Picking a niche is difficult simply because it is important. It doesn’t matter what business type you choose to do, you will eventually come to the problem of picking a niche.

When that time comes, you will be faced with questions like;

1. What is a niche?

2. What niches are profitable and how do you figure that out?

3. What does profitable means exactly?

4. Is a profitable niche big, small, original …..?

5. How do I choose a niche?

I tell you the last question is right up there with choosing where to live, who to date, or what degree to get. You have to make a decision and you want it to be the right one.

I have seen so many people give up on their dreams to work for themselves simply because they can’t choose a niche or because they rushed and chose the wrong one.

I have heard people say all the good ideas are taken and yet a few years later someone comes up with an idea so revolutionary that the world wows.

There are always new ideas out there, you just need to be dedicated enough to think of them.

Think outside the box.

How to choose a niche?

People employ many methods when choosing a niche. Niches are usually aimed at serving two basic markets; consumer and business.

For example, if you sell hiking gear online, your target market is consumers. On the other hand, if you sell office supplies, your target market is businesses ( B2B sales) for the most part or consumer to a lesser extent.

No matter the marketing method, it all boils down to keywords.

Keywords are key because people search for things online using them; whether on search engines like Google or e-commerce sites like Amazon.

So, if you master keywords, then you have a better chance of finding a profitable niche.

Before I continue, let me define niche market the way I understand it. For me, a niche market is small portion of a market with closely related features.

Spare parts for Pickup trucks for example is a niche market because a pickup truck is a light-duty truck that has an enclosed cab and an open cargo area with low sides and tailgate.

However, this is a broad niche and could be more specific if you for example, choose to build your niche around Spare parts for Nissan pickup trucks.

You can even narrow this niche even further down too say Spare parts for Nissan Frontier trucks.

Any how it’s all about keywords. So Let’s talk about ways to find those keywords that make great niches.

Brainstorm 

When brainstorming for possible niche ideas, think of the things that you, your friends and family use often.

Get into conversations with people and you will be surprised how many niche ideas you get from this exercise.

Write every idea down and don’t bother about screening them just yet.

When you are brainstorming, have a target audience in mind; it could be people like you (e,g person 18- 85 with love for fancy cars) or a whole other group of people you have concern for (for example, seniors with disabilities).

Or you can just work backwards an first pick a niche that is interesting to you and then later determine what you target audience is.

Think about your interest and passion

Make a list of the things that excite you. It could be something that you have already done or something you have on your to do list.

You can ask questions like;

• What do I do to stay healthy?

• What are my hobbies, What do I enjoy doing on my free time?

• What groups am I a member of?

• What magazines or websites have I subscribed to?

It is good to work with your passion because business is tough. Even when you choose a great niche, you will need a ton of dedication to succeed.

If you choose something you have no passion for, you can easily give up during tough times.

Now don’t go all crazy about this passion thing. You still have to, as Leroy Gibbs says in NCIS “follow the money” (I love that guy). Find a good balance between passion and money.

Later on when you are trying to determine profitability, you may realize that your passion won’t make it so you can trim and prone to get something you are still passionate about that works.

Of course, if your niche is to solve a problem or send a message and money is not your concern, then you can rely on passion only ( but you still need to understand your target audience to succeed).

Solve a problem

If anything, your niche should solve a problem for your target group. Pain points are very important.

If you can figure out what the pain points of your target group are, you can come up with great market niches.

To do this, you can visit several forums related to your interest, passion or brainstorm list.

Read through several discussions and make notes as you go. Note the kind of questions people are asking and what kind of problems they have.

Use Google trend, Yahoo trending, Twitter trending, ebay popular, google suggest, Google keyword planner, Jaaxy and even Flippa (look for niches that sold high) to find keywords related to you niche idea.

This can help you uncover popular search terms related to pain points.

If the niche you are leaning toward is consumer related or e-commerce related, you can use a platform like Amazon for research.

Research your competition

When researching your completion, you need to determine which niche has healthy competition and which ones doesn’t (too little competition and too much competition is bad for business).

Why? Because too much competition reduces a niches profitability and too little competition might mean people are not interested in the niche and thus there is really little or no market for it.

This stage of the process is very important. Do a simple search on Google; Create a spreadsheet and start inputting all of the competing sites you can find.

Determine whether you can still rank for you chosen keywords with the competition. Is there a way to make yourself stand out (unique and enticing).

Below are a couple things that shows you have a chance to outperform your competition;

• Poor content: If your competition has poor content then you can work hard to make your niche more professional by providing better content. Content that is detailed will rank better. If you have the added advantage of expertise, you will gain trust and authority in your niche.

• Lack of transparency: It is not hard to find niches filled with websites that lack transparency. The ‘make money niche’ is a good example. People like transparency and it is even more so online. If you can build your niche around transparency, then you stand a good chance.

• Little to no paid competition: This is a great sign that a niche is good, when it has a high search, low competition and your competition does not use paid ads to promote their business.

Pick out the most profitable interest, passions or problems

At this point, you should have a good idea what niche you will like to build your business around as your ideas and your target audience’s needs and wants coalesce.

You may not have narrowed it down to one yet so you need to determine which one is the best.

This is where you zone down on tools like google trend to see if the niche idea is trending well; google keyword planner, Jaaxy or other keyword tools to determine search volumes and competition.

Test your Niche