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What is a niche market?
A niche market is a small, specialized market, It refers to a subset of the population with specific needs and requirements.The word “niche” is derived from the French word “nicher” which means "to nestle" or "to hide."
These are very popular because they allow companies to target smaller groups of people with particular interests, needs, or problems that might not be addressed by competing products or services.
Niche markets are created by separating a market into smaller segments and targeting those segments with specific products and services and it can be created by geographical location, demographic, psychographic, or behavioral segmentation.
What is a “micro” niche?
A micro-niche is an even more specific and narrow topic than a niche and, because of it, It's also more difficult to find. As stated above, a niche can be defined as a small, specific segment of a market that you can target while, a micro-niche, is a much narrower section of a niche. For example, a niche in the fashion industry might be designer clothes for the summer while a micro-niche can be designer clothes for the summer for pregnant women.- Micro niches are a recent trend in online marketing because they are small, and with very specific topics that you can create content around as a blogger and then promote it to a VERY specific audience.
- Micro niches can be used for any type of business, from e-commerce stores to bloggers, and they work well for both brick-and-mortar businesses and online businesses.
- Micro niches can be very profitable because they are easier to target and less competitive in general than broader niches.
- They also have the potential for higher conversion rates because you don't need to spend time explaining what your site is about when someone lands on it.
Main Differences Between An Authority Site And A Niche Site?
An authority site is a website that has a focus on one particular topic or industry. While a niche site is more of a blog-type of a site than an authority site. It focuses on one specific topic and it can be updated with new content daily or even every hour.Also, One of the main differences between a micro-niche and a niche is the size of the audience. Micro niches have much smaller audiences which means they have lower competition on average so it would be much easier to rank at the top of search engines in comparison to an authority site.
On that same note, an authority site is one that has established authority in the niche it covers. They are often used as a resource for people who are looking to learn more about a specific topic.
Authority sites generate high-quality content often created by experts with years of experience in THAT field and there is usually a lot of information on the site.
Niche sites, on the other hand, given they cover a much narrower range of topics are not as popular or mainstream, they receive far less organic traffic or visitors as a result.
Pros And Cons Of Targeting A Niche Market For Blogging?
PROS- Higher conversion rates
- Reduce marketing costs
- Great for building a personal brand
- Easier to build a community
- Demands a lot of research (especially if you´re not familiar or don't have any experience with the topic)
- Lower profit potential
What Take Into Account When Selecting a Niche?
There are many ways to brainstorm potential niche ideas to get started on your blogging career but there are a few elements you need to take into account when selecting a niche you´re going to build a blog site around.Why?
Building and developing a profitable blog from the ground up is NOT a short-term thing.
This is something you will need to devote anywhere around 9 to 12 months on.
For some niches and, for some people, it might even be less than 9 months and, for others, might even be longer than a year so, before you commit yourself to a niche, take these elements into account…
- Choose something you are PERSONALLY are interested in
- Get ready to read, write, fact-check, and edit hundreds of thousands of words
- Choose a niche you have a particular interest/passion in
- Take into account your level of knowledge and experience on the topic
- Focus on evergreen niches - Avoid seasonality
How to Brainstorm Niche Ideas?
When you are getting started with blogging, it can be hard to come up with niche ideas but implementing the following tips will help you with this process and it shouldn't be hard for you to brainstorm dozens of potential niche ideas.What Are Your Interests? What Are You Passionate About?
Remember, if you´re going to enter the world of blogging, you should have the mindset that this will be a 12-month project and, as such, you should focus on niche or micro-niches you have personal interests or are passionate about.This will prevent you from becoming bored 3 or 6 months into this journey.
Trust me, I´ve seen it way too many times.
Working on a niche you´re passionate about will come a long way and it will make it easier on you when it's time to develop and publish hundreds of articles about it.
So, make sure to build a list of stuff you have very strong interests or are passionate about.
For example…
- Religion or faith?
- Fitness? Working out?
- Personal development?
- Art?
- Hobbies?
By the way, these are NOT niches, these are markets or industries so, you need to find a topic within those examples and narrow it down as much as possible.
