Step by Step: Finding a Niche That Fits You

Finding your place in the world is such a huge subject. Here we focus on a few fun exercises to guide your thoughts to discover what excites you. As well as what you can offer that is both in demand and has good income potential.

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What is a Niche

A niche is…

an area of expertise — something about which you either know a lot, or are prepared to learn more about well into the future
something you’d be proud to share your knowledge about to help other people
a subject you’d love to write, talk, make videos or podcasts about, perhaps for many years
a topic other people want to know more about.

Why is it so important to choose the right niche? Because it's the very foundation for your business success.

If you choose a niche that:

❗ is too broad (e.g., "travel"), you won't win against your competition = no income for you.

❗ is too narrow (e.g., breeding a rare species of turtle), not enough people may be interested in it = little income for you.

❗ doesn't really excite you, chances are that you’ll lose interest and abandon it = no income for you.

Step One

Take a piece of paper or open your favorite note-taking app and write down the answers to these questions:

✍ Look at your bookshelves or e-reader. What are the main themes?

✍ What magazines are you subscribed to?

✍ What Facebook Groups have you joined? What are their topics?

✍ What do you do in your free time?

✍ Which places have you visited and what was it about them that you loved?

✍ What do other people tell you you’re good at? Your family, friends, colleagues. Don’t know? Have the courage to ask!

✍ When you wake in the morning, instead of feeling heavy about the day ahead, what would give you real pleasure to know you’re going to work on?

Think back to your childhood. (It doesn’t matter how long ago it was!)

✍What do you remember doing that made you smile? What made you happy?

✍What goals did you have then that you gave up on?

Don't stop until you have at least five ideas written down. The more the better. Don’t dismiss anything just yet, no matter how crazy it may seem!

(Here are some ideas that I collected while living on a Greek island.)

P.S.: Want to see what you can achieve when you build your business around a topic that really excites you? Ashley Cotter-Cairns turned his childhood passion for comic books into $1.4 million in sales within two years of starting his online business.

Step Two

Now look at your list again. Of all the subjects that surfaced, select your favorite three and write them down.

Now you are ready for a reality check. Before deciding on your niche, you need to find out

if enough people are interested in your topic (= demand) and
whether a lot of people are already writing about it (= supply or competition).

Here are three tools you can use to discover the answers to these questions?

1) Answer the Public: this is a free, fun site that lists questions the public have asked about any topic in the last 90 days. They’re all taken from Google searches, so you can be sure they’re for real.

Put your topic into the search box and see what comes out. It won’t give you numbers, but it will give you a broad idea of whether anyone is asking questions — and whether they’re questions you could, or would want to, answer.

2. Google Trends: another free tool, it tells you two things:

Is anyone actively searching for this topic?
Is interest in it increasing (trending up), decreasing (trending down), or stable?

Google Trends provides a helpful overview, but it does what it says on the tin — it indicates trends and seasonal fluctuations, not specific numbers.

To be sure of choosing a perfect niche, one that stands a good chance of being successful, you need more specific numbers.

You need to know exactly how many people are searching for your topic and how strong the competition is.

3. Brainstorm It!: this tool is part of the Solo Build It! package--it is not free, but comes in a money-back trial.. It provides you with all the numbers you could possibly need to decide whether a niche has enough “demand” (that is, people searching for it) and how much “supply” (competition) you’ll have to contend with.

How does it work?

Put those top 3 niche topics into its “Site Concept Finder” research tool and wait. A few minutes later, hundreds of possible keywords display, along with numbers, for each topic.

The numbers it gives are specific enough that you can make an informed decision about whether a niche is likely to be successful. And which of those three niches would be the most successful. (And an “Action Guide” to take you through the decision-making steps.)