche at the top and see what comes up. Let’s use “fitness” again. It brought up 23 subreddits for me. Now you can type in a subreddit and break it down some more…
- Check out the competition, and see if there’s something missing. A great way to find out is to look at the comment sections to see what people are asking.
- Is there a lot of people searching for your niche? You can use a free keyword tool called Wordstream to see the search volume & competition rating of various sub-niches.
Type in your niche and it will come up with a bunch of other keywords. These are more ideas for additional sub-niches.
As you can see, some of them, like “treadmill”, can have large searches and are not that competitive, yet others, like “personal trainer”, have fewer searches but are much more competitive.
You should look for a niche that’s between 1K to 10K per month. Less than 1K would mean there’s not much of a market for it, and anything with a large number would mean it might be hard to rank for in Search.
Don’t worry about not reaching as many people. Remember when I said there are 4 billion people online? I don’t think you have to worry about finding a smaller target, lol.
There will still be millions of people looking for exactly what you’re offering.
Using Jaaxy
Let’s look at the “health” market with a tool that I use…
“Health” is a popular search for millions of people online, but it’s much too broad a topic. There are millions of people searching for specific help or wanting to buy specific products in thousands of niches in this industry.
To test the numbers, I’m using my keyword research tool, Jaaxy, to show you how many people search for this term, how much competition you would have, and how easy you can appear (rank) on the first page in a Google search.
You want to rank on the first page so that your business will be seen. Most people don’t look past page one.
Ideally, for easy ranking, you want the average search numbers (Avg) to be above 100, the quoted search results (QSR) to be around 100 or less (that’s the number of competing websites), your keyword quality indicator (KQI) to be green.
Your SEO ( search engine optimization) should show green with a high number. That number means you have that many chances out of 100 to rank in Search.
As you can see, there 532,491 people search “health” each month, which is great, but it also tells me it’s a poor keyword to get ranked in Google. That’s way too much competition!
So lets narrow it down to “weight loss”.
OK, this is a little better with 208,125 people searching and a normal chance of ranking. This will still be too hard to rank in my opinion. The competition is 166 websites competing for the exact same term. So let’s drill down some more.
How about “losing weight for seniors”.
This is much better. It’s much more targeted and a great chance of getting ranked.
You would have a 96 out of 100 chance of getting onto page one. Sure, there are fewer people searching that term, but these people are looking for something specific, and are much more inclined to purchase what you’re offering.
The smaller and more focused your niche, the easier it is for that group of people to find you because you will have much less competition.
You want to be the big fish in a small pond.
#3. Discover Your WHAT
The “what” is the product or service that you are offering. And believe me, there are lots in every niche out there.
It needs to be highly relevant to the niche you chose. And this is how your niche market finds you.
By focusing your niche to a smaller audience, and finding the proper keywords to promote your product, you’ll have a much easier time making sales.
As you saw above, if someone typed in “health”, a vast number of sites would come up with everything associated with it. From vaccines to heart health. How on earth would they find your website?
But if they typed in something more specific like “losing weight for seniors”, your website has an excellent chance of showing up on page one, giving you an audience to connect with.
It may seem like a very small segment of the population, but there are still millions of seniors looking for this solution.
And to go a step further, let’s say you wrote about a specific diet that’s recommended for seniors (your “what”). One of your keyword choices could be the name of the diet.
The seniors who have already done their research, have narrowed down the diet they want, and it’s the one you wrote about.
The great part about this is that those people who come to your site are ready to buy. They have their credit card in hand and you’ll get the sale!
What Others Recommend?
You will find many articles online recommending that you:
- Research your keywords to see how many pages show up.
- Google your competition to see if the market is too saturated with this product.
- Check the bestseller books on Amazon to see what areas of help many people are looking for.
Though the 3rd idea is intriguing, the first two are time-consuming, discouraging, and way too broad.
Look at what Googling “weight loss for seniors” shows…
It shows over 46 million search results. With results like that, how would you have ever known that it’s a great keyword to use. Actually, this is called a long-tail keyword.
What you need is a tool that can show you exactly how many times a word is searched in a month and how competitive it is. Sometimes all you need to do is rearrange the wording or phrase, and suddenly there’s very little competition.
But more importantly, it’s also a great way to choose your niche!
Wouldn’t this save you so much time and anxiety? What if I said you can test it for free!
