Study the Competition You'll Be Up Against

The next step in your journey to pick the correct niche is to look at the competition. you're not just looking to see if it exists at this point, you're going to look at what they're doing, how they're doing it, and how you feel you can perform better than them.

You're gonna have both direct competitors who are identical in the same narrow niche that you are in, and indirect competitors who might happen to sometimes promote something or discuss something similar to your topics.

Make a list of the top competitors that you will be up against. One by one, you want to analyze their presence online. You're going to look at their website, their social media profiles, their content, and their offers and promotions.

You want to see a note what their personality is, what slants they use, and how their followers interact with them. You also want to see whether they interact back with their followers, because some niche marketers fail to do this.

Basically, you're looking to see what their strengths and weaknesses are so that you can fill the need where they are lacking, and understand what the target audience does want to see from niche leaders.

Anything that will give you more information about how the competitors in your niche operate is going to help you build a better brand online. You might see that some competitors use short form videos, and others use long form videos.

Some of your competitors may have a hefty budget set aside for advertising, while others are fully focused on organic, free traffic generation. Look at the products that they are selling, too.

Some may be eBooks, while others are video courses or memberships. Make note of the features and benefits they highlight, as well as the price points that they are selling the information for.

Be sure to look at any reviews customers leave publicly. You’ll often be able to see what is lacking in a product or what people respond well to (or poorly to) whenever one of your competitors releases something online.

There are tools where you can type in their URL and gather some analytical data about how their content is performing with consumers. These will give you information about backlinks, traffic and keywords the competitor is succeeding with, too.

You’ll want to be a follower on their social profiles and a subscriber to their email autoresponder. Watch how they market to the same people you’ll be targeting. Never copy their style, but lurk and learn.

This way, you can keep an eye on what the competition is doing and ensure that you’re not only not being left behind, but staying one step ahead of those competing for the same sales as you are.