What is a Niche?

Niches...this is the scariest word for most people when starting out. However, the idea of a niche should not scare you. Instead, it is rather exciting!

What is a niche?

A niche is a distinct segment of a market, in other words, an “audience”.

When choosing a niche that fits you, you should be choosing something that is ideally an interest, a passion, a hobby, a problem, a need or a want. Almost anything you can think of is a niche and that is why we are going to get you to choose YOUR niche based on things that you are interested in. You can earn money online from absolutely every single niche because there are billions of people out there searching every day.

Your online business should not feel like a day job. Earning money online should be fun, and it is fun. This all starts with choosing a niche that you are interested in and will enjoy working with.

The more you enjoy doing something the less it feels like a job and the more productive you are going to be. Carson and I are immensely passionate about online business and teaching people how to make money online, so that is the niche we have chosen with Wealthy Affiliate.

Your niche could be anything, but at the core of your niche selection, it should be something that you “like”.  Something you enjoy.  Something you can talk about. Something you want to learn about.

But Really, a Niche is a Group of People

In the simplest form, a niche is really a group of people looking for stuff. When you select your niche, you want to avoid being too broad with your niche selection. What people fail to understand is the fact that there are millions of people looking for stuff online within what seems to be the smallest of niches, but they really are not.

Task 1: Choose Your Direction

I want you to select the niche that interests you most and gets you the most excited. You can either choose your own niche at this point or you can choose the “make money” niche (that should be your choice if you have no idea what niche to choose).

A few things that you should understand about niches are:

(1) You are going to be writing content within your niche
(2) You are going to be communicating within your niche
(3) You are going to be choosing products to promote within your niche
(4) You need to enjoy helping people within you niche.
(5) Your first niche PROBABLY won’t be your last (so don’t worry about it being perfect)
(6) Any niche can become a “full time” successful business

There is NO SUCH THING as choosing the wrong niche.

Also, note that niches can always change.  Just because you are choosing a niche now does not mean you will be in this particular niche forever.  Either way, please do not spend a week choosing your niche.  Within the next 15-30 minutes (maximum) you should have your “starting point” niche chosen.

If you are REALLY STUCK at this point and you cannot decide on a niche, perhaps you may be interested in the “make money” niche.

A niche is simply a GROUP of PEOPLE.

These people are interested in something but something specific.  The key when choosing this group of people is to be very specific because if you are too broad, then it is going to be difficult to talk to your audience.

It is like someone walking into a supermarket looking for advice on “how to improve their metabolism”.  It is not going to happen and you are not likely to trust the source of the information.  Definitely not like the experience you would get if you walked into a store that specialized in metabolism.

Within the online world, there are TWO BILLION people.  That is the biggest marketplace in the world by a long shot so you want to really become an expert within the very specific category you choose.

So, when you sit down and are thinking of what your niche is, think not of this imaginary and confusing word “niche”, think instead of a group of people.

But you don’t want this group to be too broad.  That is the worst thing you can do when starting out.  I want to give you some examples of a niche that is too broad and then I want to give you some examples of groups of people that are much more “niche” and specific.

A group of people interested in health. Not the best (TOO BROAD).

Health could be just about anything. I constantly see folks trying to start off within the health niche.  Well, “health” isn’t a niche, it’s very broad.  How do you target people within health?  That is not an audience that you can effectively target, rather you need to dig down and get more specific.

A group of people looking to improve their metabolism.  That is a targeted niche.  There are MILLIONS of people looking to do this.

A group of people over 50 years old looking to lose weight.  That is a targeted niche. There are MILLIONS of people looking to do this.

A group of people looking to fix their back problems.  That is a targeted niche.  There are MILLIONS of people looking to do this.

A group of men that are looking for help for hair loss.  That is a targeted niche.  There are MILLIONS of people looking to for this type of help.

A group of people that are looking for low carb diets.  That is a targeted niche.  There are MILLIONS of people looking for these.

See where I am going with this?  People are not looking for health, they are looking for something much more specific.  There are 10,000’s of niches within the broad “health” industry.  Tens of thousands of groups looking to accomplish something, looking to buy something, looking for help solving a problem.

All you need to do is target one of these and you have yourself a niche and a very big group of people.

Let’s look at another example…

A group of people interested in babies. Not the best (TOO BROAD).

People interested in “babies” is going to be very difficult to target because it is far too broad.  People don’t open Google and search for “babies” online, they search for things that are much more specific.

A group of people looking for organic baby products.  That is a targeted niche (but still a little broad).

A group of people looking for organic cloth diapers.  That is a targeted niche.  There are MILLIONS of people looking to for these.

A group of people looking for stimulation toys for infants.  That is a targeted niche. There are MILLIONS of people looking to do this. There are MILLIONS of people looking for these.

A group of people looking for learning apps for babies.  That is a targeted niche.  There are MILLIONS of people looking for these.

A group of people looking for jogging strollers.  That is a targeted niche.  There are MILLIONS of people looking for these.

A group of people looking for cribs and information about cribs. That is a targeted niche. There are MILLIONS of people looking for this.

A group of people looking for classic children’s books.  That is a targeted niche.  There are MILLIONS of people looking for these.

A group of people looking for information about colic babies.  That is a targeted niche. There are MILLIONS of people looking for help.

A group of people looking for information on how to treat babies that are sick.  That is a targeted niche.  There are MILLIONS of people looking for help on this.

See how I am narrowing things down to a much more specific group of people?  Sure, these are targeted but they are still massive.  Millions of people are looking for information, for help, and ultimately are spending billions of dollars online buying things throughout the course of a year and you are going to be able to capitalize on this with your website.

Massive opportunity resides just about everywhere you look within the online world because there are specific groups of people everywhere (also known as niches)

But What About the Niche Competition? Shouldn’t I Be Concerned?

No…No….and NO!

Within each of these more targeted groups of people, there are 1,000’s (sometimes millions) of low competition keywords you can target.  What you are learning here at WA also gives you a huge competitive advantage over your competition and is going to help you capitalize on any niche.

And please do remember, there is a reason there are a million of every type of store in the world.  There are a million hardware stores.  There are a million baby toy shops. Millions of people are buying stuff in the smallest of categories.

To put this into perspective, there are 4 million babies born in the US alone each and every year.  That means there are 4 million mom’s and dad’s online looking for information about their new babies, looking for help, looking to buy products or services…and this is where you step in with your niche website.

This could be for organic cloth baby diapers or for information on colic babies…or anything that targets a specific group of people.

I don’t want to blow your mind too much here, but there are 120 million babies born every year globally so the audience that is online and looking for stuff within this niche is much larger than the 4 million people in the US.

Crazy right?

Now, when you go to choose your niche, dig into it a bit and find a more specific group of people.  Recognize that there are MILLIONS of people within every niche you can imagine and that is the beautiful part about this Internet “thing”.  It is not going anywhere and as every year goes by, there is opportunity absolutely everywhere you look and it only continues to grow.

Now go out there and find your GROUP OF PEOPLE.  If you want any help in regards to this or want to get feedback on your ideas for a niche, drop a comment below and we will be more than happy to help you out.