Solution – Jaaxy
Jaaxy is free to try with no strings attached, and you can get the information you’re looking for. It’s a very powerful tool that I personally use all the time. All you have to do is sign up for your free account, and you can get:
- The average number of searches for that exact keyword, per month
- The average number of visits to your website if you get 1st-page ranking
- The exact number of websites online with this keyword (competition)
- A keyword quality indicator (great, normal, or poor)
- An SEO score from 1-100 (the higher the better)
- Any domain availability for that keyword
Many people think that keyword research tools are just for finding keywords. But as you saw above, Jaaxy also gives you great niche ideas. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
This tool can do so much more:
- It will show you where your blog is ranking in the current time.
- It has an “alphabet soup” method of coming up with more article ideas.
- It will save all your great finds in lists to keep them organized.
- It will show you your competition’s websites so you’ll know how to outrank them.
- And more!
Thoughts and Recommendations
Don’t let the word “niche” keep you from starting your own business online. Many entrepreneurs dread this step, yet it’s simpler than you think. Finding your niche can be made easy with a little thought and a great tool.
If you click on the button below, you can read all about Jaaxy…
Are you new to online marketing? This is a wonderful industry to make yourself a passive income, but without the proper education, tools, and support, you probably won’t get too far.
I’ve seen many try to do it on their own, only to get frustrated and quit.
That’s why I’m here! To guide you in the right direction.
The creators of Jaaxy, Carson and Kyle, created a wonderful platform to get your business up and running. They provide the best online education, will build and host your website and offer unsurpassed support.
And if you become a member, Jaaxy is fully integrated into the platform.
I’ve been there for years and highly recommend them. If you’re interested, please read my full, insider review.
So go ahead and discover your passion. Enjoy your business. Become successful!
I would love to hear about your choice of niche. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below.
Your friend,
Suzanne
P.S. If you think this can help someone you know, please share.
Hey Suzanne,
What an incredibly detailed post!
You explain things in an easy, direct style, showing that everybody can be successful if they want to.
It is good to find bloggers who strive to deliver valuable information to their readers. And I could not agree more, passion is the key. If you do not love what you do, how do you think you can build a profitable business?
I will definitely keep an eye on your blog.
Thanks for sharing knowledge, you are a great motivator!
Awe, thank you so much, Andrew. I’m so glad you enjoyed my post.
And you’re right. If you don’t have a passion for what you do, it will soon become a burden, and you’ll want to quit. Loving what you do is what keeps you going. And I love to help people any way I can.
Cheers,
Suzanne
I think the niche is quite important and I understand the concept. But how can I determine the potential of a niche? Do you have any recommendation?
Hi Furkan,
Once you’ve chosen a niche, then go online and do some research. If you have access to a keyword tool, even better.
You want to determine if there is an adequate market for your niche. If you type in the keyword, look to see how many people are searching for that term. Then consider the competition. Personally, I don’t worry about the competition too much. There are many ways to outrank them. But you need to have enough people looking for your product or services to make it worthwhile.
And don’t forget to consider what you want to promote in that niche. Are there quality products to promote? Can you expand your market later on with relevant topics?
I hope this helps. If you need more help, let me know.
Cheers,
Suzanne
Fantastic article. I was searching online to understand online marketing, and all I kept hearing about is you’ll need to pick a niche.
After finding and reading your very informative article, and the great video I might add, I have a clear understanding of what a niche is and how to approach it.
Thank you so much,
David
Thanks David, I’m glad I could help.
This topic can be so intimidating for beginners, but once you get a good understanding of what it is, it’s not so scary anymore, lol.
If you need any further help finding your niche, just let me know. I’d love to help.
Cheers,
Suzanne
This is very helpful and detailed. Niche is a very hard thing to think about when you want to start business or at least know the basic idea of what you want to do as an entrepreneur.
Hi Alia,
I’m glad you enjoyed the article. Yes, the word “niche” can be very intimidating. That’s why I wanted to break it down so that it wasn’t so scary for people to understand. Just pick a passion and narrow it down!
Cheers,
Suzanne
I , too, still over think niche. I understand what it is but I struggle picking one idea. And then I just wonder how will I find enough to say about this? It’s a process, but I’ll get there.
Hi Michelle,
It can seem overwhelming at first, but if you pick something you’re interested in, then start using a keyword tool, it’s amazing how many ideas for content you’ll come up with. This method always works great for me.
