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Finding and Deciding on your Niche
Finding a niche for your new blog is easy, but finding a good, profitable one is a different story. I mean, sure there are your general niches such as “weight-loss products” or “baby products”, and even though the demands for these products are high, the competition is also EXTREMELY high for these niches.
What you need to do is what is referred to as “Brainstorming”, this is where you literally just sit down and think to yourself what you would like to offer, promote or sell to your readers.
Brainstorming Techniques:
What are my Skills/Talents? You need to be very honest with yourself and figure out what your strong points are. What are you good at?
What do I like doing? When looking for a niche it is vital that it is something that you’re interested in, and not only look at where the highest payments come from. For example, “web hosting” is a very profitable niche and generally pays very well, but if you have no interest in different web hosting services your readers will spot it within seconds. When you try and promote or sell something you are really passionate about, your readers will see that in your writing and sales will flow, no matter what niche it is.
Is there a big demand for my skills? There doesn’t necessarily need to be a huge demand for what you know a lot about, but you need to know whether you know more about this niche than the average person, because if you do and you’re passionate about it you will make money no matter how small the demand. For example, I know of a guy who makes hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars each day by talking about Stamp Collecting, which is a very small niche, but because he is so passionate about it his readers come back all the time and listens to every word he says and every stamp collecting service or product he promotes, they will be very easy to send him their moneys.
Write it down. Write all your interests, hobbies, skills, talents and any qualifications you have that you can use, take a good look at all of them and pick one or two as your first niche. Music is a very big interest of mine personally, and that reflects in the amount of traffic, return customers and comments I receive on my music blog. When you compare my music blog to my weight loss blog, the difference is HUGE simply because I’m passionate about music, and honestly couldn’t care less about weight loss.
Now you have your first profitable niche! Once you’ve got your mind set on what YOU want to do, and not what you think will make you the most money, it’s time to step it up a notch. I’ll use weight loss as an example again as it is one of the most common niches online today. So you say: “I’m interested in dieting and healthy living.” The next step is rather interesting… (and on the next page).
…“I’m interested in dieting and healthy living.” -Okay, this part can be rather fun and easy. Think of yourself going to Google and typing into the search bar, you are looking for dieting or healthy living sites, what would YOU type in there before hitting the search button?
Here are some ideas that I think people might search for if they’re looking to lose weight:
- Best Diets
- Diets that Work
- Weight Loss Products
- How to Lose Weight
- Lose Weight Fast
Notice how I don’t use single words above, that is because single words like “diet” for example is a very broad term and will lower the quality of your visitors substantially, plus making it nearly impossible to get good Google and other search engine rankings.
Stick to key phrases and not words, the more words you use, the higher the quality of your visitors will be (more buyers, less browsers) and the less your competition will be.
Let’s get some pictures in here shall we? But first I want you to write down some key PHRASES for YOUR own niche, about 5 phrases of 3-5 words each. Now I want to introduce one of Google’s free services very few newcomers know
Okay now the first thing I want you to notice on the Google Trends screenshot is the “Hot Searches” section. This is what have been the most popular searches for the day in from a specific country, in this case, USA. This can also give you a clear idea as to what is a hot topic at the moment if you run out of ideas in future by any chance. This is a great free tool to find what interests web surfers at the moment.
You’ll also notice that I’ve typed all my key phrases in the search bar, so do the same with yours, separating each phrase with a comma. Now hit “Search Trends.”
You will see at the bottom of this graph on Google Trends it will also show you the countries and cities that search for these key phrases the most, so that’s great if you want to target a local or country specific audience. But for now I only want you to focus on the graph itself, ignore everything else.
PLEASE NOTE how the phrases “how to lose weight” and “lose weight fast” are the most searched of all the phrases. I want you to write down your top 2, or even top 3, but ignore anything that’s lower than that.
The Next Step: Okay so I’ve got my 2 phrases now, and by the way if you ARE actually into the weight loss niche or interested in it, I’m currently doing some of the work for you at the moment and you can use these key phrases yourself. Now let me show you how to make it even better!
After you’ve written your top 2/3 phrases down, clear your search and start over.
Now in the search bar I’m going to type my top 2, “how to lose weight” and “lose weight fast”
Try and strengthen your phrases more by combining them, example: “How to lose weight fast”
Add more till you have at least 5 phrases, mine will be the top two, the one above (no 3) and let’s say “can I lose weight fast” and “best way to lose weight fast”
See how I’m making my phrases longer? This will ultimately lead to more sales and longer visits.
Okay so my last 2 keywords aren’t looking too great…
Use this method over and over again until you have about 10 great key phrases that are no less than 4 words each. Let’s make things a bit clearer using my example. Say my site is about dieting, and I write about or sell diets that work fast, if someone searches for “lose weight”, they might be looking for fitness equipment because they are sick of diets, or maybe even a gym membership in their area, meaning that if they get to your site and see it’s a dieting site they are very likely to leave immediately without even looking at your content.
However, if someone searches for “how to lose weight fast”, they are very likely looking for a quick and easy diet to follow to get in shape for summer or whatever. These are HIGH QUALITY VISITORS, or leads for that matter.
So there you have it. Write down your top 10 key phrases (the more the merrier) and put them aside for now. It’s time for the next step…
Countries/Cities: In all honesty I hardly ever look at these stats because I believe that it is a waste of time to target a specific city or country when you can target the entire world, right? However, if you have your own local business or offering services in a specific area, this will of course be VITAL information for you. But we want maximum profits right? So let’s go after the worldwide audience!
Keyword/Phrase Tip: It is VERY important that you spend some time analyzing and finding good keywords because it will play a HUGE role in how you well you will rank in the search engines, as well as how much money you will be making. This is a VERY important step indeed, probably the MOST important step for that matter, so take your time.
Also, do a Google search for your phrase, check at the top how many competitors there are. There are over 40 million results for my key phrase, since the weight loss niche has pretty much been conquered. For the sake of this book I’m going to be using this niche as an example, but ideally you’d want to find something with less than 500,000 competitors.
That’s easier said than done, however take your time and do Google searches on all your interests. Once you find a good phrase that you truly believe people will search for, use the Google trends tool and see what you can get.
