Note: I strongly suggest you check out my Resources Page for information and convenient links to lots of resources that’ll help you build your online niche based business. Check it out!
This is a post a lot of people have asked me to write. So, here goes!
Finding a niche as an aspiring lifestyle designer, digital nomad, web entrepreneur, internet marketer – whatever you want to call yourself – is about as important as remembering to take your skiing equipment on a visit to Switzerland! If you don’t, you won’t get very far.
I’ve been in the ‘real world’ of marketing for 20-years. It’s only over the last 18-months that I have become a huge student of everything internet marketing related, as part of my quest to become a Virtual CEO – leaving me to not only live the life I want to, but continue to grow my brick ‘n mortar business, as well create and launch a huge amount of online business entities as well.
I know what my ‘overall’ niche is. It’s mobile entrepreneurship. However, that’s just the beginning. If I want to create and market successful online products and services, I need to focus on finding a niche, not just once, but over and over again, to be able to create countless business opportunities for myself online.
Lets face it, when you start something new for business (anything!) there is always a lot to take on board. And if you’re like me, you really look at every angle so that when you do launch something it has the absolute best opportunity to succeed. Finding your niche and getting to the point of finding niche market keywords isn’t any different. Trust me.
However, instead of getting bogged down with all the flashing lights of plugins and software you can use and techniques the ‘pros’ promote and make money from, I decide to keep it surprisingly simple. Easy. Quick.
Step #1 – Finding Niche Market Keywords to Work With
This is the really fun part when it comes to finding your niche! You get to play around here, and search for niche ideas, which is super-easy with Google’s External Keyword Tool. This is a free tool that allows you to find out both local and global search volumes for certain keywords, related keywords, as well as the competitiveness of those keywords, too.
For this example, I’ve chosen the keyword ‘how to kiteboard’.
It’s invaluable for the entrepreneur wanting to focus on finding a niche to exploit and make money from!
You’re basically going to want to find keywords that pull in an absolute minimum of 1,000 global searches a month (some people chose this number to be affiliated with local searches, however – its a global economy, right!?), but preferably, twice that amount. You’ll also want to be sure that they are not overly competitive, too.
Out chosen example of ‘how to kiteboard’ has a global monthly search volume of 3,600. Perfect!
Step #2 – Checking Out the Competitiveness of Your Keywords
Once you’ve spent some time finding niche market keywords that you want to work with, and subsequently figured out what keyword you’ll focus on, you can then check out how competitive is really is!
Do this simply by going to Google.com and typing in your chosen niche keyword. You then get to see how many other pages get listed in the results for the keyword, along with any PPC competition, too!
You should also spend a bit of time checking out the video and image search results, too – not for any major reason, but its nice to see what other type of ‘competition’, other than the organic results and PPC customers, is out there when finding your niche in general.
Step #3 – Deciding on ‘No’, or ‘GO!’
Based on the results of the competitiveness test you’ll be able to figure out if you are going to move forward with your niche idea.
Here’s the deal – in our chosen example of ‘how to kiteboard’, there were just over 96,000 websites that popped up in a simple Google search on the keyword. Plus – I hit the refresh button 10-times and the only two PPC ad’s for the same keyword were the only two ad’s that were shown on each attempt. Meaning, there is very little ‘paid for’ competition.
This leads me to believe that because the organic competition is low, and there is very little paid advertising on the keyword, in this case, it would be a ‘GO!’, rather than a ‘No’. If there had of been a boat load of PPC ad’s on the sidebar and at the top of the results page, I probably would not have gone forward with this as a potential niche.
Once you’ve decided its a ‘Go!’, select a domain name that fits your keyword perfectly if possible. Also – try and include a few different keywords all within the same keyword. For example, with our keyword ‘how to kiteboard’, we could select and register any of the following:
- howtokiteboard.com (includes our primary keyword and ‘kiteboard’)
- howtostartkiteboarding.com (includes our primary keyword, plus the domain name itself is a keyword, ‘kiteboarding’ and ‘start kiteboarding’)
- howtogetstartedinkiteboarding.com (includes our primary keyword, and lots more!)
Your Domain, Hosting and Developing Your Niche Site
Registering your domain and hosting your site – Once you’re ready to go ahead and register your domain name, seriously consider doing so through BlueHost (be sure to watch my free step-by-step tutorial to setting up your Bluehost account in less than 10-minutes!), as you get your hosting taken care of at a great price and the domain name is on the house! I personally use these guys for pretty much ALL of my websites and blogs.
One of the really cool features from Bluehost is their one-click WordPress installation. You need know absolutely ZERO coding or programming, it does everything for you!!!
Designing and developing your blog / niche site – When it comes to themes and designing your blog/website, if you want to go big, and get real pro right out of the gate, I suggest you look into the Rainmaker Platform, which is what THIS website is built with. To keep things a little more simple, once you’ve got started with Bluehost, you can visit StudioPress to get your site looking pretty.
Passion Will KILL Competition – Always!
Here’s the deal… If your chosen niche keyword has a certain amount of competition, more than you would usually be happy with, but you are super passionate about the niche you’re thinking of getting involved in, go for it! In my mind passion will always overcome plain old competition. It’s the passion behind Zappos that’s made them the driving force behind shoe sales online – even though there are a ton of people selling shoes online.
So, I hope my simple 3-Step process to finding a niche has got you all excited and about ready to click over to the Google’s External Keyword Tool to start checking out your own ideas. Remember, finding your niche is just the beginning, however.
Once you’ve done it, and the domain is registered, and your theme is installed – then its time to start creating your content, building your links and kick-starting your email marketing list.
Good luck!