As tiny or small it might look at the beginning, make sure to WRITE IT DOWN!
Don´t leave anything to chance or memory.
To give you a hand with this, check the following https://www.boredombusted.com/definitive-list-of-hobbies-interests/ I found on the internet. I am sure you will find something you have an interest in on this list.
This will keep you busy for a couple of hours!
Also, make sure to narrow it down!
We will conduct a “validation” process later on so don't worry about that for now, just make sure to write a list.
What Do You Have Experience With? Any Real-Life Accomplishments?
Perhaps developing a blog covering your experience in a particular task or activity? Stuff you have accomplished in your life?Anything you feel others will benefit from it can become a great topic to build a blog around.
These experiences and accomplishments can be either within your personal or professional life just make sure it´s something you feel you can add value to your readers.
Stuff like…
- Parenting - dealing with twins, triplets, etc.
- Relationships - marriage, divorce, etc.
- Mourning - the death of a loved one, widower, etc.
- Divorce - Any type of separation, breakups, messy divorce, etc.
- Dealing with trauma - Near-death experiences, combat soldiers, etc
- Natural disasters, floods, fires, avalanches, etc.
Again, don´t worry about metrics, numbers, size, profitability, etc., we´re in the brainstorming phase here, and also again, MAKE SURE TO NARROW IT DOWN!
(I know I sound like a broken record but this is important)
Write down any idea that pops into your head.
What about social media?
Browsing social media and, especially, online communities with which you share an interest or a passion can become a great source of inspiration to find that “golden nugget” you're looking for.Online communities like Facebook groups, niche-related forums, Q&A platforms like Reddit and Quora, can become great sources to brainstorm niche ideas and keep growing that “niche list”.
Make sure to heavily focus on “problem-solving” issues, stuff people are struggling with you feel you have the knowledge and experience to help them.
Browse Online Marketplaces
Online marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, etc., are amazing resources to brainstorm niche ideas.You can spend hours just browsing the navigation menu of Amazon alone.
Let's take Amazon for example…
Whenever you visit Amazon, head over to the top left burger menu….
From there, you can check the “Best Sellers” section…
And just like that, you have access to the best-selling items on the biggest online marketplace in the world.
If you click on any of those departments, it will also display “sub-departments” or sub-categories inside that department, narrowing even further your search….
And, guess what?
If you continue down the “rabbit hole” it will even show you a much narrower list of items….
I am sure you can get the picture by now.
On the other hand, I´ve found checking customers' reviews to be a great asset to have as it gives you a much deeper insight into a potential niche…
Also, it gives you a metric of the level of popularity of that product which it's a good thing to know…
Validating A Potential Niche
Search Volume
One of the first steps to validate a blog niche, it is essential to know if there is enough demand for what you are writing about. Meaning, if enough people are searching on Google for the main target keyword of your niche.So, for this, the first thing to do when looking for a niche is to find out what people are already searching for. You can do this by typing in a keyword into Google and seeing how many people are searching for it.
Getting some help from a keyword research tool will also come a long way during this process.
I recommend using the https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/keywords-everywhere-keywo/hbapdpeemoojbophdfndmlgdhppljgmp.
It's one of the best and most cost-effective alternatives on the market when it comes to keyword research.
Source: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/keywords-everywhere-keywo/hbapdpeemoojbophdfndmlgdhppljgmp
As you can see, it has close to a perfect 5-star rating score with more than 5.4k reviews and over 1 million active users.
These are some of the features this chrome extension offers…
And the way it works is that once you have it installed on your chrome browser it will require you to create an account, create an API key and insert it in the chrome extension and you´re pretty much done!
Here's A short 5min video tutorial that will walk you through the installation and configuration process…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy1P39uA8uo
What about the cost?
I mentioned above this is one of the best and most cost: effective keyword research tool alternatives on the market and I say this with all responsibility.
Keywords Everywhere use “pay-as-you-go” without any monthly subscriptions so, you only pay what and when you use it.
I personally use and recommend the first plan, as there is no incentive to purchase the other since the cost of a single credit unit is the same and, if 100,000 credits is not enough, you can always reload as many times and any time you see fit.
