To make money online you have to find a profitable niche and then dominate that niche market or at least take a share of a very large market. If you already have a business or a practice, you know what the possible smaller niches are. If you are creating a new business for yourself I suggest you select a niche with which you’re familiar.
Many gurus tell you to select a niche that emphasizes your passions. Be sure to add your strengths to that requirement. That way you will be good at what you market and you won’t have to work at it so hard.
Not every niche makes money. Even if you have intense feelings for the niche, you still have to find out if there’s a demand and competition. Your first task, then, is to research your topic. Take a look in Google. Look at the other search engine sites such as Yahoo and MSN. Are people searching for your topic? How many related searches are there for your topic? How many ads are on those sites? What are the words those ads are using? Remember, advertisers spend money in niches where people actually BUY things.
Visit your local book store. Are there books and magazine about your topic? If there are none you may have to rethink your niche. If there are make a list of the titles and the titles of the articles in the magazines. Find out the topics that are being discussed in your niche. What are the problems being discussed and how are they solved.
Check out your niche on Amazon. Are there books about your niche that are listed? Who are the authors? Are they the leaders in your market?
Now go back to your search engines and find out how many other people are marketing to this niche? Are they marketing to the broad niche? To the same specific niche you have? To another specific niche that is related?
Once you put your information together you’ll be able to tell whether or not your topic has a strong demand. You may decide that it does have a strong demand but it’s oversaturated and won’t be very profitable. Can you go deeper into your niche? For instance, if your niche is Fitness Over 50 and there are thousands of competitors including hospitals, can you narrow it down to Fitness over 50 in the suburbs? For single women? With high blood pressure?
The trick is to find the balance in your topic – strong demand but not over saturated with some competition. After all, why spend time and money on a niche that won’t make you any money.
Be sure to take a look at the post about generating new niche ideas that I wrote for my other blog
To your success,
Ruthan
Ruthan Brodsky
Copywriter & Content Marketer
http://www.ruthanbrodsky.com
http://www.FromRetirementToCareerChange.com
