What Is A Niche In Internet Marketing?-The Answer’s Easier Than You Think
It’s amazing how many people ask the question, “What is a niche in internet marketing?” Well I’m here to explain what a niche is, and the importance of one. Without understanding the concept; you could possibly make or break your business.
Anybody starting out, especially a newbie, wants results right away. Good results in as small a time frame as possible. You can’t have those results, if you don’t know what you are doing. Even if you did know what you are doing; it can sometimes still take a little while. So, let me explain. 
What Is A Niche
A niche, or niche market, is a specialized sub category, you could say, of a market. For example, Baseball is a niche. A very broad niche that is. So, you would sub categorize it into smaller less competitive niches. New York Yankee Baseball Players would be a niche market.
You are basically taking a broad topic, and subsidizing it into smaller topics. Anyone looking to build an online business needs to understand the importance of what a niche is. Not being cautious, when choosing a niche, can be devastating to your business.
The Importance Of A Niche
You know the saying,”Try to please everyone, and you will please no one.” Well that’s kind of how this story goes. When you create a business, you need to satisfy the needs of a small specific group of people, instead of the needs of the whole. You can’t expect to satisfy everyone. The world isn’t perfect like that. So instead, you satisfy the few.
The more narrow you make your niche; the stronger your business will grow. Instead of just being a jack of all trades, and not being great at all of them, you will have just one trade to sharpen your skills on. This is how you will become the expert of your niche. As well as, this is how visitors will speak more highly of your business.
You are meeting their needs, and solving problems so they will tell their friends with those specific needs to go to you. In turn this attracts more business. More business means more money for you. Remember though, just because you started really specific, does not mean you can’t expand more broad after. Learn about your niche, become an expert, beat up on the low competition, and then challenge the more broad, more competitive niche.
Problems People Run Into When Choosing A Niche
For any newbie joining the game, There are always thoughts running throughout their head. If you are a newbie yourself; think about your own thoughts for a second. You are trying to find a niche, but not sure what to pick.
You of course, in the sense of building a business, want to actually make money with whatever niche you decide to choose. Am I right? even if I’m wrong, most people would agree with at least part of what I’m saying. Here’s just a few issues a lot of people run into:
- You don’t want to exclude anyone; You want to help everyone.
- You may think that building on a narrow niche is going to earn you less money.
- Maybe your just scared of making money.
- Maybe you’re scared of success.
What you need to know is this; Focusing on a more narrow niche will actually allow you to help more people. Why? It goes back to what I said earlier. Try to please everyone, and you will please no one. Let’s say you deal with healing herbs. More specifically, you know all about different herbs to help heal arthritis.
When people find your website, they will know that you are an expert in this. When those people go to a friends house that is looking for natural ways to heal their arthritis. The friend will mention your website. They’ll talk abut how informative it is, and how it might help them. Thus you are gaining more business because of your expertise.
Now back track a little bit. Pretend, instead of just arthritis, you’re going to talk about all the different pains and illnesses herbs can cure. Now you aren’t an expert. You just know a little bit of information about everything. Now you aren’t satisfying anybodies needs. Do you see the difference?
What People See When You Are More Specific
There are many key essentials to niche marketing. It’s very important to take some time, but not a whole year, to figure what your niche should be. When you narrow things down, people feel like they are important.
Why? because you put a focus on them, instead of the general population. They feel you can relate to them better, and trust you more because of it. These are the biggest reasons why you should focus on a narrow niche:
- It’s a lot more profitable to choose a narrow niche. Less competition means more customers to you. You are choosing a group you fully comprehend and know exactly how to meet their needs.
- You are going to have a bigger increase in the amount of referrals that you receive. People know what your specialty is. When their friends start asking questions; people will know exactly which direction to point them in.
- You will be considered the expert in your niche. You never know; this could lead to bigger and better business ventures with others.
- Who doesn’t follow the advice of an expert?
Like I said; start narrow and expand out into a more broad niche, once you get established. This is the best way to have a profitable website in a shorter amount of time. If you are doing baseball bats as a niche; explain everything possible about baseball bats.
