How to Find a Niche for Your Blog - 3 Easy Ways.
When you are looking to start a business online, one of the most difficult choices people have is choosing the starting point niche for their blog. A niche is the "topic" of your business. The reality is that there are MILLIONS of potential directions that you can head with your niche and within this post I am going to be walking you through the best ways to find a niche for your blog.
Before I get into some really awesome niche finding techniques, I first want to help you understand the most common issues that people have when trying to come up with their "perfect" niche.
The 3 Main Problems With Niche Selection
There are three main issues newcomers to the affiliate marketing world have when they are attempting to come up with the niche, that is, the core "focus" of their business. I think to a certain degree EVERYONE goes through at least of one of the following when learning how to find a niche for their blogs.
- Too Many Interests. When someone asks you what are you interested in and you come up with a list of 10-20 things, then this is likely the conundrum you are facing when starting out. It is great to be able to choose a passion for your business, but what happens when you have many passions? The answer to this is to choose ONE, perhaps the one that interests you most. Your first niche does not need to be your last (and it probably won't be), so you will want to choose a starting point.
- Not Enough Interests. Don't have anything that you are really that interested in? That is fine. You don't have to be involved in a passion niche (IE, something you love to do), you can love the idea of building a business and the niche can be your "vehicle" to get there. Thus, anything could be your niche if you don't have any interests. Your interest could be building a business, helping others, and being successful within the online world.
- Too Broad of an Idea. A very common mistakes people make when choosing a niche is going too broad. We have to remember that there are close to 4 billion (yes, BILLION) people online, so choosing a broad niche will surely give you a massive audience to market to, but you are going to have a tough time becoming an authority in a broad niche. I see people choosing "travel" or "health" or "dieting" or "music", when the reality is that these are far too broad and there are literally 100's if not 1,000's of targeted niches within these much broad categories.
Idea #1: Choose a Passion or Interest.
What are you interested in? What hobby or passion gets you excited?
The great part of choosing a passion or interest is that you are already actively engaged in that niche, you likely have stories and experiences to share, and you will thoroughly enjoy building a business within that niche.
Success has a tendency to follow passion and you often times those business that become VERY successful are driven by passion. Creating a successful business is hard work and when you actually enjoy "going to work", it can absolutely have a positive impact on your journey and the speed at which you achieve success online.
But you certainly do not have to choose a passion as a niche when you are staring a business. In fact, it doesn't even have to be something you know much about (right now).
Idea #2: Find Something You Want to Learn About
What is something that you have always wanted to learn about? What have you been perhaps scared to learn, for fear of not being the best? What do you want to educate yourself and become an expert within?
This can be the starting point for your niche. You don't have to have requisite knowledge within a niche to be very successful within it. One example of this are some niches I have been involved in over the years.
Several years back, I created a blog dedicated to helping people learn about and choose a voIP plan (voice over Internet Protocol), which at the time was very popular. It was an Internet over the phone service, that could help people reduce the costs of long distance calling and businesses create cost-efficient solutions for their call centers. I didn't know anything about this niche before I decided to get into it.
But with some time, energy, and consistent education, I was able to offer an amazing experience for my website visitors and I was able to help A LOT of people within this space save on their conventional phone bill and become well versed in the information they needed to make an educated purchasing decision of a voIP plan.
So, you can become an expert in any niche that you want, even if you don't have much experience in that niche. If you can speed up the research process for people (ie: do the work for them), you can create yourself a thriving authority website.
Idea #3: The Random Research Approach.
No ideas at all? Then you need to come up with a starting point for your research. Fortunately, there are a lot of awesome platforms that you can leverage out there to commence research and come up with good "niche" concepts. You can use these for the starting point for your business.
- Google. There is a well documented process that I leverage called the "Alphabet Soup Technique" and it works like a charm for coming up with niches if you have a broad or initial concept to put into your search. It is also an effective way to narrow down a niche that is too broad.
Let's look at an example. Say I wanted to head in the "basketball" direction with my niche. Just an example, and something that I am interested in. I type basketball into Google.
You can see I have been given several ideas already. Basketball Courts could be a niche, basketball hoops could be a niche, basketball shoes could be niche, basketball jerseys. I have 4-5 different niche ideas with one simple search. Say I didn't have any ideas at all. I can simply start typing letters in Google. Maybe start with a random letter, or you could start with A and work your way through the alphabet.
If you want a full walk-through of the Alphabet Soup Technique, click here.
