Finding THE Niche

[Static51]

Well, this is my first post in this forum. Lately I've been trying to get into all this affiliate marketing stuff. It seems (if I am correct) that finding a good niche (hopefully untapped) is the first step one must take.

So, let me throw out some questions for all you experts and gurus out there. If you could answer some of these for me, it'd be great! I'm stuck right now and this is only the beginning!

What is the best way to find a niche?

How do I know if it is untapped?

Are there any tools I could use to find these niche?

Would it be of importance to select a niche that is within my arae of interest?


Thanks!

 

[gowithabc]

Great questions! My only suggestion in regards to deciding on a niche for yourself is to definitely go with something you are familiar with. Products that you would enjoy yourself you will find are much easier than ones you don't like or would never use.

Specifically this will help in any product reviews you choose to wrote and your descriptions of the products however you choose to market them.

If you like it or have used the products yourself, you're definitely going to have a better and easier time explaining and reviewing it.

I wish you luck on finding your niche and becoming successful!

 

[petervz]

I wouldn't get too hung up over finding THE niche. Really, there are millions of niches and niches within niches that you can actually spend ALL of your time searching and never get anything done!

I agree with gowithabc when he says go with something you like/love.

Reason being if you have to write a whole lot of content it's easier to write about something you like (and sound compassionate and sell!)

There are a ton of tools that you can use to find a niche.

I would HIGHLY recommend only using free tools til you find your feet.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Static,

Welcome to 5 Star. Thanks for starting off with a great question!

Actually all the best tips and tools for researching and finding niches are right here it the stickies in the niche forum. I've put everything all in one place so it's easy to find. The stickies in the newbie forum also have lots of info about why you should start with a small niche and the importance of finding THE niche.

"I wouldn't get too hung up over finding THE niche."

I disagree. Finding THE niche is critical. The biggest reason most newbies fail IMHO is picking the wrong niche or one that's too competitive. (Like make money online - Internet marketing). They don't get anywhere and get frustrated and quit.

 

[Dieter71]

Would it be of importance to select a niche that is within my arae of interest?

Yes, of course! At least you shouldn't choose a niche you dislike.

 

[therankdirectory]

I think that when you select your niche, it should be something you enjoy spending time with. Find something you enjoy, and run with it.

Try to figure these things as well:

Know your audience

understand the CPC values of your targeted keywords

Get ready to put in some elbow grease

 

[addy13]

When I first started I tried to go think of things I really cared about and market them. Now I really don't care. I admit, it is much easier to go after a market that you know so much about already, but if I can make money in it I really don't care.

I also don't necessarily try to target a market that is untapped. That is a hard one to find. At least it has been for me. I research to make sure there is a good target market for the product I'm thinking of promoting and if so I go for it.

I'm not discounting anything that anyone here has said because I build a lot of mini sites around lots of different products. That's just the way I do it.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Good points all.

Addy I feel when you are BRAND NEW it's easiest and best to start with something not too competitive and something you know about or preferably are passionate about.

Lots of affiliates that fail tackle a competitive subject (just for the money) and if it's something they don't know about or even enjoy then it just gets frustrating to keep trying. So that's where I think some knowledge and passion can help, but just in the beginning, your 1st site or 2 as you are learning the game.

For newbies it's important they see some fairly early results or they just give up and quit. If they tackle life insurance for their 1st site, just chasing the money, but they don't know anything about it and think it's really boring to boot, they probably aren't going to last long enough to see any success.

Once someone has a lot of experience and is a pro like you Addy or even after some just gets their feet wet enough to know how the game is played, they can pick whatever niche. But only after they know enough to know what they are getting themselves into.

 

[itsalluphl]

Finding a niche

Hi Static,

I'm pretty new at this too but wanted to share how I decided on my niche. I first brainstormed the things I'm most passionate about and narrowed it down to two - animals and travel. Those being as broad as they are I narrowed each of those down to more specifics (example pet supplies, endangered animals, Africa travel, etc). After doing that I was left with several niches. I picked one from the list and am hanging on to the others as potential future sites. I then used free tools like Google's adwords search and Wordtracker to begin collecting keywords and identifying which ones are in most demand.