After, you could consider talking about baseball gloves on your website next. Then baseball helmets. eventually as you are become more of an authority your website will be a able to compete with a more broad niche like baseball.
Your Niche Is Your Foundation; Don’t Forget It!
Now that you know exactly what a niche is in internet marketing. Use this information to apply towards your website. Be the expert, not the jack of all trades. Having a specialty is what makes you more important and people trust you more.
If you are looking for a great place to help you build a website check out Wealthy Affiliate University. There are thousands of friendly, helpful people eager to help give you ideas. Here’s great tool to help narrow down what your niche is.
Post your questions below. Let me know what your thoughts are. I’m always eager to here from you guys.
Best Regards,
Brandon
About Author
Brandon
Brandon is the founder of Lifeless Wallet. Created in 2015, Brandon built this website to save people money by exposing scams and to teach people how to make Real money online. On his free time, he enjoys sports, hiking, and traveling the world. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us.
There are people out there charging a lot of money for what you outlined in this article. The simple idea that you want to be as narrow as possible can scare so many people. They think that they’re pushing away customers. The reality is that you get more qualified customers! Awesome post, keep it up!
Hey Brenna,
It’s sad that people charge so much for information that doesn’t really need to cost anything, but it is true. And you are right. The fact is you can’t please everyone. It’s not possible. That’s find you narrow your audience to the people you know you can please because then you have your quality consumer as well as someone that’s more interested in what you have to say in general.
Best Regards,
Brandon
Choosing a niche was the hardest thing for me to do when starting my website. You have narrowed down the process and made it much easier to understand.
I think people generally overthink their niche and put way too much thought into it. It’s really just as simple as finding something you’re interested in and making sure it’s neither too broad or too small.
Hey Alec,
Thanks for the comment. And yes, you are right.
People overthink it way too much, but it’s just all part of the learning experience. As you progress you become more proficient and ideas start coming easier to you.
Best Regards,
Brandon
Hey Brandon,
Totally agree with you on the power on niches, they are really helpful and will help you success in any business regardless of how saturated the market can be.
I’m always interested in learning more about niches to tap into new areas which i can cover in my blog, I hope others will learn a great deal from your blog too. One question though, what if they aren’t any demand for a niche? Should I go for it?
Hey Riaz,
Thanks for the comment, and great question that you have!
The thing I think most people make a mistake on is the power of even small demand niches. Many will sway away from them because they think they won’t make any money from them, but this is not the case at all.
If you find a niche with small demand this usually will mean very little competition. Meaning your chances of being ranked number 1 on Google are much higher.
There are many people that will take a single item from Amazon and create a website about that product. They literally will write only a few pages before getting ranked number 1 for the keyword you choose to use.
In turn, they are attracting a lot more visitors than a bigger niche because they are fighting with much less competition.
Wouldn’t it be worth it create a website that takes maybe 5-6 hours to build and create content and then make $400 a month from your work?
This is a very real scenario that many do.
Now you create say 6 websites in a 40 hour work week, each one talking about one specific product, and now you are making $2,400 a month for 40 hours of work.
Even if you say 2 of those websites don’t work out you are still at $1,600 a month for 40 hours of work.
That’s $40 an hour the first month and then increases much higher months down the road without out you doing much work at all.
So, now what do you think about small niches? (:
Hi, thanks for sharing this very valuable information with us. Creating a business based on a specific niche is very important and as you have rightly said, its one decision that could make or break it. I think the main thing in selecting a niche is to be able to identify the micro niches that are associated within your main niche. This gives you more to target and more to write about when you start creating your web content.
Hey Andrew,
Thanks for stopping by. And yes, micro niches would be the best way to go. If you’re in say the weightloss niche. It is very very competitive. However, if you narrow it down to say weightloss for men over 50. Now your very specific and the competition will go down immensely.
Best Regards,
Brandon
Hi Brandon
I have to agree with you when it comes to niches. People can sometimes get so confused that it takes a whole week for them to start with their first website.
One tip that I might add is that one should always look at the amount of product that you can sell in a niche because most of your articles will be product reviews.
Before I enter a niche I generally try to choose one where I can find at least 100 products to write reviews on.