- Amazon. Amazon is the largest marketplace in the world with 100's of millions of products just a search away. They also have a very clean and useful "categorization" that you can leverage to come up with all sorts of niche topics and topics that you could then perform more research on to find even more ideas.
If you go to Amazon.com, and go to the Departments tab on the homepage, you will get a list of all the categories. You can then "dig" down within any of these categories and get all sorts of ideas for niches. For example, I clicked on the "Baby" section and was given all sorts of ideas.
I have 10+ niche ideas, that I could have then further narrowed down even further. Baby Travel Gear, could then be narrowed down by clicking it and you can see many more niches have been revealed. 
- How to Websites. There are many websites out there that can give you some really good ideas, starting with "how to's". As an affiliate marketer you are in essence a problem solver. You have an audience that is seeking information or help about a specific topic/product/problem. If you can align this audience with a relevant product or solution, you are going to have a very successful journey ahead of you.
One of the most popular "how to" websites is eHow.com and you can leverage this platform to uncover all sorts of ideas. If you go to eHow.com, and scroll through the homepage it is going to automatically load the latest "how to" or DIY walk-throughs. Here is an example of a group of 8 different ideas.
From this alone, I have several niches. Cleaning Hacks, Hats or Hat organizers, Candle Making, Specialty Cupcakes, Chicken Recipes, Making Chocolates, and Earthquake Preparedness. If I were to scroll down more on that page I would have plenty of ideas and you can go along until you find a niche that clicks with you.
Down the Road, You Can Work Within Many Niches.
Before I wrap this up, I want to be clear on one thing and that is that you can absolutely be involved in many niches down the road. Your first niche does not need to be your last, and likely won't be. I personally have ventured into many niches, some passion driven, some interest driven, some randomly driven and was able to be successful within all of them.
I definitely did experence fatigue within some over time, lost interest, or had to inject a new interest into a niche by switching things up a little, but that is the amazing part about the internet. It is vast, your audience and reach is 4 billion people, and regardless the direction(s) you head with your niche, you can be successful within that space.
My recommendation is that in the early stages of your blogging life, you don't try to do too much at once. You want to focus on ONE niche and get the formula for success down within that before you diversify and get yourself involved in too many. I have always remained consistent when I say that it is best to be "great" at one thing than it is to be mediocre of average at many. It is the experts that reap all the rewards in the online world.
June 2018 Was The Month of Research at Wealthy Affiliate!
June 2018 was the Month of Research here at Wealthy Affiliate. This included over 7 hours of training covering a wide breadth of topics related to "research" in your business. This ranges from the initial niche resarch, right down to digging deep into your niche and understanding your customers.
As a Premium member, you can access the replay and watch this past event as many times as you wish. These are going to really advanced your research skills, which are imperative to creating a long term and sustainable business.
- WATCH EVENT REPLAY: Coming Up With Niche Ideas/Idea Generation
- WATCH EVENT REPLAY: Understanding Keyword Research
- WATCH EVENT REPLAY: Finding & Leveraging Lucrative Affiliate
- WATCH EVENT REPLAY: Researching Products & Services in Your Niche
- WATCH EVENT REPLAY: Advanced Audience & Customer Research
Now it's your turn, tell us about your experience finding a niche! Did you run into any of the 3 common issues discussed above? We would love to hear about your journey in finding a niche in the discussion below :)
Recent Comments
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My idea is definitely broad, very broad. But it is new. I can't find anything like it out there. I have a lot of brain power I need to use, as I have been stuck in a job where I don't need it for 7 years now. I need to excite people, I need to draw them in. I need a big focus. I know I can do this. No one ever did anything great by quitting. I guess I may be a bit scared, but I want to try.
Most asked question by my Referrals, Kyle, thanks. Now I can send them to this page.
Always wanted to learn how to make money online, and build an authority website that people can refer to, hence the reason for coming up with my first passion for a niche. You hit the nail on the head with this one.
Finding my niche was really easy... I think about it when I'm lying in bed...lol. When I wake up, even driving to my bookcamp (oops, yes, I know... I should be paying more attention to my driving). I talk about it pretty much every day to people who cross my path.
Just yesterday, I mentioned my dive site to my bank teller... now she is 'sort of' interested in what I do and where I get my training from. I couldn't stop talking about my sales from my dive site.
The ocean and diving is constantly on my mind. All the beautiful sea creatures and the peace... ummm yes!
