How to Find a Niche

Finding a good niche is something of an art. I have a number of pointers that will help you out.

Research, research, research. If you’re going all out in one niche, finding the niche is the hardest part of the whole process. But this is also where a lot of people fail. They don’t think about how tight their niche is, or if it’s even profitable.

So where do you find niches? Everywhere. Niches are all over the place. Go into a bookstore or a magazine stand and look at all the niche magazines. Bodybuilding, women’s health, internet, computer gaming, business, trade magazines, etc. You can get a whole buttload of ideas from magazines. You can go online and see what’s hot nowadays. Check out Amazon.com and look for the top sellers. Just as I was talking about pets as a niche, I see that the sixth best selling magazine subscription in Home and Garden is The Bark, a magazine dedicated to dogs and their owners. It’s number one in the Animal Care & Pets subcategory. But it doesn’t stop at magazines. There are books, DVDs, tons of products representing many niches.

You can use eBay Pulse and their hot items list to find hot niches. All this will be much more important when developing an information product, which is the topic of one of my next articles coming up. The unfortunate thing about looking for the hottest niches is just that: they’re hot. You think you’re the only one marketing the booming knitting niche? This is where keyword research comes into play. With something like the Adwords Keyword Tool, you can see how popular certain search terms are with visitors and advertisers. You can also look at keyword trends at Google Trends to see if your niche is declining in popularity, has a seasonal cycle (I imagine Christmas-related niches don’t do so well January to October), or is getting a boost because of something in the news, which Google conveniently provides articles for. Perhaps you could find an untapped subniche in the knitting niche!

With respect to affiliate programs, you want to use keywords, examine the stats on ClickBank or Commission Junction or whatever you use, and see what sort of niche isn't very competitive. Sometimes a niche isn't competitive because people look over it, sometimes it isn't competitive because nobody knows how to make money in it, and sometimes it isn't competitive because it's waaaay to small, like a few hundred searches a month or less.

CLIFF NOTES

1. Niches are everywhere. Magazines, bookstores, television, etc.
2. See how competitive niches are by using AdWords tool, other keyword tools, looking at what kind of ads are up for your keywords, and affiliate program stats.