Hey Viljoen,
Thank you for the feedback. Thank you for adding the tip although I’m going to have to disagree with you. While it is a great idea writing reviews of different products in a niche, it is not the only way to make a lot of money.
Plus not every niche you make money in will allow you to write that many reviews and I’ll give you two examples.
1. This first niche is one I’m in. While I am also building my online business, I do drive for Uber. So, after I did some research I came to realize Uber is a great niche with no competition. As a driver I am allowed to refer other people to sign up and drive and receive a referral bonus for that.
For example if you were to sign up through my referral link and take 20 trips around San Francisco I would receive a $750 bonus from Uber. My website teaches someone how to become an Uber driver and the benefits of being one. So pretend 3 people are signing up through my website every month. That’s $2200 for teaching someone how to be a driver. Has nothing to do with reviewing other products.
2. My second example comes from loving sports and playing them as a kid. Imagine you loved football. Maybe you played and was a coach at some point. That’s your passion. So, you create some videos on training on how to be a good football player. Maybe even more specifically you will talk about each position.
Tight end
Quarterback
Linebacker
Etc…
This is your own product that you created from your experiences as a player and coach. So, what you do next is create a website and blog about the different aspects of football and how to play. You give instructions on how to throw, tackle, catch, etc…Different drills that will increase your performance to be a better player.
Maybe you even talk about great exercises and weight training that you could perform for each position fitting your personal needs. The training you created you can put on Amazon and also sell it on your website. Now you are making a lot of money talking about one of your passions without having to do 100 different reviews.
Viljoen, honestly it depends on what kind of niche you ultimately decide to go with. Every niche is different, and the way you write, design, and create your website will be a little different too. As well as the kind of information you write is different.
Hope that helps
Best Regards,
Brandon
Hey Brandon
I have often wondered what a niche actually is, and you have answered all of my questions, so Thank You!
Your insights have taught me a great deal when it comes to niche marketing, and I can certainly relate to the problems you have outlined because of being scared of both making money and success.
Now, you have taught me the knowledge I need, I know what my niche is going to be 🙂
Neil
Hey Neil,
Glad I could help. And your right. Being successful can sometimes be a scary thought because you don’t what it feels or looks like if you’ve never experienced it before. Whatever niche you decided to choose I wosh you th best of luck in.
Best Regards,
Brandon
Amazon is one of the best places to find a profitable niche for affiliate marketing. It is organized so well, it is so easy to find something good. You pick an area that you are interested in, then dig down to find specific products. If it’s something you are interested and contains plenty of products that people are buying, it’s a good niche to go for.
Not only that, Amazon has the products to sell, and an affiliate program. You almost don’t need to look any further really. Of course, eBay is worth looking at too. They also have lots of products and their own affiliate program.
Are you an eBay affiliate?
Hey Marcus,
Amazon is a great idea for anyone starting out. There are millions of products to choose from, and you can really narrow down your niche through the categories and topics to choose from. You should also be able to find a product that you are already using in your niche to market. Figure out which products are selling well, and then promote them through your niche website.
Also, to answer your question, at the moment I am not affiliated with Ebay. I’m sure they have a great program similar to Amazon for affiliate marketers, and at some point I probably will be associated with them. At the moment however, I have been working on some other business ventures that aren’t involved with Ebay (yet).
Best Regrads,
Brandon
Niche can be quite confusing for beginners. Most often, people either start with something too broad or overlaps with irrelevant niche. Without being specific, your content can really confuse the readers.
The good news is (in my opinion), niche can be refined with practice. You can’t really find what’s relevant until you really research and write about the topic. When you read your own article, it will strike an impression whether or not it makes sense to be included on your website.
Getting feedback from other bloggers will also shed some light on whether you are on the right track of niche or not. So never fear about choosing a perfect niche. The more you write, the more specific and diverse your niche becomes.
Yes Cathy,
I can defiantly agree with what you are saying. Many “newbies” get confused when starting out. Many don’t understand what a niche, and how you find one. However, it is a lot easier than it seems. In the simplest way put, a niche is a group of people looking for stuff.
