Finding Your Niche

by Jennifer Good | October 22nd, 2012 5:00 AM | No Comments

Niche MarketingWhen people ask me how to make money online, I give them one simple answer. Find something you love and go make a site about it. While the answer is simple, when you dig deeper there’s a little more to it than that. This is why I decided to give out a few of my ideas for creating a niche site. I’ve included some pointers to help you find your niche and some of my favorite niche site ideas, and even included a special word of warning at the end. First however, let’s clear up what a niche actually is and how I feel the word should be represented.

Niche defined…

  1. A situation or activity specially suited to a person’s interests, abilities, or nature.
  2. A special area of demand for a product or service.

To me, to find the perfect definition and therefore the beginning formula for success, you need to marry the two definitions above. To complete the formula you need to add in the human element of not just offering something in demand, but something that is helpful and contributes to your readers. In order to capitalize on your investment of time and energy, you have to find an activity suited to your interests in a special area that is in demand and is worthwhile and helpful. When you begin to look at it this way, it starts to feel like a profitable business is a more attainable goal. Now, you just need to figure out what YOUR special niche is.

The trick then is picking the right niche for you. First and foremost, it has to be something you feel passionate about. For me, I usually try to merge my hobbies with a project to make the most of my time and creativity. This is a fantastic and rewarding way to be able to do something you absolutely love and make a profit off of it. So, the question to be answered is, what interests you?

What do you spend your time wishing you could do more of? Is it sports, gaming, travel, art, music? Look around at sites that already exist and play CEO for a minute. What would you do differently? Find people that are talking about your favorite interests and really listen to what they are saying. You should be able to pick up a few ideas of what’s need and wanted.

Following my own advice of being helpful, I’ve come up with a few ideas of niche sites to help get you started creatively. Feel free to use any of these and adapt them to help launch an even better concept.

Travel

Have you imagined yourself the fantastic globe-trotter? Here are a few niche ideas for travel lovers.

  • Travel With Pets: Resources and ideas for pet-friendly travel
  • Food & Culture: Marry a love for food with new culture and travel tips.
  • Minimalist Traveler: Tips for frugal and minimalist traveling.
  • Backyard Tourist: Keep your travel tips local and share local insider finds.
  • 100 Miles from Nowhere: Places and attractions that are 100 miles away from you. Invite social activity by having others list their favorite places that are within 100 miles of their home.

Food

Are you a foodie and want to impart your succulent tips for amazing entrees on the world? Consider one of these niche ideas.

  • Food TV Reviews: Help users keep up by featuring a best of the best recipe selections from your favorite celebrity chefs or network stars. Add a personal feel by actually testing out the recipes and sharing the outcome with your readers.
  • Recipe Central: Target a favorite niche of cooking and devote your site to featuring your favorite recipes from that niche. Some category ideas include healthy cooking, quick snacks, vegetarian dishes, breakfast all day, desserts, and foods that help with diseases or prevention.
  • The Restaurant Review: An excuse to eat out and get paid for it! Review local restaurants and provide links to their websites and menus to become a one-stop shop for restaurants in your area.
  • Bizarre & Wonderful: Invite your users to explore the strange side of food and give history on some unknown or bizarre traditions from other cultures.
  • Gifts of Food: Some of the best present are crafted in the kitchen. Help others find the joy in a handmade gift with ideas and recipes for giving food as a gift.

Arts & Crafts

Do you have creative urges you need to find a venue for? Try setting up a site that focuses on your passion.

  • Artist’s Gallery: Feature your own art as well as other favorite artists. Consider an area that focuses on teaching or pointing out different design principles from artwork to gain more rapport and understanding of your field.
  • Crafty Inspiration: If you love to craft, why not share your creations online with complete how-tos and tutorials.
  • Scrapbooking Layouts: Inspire other scrapbookers with layout ideas and sketches. Invite your readers to expand their skills with weekly challenges.
  • Genre Specific Crafts: The crafting industry is fairly large. Help other readers out by honing in on one specific genre such as tech crafts, food crafts, easy children’s crafts, educational crafts, fabric crafts, etc.
  • End Writer’s Block: Help out fellow writers by sharing your works and giving tips on how to be a better writer. Go a step further by building a community around it and letting your readers help each other.

Reading

If you’re a book lover, a reading-focused site may be what stirs your creative strings of passion.

  • Fan Sites: If you love a particular author or genre, devote your site to information and reviews related to your interest.
  • Must Read Lists: Take Amazon’s lists idea a step further and create a website targeted around your favorite must read lists. Invite other readers to share their favorites and vote on others. You may even want to create a monthly reading group that talks about a specific featured book each month.
  • Magazine Central: If you’re a magazine lover, share your passion with your readers and provide links and updates to some of your favorite magazine columns. Create unique content by writing about your thoughts and ideas on some of your favorite articles.
  • I Heart Blogs: If you read blogs, you often find yourself bookmarking, flagging or saving some posts for future reference. Share the love and create a blog fan site to showcase and share your thoughts about your favorite blog posts.

Sports

Can you imagine your entire day filled with sports talk? If that thought fills you with the giddiness of a school girl, you just may have found your niche.

  • In Review: Channel your inner sportscaster and provide weekly reviews of hot games and news in the sports world. Create an even deeper niche by targeting one specific sport or geographic area.
  • Stats, Stats & More Stats: Create a nostalgia-based site and highlight the stats or history of famous or lesser known players. You can also highlight stats of new and upcoming stars and follow their success or failure in the sport.
  • #1 Fan Site: If you are especially loyal to a particular team, create a site dedicated to your passion. Make it easy for readers to find the latest updates on their team, create ways to discuss with other like-minded fans and create downloadable content such as desktop wallpapers and game schedules to keep your fans informed.
  • How-To Guide: Some sports lovers make great coaches. You can translate this experience to the web by offering how-to videos, skills training and even workout regimens.

Business

If business or entrepreneurship topics light your fire, try one of these ideas.

  • Hobby + How to Make Money: You can marry any of the previous topics and share tips on how to become profitable or run a business in that industry.
  • Business Resources: The web is filled with expansive how to make money programs, get rich schemes, and business advice. Weed through the tips and share the ones that have worked for you.
  • Business Tools: Every business needs a variety of tools for startup – everything from point-of-sale software to time management and invoicing programs to record keeping. Help fellow business owners by creating a site devoted to review, explanations, and tutorials for these tools.
PROCRASTINATOR’S WARNING!!
If the trick is picking the right niche for you, the trap is waiting until you feel you have the “perfect” niche. Any idea is a great one if it’s something you believe in. Do not wait until your “ducks are in a row” before starting. Even if it turns out not to be as wonderful as you thought it would be, it was still worth the learning experience. You have to allow yourself the freedom to make mistakes in order to move forward. Otherwise, you end up in the same place you are now. The worst mistake is having a great idea and then nothing to show for it.

Ready to get started? What’s your niche?

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