Niches are part of the stairway to freedom and follow on from the Goals created from your dreams. You might like to check out Stairway to Freedom before you start this section of the climb.
And then let’s talk about Niches.
What are Niches?
Many people who want to start a website have a little bit of trouble defining their niche. For some reason this word becomes an overwhelming idea. Well niches are actually quite simple. And you have most likely already embraced some in your lives. Do you love what you are doing? Are you able to use this to create a Micro-market. That might sound small but on the scale corresponding to the internet population it can be a huge market.
There are a number of definitions of niche. It can be:
- a role in life, or
- an interaction between people and things.
- a recess to display objects,
- a position.
- a focused slice of a market, products & services, or
- interests that appeal to a specific group of people.
Well any website you create will fit right into all or most of these definitions. But I believe that the appealing interests is the best one as long as it is a great interest to you too.
Your Niche will find You!
Do you have a hobby you love? Or a favourite pastime. Well then you have a niche.
Will it be profitable? This will be where your challenge will begin.
There are niches around exercising, music or health. Do you really like reading? Well, there is a website for you. You will have to work hard with something like this as the return is smaller on lower priced items.
You will need to explore whether or not your niche will attract visitors. I do this by going to Google and other search engines to check out what niches people are flocking to. Wealthy Affiliate has guidelines to, well guide you on determining this.
I did a search on Tennis Clothes to show you what results you get by researching a niche this way. As I am a lousy golf player, this was so NOT me. But with avid parent golfers I have a sound grounding in tennis knowledge so I could have developed this as my niche. See it’s what you know and are familiar with!
Wealthy Affiliate also has a niche and keyword tool (coming up in my next post) that allows you great power in checking out potential niches and helps with your decision.
You will be able to use Wealthy Affiliate to do this as there are many Wealthy Affiliate tutorials and member posts that will guide you.
My niche is living away from the madding (madly frenzied) crowd. That is the reason for my website title and it fits right into a physical niche such as this cliff niche on the Great Southern Ocean. I have the advantage of living this way for many years and my niche has become ingrained.
It’s highly likely you have one or more that affect you like this. Don’t think too hard. Just let it surface into your mind and find you. You most likely will get a feeling about its rightness.
Perhaps you like lots of things. This can make it a bit harder. Just remember that you want to use your niche to help people choose what you are offering.
Niche Range
Don’t generalise with your niche. Drill down and be more specific. Niches need to be interesting and focus people on what you will do to help them make decisions. Just remember in a lot of cases people know exactly what they are looking for. You give them information on the best available choices.
Using the above example and the Related Searches, you can fine tune to tennis shoes, tennis racquets (and maybe a ball or three). People looking for either of these items don’t want to have to wade through the tons of sites about Tennis Clothing online. They will tire of this quite quickly and leave your niche website.
How Your Niches Work
Never limit yourself. Don’t anticipate that people won’t visit your niche website. You need to make it interesting and magnetic – a real draw card.
As for thinking a niche might be overworked; well there are billions of people visiting the internet. There are plenty for you!
Once you have your niche, make it work by connecting with your visitors. Talk to them as you do to your friends. Be conversational. I know this works as I have used this approach all my life. People like to feel that you are talking directly to them. So do so.
Niche Wrap Up
You should now have some idea of niches. Just remember to be yourself, be your niche.
Made up your mind yet to test drive Wealthy Affiliate? You can test drive it for free.
Following your dreams, goals and niches, the next step is to use the metal to unlock the door to your website, the Keyword.
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Great article, thank you so much. Very encouraging!
Hi Melisa, thanks for your comment. Niches are actually pretty easy. I did however take some time to find mine as I have lots of interests.
Please feel free to visit me anytime and ask any questions you have.
Ciao
Helen
Hallo there Hellen,
I have been trying to narrow down to the niche I find perfect for me and I have to say that this post has really been helpful with that.
Now I can start building out my online business with wealthy affiliate using their certification course. I have heard it is really great. Thanks.