Cheers,
Suzanne
Thanks Suzanne for this post. It’ has explained clearly what a niche is. When my husband Marco and I were starting, we had a hard time finding what is my niche, luckily there are people like you and a lot at Wealthy Affiliate who were able to guide us. The tools you suggested were also very useful in helping us use the right words that we should use to help us be more searchable.
You’re right in saying that finding one’s pasion and how this pasion can help others is the key to finding one’s niche.
Hi Regz,
I’m so happy I could be of help. Starting with your passion makes working on your website so much more fun. And if you use an advanced keyword search tool, it makes ranking in google so much easier.
Best wishes with your niche!
Suzanne
Thank you Suzanne for explaining what niche really means and also inspiring me to keep plugging away at my genealogy blog. It’s going a little slow at the moment but with perseverance I will get there.
While reading your post I couldn’t help think to myself that I could break down my blog into smaller niches. I love genealogy and think that I can make it very profitable.
I don’t want to work on another blog I am happy with this one, but never say never I guess. Do you think that I could make just one blog a real wealthy earner?
Hi Owain,
I think as long as you stay on topic and offer the help people are looking for, your website can become sought after for information. This in turn, can be profitable for you. Your website looks really organized for the niche you chose. I think you’ll do great!
Best of luck,
Suzanne
Hi Carol.
I’m so glad I could help you. The word “niche” can definitely scare some people, but when you break down the meaning, it’s actually quite simple. I’m happy you found Wealthy Affiliate and Jaaxy. They make learning easy, fun, and help all levels of marketers. Best of luck with your new website!
Cheers,
Suzanne
Hi Carol.
I’m so glad I could help you. The word “niche” can definitely scare some people, but when you break down the meaning, it’s actually quite simple. I’m happy you found Wealthy Affiliate and Jaaxy. They make learning easy, fun, and help all levels of marketers. Best of luck with your new website!
Cheers,
Suzanne
I am so happy I found this post. You have nailed the definition of a niche. This has been the most detailed explanation to me. My understanding of this little word got easier when I also came across Wealthy Affiliate and Jaaxy. Before that, I have always been confused. I finally managed to start a website the right way after signing up for these tools. Since then I have benefited greatly and I am so grateful.
Hi Carol.
I’m so glad I could help you. The word “niche” can definitely scare some people, but when you break down the meaning, it’s actually quite simple. I’m happy you found Wealthy Affiliate and Jaaxy. They make learning easy, fun, and help all levels of marketers. Best of luck with your new website!
Cheers,
Suzanne
Thanks Suzanne,
I’m trying to find the most proper niche so I can go forward with my affiliate marketing, it seems I’ll go for weight loss niche, but I’m noticing that working on this niche is going to be too competitive, but will try and see the results.
Hi Rawan,
Even though there is lots of competition, there are still many, many keywords that haven’t been utilized yet. If you check out Jaaxy, you will find many low competition keywords that are searched every month, and can become very successful for you.
Wishing you all the best,
Suzanne
Hi suzanne, thanks for the post and especially the link to simon’s video.
Both you and he explain what most people miss, you really need to believe in what you do and project that. If this is not the case then your marketing will reflect it and people will not believe in you deep inside, whether they are aware of it or not.
The trouble is i have so many things i like, how do i settle on one – or do i try to see if there is a common thread an concentrate on that?
Hi Phil,
Personally, I would choose the thing that I am most passionate about. There’s certainly no reason why you can’t choose them all eventually. Just start with one and build it up first. Be careful about a common thread though…it might make the niche too broad. It’s always better to have a more targeted audience.
Blessings,
Suzanne
Great post and so interesting to read.No matter how much I think I know about this subject I learn something every day! You defined “Niche” perfectly to where anyone can understand what you are talking about.I am getting prepared to start a second website and will be keeping all the information you shared here front and center when choosing my niche.
Hi Riley,
I’m so happy I could help you. My focus is explaining things as simply as I can, to help those with affiliate or online marketing. I know I always appreciate other peoples views!
Best wishes on your new website,
Suzanne
Hi Riley,
I’m so happy I could help you. My focus is explaining things as simply as I can, to help those with affiliate or online marketing. I know I always appreciate other peoples views!
Best wishes on your new website,
Suzanne