Once inside the chrome extension, you should see something like this…
- To access this panel, click on the chrome extension icon on the top
- If you´re going to use it, make sure to turn it on
- Make sure to select your target market
- Browse all these features the extension offers
- At the bottom, you´ll see how many credits you have left.
Let's open Google and run a search for a potential niche. For demonstration purposes let's take “best running shoes” as an example…
As you can see, the extension provides four (4) key metrics….
- Average monthly search volume - 74,000
- CPC - $1.65
- Competition - 1 (it's a metric that goes from 0 to 1 - The most competitive)
- Trends
Not to mention, it displays several widgets or “panels” on the right side…
- An “overview” panel…
Here, you can click on the “Find long-tail keywords for “best running shoes” (US)” button in order for keywords everywhere to brainstorm and generate a larger number of these long-term keywords (a new window will open).
- Trends Data
- Trending keywords
- Related keywords
- People Also Search For
- Long-Tail Keywords
As you can see, it's a featured rich keyword research tool great for brainstorming keywords ideas and, the best part is, it won't break your bank.
But, if you have the budget and are looking to invest in a more robust and complete keyword research tool, I recommend https://ahrefs.com/.
Not only does it have the same capabilities but, it will allow you to further evaluate each keyword competition and relevance with more accuracy.
This is thanks to their “SERP Overview” tab when you can quickly check some key metrics from the top-ranking pages targeting that same keyword…
…and, to check relevance, Ahrefs offers a feature that shows how “volatile” the top 5 organic results have been for that particular keyword…
A way to interpret this is, the less volatile a SERP result has been for any given keyword it means Google “feels” confident that those results better fulfill their users' search intent.
On the other hand, it is also important to know if there are other bloggers who have already covered this topic and whether they have been successful in doing so. This will also help to measure the competition in that particular niche.
How to determine the niche “TRUE” Potential?
Content, content, and more content
The first thing you want to do when considering a niche for your blog is determined if it will be practical for you to write about regularly. If you don't have enough time or energy, then it might not be the best topic for you.Regardless of what monetization method (or combination of methods) you end up choosing, the amount of content you decide to publish will be directly related to the site´s profit potential.
Sites with hundreds of high-quality and relevant articles published do far better than those with just a few dozens of articles.
There's just no way around this, to make this work, you will need to invest the time into publishing content regularly.
Exploring the “waters”
This means, conducting a competitors analysis.Research your top competitors and run their domains on an SEO tool like Ahrefs or SEMrush and check their organic traffic metrics. This will give you a general idea of what to expect.
Also, make sure to check the number of articles they have published.
A quick way to do this is by running a search in Google
for a particular keyword inside quotation marks and picking the top organic results and running another search while using the operator “site:yourcompetitordomain.com”.
For example, let's take the keyword “comfortable shoes for pregnancy”, as an example…
we have that the top organic result targeting that keyword are
- https://www.thebump.com/a/stylish-shoes-pregnant-women
- https://www.scarymommy.com/spotted/shoes-for-pregnancy/
The top-ranking pages targeting that keyword only have 1 and 2 articles published around that topic.
And, according to keywords everywhere, that keyword has around 390 monthly searches a month on average for the US, and, Google, it´s “only” showing 96 results in total.
So, this might be a potential niche you can build a blog around.
Is it Seasonal?
As a general rule, you should avoid seasonal niches and stick to those who have a demand that is constant throughout the year.Why?
Although there are some benefits of targeting seasonal niches, I strongly believe the disadvantages outweigh the benefits…
- They don't offer much room for mistakes - Given seasonal niches will be on-demand for a very short amount of time, you can't afford to make any mistakes on your end. Meaning, the site must be fully optimized, your suppliers must have enough inventory if you´re selling your own products, you better be ready to fulfill the demand, etc.
- Smaller profit margins - Yeah, I know it sucks! But, given its seasonality, when that time of the year comes, you should expect a rise in the competition as well. If the demand for a product is high the supply for it will be as well. Economic 101!
