Message from Adam
Deciding what kind of website you want to make isn't always easy. This post will help get you started.
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How To Find Your Niche
This article will show you how to find a niche, which is the first step in making a profitable website.
How to find your niche
Building your first website is relatively easy, but deciding what to write about is much more difficult. In this post I will walk you through several steps that will help you find your niche. I will also show you some tools to help you and some common mistakes to avoid.
What is a niche?
First, it is important to understand what a niche is.
The dictionary describes a niche as “products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of the population.” For websites, that means focused content designed to appeal to a specific group of like-minded people.
A niche is the bedrock of your website. It is the content you write about and it is the reason visitors come to your site.
Some niches are very broad like “cooking” and some niches are very focused like “cooking healthy vegetarian Japanese cuisine”.
The more specific your niche is the better because there are over a billion websites on the internet, so if your topic is too broad your site will never be found. A broad niche like “cooking” will have millions of competing websites and it will make it almost impossible to get ranked on Google. The more focused your niche is, the higher potential for getting ranked on Google. The higher your rank in Google, the higher your chances of making money become.
There will be far less competition for “cooking healthy vegetarian Japanese cuisine” than there will be for “cooking”.
Having less competitors and a higher Google ranking will make making money online a lot more feasible. It is very important to find your niche!
Find your niche - Where to start?
First you need to think of the things you are interested in. It is impossible to continue to write quality content if you are writing about something that doesn’t interest you.
Take a pen and paper and make a long list of things you like and like to do. Don’t overthink it. Just jot down all your hobbies and interests. After you make this list, go back and try to get more specific with each interest. For example, if you wrote “camping” on your list, you could write “winter camping” and then “ultralight” and then “tents”. See which items on your list are easy for you to get more specific with.
If you can get really specific with one of your ideas, then that probably means you are really interested in that topic and could write a lot of great content for about it. And remember that the more focused your niche idea is, the better chance there is for making money online.
At this stage, you don’t have to stress over anything. Just relax and brainstorm ideas. Don’t worry if you’re not an expert in all the hobbies that you write down. If it is your hobby you probably already know more than an average person and after starting a website, you will learn even more and become a true expert. That comes naturally. So just start writing and worry about the rest later!
Another good thing to do is to write questions that your potential readers might ask.
Since the things on your list are your hobbies or interests, you have probably already learned a lot about them. But think of the people just getting started, what questions would they be asking?
“What is the best winter trekking pack?” “How do I lose weight fast?” “How do I make money online?”
People search for things online because they have questions and they have problems that they want solved. Your website needs to be a place that they can go to get answers. So it is good to start by trying to think of the questions people are typing into Google. Questions that could lead people to your site.
What questions could you answer and how many could you answer?
Your knowledge and experience could solve problems for people and the more problems you can solve in a niche the better chances of that niche website becoming successful. Thinking about problems you could help people with is a good way to find your niche.
Do some research and find out what questions people are asking online. Look through forums and Facebook groups. Go on Quora and look at discussions that could be related to your niche. Once you have a list of questions or problems people have, you can really narrow down your search for a niche.
Look at your list and see which interests you were able to get really focused and look at the questions/problems related to each of these interests. If you see something on the list that is really focused and has a lot of potential problems that you could solve for people, then that is a good candidate for becoming your niche.
Please don’t skip the research part! If you can’t find any discussions or people talking about your potential niche idea, then that means no one is interested in that niche. If there is no interest, then there won’t be anyone coming to your site. Research is very important!
Find your niche - I’ve narrowed my list of niche ideas down to a few, now what?
More research!!
This next step may take some time but the more time you spend researching the better your odds of making money become. You will need to research potential competitors, keywords (and their competitiveness) and look at trends.
Keyword Research is next
This is another really important step that should not be overlooked. 
Having good keywords is vital to your rankings in Google. Being listed in the top five websites after doing a Google search should be everyone’s goal. Being ranked high in Google, gives your website authority and it will bring in a lot more traffic to your site. After all, no one looks at the second page of search results do they?
It is true that having good keywords isn’t the only important thing for getting ranked on Google but they help a lot.
Choosing you keywords carefully is important and it should be done BEFORE you make your website. You will need to find what words are being searched for on Google and the competitiveness of those keywords.
Luckily, there are several tools available on line to help you find this information.
Check out these online tools:
Google Trends is a wonderful FREE tool that allows you to see what keywords and keyphrases are being searched on Google. Here you can try different combinations of words and compare them to each other to see which words have the highest number of people searching for them.
For example, you can compare “make money blogging” and “make money online”. There is a significantly larger number of people searching Google for “make money online” than there is for “make money blogging”. This means that “make money online” is the better keyphrase to use on your website.
This is great information to have but Google Trends doesn’t provide the competitiveness of keywords. Which is also very important to know, so other sites will need to be used as well during your research process.
Google AdWords Keyword Planner is another great free tool to use to help decide which keywords to use. Here you can type in your keyword and see historical trends for that keyword and how much competition there is for that keyword. Knowing how much competition there is for a keyword really helps you choose the right keywords to use.
If you search for the keyword “weight loss” You can see that the competiveness of that keyword is extremely high. There are many websites using that same keyword, which will make it very hard for you to break into that market and get noticed. Spend some time experimenting with different word combinations to find a keyword that doesn’t have such high competiveness.
Moz is by far the best tool for searching for keywords, but it comes at a price.
