What Is A Niche, And Why Do You Need To Pick One?

You’ve probably heard the word ‘niche’ more times than you can count but without realizing exactly what it is or how important it is for your business. It’s a tricky word because it can be used as a noun, adjective, and verb. It means specialization within business and professions. Take, for example, a doctor specializing in the brain, heart, liver, eyes, etc. When they choose their specialization, they choose their niche.

It works the same in business, where a niche is a subset of a larger industry. For example, toys are an industry where action figures are a niche within that industry. The action figure niche can then be divided into more niches, like superheroes, military, and so forth. Therefore, a niche isn’t always easy to define and can adapt over time.

Another example can be consumer electronics, which is an industry. Smartphones are a niche within the consumer electronics industry. Many companies start within a niche and then diversify to conquer other niches. A great example could be Apple, which started making computers and is now making consumer electronics in many niches. A company that always kept its focus on a specific niche is Intel that continues to focus solely on producing the best chips and processors.

As seen with Apple, the niche doesn’t have to be your sole focus for eternity. Instead, you can start with a small niche and expand your focus after conquering your niche to continue your growth.

So, when you pick a niche, you specialize in a certain area of expertise, where you can create authority. This authority can then be used to diversify into other niches so you don’t start at scratch again.

How To Choose Your Niche In 4 Steps

Many things need to come into consideration when you choose your niche. This is probably the most important decision you will make in your business. And the one that is hardest to change afterward without starting from scratch.

Obviously, you shouldn’t pick a niche that you don’t know anything about. And, it doesn’t help you if you are competing with millions of other businesses for a small segment of customers.

Here are 4 of the most important factors you need to consider when you choose your niche.

1. Passion

The most important factor when you choose your niche is passion. You need to have a passion or special interest in the niche you choose. It’s not a requirement, but it will certainly help you stay motivated in hard times. Getting your business from start to success can be a long and hard road, where you might want to give up on the way. However, if you love working with the niche you choose, it won’t feel like work in the same way.

A good rule of choice is choosing a niche that you would work on for free. When you are not just motivated by the money but enjoy writing about the niche, it will help you a long way. With this in mind, you still need to consider the other factors and shouldn’t choose your niche solely on passion. There might not be any money to be made in your passion niche.

You should make a list of all the niches you are passionate about. Then go through the remaining 3 factors to see which niches have the strongest foundation for success.

2. Knowledge

You need some knowledge about the niche before you get started. This can be something you have already or something you study before starting your business. You aren’t required to be an expert if you are willing to continue studying your niche while running your business. However, the more knowledge you have before, the easier your path to success will become. It will help you become an authority and create content faster.

For example, it’s much easier for a chef or veteran cook than a novice to start a food blog. Likewise, it’s also easier for someone who has a passion for cooking and loves trying new things in the kitchen. However, if you don’t have creativity in the kitchen, it won’t be easy to develop new ideas for years to come. Unless you develop expertise, you will need to source your content, which can be hard to sustain long term.

On the other hand, there are many offers available in affiliate marketing, where you can buy a business that’s ready to start in a few steps. This is a great way to start because you often get pre-made content for your business. Therefore, you won’t need the knowledge to create content because someone else did it for you. Keep in mind that content doesn’t have to be website content like blog posts or articles. It can also be the content for your email campaigns.

Click here to see affiliate marketing offers, including content

You can also choose to outsource your content creation, again making knowledge obsolete. However, this will make your business depend on other people. Furthermore, it’s an extra expense that most new entrepreneurs don’t need in their budget.

Click here to see how to outsource your content

3. Potential

There needs to be a potential for making money in your niche unless you are looking for a way to pass your time. This means that there needs to be a significant amount of people willing to pay for products or services in the niche. In other words, your target market can’t be too small, and there need to be affiliate products or services that make sales. If no one is buying anything in your niche, there is no money to be made.

Furthermore, the potential and attractiveness of a niche are also fueled by desires and pain points. The more willing people are to solve an issue, the more likely they are to purchase. For example, weight loss is a great niche because overweight people both desire to lose weight, and they have pain points in their interpretation of their bodies. Another great example is children’s safety because parents are constantly worrying about their children. The more people worry or think about something, the more motivated they are to buying a solution to fix the problem.

All things considered, it requires some research and creative thinking to find the true potential of a niche. Also, the growth of the niche should be steady or inclining. If the niche is declining, it will be harder to compete, and it might disappear altogether over time.

Click here to see free research tools

4. Competition

The last thing to consider is the competition in the niche. If there are thousands of competitors, it can be hard to compete for affiliate commissions. However, no competition is also a bad thing. If there are no competitors in a niche, it’s likely because there’s no money to be made. You might have a revolutionary idea, but affiliate marketing requires affiliate products or services. Besides, it’s likely that someone had the same idea before and tried it. If they aren’t around anymore, it’s likely because they couldn’t run a sustainable business within that niche.

With this in mind, competition shouldn’t scare you but motivate you to be better than your competitors. If you provide better value than your competitors, you can succeed in a niche. This can, for example, be done by creating better content, specialize in a specific niche subset, or have a better approach.

It would be best if you chose a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) to set you apart from your competitors and attract customers. For example, Domino’s Pizza has the USP: “Made-to-order hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less – guaranteed.” This made them one of the most successful pizza chains in the world. The USP doesn’t have to be something you flash everywhere. But something that you keep in mind with every task you do in your business. For example, if your USP is “the easiest way to x,” then your content needs to reflect that.

A good indicator of the competition is how many results appear on a Google search. You can then take a look at what comes up and see if you can improve their businesses. To dig deeper, you should use research tools that can show you competition on relevant keywords.

Click here to research keyword competition

Final Words 

You need to consider all these 4 factors when choosing your niche to increase your chance for success. It’s up to you to decide which factors are most important to your business. These factors are guidelines to help you make the best decision.

If you can’t decide, you can always take the surefire way and start with a pre-made business. Then you can’t make the wrong decisions and have help all the way to success. You can always start a passion project after you got successful the first time.

Click here to take the fastest way to success.