What is a Niche?
Niche. What a word. But what does the word mean? Offline, the word means something that you are good at or something that you have a specialty with. Online, it’s a little different. An online niche is something that you have chosen to build an idea (such as a website) around. It’s still considered a specialty of yours.
For example, a niche would be a website about “golfing during the summer”, and you could have a website with information about golf courses, why golfing in the summer is good…etc. So the niche in this example in general is the golfing niche, but the actual laser targeted niche is golfing during the summer . (BTW- I don’t golf, so I do apologize to any golfers who are offended my by blatant lack of knowledge on the subject.)
Choosing a Niche
One of the most important parts about choosing a niche is making sure you are interested in it. This does not mean you have to necessarily know about it, but you do need to have some kind of interest in the subject. This will ensure you enjoy the time you spend on your website.
Another thing to consider when choosing a niche is the amount of popularity the subject has. You want to make sure that the topic is something people are searching for information on. If other people are searching for information on the subject of your niche, this will help in the success of visitors to your site. How can you tell if a niche gets searched? Do some keyword research. There are many keyword tools out there that will tell you how many times a word (or idea) gets searched on the internet, and they also tell you how many competing websites there are. Aside from search popularity, the next thing you need to take into consideration is website competition.
You don’t want to target a niche that have millions of competing websites. This is not to say you won’t win over the competition, but it makes your job that much more difficult to gain ranking from the search engines. Let’s take the above golf example. Instead of just having a website about golf, dig a little deeper and find out what other people are searching for in regards to golf. Such as (remember, I do not golf) the difference between the clubs. This is known as a targeted niche, or a micro niche.
The best way to find a niche would be first to start off with something you are interested, then go a little deeper, and think of “subcategories” (such as in the golfing during the summer sub catagory – it’s even more laser targeted and narrowed down than just “golfing”. Once you have some subcategories in mind, use a keyword research tool to find your keywords, and voila! You have your niche. (An excellent keyword tool I really like is Wordtracker. Check it out.)
I will say this again, and I want you to heed my advice – only choose a niche in a subject you are interested in! If you do not, you will fail. Internet marketing takes a lot of dedication, time and commitment. If you have to work daily on something that doesn’t hold your interest, you will find it very hard to work on it. No work = no success. Period.
Now What?
After you have your niche, the next step is to build your website. Make sure you understand the importance of SEO, back linking, and how to get traffic to your site. This will also make or break your success.
By selecting the right niche, you’ve already greatly increased your chances of being successful. Work on your website everyday, and take care of it just as though it were a business – because that’s what it is.
You do not need to know everything about internet marketing to be successful, just as long as you understand that you will be learning something new everyday, and it is a learning curve. Some things will work for you, and some things won’t. Learn from your mistakes, and keep moving forward.