Moz costs $9 a month for their basic plan. It sucks having to spend money, but their service really is great. With them you can get a TON of data when you are searching for keywords.
This data will help you compare keywords, key phrases, prioritize keywords and fine tune your SEO strategy. This is the one stop shop for all your keyword search needs. I love that they show the percentage of difficulty to get ranked for each keyword I search for and I like their keyword suggestions.
It is good to note that they do offer a free service as well. They offer 10 free keyword searches a month, which is a great way to see if it is worth spending money on their services.
For people who are serious about making a profitable website, paying for this service is a good investment. With them you can learn about so much more than just keywords. Here you can learn about keyword difficulty, on page recommendations, SEO, link building, page optimization, and learn see a competitive analysis. This really is a cool website and can absolutely help you find your niche.
One last general tip to find your niche
One last major thing to keep in mind while deciding what niche to write about, is if you can write enough content for the niche you choose.
Think about each topic on your list and ask yourself if you could write 20-30 posts/articles about that topic. Whatever niche you decide to write about, you need to be able to write enough content for it. If you think you have a great idea for a niche but can only think of 10 articles that you could possibly write, then maybe you should try to find a different idea.
A great idea is good to have, but if there isn’t enough content to support that idea, not many people will visit your site. You will need to add content to your site regularly so it is important that your niche is about something that you can write a lot about. It shouldn’t be stressful to think of new things to write about.
It should feel like you don’t have enough time or space to write about everything that you want to write about. If you feel that way about a topic, then that is another good indicator that you have found your niche.
Here is a list of some of the most popular niche markets
- Health; weight loss, muscle gain, detoxification, supplements etc.
- Money; make money online, investments, finance etc.
- Beauty; cosmetics, treatments, hair loss etc.
- Love; dating, relationships etc.
- Pets
- Technology; gadgets, computers, VR etc.
- Lifestyle; self improvement, fashion etc.
- DIY; Life hacks, home improvements etc.
Mistakes to avoid when selecting a niche market
- Choosing a niche based solely on the potential for profits.
You need to be knowledgeable about the things you write about!
Everyone wants to make money so it’s good to choose a niche that has potential for profits, but if you choose a niche that you don’t have any experience with you won’t be able to write content that will keep people coming back to your site. It will also be very stress to keep thinking of ideas to write about in a niche that you are not interested in.
Consumers are smart and they will know when you are only writing something to get them to buy something. You need to have experience with the products or services you are selling. People don’t want sale pitches; they want honest reviews and honest opinions. They can feel if an author has passion for the topic they are writing about, so it is very important to be genuinely interested in your niche. If a niche market is profitable for some people, that doesn’t mean it will be profitable for you.
- Choosing a niche that is too broad.
Weight loss is one of the most profitable niches but it is a very broad niche. For you to start a website for weight loss, you would need a team of writers just to make enough content to make a decent website. And even if you did make a decent website in weight loss, that niche is already dominated by major companies and famous bloggers. It would be nearly impossible to break into that market because of the name recognition of the big companies and all the related keywords would already have extremely high competitiveness.
Making a more focused niche will give you a chance to rank on Google and give you a chance to become an authority on your topic. So a website about “Japanese weight loss techniques for women” would be a much better idea than just a website about “weight loss”.
- Writing content for profits instead of for readers.
If you want to make money form a website, you need to have traffic coming to your site. The best way to get more readers is to build trust with them. Writing an article that says “this is the best headphones on the market, please buy” isn’t going to work. People go to websites because they have a problem or a need that they are trying to find answers for. Your website MUST provide honest answers or solutions to the readers.
Write content that not only helps the reader, but also lets them know that you are trustworthy and a reliable source of information. If you can do that, then you will get repeat visitors and word of mouth will bring in new visitors. Building trust with site visitors is the first step to making profits. The more trust you build, the more authority your site will have and the more money you can make. Think long term and make content that will generate traffic. Avoid making content that is only designed to sell something. Don’t make a page that has affiliate links placed all over because this looks very spammy and will make visitors bounce from your site. Strive to make a website that helps your readers instead of making fast profits. If you make a site that addresses the needs of your readers, profits will come naturally.
- Waiting until you have thought of the perfect niche idea to start.
This is maybe the biggest mistake most people make. Most people never actually start! There is no perfect website idea, so just start and learn the rest while you go. Of course, do your research first and then do your best to make the best site that you can. You will learn a lot just by trying.
You don’t have to be a leading expert in the niche you choose and don’t even have to be over the top passionate about it. Passion helps but its hard to have true passion at the starting line. Choose something you are interested in and just start. After you start you will learn more about your niche and slowly become a real expert in that field. During this time your passion will grow as well. Just make sure to choose something you’re interested in and want to learn more about and your passion and expertise will both grow naturally. Find your niche and enjoy writing about it!
The fear of failure is a major reason people don’t make money online. Have conviction, stick with it and enjoy the process. There is no such thing as making money without effort. And there is zero chance of making money online if you never start.
Final Thoughts
To find your niche takes a lot of planning and a lot of work, but it is also very fun. It is fun to learn many new things and there will always be new things to learn about. With a website there is almost unlimited earning potential. Choosing your niche is the first step of this process and you should take your time deciding. Do a lot of research and have a clear vision of what you want your website to look like. Be patient with yourself and make sure that you enjoy the topic that you choose to write about. And above all….START! Research is important but don’t spend forever researching and never starting. Choose your niche and give it your best shot!
For more information on how to get webhosting and a domain name, please see my post on How to Make a Website.
