Nate's Niche Reveal

bynathaniell

101.1K followers

Updated 5 years ago

One of the most common questions to ask when getting started at WA is, "Is this a good niche?". People will tell you, "You can make money in any niche", but it's still easy to second guess yourself.

Heck, this is your first time venturing into online business, so it seems a bit crazy that YOU have the power to make money selling just about anything. Even then, many people quit because they don't see results and think that for some reason, success was not in their cards.

Some Proof That It Works

I always hate giving income proof because it's a shady guru tactic and to be honest, screenshots can be easily photoshopped or presented in a misleading way. So what I want to do today is provide "niche viability proof", so try to look past the dollar figures.

This is NOT to show that I can make money online. I think a lot of you know that already. This is to show you that you can make money is any niche, even when the cards are stacked against you. It doesn't matter what your passion is, there's a way to make money from it. Even if it's not your passion, there's a way to make money from it.

Blast From The Past

Oh, and I just wanted to add that there are many issues with these sites so they are in no way good examples to follow. Some I have stopped working because I don't have the time or they no longer interest me. Even so, 3/4 are still making sales.

You'll also notice that 3/4 are .info domains. This is because it used to be recommend in WA as a "cheap" option for newbies (they didn't have free Siterubix sites back then). They are also very weird topics because when I started, I had a fundamental misunderstanding of what "low competition" and "niche" meant.

They don't make a ton of money, but I'm confident that I could grow any one of them if I dedicated time to improving them.

ATTN: I removed the full links from this post because business bought the domains after they expired and put their own websites on them. None of the content on these domains now is my stuff.

Niche #1: Sprained Ankle Treatment

• Website: hemanklerehab[.]info
• Affiliate Program: Clickbank.com
• Date: 2010 - 2012

Description: Inspiration came for this site after I sprained my ankle running in China. It was an ebook of special ankle exercises that are normally taught by physical therapists that you can do at home.

Niche #2: Stop Alcohol Flush reaction

• Website: asianflush[.]info
• Affiliate Program: Clickbank.com
• Date: 2010 - 2015

Description: You might not know it, but some people are missing a special type of enzyme that breaks down alcohol into non poisonous substances that your body can metabolize. This trait is common among Asians, hence the common name for Alcohol Flush Reaction (and the name of the website). This was an ebook of home remedies on how to treat the condition.

Inspiration came from living in China, where "red face" is a common topic of discussion with Westerners while out drinking.

Niche #3: Coffee for Enemas

• Website: howtocoffeeenema[.]org
• Affiliate Program: saWilsons.com
• Date: 2011 - 2015

Description: I'm a coffee fan and was looking for affiliate programs to do with coffee. I stumbled upon this special type of coffee that's used for enemas, and it turns out that it's somewhat common as a holistic treatment for various illnesses.

This is actually a pretty interesting niche and I might pick this site up again at some point.

*note: I let this domain expire, and someone bought it because it was "aged". They turned it into a nsfw website, so I don't recommend searching for it. Naughty stuff!

Niche #4: Homebrewing Equipment

• Website: brew7[.]com (now xbrewx[.]com)
• Affiliate Program: Morebeer.com, Amazon.com
• Date: 2014 - present

Description: My interest in brewing beer only started in 2013. I quickly found out how expensive some of the equipment was, and figured it would be a good way to get a tax writeoff and fund my brewing experiments by starting a homebrew website.

I wanted to test the whole "beginner expert" idea, and see if someone could actually make money in a niche they were not an expert at. I wanted to experiment using an ecommerce plugin for an affiliate site, which I usually recommend people do not do.

note: I ended up selling this domain for $500! Crazy, but someone wanted this domain real bad, so they got it. Now it's a brewery website for some other company.

So, the lesson for today is: If I can make money in enzymes and enemas or ankles and alcohol, then you can make money in just about anything. Not only are there usually multiple affiliate programs for any kind of product/service, there are also many different ways to monetize a site.

These are just 4 examples of sites I've built over the years that were successful. There are literally thousands of niches out there. Find one that fits you!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I don't have a "magic touch" for websites. I've also failed (or given up) in other niches without reaching profit including

• horse care
• cosmetics
• weight loss
• gaming chairs
• mobile phones
• edible gold
• ...and probably some others that I'm forgetting

Niche Advice

The best advice I can give about choosing a good niche for yourself is to not go too broad, not go too narrow.

Too Narrow

Envision yourself writing about it on a regular basis. Do you have enough interest and do you think there's enough topic potential for you to write about this 2x per week for 6 months to a year?

Once you dig into a niche and become familiar with it you can usually get more creative and have more topic ideas down the road. You don't need to plan 5 years in advance!

My issue with the alcohol flush site from above is that I ran out of topics to write about after the first couple months. All I was doing was telling people how awesome this product was and how drunk you could get without getting a red face. Boring! I ran into a similar issue with the Ankle rehab site (common newbie mistake).

If I were to fix these sites now, I would turn the ankle one into a DIY physical therapy site for minor injuries, and the alcohol flush site I would turn into a home remedy site.

Too Broad

It's also easy to pick something too big - something like "fitness" or "video games". The process of narrowing down a niche is harder for me to explain because it can be done in many ways. I often try to think of subcategories, and then picture the person that lands on the website.

Video Games

• game controllers
• gaming chairs
• MMORPGs
• DOTA
• Vintage Consoles
• bitcoin mining hardware
• PC building
• Gaming for profit

Fitness

• Performance tracking
• Cold climate running
• Natural body building
• Fitness for 50+
• Wearable tech
• Weight gain/loss (can be further subdivided)
• Special diets

So would a 50 year old lady be interested in the same site as someone looking to get into natural body building? Nope. Even body building is strictly divided into two worlds of natural vs steroids. You could further narrow it down to natural body building for women if you wanted.

Would someone looking to restore old gaming consoles want to know who won the recent DOTA championship? Probably not. Gaming is a tough niche to crack for me but if I were to get into it, I'd look at where I can provide value to the community. The world might do fine without another game review site, but I'd bet there's a pretty good market for hacking a PS4/Xbox One

That's pretty much the process of how I go about refining a niche idea I have. But don't worry about it too much, you can always pivot later. If you pick a domain that's a little bit vague or can have multiple interpretations, no one will notice. bodybuildingbadass.com could be a "natural body building" niche site, or it could be a website selling home fitness equipment for body builders. Most people won't even care as long as your content matches what they're looking for.

Find More Niches

There are tons of other ideas for niches floating around WA. Check out Jay's webinars. He's built quite a few niche sites over the years - I distinctly remember a juicing site, hummingbird feeders, and headphones. There's also a couple of hotseat webinars with niche sites from other WA members.

Which brings me to my next point - the more active you are in WA, the more you get exposed to the vast possibilities of affiliate marketing and online business.

Being an active part of the community here allow you to work shoulder to shoulder with other aspiring (and successful) affiliate marketers - so get out there!

*Addition: If anyone ever says that the only way to make money with WA is to promote WA you can show them this post!