This the easiest way to think about it. Just think about what exactly people are looking for. Millions of people have kids have babies each year. So, if you were to do a niche about babies, you would think about what a parent looks for. The niche could be “Toys for infants and toddlers.”
This makes it more specific and allows you to target people that are looking for that kind of information. There are millions of different niche out there, and as you progress you will be able to cover more broad niche. At the moment though, focus on specific needs like my example.
Are far as getting feedback from others; that is always a great idea. It doesn’t have to be just other bloggers either. Just ask friends and families too. Ask for advice from them. I would also maybe ask them what they have been searching lately. Your friend’s and family would be a great example of how specific people are when searching. Maybe even go through your history and look at what you have been searching for.
Notice how in the beginning , if you were searching something without much knowledge of, you would type in one ore two words to search for info. As you learned though, you starting typing in 3,4,or maybe even 5 different words into your search bar for more specific information.
This is how you attract the right kind of people. You help them with specifc needs.
Best Regards,
Brandon
A Niche is truly a foundation for your online business. It determines your interest; something that you have passion, knowledge, or expertise. You should able to write about many things of your niche.
When people search for certain keywords in search engines, your niche should be found within it. The basic idea is how to help other people with your chosen topics in your niche. It will last longer!
Hey Calvin,
Yes, helping people is the best way to build a big online presence in the world of the internet business. An informative website is what people are looking for. How can you expect to make money if you don’t help someone with something? It’s all about providing that great service, and you shall be rewarded for it when you provide tons of helpful information.
Of course, it’s best to have a niche that you are passionate about. My reason is if you’re not passionate, how are you going to enjoy building a website? You want a big presence in any niche you do. This can take time. So, if you are not passionate; you will grow tired of the work that needs to be put into a website.
My niche is “make money online.” It’s all about me helping other people succeed. Right now, I am currently on vacation in Las Vegas, but here I am sitting in my hotel room working on my website. Why? Because I love doing it. If I didn’t, I would have not even brought my laptop with me to Vegas. I would’ve said that I’m on vacation and I don’t plan on working.
In the long run this will only benefit my business. I want to keep building up my niche because this is what I love. This is how I will be able to sustain this website, and keep makinng an income, for years to come. I also will never have to worry about running out of things to talk about, considering there’s always a new scam to check out. Anyways I gotta run. It is time to hit the casinos(:
Best Regards,
Brandon
Hi Brandon,
Thanks for this thought provoking article. Lots of good information and ideas here…Reading through the paragraphs, I could not help but to think back when I first started…
I am a person of many interests, and so I thought I would be able to keep up with them all through having a multitude of sites. I planned accordingly, and started off on my way…
Now, a couple of months later, I can see how it may have been better to start with one niche, get it completely up and operational (I mean the web site now) then move on to the next.
The niche part of the whole process is key, from what I have experienced. It really can be quite quick, at first glance, but in reality it is not. As you state, you want to be able to be the “Go-To” person for a smaller segment of viewers so you can quickly establish authority/ranking…
Using keyword research has to be a task in the process or you will be fighting to get visibility going up against the more established and authority sites. Finding a good set of keywords to focus on is also important for that niche…
Once you have them, you can expand on each in articles, posts and other information you add to your site. Having a niche that you have a chance to get on page one with, through the keywords, will help down the road when you monetize the site (I know that is another post that I am sure you will cover lol)!
Appreciate your thoroughness covering this subject and certainly this is an important one for the content marketer!
Cheers!
Dave
Hey Dave,
When you first start out; it can be very tempting to make a million different websites. I originally haad this thought process as well. The great part is the training that I received. It helped me better understand these different concepts, that I explain.
I realized that making many small websites will make me some money, which is great. But it won’t produce as much or even as long term typically. Sometimes you may find a goldmine that last a long time.
I didn’t want that. So, my focus is on one website only right now. Spend a year or two fully building it, learning, researching, and then move on to the next. This way you have great authority in one niche before switching to another one.
As far as keyword research, It plays a huge roll as well. I have made a post about the benefits of keyword research. I am, however, still working on other posts like “monetizing a website”. Thanks for your feedback, Dave.
Best Regards,
Brandon