Dave, I see that many people really don’t understand what niches are. In fact every activity, or interest that is, is a niche. Maybe not one you love or even like. The real challenge is finding the one you love the most. Or in fact feel you can learn so much about that it becomes that one.
The most common niche around, although it’s not for me, is shopping. So many people just love this. That is why so many affiliate or other websites are aimed at shopping for actual and virtual items.
Good luck and happy travelling with your niche and Wealthy Affiliate will certainly guide your way.
Thanks for the comment.
Ciao
Helen
Hi there Helen,
Thank you kindly for creating and sharing this article with us all, it is appreciated. Thanks.
I was actually stuck and to be quite honest struggling on how to define a niche. This article has helped me a lot, a niche (and please do correct me if I am wrong) is simply a market sector or subsector.
Derek, there are a number of definitions of niche. To me they all interlink. So you have a nice artefact you want to display. You find a nice little slot (such as an indentation in a wall) and that’s the niche you display it in.
Or you finally found the ideal career and are extremely comfortable in it, passionate about it and learn a great deal about it. That’s your niche in life – say a great internet career, working from where ever you like.
And then there is the passion you feel about the actual career itself. With the overly huge, world population you can guarantee there are others very interested in it. So that career becomes your online niche or market sector, as you say.
What you have is your passion. It becomes your online niche. That niche fits into the slot where it is presented (displayed) to the world. And the world is your oyster!
Thanks for your comment.
Ciao Helen
Hey this was a really good article, i actually had to change my niche like twice. But i did decide to focus on only one site since it was hard to manage 2 and keep putting out good content. I think when im ready for a second site i will pick a new niche but i got to think really hard about it!
Justin, I believe once you have selected one niche and worked with it for a while, management of it becomes ingrained and therefore easier.
You will get to a point where it becomes second nature and very comfortable to produce quality content.
Then you can start doing a second and maybe more niche websites. You have the knowledge! Just build up at a speed you can handle.
Thanks for your comment and come back and visit anytime.
Ciao
Helen
Hey Helen:
I liked reading your thoughts on finding a niche. In your post you address the two most important questions, I think: Is the niche an area of interest for you? Is it one that can be developed into a market?
There are, as you say, many niches and your ideas for exploring the possibilities are right-on. And the online world is so huge that even a teeny micro-market can be a relatively huge one.
It does give me hope….
Yep, and most people do have a ready niche that really interests them They just don’t know it is a niche. I find that niches and keywords are so puzzling to many people. Most likely no-one has ever really explained it in simple terms.
When I was at university I had a casual job with the phone betting agency. When I graduated and got my engineering job, one of my soon-to-be ex-colleagues was having a panic attack. This was because the work was being computerised. To me all that meant was going from one mechanical means of work to another.
She was going to quit but I had a talk with her and suggested she just try it. After all she really enjoyed the work (a good niche for her).
Six months later I was back in Sydney so dropped into my old work place. Well she was racing through the work on the computer, like an old pro. I am sure that if she was so inclined, this would be a perfect online niche for her. I don’t think she even knew this was a niche.
Thanks for your comment.
Ciao
Helen
In my experience finding a profitable niche is not difficult they are just about everywhere. My problem has always been making up my mind, deciding on which niche I want to work with. You can not do too many at the same time as internet marketing does take a lot of time, so it is important to choose something that you like and understand. It does not necessarily have to be your passion or hobby but at least something you can relate to. Something you can understand so that you can put yourself into a potential buyers shoes and understand the problems and challenges they might be facing.
Thanks for a great post about niches. It is a huge subject and soo much to say and learn about it.
Jojo, making up my mind is always the hard bit. I like so many things, and have done so many things, I am known as a ‘generalist’. That makes life hard. I almost have to toss a coin sometimes. Funnily enough the coin always seems to find a crack to fall through so I can’t see the result. For me this has meant I really have to decide for myself.
I do and progress. I often end up in funny places.
You are surely correct in noting, don’t bite off more than you can do (urr I mean chew)!
I will hopefully have the opportunity to comment with you again sometime.
Ciao
Helen