So what’s a Niche you ask, and where did that funny-sounding word come from? I wondered that myself, so I looked it up in Wikipedia.

In ecology, a niche refers to the place or position occupied by an organism or a population within an ecological community called the ecosystem, and is responsible for dictating the ability of the species to survive or perish. OK, enough for the Biology lesson.

In marketing, a niche refers to a service or a product that occupies a special area of demand, that small corner in the market that accounts for a certain kind of specialty concerning an unmet customer need. In other words it’s like the deli inside the Supermarket; not everyone will shop there, but those who do are regular loyal customers and a good butcher will know them by name.

I hear what you’re saying: “you can’t sell corned beef over the internet!” Well actually you can, I checked: Google lists 1,480,000 hits for Corned Beef. Don’t believe me; feel free to check for your self!

Good, you’re back. In order to succeed in any market, you need to find a strong, solid market, an area where people what to buy what you’re offering. But you don’t want to choose an area with huge business competition, which is why you need to find YOUR NICHE, your personal deli. I hear you asking: “how do I choose a niche?” Sorry, I can’t answer that, only you can. Here’s how you do it:

FIND YOUR PASSION

1. The best choice for you will be something you love, something you know all about, whether it is a hobby, a talent, a skill, or a livelong labour of love. The possibilities are endless and only you can make that choice, but I’m here to give you some guidelines to follow in creating the online business of your dreams.

To give you another example, I recently read of a Father who, just before his second child was born, decided to create a website about Cool Kids Birthday parties, figuring he’d be into kids parties for the next 18-20 years anyway. After three years the one site has grow to four and he makes enough to support his family and spend time travelling all over, fulfilling his other dream –of hiking in unusual places.

So sit down in your favorite quiet place and make a list of your dreams, passions, skills, and talents. Why? Because it’s the only way you’re going to devote the kind of time and effort needed to create a meaningful web site. Then choose the one, two, or three, you’d like to market the most, and remember: you can sell anything over the net, including knowledge and corned beef.

RESEARCHING YOUR NICHE

2. That’s right, do your homework – it will save you time and money in the long run. Once you have a list of possible niche areas its time to do some research to determine whether or not your passion stands a good chance of being successful. Remember it takes as much time to build a successful website as an unsuccessful one.

Measure twice, cut once –Saves time and Money!

To create a profitable business for your niche product, you need to ask yourself these questions:

  • Is there sufficient demand for it? Obviously there’s a demand for corned beef, so keep your search specific, to a highly targeted Niche.
  • Keyword research: How many people search for your key word on a daily basis. Make use of tools such as wordtracker and Overture keyword suggestion tool, which you can access directly.

Once you’ve determined the demand for your niche keywords, go to google and see how many sites correspond to your keywords.

Rule of Thumb: If the ratio of (demand/supply) x 10 >10 then you have a good chance your site will get noticed, and you’ll get traffic and sales. If the ratio is less than 5, you might want to choose another theme. The higher the ratio, the better your chances of success. The best theme/niche will display plenty of opportunities for niche related keywords -lots of keyword combinations. An excellent resource site is the Niche website Guide.

Caution: Do not be in a hurry to start building your website! There is nothing worse than starting a project only to find 3 months later that it’s not what you want or that it is too difficult an area to compete in.

Remember: do the research and choose carefully.

3. Take a survey: now that you’ve chosen a niche, what product, or services will you offer? An excellent way to gage what your target audience needs or wants is to take a survey. If you can help by offering a product, service or information, then you will have a winning site.

4. Design Your Own Exclusive Selling Perspective: Do your homework again. Study your competition to learn what they emphasize about the product, and then decide on something that will make your business unique, offer an exclusive service.

5. Create and publicize your web site: a profitable web site will not only attract visitors from search engines, but will be pleasurable and easy for your customers to navigate thru informative pages and inspire them to purchase from your site. Make the pages colourful, but not overly flashy and avoid over-crowding the pages with competing ads and links.

Great Expectations:

The key to developing a successful Niche business is uniqueness from your competitors, to stand above the rest in both service and product knowledge. With a little ingenuity, creativity, hard work and perseverance you will become an expert in your Niche marketing field. The time-span it will take greatly depends on the number of competitors for your keywords, and the uniqueness of your service.

So get to work on creating your passion, fulfilling your dream. Good luck, and remember to have fun while you’re at it.


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