So, if you´re looking to build up a site around a niche that covers an area of Christmas, get ready to only get traffic around the last 3 or 4 months of the year and pretty much nothing after that.
So, unless you have a lot of experience and knowledge on a seasonal niche, I would recommend staying away from them and sticking to more steady or “evergreen” niches.
Something that offers a year-round demand for a particular service or product.
Going up or down?
Another element to take into account is whether the demand for that niche is steady or, on the other hand, is trending up or down?The reason being is that you don't want to build up a niche blog site on a topic that has a downward trend.
Or, you will find yourself picking up the pieces a year from now.
A great tool to determine this is https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=US and, to make things even better, it´s 100% free!
Let's go back and assume you´re building a site around a topic that has to do with Christmas. For example, let's assume it's about Christmas trees…
As you can see, those “peaks” denote the moment during the year where that topic has the most “demand” or most people searching online for information related to “christmas trees”.
On the other hand, if you build a site around the topic “dietary supplement”, you´ll experience a very different situation…
How are we going to print money?
Let's get something straight out of the box here.The process of monetizing a blog starts with the creation of an audience…PERIOD!
A blogger needs to have readers before they can start earning money from their blog.
So, what I mean by this is, don´t worry about monetizing your blog in the beginning and focus on building up your audience first.
But, since we have to evaluate the business potential of the niche we´re evaluating, we need to analyze the different monetization methods we can implement to get the most out of our blogging efforts.
Offer a Service
One of the most common ways to monetize a blog is by selling a service to your audience…Plain and simple!Stuff like coaching or consultation is at the top of the list here, especially, if you have vast and proven experience in that particular field.
Advertisement
This is by far one of the most popular monetization options among bloggers, especially among those who have an established site with steady/growing traffic metrics.Google Ads, Mediavine, and Ezoic are among the most popular ads options on the market today.
What makes this option popular is how easy it is to set up and the earning potential it offers. The downside of it is, in order to earn money you will need to build up a decent amount of organic traffic.
So, this is more of a long-term (up to a year) goal.
Sell Advertisement Yourself
Instead of waiting to build up organic traffic to apply for any of those media companies, you can sell the ad spaces to private parties directly.Alternatively, you can display your ads on your site.
There are dozens of advertisement companies (CPA Networks) like https://maxbounty.com/ that offer hundreds of options you can choose from and gain commissions from any conversions.
Sell Digital Products
Many bloggers take the time to build eBooks, guides, templates, and even online courses they end up selling on their site.These digital products are available for purchase and anybody around the world can have instant access to them through the internet from anywhere around the world.
The great thing about this option is that you don't have to worry about anything as there are apps that handle pretty much everything for you so you can automate the entire process. This automation potential is what gives this option an extra “advantage” in comparison to all the other options described here because it´s SCALABLE!
Private Membership
If you manage to build a community that is eager to receive and digest your content, you can leverage this by creating a private section to your site only accessible through a paid membership. If you´re an authority within your niche, this can be an excellent option to provide value to your readers by offering a “one-on-one” approach.Sell Physical Products
I believe this is self-explanatory, an online shop it´s another alternative to monetize the incoming organic traffic to your site and it's also a very option many bloggers take.Not only by setting up an online store but by leveraging the power of affiliate programs, you can sell physical products on your site without having to worry about inventory or shipping.
Selling Your Blog
Many bloggers make a living from this. Since they have the experience, resources, and logistics, they can manage to build and develop dozens of blog projects at the same time only to sell them once they reach a certain level of “maturity”. This is what´s known as “site flipping”.One of the most popular sites flipping marketplaces is by far https://flippa.com/ and https://empireflippers.com/
Content Potential
Assessing how much content you can publish for any given niche it's also a critical aspect of the process.You don't want to find yourself investing in hosting, domain, theme, plugins, etc., targeting a niche to find yourself 2 or 3 months down the road and just a handful of articles published and without ideas as to what content to publish.
To avoid this, make sure to conduct extensive content planning and set the rule of if you can't come up with at least 100 topics to build content around, to NOT pursue that niche.