My other niche is the Wealthy Affiliate promotion. I had no trouble deciding this was another niche I enjoy because there are many people who are always in need of money and want freedom. I can help them. But...I am struggling with it at the moment (would love to find someone who can 'twist' my brain so I can be more organized) ....and so I have returned to my dive site.
There is another niche which I would love to do eventually and it will require much knowledge. I don't actually love the taste but people love it and this will allow me more traveling which I can still 'stick' my diving in somewhere. I'll make it work.
This covers the #1 and #2.
I haven't done the #3 - Random Research.
Great post Kyle, and just in time as this is something that I am currently grappling with.
And certainly the longest comment I've made in a long. long time - so my apologies.
Kyle, the challenge I am currently having is not about finding my passionate niche - I already KNOW what that is - but a niche that I am BOTH passionate about that will also allow me to write product/ service reviews that will have a GREATER POTENTIAL IMPACT to drive premium referrals to WA.
I realize I can achieve 100% just focusing on driving up affiliate marketing sales on related products, but let's say for now my main priority is ONLY to drive premium referrals to WA.....
For as much as I enjoy writing, I am finding that I am "dreading" the thought of having to do extensive keyword search (and product review searches) to write about product/ service reviews that do not interest me.
Yet some of those niches that I have ZERO interest to write about are the ones that offer a DISTINCT ADVANTAGE (I don't believe anyone could deny this) toward creating WA premium membership signups.
For example, many here are having great success with the MMO (Making Money Online) niche, even though this is an over saturated niche. However, this is a perfect niche choice to drive referrals to WA, as the natural process calls for:
1) Researching and writing compelling blog posts on your website (or landing page) containing product/ service reviews of competing products and services to WA.
2) Debunking or supporting the competing product/ service within your review
3) Including a strong CTA at the end of your product review article, to hopefully get an interested reader to signup for the FREE WA membership. Such a strong and unique CTA might also include a content give-away, and if properly set up through an email marketing service or an e-commerce platform, i.e., AWeber, Mailchimp, Shopify, etc., all clicks will build your email list.
This is GREAT if you have a GENUINE interest in writing MMO product/ service reviews, but what if you ABSOLUTELY LOATHE the thought of writing these MMO reviews?
What if you absolutely hate this niche? Or any other niche that has a " DISTINCT ADVANTAGE" over a niche that encompasses one's true passion?
Alternate Example,
Let's say my true passion niche was writing about "fly fishing", and I was an EXPERT and was SO EXCITED I could easily write 5 compelling posts per week of 1500+ words per post on this topic.
How would I "bridge" my enthusiastic readers from "fly fishing" (WITHOUT promoting affiliate marketing products) to signing up to a WA premium membership?
Perhaps I could sell them on the romance of the digital nomad "lifestyle" of the independent entrepreneur, and how this will help them to "break away" from their dreaded 9-5 JOB that takes precious time away from their true passion ("fly fishing")....YES this would be certainly be a GOOD reason to join WA as a premium member ....but THIS is a much harder sell than the MMO example.
There are more steps getting them from their passion for "fly fishing" to gaining their interest to be a WA premium member. Where as with the MMO enthusiast, they are already a PRE-QUALIFIED recipient who is searching for a better way, well to MMO!!
Bottom Line: With niches members are most passionate for, aligning those interests of your passionate readers requires thinking of a creative solution leading to a greater "leap of faith" (then other niches such as MMO) in order to get them to sign up first for a FREE membership - and even more challenging later converting them into a WA premium referral.
What are your insights here, Kyle?
How can I both write in my passionate niche while still giving my reader's "low hanging fruit" to signup to WA?
Yeah, thanks Joshua. I just posted this same question on the forum. Go ahead and chime in your thoughts, we'd appreciate it!! How do you reconcile disparate niches to signup with wa?
Wealthy Affiliate is getting better and better. I love that June is the month of research. It is a great opportunity to buckle down on research and share tips and tricks! In fact, I hope that some of the more experienced members share some of their insight into research (maybe I'll blog about it too).
My niche is an outgrowth of a life-long interest in constructing a life with meaning and mana. I'm still exploring what that means and am sharing my thoughts (and the interesting thoughts of other people who have different takes on the thing).
It is a broad sort of niche, I suppose, but then it is endlessly interesting for me (and I hope for others as well). Who doesn't want to feel that they are living a meaningful life?
