Need a Niche?

I’m introducing a new regular feature to the SWBN blog from next weekend, which I hope will be of help to many of you, especially if you’re just starting your online business.

Over the years, especially as a moderator on The Challenge forum, I’ve seen people stressing over and over again that they can’t find a decent niche, or worrying there is a finite number of niches and the best ones are gone.

Niches are everywhere! Step away from the Internet, take a walk through your local town centre, open your eyes and you’ll soon discover a whole bunch of them. I think, in many cases, it’s not so much that people can’t find niches but that they put limitations on them the minute they see them.

So, Need a Niche? will be offering a variety of different niches that I’ve found/noticed with a little research and insight to go with them.

Who is Need a Niche for?

• Those of you starting out in your business and looking for a niche to test (remember, starting a niche website does not make a business but you won’t have a business until you’ve created some form of commercial enterprise).

• Niche and/or affiliate marketers who are looking for a new niche to tackle.

• Website sellers who are looking for new ideas for niche sites to build and then sell (purchasers like to buy niche sites that are profitable and have research and due diligence behind them).

Who Isn’t It For?

Anyone who is already running a business and doesn’t need the distraction of new, unrelated ideas!

What it is:

• Proof that there are many, many different niches out there and you just need to open your mind to them

• Inspiration for you to find a starting point for exploring different niches and markets

What it isn’t:

• An excuse for ignoring your own keyword, competition and market research

• A guarantee these niches will be profitable (only you can test them and determine this – if you don’t know how to do that then click here to check out The Challenge training).

So, what will I be sharing with you?

Well, first of all I’ll be telling you how I came across the niche and why I think it’s worth taking a look at. I will share my research in Market Samurai on the estimated search engine traffic, competition and potential profitability. I will be searching a little beyond the parameters of The Challenge, simply because many of you will be more experienced in SEO and happy to take on larger competition, or you may have the money to test quickly with paid advertising methods.

Some of these niches will lend themselves to information products, while others might work well for affiliate marketing or physical product sales (ecommerce). I may pass comment on the future possibilities but I would hate to put limitations on a niche before you have even researched it, and you may have ideas about a niche that I wouldn’t consider.

I urge you not to judge a niche too much before you have tested it. It’s natural that some will appeal to you more than others – some you will immediately decide you couldn’t even raise the interest enough to test (of course, if you outsource the majority of the work this may not be a problem) – but I know from experience a minor interest can lead to a major one quite easily.

If you choose to pursue one of these niches, make sure you test and track, and if it turns out to be profitable, expand your keywords until you dominate them all and have fulfilled the niche’s full potential.

You might also be interested in these related SWBN posts:

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2. What Is Your Customer Asking For? Recently I started a niche blog to build a readership...
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