Hope that helps and all the best to your success,

 

[addy13]

You're right Linda. It is much harder to focus and stay motivated to do something if you don't like what you're doing.

 

[Static51]

Thanks for all the replies. It's really helped me a lot.

One of the things that I'm the most passionate about are MP3 players and soccer. What is the next step that I can take? To be honest, I already have a decent domain to run an MP3 player review site. However, I'm not exactly looking to run a blog and doing updates, but am looking to sell something.

Considering this, would selecting mp3 player accessories or soccer gears be a decent development from the two very broad niches that I chose? If so, what is the next step I can take? If not, what type of "long tail KW" or more specific approaches do I need to take inorder to get my feet wet?

I recognize that the two niches above are probably low paying because the accessories or the players themselves are cheap to begin with.

Thanks!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Static,

Those both may be pretty competitive but no way to know unless you do the research. What I'd be looking for when doing the kw research is a less competitive niche within the niche.

Start with your root kw either MP3 players or soccer. Then go through the example as I outline it here.

Step by step Key word research to evaluate niche

Or there are a couple other examples and methods outlined in all the best key word research threads here.

If you are really new to all this, I would read most of the threads in that 2nd link and get a better understanding - then jump in. You can set up a little spreadsheet to store any good KWs and their popularity and competition numbers.

 

[Static51]

Thanks alot (as always) for your help Linda. I'm really learning a lot about the whole kw researching stuff.

I also had a niche that came into my mind. "acne" It's probably a heavily competitive niche, but as all the skin care stuff are something that I'm quite interested in, I thought that it could be a niche that I try out too. Would the development of the keywords for the "acne" niche be the same as above?

Thanks again!

 

[Niche48]

Yes acne is a niche with a lot of marketers but it is possible to break into it
I have a few pages on acne, just adsense pages which are not doing too badly

Problem with this niche and why I am not focussing too much on my few pages on it is generating unique content

However when you think about the millios of people with acne, the market is big and you are aimig for is a small part of it

Just to add that a lot of the marketers I know are into sveral different niches. Some niches make more money and others... well...

 

[Static51]

Thanks for the quick reply Niche.

Could you give some examples of sub niche under the niche 'acne'? I'm not exactly sure what they would be. treating acne? acne scar information? acne medicine?

 

[Niche48]

Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner
Acne scars
Acne treatment
Back acne
teenage acne

are a few that come to mind

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks for the quick reply Niche.

Could you give some examples of sub niche under the niche 'acne'? I'm not exactly sure what they would be. treating acne? acne scar information? acne medicine?

One of the things you can do Static is to put the root keyword "acne" into a keyword tool like the Free Word Tracker below. Then since you are a newbie scan down the list quite a ways as the top ones will probably have the most competition. Wordtracker - Acne

Then pick a few further down that you think may be good and do KW research to see how competitive they are. Here is how to do the research.

Step by step keyword research.

The key is to try to find a phrase that has more search volume in Wordtracker, yet lower competing pages in Google.

 

[Static51]

Thanks Niche and Linda. God, I'm so happy that I found this forum.

 

[Linda Buquet]

This is a pretty good but older thread, so I wanted to bump it back up for more discussion.

 

[thenichethinktank]

Who else wants to watch this video?

What is the best way to find a niche?

How do I know if it is untapped?

Are there any tools I could use to find these niche?

Would it be of importance to select a niche that is within my area of interest?

Thanks!

Great Questions, and Here are some answers, I just posted a video on my site showing how I go about FINDING profitable niches. [removed]

Then go here after that and read the first post about niche market creation, you will learn alot from this category on my blog!!!

look in the case study category for all those posts!


let me know if that helped you ok?
and as always if you found it helpful, please pass it around.
Thanks, Larry