Kyle, thanks for your discussion. Do newcomers say that there is too much to learn how to build a successful business.for me, It is like reading a big book with many chapters. I have intention to read the whole book first then implement the steps in chapter 1 after only reading the whole book and tick off one thing. My sponsor said to do the training slowly and implement daily as you go on. Step by step. Read chapter 1. Implement chapter 1 steps. Then read chapter 2 , rinse and repeat until the end of the book.Also, I have a fear of failure on my first niche. I know it takes one niche to have the opportunity to be successful. How many niches does it take to find the first successful niche.I am afraid that my first niche will fail. Hence I am not moving forward. I want the niche to be successful. Am I just applying too much pressure on myself . If I fail my first niche therefore I would be a failure for ever. It is black/white thinking.thanks for your time in composing a difficult subject for me which is finding a niche. I enjoyed jays video training on finding a great niche.
I recommend reading a chapter, doing. Learning, making mistakes, building. Then read another chapter, and take action.
If you try to read too much at once and then apply everything that you have learned, you are going to forget lots and the bigger picture often times misses out on the much smaller failures and successes which are critical.
Your first niche will not fail if the primary purposes of your first niche site are to learn, practice and learn how to do this. Yes, you will make so called "mistakes", however you need to learn from those so called "mistakes".
I could say that my websites, especially my niche "learning and practice" site (my stress management site), are improving on a weekly basis based on my primary goals. That site is under a year old. I have learned and implemented countless web related stuff, changed things often, and have good quality content.
I have ideas about where my site will go in the next while and will most likely be implementing those ideas in the next while.
It will be interesting to see where this site is another year from now as I plan on continuing this process here at WA. However I will most likely spend time on it or doing WA related tasks most days.
Great blog Kyle- when I started my niche website about Dads, I sometimes felt that I painted myself into a corner. However thanks to your Alphabet Soup Technique video.
I have found copious topics on subjects related to dads, family matters etc. You right this may be just the start of a niche that could earn me a lucrative income. Alphabet Soup Technique - 2018 Edition
If your brand is geared towards "dads" in general, this is of course too broad as a whole, but you could start to piece of segments of this niche.
Start with an "aspect" of dads that you want to help out, then through time you can diversify into different facets of this niche. That is the approach I would recommend you take here.
There is a problem in going narrow, at some point, there is no stuff to write about and I mean this literally. Have experienced this in a very successful site. So I had to make it broader twice so far, and it is not good, the two new sub-niches do not fit well under the url and the site title. I know I can change the title but would rather keep it the same as the url. Eventually, at least one of the added sub-niches will bring extra authority as I keep adding new material so it will not be bad, I have extended the site's life.
On the other hand, in my first site ever I went too broad. So I simply cannot cover everything I want. But I can still choose what I want to write about, and this looks better than expanding the initially too-narrow niche.
But narrow niche sites convert much better. This is about the audience that is looking for specific stuff and is interested and ready to buy.
I guess it is all about choosing the url properly so that it allows for expanding the site later in several directions. It also becomes a bit boring if it is a narrow niche, the items look similar, the descriptions must be similar etc.
Broad brand, keep the niche specific. That will give you flexibility down the road to diversify.
This really comes down to naming your website and it is people that have the tendency to chase "keyword rich" (ie, exact match domains) that end up cornering themselves eventually as they are not creating a brand, they are creating mini niche websites.
There is nothing wrong with that at all, but typically this strategy invites the idea of creating many different smaller websites and managing them all in unison.
It was an experiment two years ago. Wanted a micro niche site to build and let it go without adding anything (in fact I built two of them). There are such sites, I did a thorough research before doing this. Most of them just die out, but some continue growing even without any new stuff being added for a couple of years.
Then I changed the mind and added a sub-niche and it became very successful but it could not continue, no stuff to add. Then added yet another sub-niche, so it works, brings 4-digit income, but the url remains a permanent issue. It was just a starting mistake which cannot be rectified.
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Kyle,I'll start with saying I'm stuck in the mud and can't move.....lesson 4 has me stumped....I followed all the lessons well in my opinion & now I stuck on weather I picked a good niche & can't find the website I started per instructions....Its got me feeling inadequate about everything .....I don't even know if you can guide me at this point..I need hands on help & that not being an option my brain is frozen at this point...As I am very smart & intelligent but feeling really stupid ,what am I to do I don't want to give up I feel like I bothering someone when I ask for help on something that is supposed to be simple.....
Don't give in. Instead of thinking about how hard it is, think about how amazing you are to be learning something new that very few people have the courage to try. It is taking me two days just to get my first blog post finished and posted. Get clear on what you want to accomplish, decide not to quit until it is finished and then enjoy the experience. Best wishes to you.