The Reality of Niche Selection
There are two schools of thought about niche selection. The first is that you write about something you're really interested in and passionate about. In a sense this makes this process of building a website this year because you're interested in the subject.
The downside of this, is the fact it may not make much money. Sure, not every niche is made equally profitable. You can make money promoting Amazon products about self-development. You are not likey to earn more than a few hundred dollars a week. On the other hand, you can make money promoting a $2000 make money online product with a 50% commission.
Some people will argue that there is more competition when there is more money to be earned. That is definitely true that the cream will always rise to the top. One of the benefits of promoting high profit items is the fact that you can pay for traffic.
Ultimately if you are earning thousand dollars commission on each sale you can pay $100 to drive traffic to the offer.
However, if you can combine something that you are passionately interested in such as fitness or weight loss which also happens to be in a niche with high commissions then in my world you've cracked it.
The second school of thought is to choose something that makes money and you are not particularly interested in. This is a niche with a lot of problems for a lot of people with a lot of solutions. The idea behind this if you slog your guts out for six months you can have a profitable site which will give you an income to create a second site are passionate about.Ideally here the training for WA is great here you may not like the make money online niche but you get the step by step training to make it possible.
Examples a niche is with lots of products lots of problems and lots of people interested are
Pet care the pet industry is huge
Weight loss
Make money online
There will be many arguments for and against both sides but it is a personal decision whether you follow the money and then later follow your passion. Secondly, whether you combine the two, or take the third option and just over something you're passionate about.
Either way providing you take consistent action and consistency is the key your niche selection will be successful. Don't forget to do your keyword research keyword research is key!
Recent Comments
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Great post. What I think the take away for many people will be that we should look outside our chosen niche to see what else is there. All to often people go for one niche and if that doesn’t make money they give up. Your post presents an alternative - well done, Regards, Hudson
Thank you Hudson. Most people fail in their first niche it took me years to get into making money online because I was frightened of the competition.
Any niche can be profitable, the question is how profitable? This is where your skills come into play as you look for a profitable niche that you are least slightly interested in.
Derek
yes Derek,
it's tough when you start to be in a niche that is totally profitable that's not interesting to you, and it's tough to be in one that you love and doesn't pay
I think I'm beginning to realize that. My current niche is one I am passionate about but I can already see the restrictions in money-making opportunities. But I will soldier on. The things I learn building this site will help me when I build my second one that will feature things with a higher earning potential.
This is great advice. I was struggling between two niches and decided to go with what I was more passionate about. Fortunately it falls under the lucrative category also. Hopefully I chose correctly.
Best of luck,
Susan
Susan if you can combine the two things they quite seriously for me you have really cracked it! I wish you the best of luck
This is very timely advice for us because, after some agonizing, we decided to delete our first website and start over. It was a niche we were very passionate about but it was just too wide. We are now much more focused and eager to get going on our next project.
Colette and Philip
Thank you both for stopping by and I wish you the best of luck with your more focused project. Keyword research is the key nail that and you cannot fail providing you post consistently.
Don't forget of course as well that failure as part of the learning curve it's all good and you can now go on to huge success.
there is little point in worrying about it Jennifer. If you understand your niche and all the problems in it and you know that there are lots of problems and lots of people with those problems it follows that they will be Many solutions to those problems and you can blog about them.
Indeed. No need to worry about something that may not be an issue. The good news is that I'm fully prepared to start again if needs be.
The choice of niche is a very important one. What good is choosing what you're passionate about, then after months of hard work you run dry of material to write about?
Worse still is finding out that your niche just will not make you any money, or next to nothing.
Doing proper research before choosing is a very good approach. This will save you a great deal of time, and disappointment in the long run.
My view exactly James.choose a niche for money and if necessary use the profit from that to fund something you're passionate about. I don't see the point in doing this for any other reason but money, if you're going to earn pennies or cents it's just a hobby
Yes, you're so right. It's a shame that people become members here but don't focus on such important things, like the proper choice of niche.
And I think that every member who is here has money on the brain, otherwise, what is the point of joining in the first place?
Just to chat and tell everybody about their personal life could easily be done on Social Media channels, and not in a place where you have to pay to be a member of.
Having said that, each to their own, and if just doing that makes their boat float, so be it :)
I totally agree with you James including the live and let live philosophy. Sadly there's a lot of people here at wealthy affiliates who are frightened of success! They fear doesn't inhibit them. To be successful in the business you have to work at it and there is a difference between playing at it i.e. messing about on social media with no real results of getting down to it and making a profit. But as you say live and let live who are we to force people to be successful
You're so right. The information is available, the knowledge is there, but at the end of the day, the choice is theirs whether to put it to good use, or not.
I am pretty frustrated with the research aspect. I have 2 sites in the lucrative arenas and they're still invisible on line after a year. I have not been able to figure out what I'm missing yet. Maybe just volume.
Yet I read the "guru" articles and have read many times that a niche site never needs to be more than 15 pages. Say what?
I've never come across as to how many pages a niche site should actually have. Having said that, if your niche isn't one that's competing with milliions, all having tons of content, a few pages of content should suffice.
It's curious how both these sites are still invisible after a year. I would check out your direct competition to see what they are doing, and see if your content is better than theirs.
Do you get comments on your site, and do you guest post on similar niche sites like yours?
it does depend on the niche site in my opinion. For instance, if your niche is Apple phones how Big can it be?on the other hand if your niche is fitness for the over 40s than 150 articles will be small
to some people, it's a conundrum. Fortunately, I am passionate about making money online and health issues. Both are highly lucrative. Which do you do Mike?
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Good post, Catherine. Nothing that says you cannot do both, something you're passionate about and something that may make you money -quicker.
Thanks
Wayne